The Sweater Saga and a Crochet leaf pattern

I wanted to share the little pattern I came up with to crochet leaves, its after my sweater rant, below.

So about a month ago I woke up one Saturday morning and decided that what I needed in my life was a little discipline. I'm out of school now and I guess I was scared that I'd forget how to follow instructions. This concern led me to decide that what I needed was to challenge myself by attempting a knitting project completely out of character: a sweater knitted from a pattern. So I made my boyfriend (for some reason I couldn't drive myself on this very important mission) drive me to the bookstore to pick up a fancy knitting book with patterns that looked like something I actually would want to wear without changing up too much. After parking myself on the floor in front of the knitting section with several books open for quite some time, (My boyfriend tried to act like he didn't know me by looking at something else but then the computer books were just further down the same isle) I decided on French Girl Knits. The book is gorgeous and it looked like it had lots of committed followers on ravelry. So I got to work on a lovely sleeveless tunic and I am still working on it. Lace is lovely, but I am so slow at knitting it! Following directions, when it comes to a medium that can be quite creative, is just not my strong suit. No pictures of the sweater yet because the lace inserts had to be washed because I got chocolate all over them, and the other completed panel is being held together by a stitch holder on one side and the strap I took off my wallet on the other side (when you knit at work you have to be resourceful sometimes).

Speaking of directions, I've come up with a new little pattern to make leaves. Leaves are a big part of the more purplebecca-style stuff I usually do. This may seem a little simplistic to you hard core crochet types, but I was really pleased to find a way to get a teardrop shape as opposed to the diamond I usually end up with. Since, as you've probably gathered, I'm not that into reading patterns I don't know all the crochet jargon yet, but here's the pattern in English.

1. Place a slip knot on the hook, chain one
2. crochet into stitch just created
3. turn, crochet twice into stitch
4. turn, crochet 2
5. turn, crochet twice into each stitch
6. turn ,crochet 4
7. turn, crochet 1, crochet twice into each of the next two stitches, crochet one
8. Turn, crochet 6
9. Turn, crochet 2, crochet twice into each of the next two stitches, crochet 2
10. turn crochet 8
11. Continue in this manner until leaf is two rows shorter than desired length
12. Turn, crochet 2 together, crochet to center, then crochet twice into each of the center 2 stitches, as in steps 7 and 9, crochet to last two stitches, and crochet last two together.
13. Turn, crochet all stitches across.

This can be used to make leaves or flower petals, or rain drops, or anything you want!