Let’s be honest — no nation is perfect. Canada, which had its national beginnings steeped in colonialism, struggles even now with racial and gender equality. Still, I believe that Canada is a nation with potential, and I am thankful to have been born and raised in a country that strives to embrace multiculturalism and freedom. Because of that, I wanted to try crochet something special for the upcoming Canada Day!

• 1/2 skein of Red Heart Soft – a medium weight (4) yarn (above colour A: Charcoal; colour B: Really Red)
• Size G (4.00 mm) hook
• A 25cm x 25cm pillow

Pattern by tick-tock hobbies

This pattern uses the corner-to corner crochet technique! I found the tutorial page by Jess at Make and Do Crew to be super helpful! I then designed my own maple leaf graph on Excel, which took me longer than expected due to all of the points of the maple leaf.

At first I thought that having more points would be more dramatic, so I had the following grid. However, since corner-to-corner crochet works in the diagonal, some of the extra “points” ended up disjointed from the main parts of the leaf, forcing me to go back with red yarn later and add “connections”. Sadly, these later additions are definitely visible on the finished pillow cover, at least to me.

As a result, I would suggest getting rid of the those extra points, and using the following grid instead, since I think it would give the leaves a more cohesive, minimalistic look. I haven’t actually tested this out yet, but let me know if you do! I would love to see finished results.

Because this was a pillow cover, I made two squares of the same design, and then sewed the two together on all four sides since I wasn’t planning on making the case removable. If you are, I suggest seaming it on three sides and adding a zipper or buttons to the fourth. As a bonus of the pillow cover design, I was able to keep one side as the “back”, so I left all of the ends from my colour changes there. It was a bit of a lazy shortcut, but I thought it was very effective!

This was my first time attempting corner-to-corner crochet, so I was pleasantly surprised both by how straightforward it was and how much thought was needed in designing the grids. I love the endless potential to design whatever shape you want, but it takes time to use little squares to design what you want, especially if there are a lot of points or curves to the shape! I think that maple leaves may have been a bit of an ambitious first project since there are just so many points. As an aside, I remember being frustrated as a child whenever we were asked to draw a Canadian flag because it was so hard to get the shape right! I always envied the Japanese flag for its simple circle, or even the standard tri-coloured flags, like France or Germany. At any rate, despite the time taken and many attempts in drawing out the leaf, it was pretty fun once I got into the crocheting.

Corner-to-corner is a very simple technique, so I didn’t have any problems once I got started. As I mentioned earlier, I hadn’t expected the disjointed effect of some of the “squares”, but it made sense once I stopped to think about how the diagonals were being worked. In the future, I think I will lean towards the minimalistic, since it translates better to grids and square.

Until next time, happy crafting!

This pattern is an original pattern by June Cheung at Tick-Tock Hobbies – please do not claim this pattern as your own or reprint it on another site or any other format. If you want to share this pattern (and I’d love it if you do!), just link to this pattern and give me the proper credit. You may keep a copy of the pattern for your own personal use, but please DO NOT sell this pattern. Permission is NOT granted for any finished products to be sold for profit, or for mass production, or for factory manufacturing of any kind. Thank you so much for your respect and understanding!