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Basic Rose

© June Gilbank 2009

This basic rose pattern is a perfect introduction to crocheted flowers, and it’s so versatile – make it in any size and colour you like!

vase of crocheted roses

Here are some ideas for use:

  • Use the optional stem pattern below to create a whole vase of roses
  • Stitch a pin to the back of a rose to make a pretty brooch
  • Accessorize a bag by sewing on a couple of roses
  • Sew or glue a small rose to a hair clip or plastic hairband

crocheted rose hairclip

This Basic Rose pattern is Donationware – the pattern is available for free, but if you like it please consider sending me a donation to show your appreciation:

basic rose crochet pattern

Send me a donation and receive the easy-to-print PDF version of the pattern as a thank you!

Donations of any size are much appreciated. Just add the amount you wish to donate, and, once you have checked out and paid, your pattern will instantly be available to download from your PlanetJune account.

The complete pattern and instructions are available below, regardless of whether or not you choose to pay for them 🙂

This is a PlanetJune original crochet pattern. Feel free to use items made from this pattern however you wish, but I’d appreciate credit as the pattern designer. Please do not reproduce the pattern anywhere else; instead post a link to www.planetjune.com/basicrose/

Not ready to make it yet? Add it to your Ravelry queue:

Terminology

ch chain
sc single crochet (double crochet for UK/Aus)
dc double crochet (treble crochet for UK/Aus)
st stitch

You will need…

  • A suitably sized crochet hook*
  • Small amount of yarn* in a floral colour, e.g. pink, red, purple, yellow, orange, cream or white (plus green for the optional stem)
  • Yarn needle (or embroidery needle for a thread rose)

* Hook and yarn sizes: This pattern will work with any size yarn, provided you choose a suitable hook size for your yarn. For my roses, I used:

  • Worsted weight yarn and a size G (4mm) hook, which produced a 2″ diameter rose
  • Size 8 pearl cotton and a size 7 (1.5mm) hook, which produced a 3/4″ diameter rose

Crochet Instructions

Ch 46.
Row 1: sc in 2nd chain from hook and in each chain across. (45 st). Ch 1, turn.
Row 2: sc in first st, [skip next st, (dc, ch 1, dc, ch 1, dc, ch 1, dc) in next st, skip next st, sc in next st] 11 times.
Fasten off and cut yarn, leaving a long end for stitching the rose together.

rose before rolling
After completing Row 2, your rose should look like this (except it won’t lie straight like this!). In this picture, the scalloped edge is at the top and the flat edge is at the bottom.

If you look at your work, you’ll see that one edge is flat and the other edge is scalloped. Starting at the opposite end of your work to the long yarn end, begin to roll up the rose into a spiral, and roll so that the flat edge stays flat.

back of rose after rolling
Watch the back of the rose as you roll, and form the flat edge into a flat spiral

Thread the long yarn end with a yarn needle, then run the needle through all the layers of the flat edge from one side to the other, passing through the centre of the rose. Draw the yarn taut, but do not pull it tightly to compress the bottom of the rose – you want to maintain that flat spiral shape at the back. Rotate the rose and go back through the centre, passing through all the layers again. Rotate once more and stitch back through again. Fasten off and weave in both ends of the yarn.

front of rose after stitching
The front of the rose after stitching

Optional: Stem

Terminology: The green outer parts of the flower that sit at the flower’s base are called the calyx.

Calyx
Ch 5.
Rnd 1: sc in 5th chain from hook, to form a circle. Sc in each st around the circle. (5 st)
Rnd 2: (sc in next st, ch 4, sc in 2nd chain from hook and in next 2 chains) five times. Fasten off and weave in ends.

calyx
Star-shaped calyx

Stem
To make the stem, use a pipe cleaner or length of floral wire. Fold it in half and make a twist by the fold (you may need pliers to help you with this if you are using a stiff wire).

stem
Folded pipe cleaner stem (or use floral wire)

The points of the star shaped calyx will want to curl. Make sure they are curling down, away from the rose.

Poke the twisted end of the wire up inside the centre of the calyx, so it sticks out of the top by about 1cm. Thread a yarn needle with your green yarn, directly from the yarn ball, and stitch the stem in place by stitching through the base of the calyx and between the two arms of the stem with a couple of stitches. Remove the needle but do not cut the yarn if you plan to cover the stem with yarn (as explained below).

Twist the rest of the stem wires together. NOTE: For safety, I like to fold up the very ends of the pipe cleaner or floral wire, so there aren’t any sharp points at the base of the stem.

