Saturday, July 26, 2014

SFS #7 + A FC Forget-Me-Not Bouquet!


Wowzers, it's so unusually hot here this summer and I'm really feeling the heat! Don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining; I know a lot of people are loving this heatwave. But I usually stitch with everything spread out across my lap and piled up on every nearby available surface, so it's just been too much to manage for me. Thankfully, fine crochet has come to my rescue; it just needs a hook and some thread :)

Thanks to the wonderful comments on my last post about the Vintage Needle Arts Sampler, I have decided to make my own littler sampler of samples :) But instead of planning everything out right away I'm going to start making some things and hope they all come together at the end! This will be a great chance to use some of my most Special Stash, and to try some new techniques ;) Like this pretty fine crochet posy:


It's my own Variation on this lovely FREE Violets Pin by Maggie Petsch for Kreinik:


The original uses strands of the super sparkly Kreinik Blending Filament crocheted together with the cotton, which is an interesting idea and would be great for special occasions. It's a very adaptable pattern and is fairly easy to stitch, the tricky part was figuring out the assembly! It's also a little large for a brooch but cute as an ornament:


I really love the backing doily, the little loops were fun to do and add a lot of detail :) To make the Violets into Forget-Me-Nots, I just made the first round yellow and used a Magic Circle so the stitches would pull more tightly together. The Violets had four small petals and one large, so I made all five of mine the same size. I also shortened the stems a little so they wouldn't trail over the bottom edge, and added the little white crocheted bow in place of the ribbon, which took some finangling LOL!

The biggest change I made is actually one you can't really see. The flowers and stems were supposed to be stitched directly to the middle of the doily, but all the tacking and darning stitches from the coloured threads would show up on the white back. Since this will be an applique of sorts, the back won't be seen, but I wanted to see if the pattern would work as an ornament too. So I made a false front simply by repeating the first three rounds of the doily and stitched everything to that!

And as I was joining the two pieces, I noticed that the false front and doily back formed a little pocket, so I added a bit of fibrefill stuffing and the posy just came to life! All the flowers mounded up like a real bouquet, the stems flared out and the ribbon bow stood out more! You can see the effect more on the back here:


And from the side you can see how the flowers (I made seven in all) layer together:


I'm so pleased with how this turned out! I think it's a wonderful start to the Sampler of Samples (I really have to come up with a better name, but we'll call it that for now LOL). And it can easily be changed to other flowers; add a sixth petal and work them in pink and you have Cosmos, with white you'd have Daisies.


Forget-Me-Nots are a humble little flower and often overlooked, but I have always loved them for their cheerful look and the wonderful sentiment. They also seem to me to be very determined; we've been very fortunate to have a few growing wild on the lawn every year, and I've even seen them pop up in sidewalk cracks :)

My SFS Total for Month #7, July:

I'm happy to report that for only the second time ever (the first being March) my total is $0.00! That leaves the Monthly Budget of $25 free, adding up to the grand sum of $97.03 in my Bank. I'm hopeful that I'll hit the $100 saved mark next month, which will be encouraging to see even though it's all imaginary money LOL!

Wonderful News: Mel, the Host of Stitch From Stash (SFS), has just had her blog Epic Stitching chosen for a magazine feature and she's having a Great Giveaway for her Followers to celebrate!!! Congratulations Mel - well deserved :) (Disclosure - sharing the news does give me an extra entry, but I'd share the news anyway!)

UPDATE: The Giveaway has now been drawn :) Congratulations to the Winners!

4 comments:

Blu said...

Oh wow. Your crochet ornie is so cute!

Karen said...

I've heard there have been some record setting temperatures in Newfoundland over the last few days. I can't even imagine 40+ temps. EWWWWW!

Your little forget-me-nots are adorable! It will be a beautiful addition to your sampler of samples. :)

Aurelia Eglantine said...

Thank you both for the lovely comments! I was definitely trying for cute this time around and am very happy that it worked out :)

@ Karen: Yeah, now I'm officially complaining LOL! This is getting ridiculous. It was the hottest July since records were first kept way back in the 1800s. And it's so humid! Argh. Super EWWWWW LOL ;)

Shebafudge said...

WOW! That is adorable. It's amazing how versatile crochet can be. Congrats on such a wonderful finish. xx