Curious and Crafty Readers

“There are so many wonderful flowers in nature, why would you want to design fantasy flowers?” asked a Crochet Bouquet Along member on Ravelry.

It’s true. Natural flowers are many and varied. I mean, look at this Antelope Horns milkweed that grew in our yard. What a strange and wonderful plant! Someday it’s going to be the inspiration for some interesting and pretty crochet.

I love natural flowers, but I also love decorative flowers and fantasy flowers. Even as a kid, I was fascinated by artists’ interpretations of flowers in paintings, on greeting cards, on chinaware and tinware. A few brush strokes or a few simple shapes are all it takes to depict a natural flower.

Completely made-up flower designs give me a happy flower feeling, just like a natural flower would. Designing a fantasy flower is not a case of trying to improve on nature. Instead, it’s using nature as a jumping-off point for a flight of imagination.

Crochet Bouquet has a mix of natural-looking flowers and fantasy flowers; same with Crochet Garden. In fact, on the cover of Crochet Garden, the “O” of “Crochet” is my fantasy Samarkand Sunflower. A woven design on plate 31 of Treasury of Historic Folk Ornament (by Helmuth Theodor Bossert, Dover Publications, 1996) inspired it. It’s a woven interpretation of a flower, reinterpreted in crochet.

Having said that, I’ll bet that if you look far enough, you’ll find a natural flower that looks a lot like the Samarkand Sunflower.

Since I’m never going to stick exclusively to natural flower designs, here’s my suggestion for you:

• If you want lots of natural flower crochet designs, you need to design them.
• After you’ve made a few samples, prepare a book proposal and start sending it to publishers, pitching it as a book of natural flower designs.

I think there’s still room for crochet flower books on the market, but not for long, so you’ll have to get going on this soon.

Just on a whim, I checked at Amazon to see if my new book is for sale yet. It is!

Crochet Garden will be released in May 2012, but you can reserve your copy by pre-ordering it at Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

This is the first time I’ve seen the cover, though the cover may change between now and next spring. This cover shows several designs from the book:

• “Sulfur Butterfly”
• “Samarkand Sunflower” in the O of ‘Crochet’
• “Grandmother’s Windmill Flower”
• “Trillium and Fronds” (the fronds are the stems of the flowers)
• “Russian Picot Daisy” featuring a little-known vintage crochet stitch
• buds from “Pinks of Any Color”
• another Trillium
• “Candy Cornflower”
• “Pasque Flower”
• and half of a “Mini-, Midi-, Maxi-mum”

I am looking forward to May!

What could I make with the little sunflower I crocheted for the October Crochet Along? Another earring organizer! (See an earring organizer made with crocheted pansies here.)

My daughter likes green, which is convenient, because her school colors are green and yellow (okay, gold, but it usually takes the form of yellow).

I simply appliqued the sunflower on the corner of a sheet of kelly green plastic canvas.

Here are details:

Materials:

• 1 sheet of plastic canvas
• 1 spool of Wrights cording to coordinate with plastic canvas
• Embroidery floss
• The Sunflower from Crochet Bouquet (pages 71-72), made with Aunt Lydia’s No. 10 crochet cotton
• Fray-stopping adhesive

Instructions:

Start at the lower edge of the plastic canvas, about 3” from the right-hand corner. Leave a few inches of the cording hanging at the end, then use embroidery floss to whip stitch the cording around the outside edge of the plastic canvas. Tie on more embroidery floss as needed, leaving long ends.

Once you have sewn the cording all the way around, tie the beginning and ending ends of the cording in a square knot. Tack it at the back with embroidery floss. Tie off the embroidery floss, leaving long ends.

About 3 to 4” from the knot, make a coat of fray-checking adhesive about 1/2” long around on both ends of the cording. Let dry. Cut the cording through the 1/2” dried coat of adhesive. This will protect all the cut ends. If desired knot each end. You can see the adhesive at the ends of the cording in the picture. It slightly darkens the cording.

Weave the embroidery floss through stitches at the back of the piece. Dab a little fray-checking adhesive at each end. Let dry and then trim away excess embroidery floss.

Applique sunflower to the plastic canvas, placing it in the corner above the cording knot. Stitch each petal just inside the tip, so the tips will bend a little for a natural look.

