Extreme Knitting Redhead: Crocheting an abundance of flowers (not forgetting the running!)

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Crocheting an abundance of flowers (not forgetting the running!)

Having had a winter of knitting, I'm in the mood for crochet!

I have 1 big crochet project and 1 big knitting project in mind that involve using up my collection of Rowan Summer Tweed. This is a lovely, tweedy, nobbly yarn made with a mix of cotton and silk. I already had lots of odd skeins left over from various projects and I've been adding to them by buying up bits and bobs on ebay.

I was inspired by Kaffe Fassett's Madras Blocks throw to create 2 summer blankets, one knitted and one crocheted. I'm not using his pattern, it was his vibrant colour combinations that inspired me and set me thinking.

Being nobbly, the yarn isn't ideal for crochet but I just love the flecks of colour that run through it and blend so well so I'm paying no attention to the rules of crochet which state that you should use a more free-flowing yarn!

As a taster project I've decided to make a cushion cover of flower motifs to get used to using the yarn and find what works best.

I am taking the colours from the fabric of our dining room curtains and blinds to create a series of crochet flowers and leaves in various sizes.

These 2 flowers came from the wonderful book shown below.

It really is a treasure trove of beautiful flowers and leaves to knit or crochet.

In the book they look incredibly realistic due to the colours used.

But I'm not looking for realism and so I've just chosen a couple of flowers with a pleasing shape and created them in colour combinations that I like and which tone with the curtain fabric.

Plus, as the yarn I'm using is aran weight and the patterns are for 4ply or dk the flowers are much larger than in the book. These 2 each measure about 10cms across.

Then I had a bit of fun making up my own simple patterns.

That's the joy of crochet as you can create a wonderful selection of things using just a few basic stitches - these are made using just chain, double crochet, 1/2 treble, treble and double treble.

I had fun just piling them up on a cushion to see how they look together.

The next few evenings will be spent trying out new shapes and colour combos which I find very exciting.

Then all I have to do is decide how I want to join them together. I know I don't want a flat effect, joined using a chain mesh, so will probably pile them on top of eachother and then embelish them with more crochet trim or beads. The only limit will be my own imagination. I like that.

No running today but my second 20 miler tomorrow. The weather forecast is better than last week when it poured with rain and blew a gale for the whole 4 hours!

I'm planning to run my most challenging route this time which consists of nothing but hills. It will give me a good idea how my training is going.

1 comment:

Erin Kate said...: Beautiful flowers! I once had ambitions to crochet 100 flowers over the course of the year, but it didn't end up happening.; March 10, 2012 at 6:47:00 PM PST

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Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.