Crochet: poppy pattern

I’ve been making these for my auntie to sell for the British Legion on poppy day.

She can sell them for about a £1 each, more than the standard paper poppy.

They’re easier to make than the knitted poppies, for me anyway, and take about 15 mins each.

I’ve tried various crochet and knit patterns, but none seem to be how I think of poppies, so I’ve tried to do a pattern of my own. This is my very first crochet pattern. It works out fine most of the time, but the stitches in dark wool can be hard to see in the bad light!

I usually sew a small yellow button in the middle with black wool, just to bring out the colours, but I’ve left this out in the photo so you can see how the centre works.

Crochet hook: 4mm

Yarn: Double ply – red and black

Yellow button to finish off

Start with the black yarn:

Magic circle – leave a long tail to sew the button into the middle when you finish.

Flower centre:

Round 1: 6hdc into the ring, close ring – sl st to join. (6)

Round 2: 2dc into each stitch, sl st and change to red yarn with sl st tojoinround. (12)

Round 3: *1sc into each of the next two stitches, 1 long dc into row below* – repeat 5 times, end with 1 sc, ss to join.

A long double crochet is where you insert the hook into the row below instead of the current row. This creates the long red stitches into the centre of the poppy that you can see in the photo above. There’s a very handy video on how to do the long double crochet at the end of this post.

Petals:

Round 4:  (petal 1) ch2, 1dc in same stitch, 2dc in next stitch, 2 dc into next stitch, 1 dc and ch2, sl st into the next stitch

(petal 2) ch2, 1dc in next stitch, 2dc in next stitch, 2 dc into next stitch, 1 dc and ch2, sl st into the next stitch

(Petal 3) ch2, 1dc in next stitch, 2dc in next stitch, 2 dc into next stitch, 1 dc and ch2, sl st into the next stitch

(petal 4) ch2, 1dc in next stitch, 2dc in next stitch, 2 dc into next stitch, 1 dc and ch2, sl st into the next stitch , pull wool through to finish.

Sew a small yellow button in the centre with black wool.

Finished!