how to crochet a Lei..

I recently went to a Hawaiian night and thought it would be fun to crochet my own Lei. I thought "I bet there's loads of patterns on the internet"".....wrong I couldn't find any.

So I decided to make mine up. Unfortunately, I've lost the bit of paper I wrote it down on so I'm doing it from memory....

Create a chain the length you want your completed lei to be. in the third chain from the hook Treble crochet 2 stitches (british stitches) then 3 tr into each chain all the way across, this will cause the lei to twist a little but will still be quite stretchy.

at end turn, and perform 1dc 1tr 1dtr 1tr 1dc into EACH tr of previous row. This will naturally curl into a spiral and be very firm.
at the last stitch run the thread down to the chain row. you should now have a loose thread at each end, just tie these together and work in the ends.

This uses a lot of yarn. I bought 100g of cheap yarn and had just enough left to make a flower hairclip to match, which ended up as a gift decoration!
I also made a quick bag from a tea towel from a pack from poundland. The pattern said Hawaiian to me, so I had to make it..


This is not one of the reversible ones, so I made a special effort to sew the straps on neatly.