After record-breaking heat and draught this summer, our part of Texas welcomed about 5 inches of rain last month. The flowers wasted no time putting on an autumn show of color: yellow cow-pen daisies, magenta four-o’clocks, red and blue sage, and multicolor lantana.

Then, two nights ago, we came perilously close to freezing temperatures. Bloom while you can, dear flowers!

We crocheters should flower, too, whether in the last few moments before the winter here in the Northern Hemisphere, or because it’s spring in the Southern Hemisphere. So for our last-minute October CAL, let’s make the Sunflower from pages 71-72 of Crochet Bouquet. Its center is Loopy, on pages 57-58.

This flower looks lush and complicated, but it isn’t! Well, it is lush, but it is not complicated. You make it in two easy pieces and sew them together.

The yellow flower begins with a double-crochet circle. Around the outside you crochet one simple petal over and over. It takes a while to crochet, but the crochet is easy.

When you’re done, the petals will probably curl. We don’t want that.

To uncurl them, hold each petal at its base, then pull the point out. Don’t be shy! They won’t break. Then grasp each petal on both sides at its widest point. Pull again.

My Sunflower is crocheted with Aunt Lydia’s No. 10 cotton thread. Here it is, above, with some of the petals pulled out by hand. Still, it needed more. I made it wet, squeezed it out, uncurled and pulled out all the petals by hand, and laid it out to dry (right).

You may want to steam block your sunflower, depending on the yarn you’re using. If the petals are curling stubbornly, pin them out, like Judith did here.

Center Loopy on top of the Sunflower and sew them together.

I’m looking forward to teaching the “Full of Bullion (Stitch, That Is)” class at the Knit & Crochet Show in Greensboro, North Carolina next week!

We’re going to cover the traditional bullion stitch, which is especially beloved among free-form crocheters. Then we will learn the fabulous double bullion stitch. We’ll use both bullion stitches in edging and motif patterns that I designed especially for this class. Here are a couple of them.

For information on the Knit & Crochet Show, visit http://www.knitandcrochetshow.com.

Here’s a pretty way to organize your pierced-earrings! Embellish a sheet of plastic canvas with crochet trim and crocheted flowers. Sew on a crocheted cord for hanging. Reinforce the top edge of the plastic canvas, so it won’t buckle when you hang it up. Finally, add earrings.

You’ll need:

1. A sheet of plastic canvas, available in the needlework section of craft stores
2. No. 10 crochet cotton in matching and contrasting colors (I used Aunt Lydia’s Classic No. 10 Crochet Cotton in lavender, violet, and shaded yellows for the trim, wasabi for the leaf, lavender, violet, yellow, shaded violets for the pansies)
3. Crochet hook, 2.00mm (size 4 steel U.S.) or size needed to achieve a firm gauge
4. Sewing thread and sewing needle
5. Tapestry needle
6. A crocheted flower or flowers and leaves from Crochet Bouquet, using No. 10 crochet cotton (I made two Plain Pansies and one Spiky Leaf, pages 63-64, 121-122)

Crochet around the edge of the plastic canvas:

Rnd 1: Begin anywhere along the edge of the plastic canvas. Place 1 sc in each mesh square along the sides. In each corner square, (1 sc, 3 ch, 1 sc). Needle join last sc to first sc (find step-by-step photos of needle joining here in photos E, F, and G.)

Rnd 2: Begin a new color in the ch-3 sp at any corner of rnd 1 with ** (sc, ch 3, sc), * sk 1 sc, ch 2, sc in next st; rep from * to within one st of next corner, sk 1 st, rep from ** around, ch 1, needle join to first sc of rnd.

Rnd 3: Begin a new color in the ch-3 sp at any corner of rnd 2 with * (2 hdc, ch 3, sl st in 3rd ch from hook) twice; working along the side, (2 hdc, ch 3, sl st in 3rd ch from hook) in each ch sp to next corner; rep from * around, needle join to first hdc of rnd.

Flowers and Leaves
Crochet desired flowers and leaves for embellishment.

Hanging Cord
Leaving a long tail for sewing, ch 2, sc in 2nd ch from hook, * insert hook into side of sc you just completed, draw up a lp, yo and draw through both lps on hook; rep from * until cord is about 1” (2.5cm) longer than the top edge of the plastic canvas. Fasten off, leaving a long tail for sewing.

