European Flags
Free Crochet Pattern
While looking for new crochet challenges, I began to wonder how hard would it be to crochet the Flag of Finland without any instructions. So I did that. Then I wondered, how hard would it be to crochet all European Flags and write patterns for them...
The goal of this project is to design and crochet all European flags using their official proportions as closely as possible. All designs are fully done and executed by me. Please see more detailed instructions below.
European Flags
General instructions
These are the first patterns I've designed while learning to crochet. So don't expect perfection.
Approximate size of the flags is between 14-17cm wide and 7-10cm high. The final size is highly dependent on used yarn, hook and your own crochet style. Use your own measurements and make changes where needed if aiming for perfection.
All of these patterns begin with a chain and then crocheting across that chain one row at a time. Also each new row begins with one chain.
Special stitches
I did a lot of research into common ways of writing crochet patterns and abbreviations used in them, but could not find any way to easily abbreviate the change of color in the middle of the row.
So finally I chose to call that stitch SAB, meaning a stitch (S) to change from color a (A) to color b (B). So for example abbreviation SBC is to change from color B to color C and SEA is to change from color E to color A.
Please see an excellent tutorial on how to change colors while doing a stitch from the second section:
http://www.crochetspot.com/how-to-change-colors-in-crochet/Choosing colors
Take care when choosing appropriate colors since it might differ greatly what is available to you than what was available to me. More important than finding the correct shade of a color for a flag, is to achieve nice difference between flags which use different shades of one color, like Luxembourg vs. Netherlands.
Designing with consistency
Consistency was important while designing these patterns. For instance the pattern for the flag of Macedonia begins with a starting chain as every other flag. But for an optimal result you should change colors in that starting chain rather than doing it with one color. But to be consistent, I chose that no color is ever changed when doing the starting chain.
For the same reason, flags which have vertical bands are done vertically rather than horizontally so you don't have to change colors in the starting chain. Also I think vertical rows emphasize the vertical bands better.
So there are choices in these patterns that could be done better if crocheting just that one flag. But when doing all of them and aiming for consistency, some compromises must be made.