Crocheted Pride Flag Pattern

In 2023 I made a crocheted Pride flag as part of a citywide crochet installation project directed by my crafty buddy Gina, and I’ve been feeling nostalgic about it.

I decided to crochet a smaller and slightly modified version to hang at home, so it seems a great time to share with you how to make a crocheted Pride flag, whether you want to cover the side of a building or put it in your yard.

The Original Crocheted Pride Flag

The idea for the first flag came about because Gina was getting people to crochet fun art pieces to be hung at different businesses. The original plan was to hang them in July, but as soon as she mentioned the project I knew I wanted to make a Pride flag.

She loved the idea and knew just the place to put it: Cheap Thrills, a local legend clothing resale shop. They have this great wall and there’s even a frame underneath their sign for some reason that made it super easy to hang. (Not by me; I’m ridiculously afraid of heights.)

I loved the idea of people at the nearby farmer’s market or who came for Pride being able to see my work, and it actually stayed up for several months (I’m not sure what happened to it after that). The love, by the way, is a chain of foundation single crochet, laid out basically in my handwriting.

Pride Flag Math

If you want to make your own crocheted Pride flag (or any other flag that’s striped or color blocked), it’s going to require a bit of math.

It helps if you know the space you want it to fill. In my case for the smaller version I wanted it to be able to fit in a particular window that has a view of the street. The big one needed to fit on that frame.

Starting with the width you want makes it easier to determine how tall it should be. Most flags have a 2:3 ratio, meaning they are two thirds as tall as they are wide.

I started with the measurement of 34 inches/86 cm, from which I determined the height should be about 22 inches/56 cm. (34 divided by 3 is about 11, times 2 is about 22)

Despite my thinking (every. time.) that Pride flags have seven colors, they actually have six, so from there you divide your height by 6, which in my case gives me about 3.6 inches/9 cm per stripe.

Colors for a Crocheted Pride Flag

For the big crocheted Pride flag of course I used the classic sort of crayon rainbow colors in a mix of Red Heart Super Saver and Big Twist Value from JoAnn. If you want to use the same colors, some good options are:

Red Heart

Red: Hot Red
Orange: Pumpkin
Yellow: Bright Yellow
Green: Paddy Green
Blue: Blue
Purple: Amethyst

Big Twist

Red: Varsity Red
Orange: Varsity Orange
Yellow: Varsity Yellow
Green: Varsity Green
Blue: Varsity Blue
Purple: Grape (there’s no Varsity Purple for some reason!)

Mary Maxim

I haven’t made a crocheted Pride flag with Mary Maxim Yarn before, but I think their Maximum Value yarn has colors that would work OK. I would suggest:

Red: Red
Orange: Pumpkin
Yellow: Yellow
Green: Green
Blue: Dark Blue
Purple: Dark Violet

Lion Brand

I’m not sure that Basic Stitch has quite the right yellow for the project, but you can give it a try or combine it with other brands to get the look you’re going for:

Red: Red Heather
Orange: Pumpkin
Yellow: Mustard
Green: Grass
Blue: Royal Blue
Purple: Purple

I let my daughter pick the colors for the smaller version so they’re not quite true to the original flag, but she said they went together better and who am I to judge? From outside you can’t really tell.

How to Make a Crocheted Pride Flag

Once you know the size you want your crocheted Pride flag to be it’s really easy to stitch. I start with foundation single crochet because it’s easier to work to the length you need than starting with a chain. In my case I had 88 stitches. I will say it came out smaller than I expected, so maybe make your chain a little longer than you need if you need it to be a certain size. Check the width after an inch or so and make sure you’re happy before proceeding.

I also make the flag totally in single crochet, but you can use whatever stitch you like. Once you’ve worked the first stripe to the desired width, you’ll know how many rows to work for subsequent stripes. Mine are 12 rows deep.