You can either leave the wires uncovered, or, for a more polished look, cover the stem with the green yarn. Here are two simple methods to cover the stem:

  1. Single crochet around the stem. This will leave a row of chains down one side of the stem. Fasten off and weave the end back up through a few stitches.
  2. Wrap the yarn around and around the stem. Knot the yarn around the end of the stem and secure the knot in place with glue before cutting the yarn.

stem
Wrapping yarn around a pipe cleaner stem

stem
This stem is single crocheted around floral wire
(note also the green floral wire sticking out of the top of the calyx)

Poke the visible end of the wire up through the back of the rose, to help anchor it in position. (NOTE: Make sure the wire is not visible from the top of the rose! If it is too long and is visible, fold it down inside the rose.)

With a yarn needle and a length of either yarn, stitch the base of the rose to the calyx. Weave in all remaining yarn ends.

stitch rose to stem
Stitching the rose to the calyx

I hope you enjoy this pattern. Please leave me a comment below if you do, and consider leaving me a donation. Thanks!

187 Comments »

  1. Corinne said

    Thank you for such a beautiful pattern. My best friends little brother passed away and I wanted to something special for her so I made her some roses. This way they will last.

  2. michal said

    hi, i’m new to crochet with pattern’s….. but this look nice and simple….
    but i didn’t understand this part:
    Row 2: sc in first st, [skip next st, (dc, ch 1, dc, ch 1, dc, ch 1, dc) in next st, skip next st, sc in next st] 11 times.

    does it mean:
    single in first stitch
    skip the second stitch
    then decrease in third stitch + 1 chain+ decrease…..
    skip stitch 4
    and again?

    • June said

      Close, but not quite, Michal! Make sure to check the abbreviations list before you begin a crochet pattern. ‘dc’ stands for double crochet, not decrease (which is usually abbreviated as ‘dec’. Other than that, you seem to have understood it all 🙂

  3. Hajar said

    really nice. I enjoy it very much. I wish you a life as beautiful as flowers.

  4. Lyvia said

    Love it! I made a dozen for my four year old daughter to give to her aftr her first dance recital! Very easy and not time consuming at all. I was able to make a bouqet in one sitting.

  5. jennifer said

    i love these i made a dozen for mothers day. and gave a set to my mother and grandmothers they loved them thank you so much!!

  6. Cari said

    hi i love this pattern i did the first three rows for these lovely roses

  7. Suzanne said

    Thank you for sharing this beautiful pattern! I too think I will be making this for Mother’s Day. I think that the ladies that I work with, would enjoy getting one as well. Have a great day!

  8. Kimberly said

    Thanks for the pattern! I am making them for mothers day!

  9. Kyra said

    Looks cool! I found my official rose pattern!!

  10. kals said

    I don’t have the needle described for sewing can I use the thread needle somehow?

    • June said

      Kals, you need a needle whose eye is large enough to fit the yarn you’re using through – if you don’t have one large enough, you can buy them inexpensively from any craft/yarn/needlework shop.

  11. Beautiful

  12. Karol S. said

    Absolutely love the rose pattern. I’ve made six already and just love them. Having a problem with the calyx though; I’ve tried several times and it turns out looking like a flat flower with round petals. Any ideas on what I may be doing wrong?

    • June said

      Hmm, I can’t imagine where you’re going wrong; the ch 4 and 3 scs back down the chain should make each point of the calyx quite pointy, not like round petals. You can send me (june@planetjune.com) a clear photo of your calyx if you’d like me to try to figure out your mistake 🙂

      • Karol S. said

        Perfect; it worked. Completely misunderstood the original pattern. The roses are lovely….thank you for sharing!!

  13. Lee Ann said

    Beautiful “roll-up rose”. I love making this one! Thank you.

  14. Beth Belflower said

    I made this rose to put on a headband ear warmer that I made. It is the perfect size and so easy. Thank you so much for the pattern. I am also making some with calyx and stem for my granddaughters for Valentines Day

  15. Anne said

    I have only been crocheting for a month and my first rose came out beautifully. I am making my own bouquet for my June wedding. This pattern makes the most realistic roses I have seen yet.

  16. Stephanie said

    I’m making 6 of these with burgundy yarn for my future mother in law for St. Valentine’s Day. I’m trying to work how to possibly add a leaf or two while doing single crochets down the stem. Thank you SO much for sharing! Love love love this pattern!

  17. Found this on Pinterest, LOVE IT!! I just made a little pink rose using size 3 crochet thread and a size B hook. It made the cutest little delicate rose for a hair clip! Thank you so much for sharing!

  18. Samantha said

    Hi June! I love your pattern! I just had one question. How do you crochet aroind the pipecleaner and where would you even start?

    • June said

      Hi Samantha, it’s easy to crochet around the pipe cleaner: you’re just making normal single crochet stitches, but using the pipe cleaner instead of the ‘previous stitch’ you usually insert your hook into. So, for each sc:

      1. ‘Insert’ the hook by putting it under the pipe cleaner.
      2. Yarn over and draw up a loop to the front.
      3. Yarn over (over the pipe cleaner) and draw through both loops on the hook.

