My Crochet Diary - Country Flowers

In my first crochet diary I thought I had shown you all the crochet books that I own. But then I remembered that I have two other books, which I think of as knitting books, as I had only used the knitting halves of them.  The 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet by Lesley Stanfield, is the book that enthused me into resuming knitting, after not doing it for a few years. And the 75 Birds, Butterflies and Beautiful Beasties was one of my leaving gifts when I moved jobs. Although I have knitted quite a lot of the projects, the crochet sections of both books had been completely ignored.
 

These Hellebores took several attempts

The 100 Flowers book divides the patterns in Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. So far I have manly stuck to basic, and still have to sit with my other book open to remind myself on how to do some of the stitches. Annoyingly most of my favourites are in the intermediate and advanced sections of the book, but hopefully I will get to some of them in time.
 

Lazy Daisy and Flared Rose

These two both have errors if you looks closely. I spiralled the rose the wrong way, and the daisy is one petal short.

Forget-me-notes and Primrose

I really like these ones, perhaps because they are some of my favourite flowers in nature, and the primrose has a 3-D quality.

 

Mistletoe

I thought it would be really fun to make a bunch of these to hang up at Christmas.

 

Cloverleaf

This cloverleaf was made in a hotel room in Bruges. I thought maybe I could crochet on the train, but this was just too hard.

 

Narcissus is the only one I have managed to make from intermediates.

I love these projects - partly because they are small, so not too daunting. I'm not quite sure what I will do with all these little flowers and leaves. I definitely think I am getting past the fear stage of learning - particularly of the diagrams. So I may be working myself up towards a granny square.

Homespun Miniatures

This morning I heard the big thud of a parcel come through my letterbox. What could it be? I was delighted to find the latest issue of Homespun had winged its way to me from Australia, and in an article on miniature crafts, my own tiny Forget-Me-Not Fairy. Some of the other miniature crafts featured are truly amazing, and I felt quite honoured to be there amongst them.
 

I do love Homespun Magazine. It is just jam packed full of really beautiful patterns and projects. A really inspiring magazine. So I settle down now for a good read.

A Flutter of Fairy Folk

Forget-me-not

Spring is in the air here in England, and with flowers appearing I just thought I would put all my fairy folk together, for a bit of a fairy gathering. What to call a party of fairies? After a bit of research I decided a flutter sounds nice. These are all knitted and adapted from my Mermaid and Flower Fairy pattern.

I do like it best where I have managed to photograph them in a natural setting. Most of these fairies have already found new homes, although one or two are still in my shop. There is such variety in nature that I have only once or twice repeated a design. I am already thinking of a few new ones: primrose, blackthorn, or honeysuckle.

So if you have a flower or tree that means a lot to you, please get in touch and I will have a go at making it.

Holly

Dandelion

Oak Tree

Lily

Apple Blossom

Stitchwort

Bluebell

Lavender

Cherry Tree

Snowflake

Mermaids

Christmas Fairies

Pohutukawa (New Zealand Christmas Tree Fairy)

Echinacea (but photographed on a sunflower)

Daisies

Pansies and Violas

I do promise to stop with the flowers soon. It is just that they are such fun. The flower photos below are violas, from the window boxes at the front of my house. I love their cheery little faces.
 

So I have used them as inspiration for some more cosies, but this time not for phones, but for glasses. I thought they might make good Granny gifts. Using my phone cosy pattern, which is free on ravelry and Craftsy, but just knitting them a bit longer. I have also sewn in a felt lining to give them a bit more rigidity. 

So are my flowers pansies or violas? I had thought that it was simple: the little ones are violas, and the bigger ones pansies. But after a little bit of research I find the National Viola and Pansy Society say that officially a Pansy must have a blotch (that is a consolidation of the rays that forms the dark velvety face of the bloom), while a Viola may have some rays, but these should not be so thick as to form a blotch. However commercial breeding of pansies and violas has somewhat blurred this definition. Though I am also sort of right too as violas are smaller than pansies.

Did you know that the name Pansy actually comes from the French word pensee, meaning "remembrance" or "thought"; thus when a bouquet of pansies is given to you, it means, "I'm thinking of you." The French believed that pansies could make your lover think of you.

Nicknames for the pansy include heartsease, love-in-idleness, godfathers and godmothers, call-me-to-you, jack-jump-up-and-kiss-me and faces-under-the-hood. And biblically, because of its tricolor, the pansy is often considered a symbol of the Trinity, and was sometimes called herb trinity.

Pansies are steeped in folklore. Pluck one of the upper petals, and your lover's future can be foretold by counting the veins that run through it. Four veins means there's hope; seven means forever in love; eight, a fickle lover; nine, a change of heart is on the horizon; and finally 11 an early death for the love of your life. 

Gosh, this has become a very wordy post for me.