Hello lovely followers!

Today I have a different sort of crochet pattern, but one that I’m very happy about. I may have mentioned before that I’m Catholic – I was confirmed when I was fifteen, and my sponsor gave me a beautiful pink rosary as a Confirmation gift.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with this, a rosary is a string of beads used for counting prayers. Here’s a guide on praying the rosary if you’re curious. 🙂 (I’m certainly not trying to convert anyone to Catholicism, I’m just excited to share this.)

Since then I’ve sort of acquired a small collection of rosaries. 🙂 I love seeing how they can range from delicate beaded ones, like my sponsor/godmother picked out for me, to wooden ones, and everything in between. I even have a rosary bracelet. I really like the repetitive nature of the prayers, as it’s very calming, and I’ve started carrying a rosary around in my backpack to ward off panic attacks. The trouble is that I’m afraid of the fancier ones breaking, as I have quite a lot of stuff in my backpack (last I checked it weighs 20 pounds). So the obvious solution here was, of course, to crochet one. 🙂

Joan of Arc is my patron saint, or Confirmation saint – the one I chose when I got Confirmed. She’s the patron saint of France, and I am now a French and English double-major. 🙂 Also, am I the only one who really likes small version of books? The Pocket Gospels is the cutest thing. 🙂

There are several patterns for crochet rosaries out there, such as this one, but I wanted to try something different for the beads. Years ago I discovered the “Sparkle & Shine Necklace” by Red Heart, which has a fantastic “bead” pattern for the necklace. It worked perfectly for my purposes. That’s why I don’t want to claim any design credit here; I guess you could think of this as a really big modification to the pattern. 🙂 But I did want to share the modifications I made!

On the left is the rosary my sponsor gave me. It’s definitely my favorite – pretty and meaningful! 🙂 <3

Materials

• Size 10 crochet thread – I used Aunt Lydia’s Bamboo Crochet Thread in coral, I believe. Not positive on the color name. It’s super soft and lovely. I want to experiment with different yarn weights as well – I think thinner would work better.
• 2.1 MM crochet hook
• Cross charm for the end – rosaries traditionally have a crucifix. I had some cross charms I got at Michaels a while back, so I used one of those. I don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with having a cross rather than a crucifix, just that the latter is generally preferred. I think it’s because it’s helpful to look at a crucifix while you’re praying. I’m still learning. 🙂

Pattern

I actually don’t want to copy the bead pattern here for fear of plagiarizing, so please check out that necklace pattern to find out how to do the beads. 🙂 When I say “make a bead” in this pattern, I’ll be referring to chaining 2, and doing the hdc stuff as described in the pattern.

I chose to make the Hail Mary and Our Father beads the same size, instead of making the Our Father beads larger.

Ch 5, bead. (So you’re really chaining 7 here – the ch 2 starts the bead.) Ch 4, bead. *Ch 1, bead* 2 times. Ch 4, bead. Ch 5.

Now we’re going to do the triangle that divides the bottom part from the five decades. (I’m not sure what the bottom part, with the cross, is called!) I chose to make this crocheted instead of trying to attach a charm. Again, not sure what that’s called. I need to take a class on rosary vocabulary. 🙂

Row 1: Ch 2. 2 sc in 2nd ch from hk, going under two loops of the chain.

Row 2: Ch 2, turn. 2 sc in each st.

Row 3-4: Ch 1, turn. 2sc in first st, sc across. Ch 5 at the end of Row 4.

Decades:

Bead. *Ch 1, bead* 9 times (so you have 10 beads total). Ch 4, bead, ch 4.

Repeat this four more times, so you have five decades total. The only difference after the last one is that you’ll chain 5 instead of 4. Then sl st to the other side of the triangle. Fasten off, weave in ends, and sew your cross of choice to the starting tail.

A photo that might help with bead placement.

I know this post is different than usual, but I hope you liked it – I really wanted to share this with y’all! I don’t talk much about religion here because this is a crochet blog, and I don’t want to spark any arguments, but I trust you guys to know I’m not trying to force my religion on anyone. I just get great happiness from sharing my latest projects, and I also happen to really like being Catholic. 🙂 I think there’s space for all religions and philosophies!

I’ll be back soon with more crochet stuff. There are more dolls I can’t wait to show you…and I collaborated with my sister, who’s an extremely talented artist, to design an amigurumi we’re really excited about. I’m still crocheting it, but I already can’t wait to show you. You’ll never guess… 😀

Thank you so much for reading and for all your wonderful comments. You guys are the best. <3 Hope you’re having a wonderful week!