My first attempt at designing my own snowflake!

I was at a basketball game and brought along my thread and hook, but only one simple snowflake pattern, because I wanted to actually be able to watch the game!  I finished that snowflake before the 1st half was over..... Hmmmm.  Maybe I'll just start crocheting and see what I come up with....  Here are the results!

The one on the top is the first attempt, and I finished it by the end of the game.  I decided to make another version the next day, and that is on the bottom.  The secondary loops are on the 4th row instead of the 3rd, so they doesn't have the single crocheting around them.  Also, on the first attempt, I made the loops 8 chains on the 3rd row, so it was a lot more loose.  I kind of like that look. 

If I was to do it again, I'd make the picots on the secondary loops much smaller, like all 3ch picots, instead of 5ch, 7ch, 5 ch triple picots.  I like large picots, but it is a bit too much here for ALL the loops to have such large picots.

Here is my pattern (my 2nd snowflake):
Rhonda's Snowflake
Special stitches:
5 ch picot: ch 5, sl st in 5th ch from hook.
Triple picot:  ch 5, sl st in 5th ch from hook; ch 7, sl st in 7th ch from hook; ch 5, st st in 5th ch from hook; sl st in first sl st.

Ch 6 and sl st in 6^th ch from hook to make a loop, or (preferred) make a magic ring.

Rd. 1:  Ch 2 (counts as dc), 11 dc in ring.   (12 dc)

Rd. 2:  (Ch 6, skip a stitch, sl st in next st) 5 times.  Ch 3, dc in beg st.   (6 loops)

Rd. 3:  Ch 1, sc in same loop, (Ch 6, sc in next loop) around, joining at at beg sc.  (6 loops)

Rd. 4:  Ch 1, sc in same loop, *in next loop (4 sc, 5 ch picot, 4sc); sc in sc.*  Repeat around, sl st in beg. sc.

Rd. 5: [Ch 5, triple picot, ch 5, sl st in same st. Ch 12, triple picot, ch 6, sl st in 6^th ch from hook, ch 6, sl st in next sc.]  Repeat around, sl st in beg. st.

Finish, weaving in ends, and stiffen.

More snowflakes!

The materials for making snowflakes are quite portable, and they are so fun to make, that I've made some more!  Four of them are the same (some of the ones I will be giving away), one is another repeat, but the others are new patterns.  So fun!

First, the four of a kind, with the chart found at http://stylowi.pl/15848121:

Next, I have 4 snowflakes from a Martha Stewart site :

The Martha Stewart site is sort of confusing, as it shows a picture of all the snowflakes, then has steps 1-5.  Step 1 is the overall directions of making, stiffening and pinning the snowflakes.  Steps 2-5 are instructions for the individual snowflakes, all mooched together in one paragraph.  I copied pasted onto a Word document and put spaces between the rows.  The "feather" flake was easy, but a pain to pin.  All of them were fairly easy patterns.

Then one I have to find the pattern for... Book, "Our Best Christmas Thread Crochet", #31...

Then the last one is from a site with seven snowflake patterns.   Mine is #7.  Super easy pattern, with a lot of loops, and you just pin it to get the angles.  I think it's pretty cute.  My changes to the pattern:  Instead of starting with a chain of 8 and then 18 dc (2sc counting as a dc), I did a 6 chain ring and did 12 dc in the chain. Then just do the next row "in the next stitch." Couldn't figure out what she meant by skip the next space...