Finishing
Weave in ends. Arrange flowers and leaves on plastic canvas. Sew in place with sewing thread, making stitches around the inner rounds of the flower, leaving the outer edges of the flowers free for a more natural look. Make sure you catch the meshes of the plastic canvas as you sew. This sounds silly, but I found this part to be challenging!

Use No. 10 cotton to sew the dowel rod to the top back of the plastic canvas. This keeps it from bowing out when you hang it up.

Sew the Hanging Cord to the top corners of the plastic canvas.

Hang fish-hook style earring from the meshes in the canvas. You can also store stud earrings on the plastic canvas, as long as the earrings don’t fall through the mesh.

(This was originally published at Suzann’s Textilefusion, back when Curious and Crafty Readers was having technical difficulties. It really belongs here, so here it is!)

My cousin Phyllis was paging through Crochet Bouquet, when she saw the Oval Center Rose on pages 28-29. “Is this photographed at an angle, or does it really look like that?” she asked.

Yes, it does! It is photographed straight-on, and it really is oval, like so many of the stylized roses I see on china, tin boxes, and other decorative objects.

The Oval Center Rose is our crochet along project for May. It starts with a round of single crochet (Photo 1). The lovely pink yarn is Universal Yarns Cotton Supreme.

The Rose starts going oval in Round 2 (Photo2), with graduated stitch heights. To give the flower a lighter appearance, this round has ch-spaces between the stitches.

Photo 3 shows the last round of the oval center. The graduated stitch heights make the oval even longer.

Round 4 (Photo 4) sets up the petals of Round 5. The sc-sts between the ch-loops serve as anchor sts for Round 6.

In Photo 5, you see Round 5 finished, except for the final joining ch-st. It is worked around the first sc of Rnd 4 (an anchor st). To do this, take the hook behind your work, insert it under the petal you just finished. Now take the hook in front of the anchor sc, and back to the back under the next petal. Yarn over and draw the loop around the stitch and through the original loop on your hook.

Round 6 is where you add the final ruffly finish, worked in the back loops only. That’s what creates the subtle outline around the stitches of Rnd 5. The first petal is different than the others, so check the instructions.

To keep the petals from melding together on this last round, you ch 2, sl st around the anchor stitch, ch 2, between the petals. Sometimes it’s easier to fold the flower at the anchor stitch, and sl st around it from the back, as in Photo 6. The plum circle surrounds the 2nd petal, and the hook is under the anchor stitch, to which the yellow arrow points.

At the end of Rnd 6, turn the flower to the back. Find the very first anchor stitch with the sl st around it. Insert your hook under the loops of this sl st, yoh, and complete another sl st. In Photo 7, you’re looking at the back of the rose, and the hook is under the loops of the sl st around the first anchor st. All that’s left to do is finish the final sl st, end off, and weave in the ends.

Yes, it’s been an exciting week here at Curious and Crafty Readers.

Rachel at Crochet Spot published an article about the htr (half treble crochet) stitch, which is used in several flower and leaf patterns in Crochet Bouquet.

Thank you to Rachel for her wonderful guest writer program!

Last year I found out that the Spanish language rights to Crochet Bouquet had been bought, but I knew nothing more about it until this week. Marta, a friend on Ravelry, told me that she bought the Spanish edition of Crochet Bouquet. She embellished a lovely scarf with one of the flowers from the book.

Luckily the Spanish title had two “O”s, which were represented by flowers, just like in the American edition. Muy bien!

Thank you very much to all you lovely people who have bought Crochet Bouquet! This free pattern is especially for you.

Fancy Pansy
Copyright 2011 by Suzann Thompson

You can use any yarn to make the Fancy Pansy. It is shown here in three colors, but it looks good with just two colors, where you use a dark color A, and a lighter color for B and C.

For the step-by-step sample shown here, I used Dale of Norway Baby Ull (A) color navy #5755; (B) color yellow #2106; (C) color blue #5726.
Using a 3.50mm (size E-4 U.S.) hook, my finished measurement for the Fancy Pansy was about 3 1/2″ (8.7 cm)

Worked in medium weight yarn (4), such as Cascade 220, with a firm gauge, a Fancy Pansy measures about: 5 1/4″ (13.4 cm) from top to bottom.

Picot = ch 3, sc in 3rd ch fr hook.