      You could start out by making a slip knot around one end of the pipe cleaner, and then follow the instructions above to crochet around it, along its length.

  19. If I wanted to make the rose bigger, how many more stitches do you think I would need to add?

    • June said

      Each petal uses 4 stitches, so you’d need to increase the starting chain by a multiple of 4 stitches. I don’t know how many more petals you can add before the flower won’t hold together well when you assemble it though. If you can’t make it large enough by adding more petals, you could instead use a thicker yarn (or hold 2 strands together), with a larger hook, to make a larger rose.

  20. Rachealle said

    WOW, i just finished making a rose and it turned out absolutely great! thank you so much for all the amazing patterns! =)

  21. Betty Hall said

    I am just relearning to crochet after retiring last year and this pattern is the prettest and the easist to do thank you for the pattern i have been making them like crazy just to give to my friends

  22. Katie said

    Thanks for such a great pattern. I made 20 of these in no time at all and sewed badge pins on the back for a friend’s baby shower. They looked great!

  23. Roberta said

    wow so cute thanks forsharing this cute patterns!!!<3

  24. Roberta said

    now i understand dont wory, sorry for bothering you so much !!!! 🙂

  25. Roberta said

    i donot understand row 1 can you please make a video an upload it on youtube????
    or explainit better ?
    i love your crochet rose pattern but dont understand it :'(

  26. Jen said

    long time fan of your work PlanetJune. Just doing some searching for a nice stemmed rose pattern, and again your name came up with the most beautiful one I found! so i just wanted to let you know I am using this pattern to make a rose to send off with my Grandma tomorrow. She just passed away and it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t send her with something crocheted….thank you.

  27. jena said

    I love this pattern, it’s so simple! Just what I was looking for to accessorize my day of the dead skulls 🙂 I used brightly colored variegated sock yarn and they came out perfect.

  28. jesikam said

    I made brooches/pins using your pattern! mbhavenblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/charity-project-for-enchanted-makeovers.html They were sent to an amazing organization called Enchanted Makeovers for a dinner & dance they had for victimized girls. The girls & organizers loved them! 😀 Thank you for posting this pattern.

  29. Joline said

    Hey! Thanks so much for this pattern! I love it. I’m not sure mine turned out just like this because it was the first time I’d done it. But its beautiful and I used it to adorn a hat I made for my sister in law.

    One thing I was curious about. Is the flat spiral on the bottom supposed to stick out from the bottom of the rose? I was not able to get it to do that, it was just flat all the way across, still came out beautifully though.

    • June said

      No, it’s not supposed to stick out at the bottom – it has to be flat so that when you stitch through the layers, they all stay together. It’s actually better to have it flat if you want to make it into a brooch or stitch it onto a hair clip etc, and if you’ve added the calyx to make a rose with a stem, you really can’t tell that the bottom is flat anyway!

      • Joline said

        Awesome, thanks so much!

  30. Inas said

    Hi, I’m from Malaysia. the roses is very beautiful. it is very hard to find a big hook and thick yarn here. so, the roses i made is very small. is there any way to make it bigger and look better?

    • June said

      Inas, you can hold two (or more) strands of yarn together to approximate thicker yarn, but you do need a larger hook to make that work. It’s a worthwhile investment to buy some larger hooks (maybe you can buy them online?) – they’ll last you for years!

  31. Rev. Florentina said

    June! You are a blessing. Your rose patter was very easy to follow and very short (only two rows and three stiches). And…
    it is so beautiful. I thanks so much.
    Rev. Florentina

  32. Mary said

    These roses are beautiful. Someone gave me a rose like this but didn’t know how to make them. I took the one apart and make a beautiful Bouquet of Roses using different color yarn.

  33. Evelyn said

    A bouquet of these made a great last minute mother’s day present for a poor college student who can’t afford real flowers!
    Now I can’t stop making them they’re so pretty but super easy… also I have a ton of pipecleaners lying around. Soon I”m going to have a room filled with crochet roses haha

  34. Jo said

    Thank you for the very easy to understand instructions to make the rose. I just made a baby sized poncho and it needed a little flower to finish it off and using your pattern I made a lovely little rose. It looks fab, especially as the wool is in two colours so it looks tonal, if that makes sense! Jo In Swansea, Wales, UK

  35. Charlie said

    This pattern is amazing! I had had an awful time trying to come up with a present that I (a sort-of beginner crocheter) could make for my mother and my partner’s mother for Mother’s Day, and found a pattern on another site that I didn’t do so well with. It just didn’t turn out right! I tried this one and it took me only fifteen minutes, and is going to be my go-to Rose pattern from now on! It is just the right size for me to attempt to make maybe 15 to lead to a small Rose Bush for each of our Mothers! This isn’t the first time your blog has saved the little ounce of sanity that my brain has left, and once again I am completely in awe of your crafting prowess!

