Ok, so a few days ago I posted about a delightful little shop that sold the cutest patterns EVER and I got to thinking... When I was about 10 years old my mother taught me to crochet. I was not a good student (and being left handed made it soooo much harder for her), and I can remember being really frustrated with not being able to do it. I was determined that I was going to learn this skill and after fiddling about with a hook and wool night after night I finally learned how to do a chain stitch. Eventually I learned how to make a bookworm bookmark, made one for every person I had ever met and then declared that I didn't want to crochet any more, and put the hook away forever.
I am not good with yarn. I can sew just about anything, but give me a ball of wool and I'll turn it into something so ugly it defies belief. Every year around April I decide that I must make a scarf/hat. Every year I buy beautiful new yarn and the appropriate sized needles and begin. Every year around June I hold up my ill fitting, dropped-stitch peppered creation and tell myself "That's it - I quit! I am not good with yarn!". Then April comes and I decided I need a gorgeous handmade scarf...
After finding those cute patterns, and needing some kind of embelishment for a Blythe dress I'm making, I decided that a tiny crochet flower would be the very thing. So I retired to the study with yarn, hook and internet and proceeded to poke my poor tired brain into remembering how to do it...and made some flowers! Admittedly, my first few efforts were mildly distorted, but it would seem that crochet is much more forgiving than knitting, not to mention faster. It only took me 10 minutes to make my first ugly lop-sided flower, as opposed to 8 weeks with the scarves. After about 6 goes they began to look a little better. OK don't laugh, I know that they are still very ordinary, but they do look sweet on the dresses! I like to think that their wonkiness adds to their homemade charm.
Here are two tiny flowers that you can use to embellish Blythe clothes. I'm sure that experienced uber-crochet people can make them look much tidier than I can!
The Tiny Crocheted Flower found here: http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/flowers.html
This makes the larger flower with the open centre, which I love the look of, however for my purposes it was too big. I did try to make a smaller one using 4 chains, but it didn't wasn't as nice in my opinion.
This is the one that I'll be using on my dress. It makes a very small flower with a closed centre.
- Make a loop of thread (like the start of a granny knot), about the diameter of your finger. Make sure there is a good size tail - I like about 3 inches.
- Insert your hook, yarn over and pull through. This creates the ring (we'll close it later).
- Chain 3 stitches, slip stitch into ring.
- Repeat until you are happy with the number of petals. I like 5.
- Fasten off.
- Pull the tail of the loop you created tight. Weave in the ends. Viola!
No comments:
Post a Comment