Htr = half treble crochet = yo twice, insert hook into st, yo and pull up a loop (4 loops on hook). Yo and pull through 2 loops (3 loops on hook). Yo and pull through remaing loops.

This pattern is worked sometimes in Rows and sometimes in Rounds.

With A, ch 5, sl st into first st to form a ring.

Row 1: working into ring, sc, ch 3, sc, ch 2, place marker in ring, hdc, place marker in ring, ch 2, sc, ch 3, sc, ch 1, turn.

The markers are to show you where to place two sts in Rnd 4. They are a nuisance, so if you can remember that the marked spots are on each side of the hdc in Row 1, you can dispense with the markers.

Rnd 2, first petal: In the ch3-loop (sc, hdc, 3 dc, hdc, sc), sc into original ring (this forms an anchor-st for Rnd 3; place marker if desired).

Rnd 2, middle petal: in ch2-loop (sc, hdc, dc, htr, dc), hdc into next st. In next ch2-loop, (dc, htr, dc, hdc, sc). Sc into original ring (this forms an anchor-st for Rnd 3, place marker if desired).

Rnd 2, third petal: in the ch3-loop (sc, hdc, 3 dc, hdc, sc), ch 1, sl st into sc from row below. 3 sc into ring. Do not turn.

Photos 1 and 2 show the Fancy Pansy after Rnd 2, with and without the markers. The rest of the photos show the flower without the markers, because they are distracting.

Rnd 3, first petal: Working in front loop only, 2 sc, picot, sk 1, sc, (picot, sc in next st) twice, ch 1, sc around stem of anchor-st from Rnd 2.

Rnd 3, middle petal: Working in front loop only, ch 1, sk 1, (sc in next st, picot) 3 times, sl st in each of next 3 sts, (picot, sc in next st) 3 times. Sc around post of anchor-st from Rnd 2. (Photo 3 shows the flower worked to this point.)

Rnd 3, third petal: Working in front loop only, ch 1, sk 1 st, (sc in next st, picot) 3 times, sk 1, 2 sc, sl st. End off A. (Photo 4 shows the Fancy Pansy with Rnd 3 finished.)

In Rnd 3, you worked in the front loops only of Rnd 2. In this round, work in the back loops of Rnd 2. If it helps, bend the picots and sts of Rnd 3 forward, so you can see the back loops of Rnd 2 better.

Rnd 4, first petal: Join petal color B with a sc in the back loop of the first sc of Rnd 2. Continuing to work in the back loops of the sts of Rnd 2, 2 sc, (sc, hdc, dc) all in next st, (2 htr, dc) in next st, hdc, sc, insert hook into the anchor-st two rounds below and sc in this st.

Rnd 4, middle petal: Continuing to work in the back loops of the sts of Rnd 2, 2 sc, (sc, hdc, dc) all in next st, (3 htr) in next st, dc, hdc, dc, (3 htr) into next st, (dc, hdc, sc) in next st, 2 sc. Insert hook into the anchor-st two rounds below and make one sc in this st.

Rnd 4, third petal: Continuing to work in the back loops of the sts of Rnd 2, sc, hdc, (dc, 2 htr) in next st, (dc, hdc, sc) in next st, 3 sc. Fold petals forward, so you can see the back of the piece. Find the markers placed in Row 1. ( If you have not placed markers, look for the sts of the original ring, on each side of the hdc of Rnd 1.) Trc into original ring at the nearest marker (or nearest space next to hdc of Rnd 1), trc into original ring at the next marker (or space on the other side of hdc).

Photo 5 shows Rnd 4, complete, from the right side. Photo 6 shows Rnd 4, complete, from the back. The long sts are the trc sts which were worked into the original chain-ring.

Rnd 5, first petal: Beginning in the first st of Rnd 4, sl st 3, sc, picot, sk 1, sc, picot, (hdc, picot) twice, 2 sc, sl st, sk the long sc between petals.

Rnd 5, middle petal: sk the first st of this petal, sl st in next st, 2 sc, picot, sc, (picot, hdc) twice, picot, sk 1, sc, sk 1, sc, picot, sk 1, (hdc, picot) twice, sc, picot, 2 sc, sl st, sk the last st of this petal, sk the long sc between petals.

Rnd 5, third petal: sl st in next st, 2 sc, (picot, hdc) twice, picot, sc, picot, sk 1, sc, sl st 3. End off B. (Photo 7 shows Rnd 5, completed.)