  36. Megan said

    Great design! I made a rose the other day, it’s the first non-blanket or scarf I’ve ever made 🙂 It was a great intro to trying new patterns

  37. me said

    that’s so pretty! i think i’m going to try it one of these days

  38. Dennis said

    Very useful pattern. I was trying something similar, without a pattern. You cleared up some things I was doing wrong.

    Great idea for pipe cleaners to support the stem. U use long haired brown ones, the stray brown fibres that poke through resemble rose thorns.

    As a male, showing up to a date with just one of these is much better than showing up with a fist full of real long stem roses.

    • Anonymous said

      You can also drip some essential oil on the rose, so that it will smell good as well. 🙂

  39. Dasia said

    Ok thanks!

  40. Dasia said

    What yarn and crochet hook size did you use for the blue flower? I used a D crochet hook and medium weight yarn but it didn’t turn out so good… :/ How did you get the blue flower to be so open like that?

    • June said

      Dasia, as I say under “Hook and yarn sizes”, I used Size 8 pearl cotton and a size 7 (1.5mm) hook. This rose is much stiffer because it’s crocheted from thread, not yarn, which makes it hold itself open as shown.

  41. Eileen said

    I made one last night, just the rose part, I didn’t make the calyx or the stem yet. I love it. It’s so beautiful. I made it in a pretty pink. I have to see if I can take a picture and post it somewhere to show you. Again, this is the nicest rose I’ve seen yet. I’ve tried some others and they never came out right. Thank you again.

  42. Eileen said

    I agree with one of the other people, this is the nicest roses’ I’ve seen. Thank you for sharing. I’m going to make some of these. Again, thank you.

  43. melanie said

    help im compter elite, how does one, down load your free pattern to the raverly ? site Thanks out of work you are so appreaciated

    • June said

      Melanie, if you’d like to add my rose pattern to your Ravelry projects, here’s the link: www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/basic-rose

      The pattern itself is only available on this page (or you can get the PDF version by sending me a donation through the links above).

  44. Bodacious Butterfly said

    I love this pattern! I tried it out this morning and think it is awesome. Although I needed to work with a larger hook, it was fairly easy. Keep these patterns coming!

  45. Victoria said

    I love this pattern, but I feel so stupid. When I start on Row 2, what parts do I stitch 11 times? I tried to do the part inside of the [ ] 11 times, but it doesn’t fit and my double crochets come out really long, not circular with a hole in the middle like yours. I really wanted to make a bouquet, what am I doing wrong? Thanks.

    • June said

      Victoria, don’t feel stupid! Let’s see if we can clear it up for you. Everything in the [ ] s makes ONE petal. Let’s break that down:

      Start by skipping a stitch of Row 1. Then, you see the ( )s inside the [ ]s? That means that everything inside the ( )s – ALL of those 4 dc stitches – go into the SAME stitch of Row 1. Then you skip another stitch of Row 1 and finally make a sc into the next stitch.

      That will give you one semi-circular petal shape – if you’re doing it right, you’re only using 4 stitches of Row 1 to complete one repeat. (1: skip, 2: all the dcs, 3: skip, 4: sc).

      Repeat all that 11 times and you’ll have the scalloped strip which you can roll up to make your rose 🙂

  46. vinitha said

    hi,
    very nice pattern. i will try.now only i’m learning.

  47. Helen said

    Thanks June.

    We’re going to be making up a mess of these for my son’s bride to carry for her wedding next month. Thread, yarn and pipecleaners are a lot cheaper than live flowers, and they last a whole lot longer.

  48. cindy said

    These are by far the nicest roses I have seen as of yet!!!!!!!

  49. Gourmet Baskets said

    I like how you made everything using wool, its simply beautiful.

  50. Valerie said

    I have made 2 of these so far and they are very quick and easy! But, I am having one problem. My yarn is fairly thin (2-ply), so I started with my amigurumi hook (2.75mm) and the “petals” curled in so much it looks more ball-like than flower-like. I then moved up to a very loose 3 mm. (It doesn’t sound like a big jump, but it’s a German loose 3 vs. and English tight 2.75 so it is a difference) It’s better, but they still curl in more than I would like. Am I correct in assuming I need to keep increasing my needle size or could there be another cause to this problem? Thanks!

    • June said

      Valerie, it could be that your hook is still too small – you could try moving up another size (I moved up 2 sizes from my usual amigurumi E hook to a G to make these roses).

      If that doesn’t help, another thought I had is that you may be pulling the chain stitches between your double crochets too tight, which would make the petals curl up. Each chain should be as wide as a dc stitch – if you pull on the yarn when you start the next dc, you’ll shrink the previous chain stitch so it won’t be wide enough to let the petal lie flat…

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