Easy Crochet Bows For Your Coquette Aesthetic

A playful, hyper-feminine “coquette” aesthetic is flourishing throughout fashion and social media with an abundance of florals, ruffles, pastels, and bows. Bows are adorning everything from clothing to shoes to jewelry, and the more bows the better. Think ballet, Bridgerton, and Barbie, all rolled into one. While you can make your coquette bows with ribbon, crocheting them will bring an even softer and dreamier feel. Designer Twinkie Chan gives you 4 easy and free crochet bow patterns and a few ideas on how to use them.

If you’e never crocheted before, check out Twinkie’s beginner crochet class, Crochet Sampler: A Daily Practice.

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Materials

• You can play with any combination of yarn and crochet hooks that you have and see what results you like. Coquette style is all about pastels, pink, and ballet-inspired palettes. Twinkie used extra super bulky wool yarns, regular worsted weight acrylic, and a thin mohair blend. Her hook size ranged from an H to an M, depending on the thickness of the yarn.
• Scissors
• Yarn needle with a size appropriate for your yarn

Crochet Bow #1: Delicate

You can turn these bows into hair ties, earrings, and sew them all over sweaters. The Delicate bow is super easy to crochet and is basically a long string tied into a bow. Also, you can use any yarn weight and crochet hook that you want, but this style is particularly nice with extra thick and chunky yarns.

With the density of crochet fabric, tying an actual bow will lead to a super thick area in the knot. A great alternative is to form the shape of a bow and secure the center with yarn.

1. Make 36 chains and then break off your yarn.
2. Weave in both ends. It can be tricky to weave a tail into just chains as there is not a lot of fabric to hide the tail. Try to weave back and forth a bit only in the nearest 2-3 chains.
3. Find the center of your string of chains and follow the photos to form a bow shape.
4. With 8-10 inches of yarn and a yarn needle (a contrasting yarn is show in photos), secure the center of the bow . Begin by inserting your yarn and needle right through the center, through all layers of the bow, and come back out the other side to make a small stitch. Then, wrap the yarn around the center several times until you like how the center of the bow looks. Usually 3-4 wraps are enough. Depending on your yarn, you might not have to tie a knot to secure this yarn. Instead, try weaving the yarn tails in the wraps you just made. This will create less bulk than a knot.

Throw one of these bows in your updo with a bobby pin, or sew a bow to a rubber band or hot glue one to a small hair clip. Adorn your hair with multiple bows for the trendy “bow stacking” effect.

These bows also add a lot of whimsy to your favorite sweater. However, if you’re not ready to fully commit, you can secure the bows to your clothing with safety pins and keep experimenting with different bows and arrangements.

Crochet Bow #2: Dainty

This style is very similar to Bow #1, but it has a little more body and thickness and works better for less bulky or more medium weight yarns that might feel too droopy as just chains.

1. Make 37 chains.
2. Skip the first chain from your hook, and then work 1 slip stitch in each of the remaining 36 chains. Be sure to pick up 2 loops of each chain as you work your slip stitches, rather than just 1 loop. This will make your fabric thicker and more dimensional as opposed to flat.
3. Break off and weave in both ends.
4. Create the bow shape as above for Bow #1.

If you crochet the Dainty bow with a light worsted weight yarn, you can make the sweetest dangly earrings.

Crochet Bow #3: Romantic

For crochet bows that more closely mimic bows tied with ribbon, try a length of single crochet stitch. If you want even more thickness, try two rows of single crochet stitch. The bows in the photo above have 2 rows of single crochet.

1. Make 47 chains.
2. Skip the first chain from your hook, and then work 1 single crochet stitch in each of the remaining 46 chains.
3. For more thickness, chain 1, turn, and work 1 single crochet stitch in each stitch.
4. Break off and weave in both ends.
5. Create the bow shape as above for Bows #1 and #2. For this style, you might need more yarn wraps around the center to achieve a nice aesthetic. Pay closer to attention to whether your crochet strip is twisting while you’re forming the bow, since it has a front and a back.

Mohair is a fun fiber for the Romantic bow for an even softer and dreamier feel.

Crochet Bow #4: Enchanting

This is darling showstopper that is perfect for statement hair bows. You could also use it to decorate a tote bag or purse. You will need to know how to work half double crochet and double crochet stitches.

With a bulky yarn, these Enchanting crochet bows will get very big and dense. Stay within the worsted weight family or even lighter.

1. To make the main part of the bow (pictured on the left), make 46 chains.
2. Skip the 1^st 2 chains from your hook and work 1 half double crochet in each of the remaining 44 chains.
3. Chain 2 and turn. Work 1 half double crochet in each stitch.
4. Repeat Step 3 two more times for a total of 4 rows of half double crochet. Break off leaving about 8 inches of yarn for sewing later and weave in the other end.
5. To make the bow tails (one long piece pictured in the middle), make 60 chains.
6. Skip the 1^st 2 chains from your hook. Work 2 half double crochets in the next chain, then 1 half double crochet in each chain until 1 chain remains, and 2 half double crochets in the last chain.
7. Chain 2 and turn. Work 2 half double crochets in the 1^st stitch, then 1 half double crochet each in each stitch until 1 stitch remains, and 2 half double crochets in the last stitch.
8. Repeat Step 7.
9. Chain 3 and turn. Work 1 double crochet and 1 half double crochet in the 1^st stitch, then 1 half double crochet in each stitch until 1 stitch remains, and work 1 half double crochet and 1 double crochet in the last stitch. Break off and weave in both ends. You should have a very long strip with tapered ends.
10. To make the bow band (small piece pictured on the right), make 9 chains. Skip the 1st 2 chains from your hook and work 6 half double crochet evenly across. In the last chain, work 3 single crochets. Now working on the other side of your foundation chain, work 6 half double crochet evenly across. Break off leaving 12 inches of yarn for sewing. Weave in the other end.
11. To assemble the bow, take the main part of the bow and seam up the short edges to form a ring. The seam should be the back of your bow.
12. Place the bow tails behind the main part of the bow, making sure the center points are aligned.
13. Pinch both pieces at the center. You want to make this center section as narrow as possible. With about a foot of yarn and a tapestry needle, weave some stitches back and forth at the bow center to cinch and secure it. You can also make some wraps around with the yarn to further pinch the pieces together. Secure this yarn. The bow looks pretty cute at this point, and you could stop here if you like.
14. To give the bow a more pronounced center, take the bow band, wrap it around the front of the bow, and sew the short ends together at the back. When you’re weaving your yarn tail in, you can also weave it into the fabric of the bow to secure the bow band to it.
15. Now you can hot glue the back of the bow to a hair clip.  

Since these are the largest of the bows, you can try adding accents to the centers like cute buttons or cabochons that look like flowers, cherubs, or hearts.