Row 6: Join top-petal color C with sc in first trc-st from Rnd 4, (ch 2, sc) into same st, (sc, ch 2, sc) in next trc-st from Rnd 4. Ch 3, turn. (Photo 7 shows Row 6 just before the turning chain.)

Row 7: In ch2-loop, (hdc, ch 1, dc, ch 1, dc, ch 1, hdc, ch 3, sl st). Ch 2, which will separate the two top petals.

In next ch2-loop, (sl st, ch 3, hdc, ch 1, dc, ch 1, dc, ch 1, hdc, ch 1, hdc). Ch 2, turn. (See Photo 9.)

Row 8: Dc in 1st ch-space, (3 dc) in each of next three ch-spaces, (2 dc, ch 2, sl st) all in ch3-loop. Ch 3, skip ch2-loop between the petals.

For second petal, (sl st, ch 2, 2 dc) all in next ch3-loop, (3 dc) in each of next three ch-spaces, (dc, hdc) in last ch-space. Ch 3, turn.

Row 9: (picot, dc in next st) 3 times, (picot, trc in next st) 5 times, (picot, dc in next st) 4 times, ch 2, sl st in ch2-loop, ch 4.

Row 9, second petal: sl st in ch2-loop, ch 2, (dc in next st, picot) 4 times, (trc in next st, picot) five times, (dc in next st, picot) 4 times, ch 3, sl st in ch-loop. End off.

Use the yarn ends of C to tack the top petals in place on the back of the flower. Line up the outermost picot of each top petal with the lowest picot on the side petals, as in Photo 10.

In the photo below, the Fancy Pansy at the left is made from leftover yarns in my collection. They were all different brands, but very similar in weight. The right-hand Fancy Pansy was made from Cascade 220, then felted in the washing machine.

When I wrote Crochet Bouquet and my first book, Polymer Clay for Everyone, I wondered about my readers’ favorite colors. Would they like bright colors? Pastels? Dark colors? Browns and tans? Metallics?

The answer seemed to be YES. Think of any color, and somebody, somewhere, will love it. To please all the somebodies, everywhere, I set out to include a wide variety of colors and color combinations in my books.

The plan worked well for Polymer Clay for Everyone. The cover shows bright projects, but inside the book, every one of the color groups I mentioned (and more) is represented in the many different projects. By “and more” I mean glow-in-the-dark. My scary, bloodshot, glow-in-the-dark eye ball necklaces were brilliantly captured by photographer David Sherwin.

With Crochet Bouquet, I ran into a snag. Early in its childhood, the Art Department at Lark Crafts decided that Crochet Bouquet’s “look” would be bright and happy, with crisp white paper and designs with bright garden colors. And of course, it’s beautiful. I’m glad they chose the bright, happy look.

I did crochet some designs in browns, metallics, and darker colors. I feel a little sad for those pretty designs, not being included in the book. So here they are. This is their moment to shine. I hope you like them.

These brown and cream flowers are called “Triple-Crowned.” You may recognize the petals as Trimmed and Picot Off-Center Rounds from pages 27-28 of Crochet Bouquet. They’re sewn to a 15-dc circle and then the “crown” is added.

I made these with luxurious Crystal Palace Yarns: Party, Popcorn, and Cotton Chenille (the red/orange crown on one of the flowers). The feathers were from my parents’ guinea fowl. One Triple-Crowned is embellished with Mill Hill bugle beads.

The Stacked Flower is made with Loopy (pages 57-58 of Crochet Bouquet) and the Large Star Flower (page 92). The other flower in the stack didn’t make it into the book.

The large specimen was crocheted with Plymouth Yarns Alpaca Boucle and decorated with feathers from the craft store. The small flower is made with Coats Aunt Lydia’s Fashion Crochet Thread, size 5 (metallic). The medium sized Stacked Flower is Louet Euroflax Sport in brown, black, cedarwood, and green.

Would you like me to post the instructions for Triple-Crowned and the Stacked Flower? (You’ll still need Crochet Bouquet to make Loopy, the Large Star Flower, and Off Center Ovals).

(Polymer Clay for Everyone is out of print, but you can usually find it online. It was published in England under the title The Polymer Clay Sourcebook. Same contents, different cover. Oh, and also in France! Same contents, different language.)