'Apelila Headpiece

In addition to the two crochet/knitting groups I attend each week in real life, I am also a member of several online crochet communities. The one I'm most active in, r/crochet, is having an Aloha April Contest this month. Since Alex grew up in Hawaii and some of our fondest memories are those we made during our 2013 visit to Oahu and the Big Island, I knew I had to participate. One of the users there, SassySSS, is an amazing crocheter who is super generous. She's offering delightful prizes to the contest winners. The only rule is that the project must be made with 200 grams of yarn or less. My project ended up being an amalgamation of two different patterns plus a good deal of my own imagining. I call it my 'Apelila Headpiece, or "April Headpiece".

 

The plumeria pattern is available for free on June Gilbank's website. The idea for the headpiece came from this pattern, but I didn't end up using any of the instructions. Instead, I made up my own leaves and white flowers. The white flowers are meant to be stephanotis, the dark leaves are maile and the light leaves are 'olapa.

Is it weird that I don't really care whether or not I place in the contest? I had fun crocheting and that's all that matters. Normally I'm a freestyle girl in both crochet and poetry and like choose my projects based on things that inspire me, but sometimes it's nice to be constrained as I would when writing a haiku or similar. It was a fun change to fit someone else's theme.

This contest has been so fun that I really want to pay it forward and host my own contest on r/crochet sometime soon. I'll let you know when and if I do that. :)