Pretty Flowers Ta-Dah!

My week off is going just as I had hoped, lazily and with plenty of crochet. It was very important to me to actually get something done this week, thought out, started and finished and not just half way there before I run out of time/enthusiasm. 

That's how far I had got on Monday when I last told you about this picture I have been making. By Monday evening I had all the other stems and leaves made and had everything pinned out nicely on my blocking mat and given a generous application of PVA glue to stiffen it.

I still had the problem of sticking it to the canvas, I have never used a glue gun but I was sure that was the way to go, so the next day I took myself off to the shops to buy one. It’s brilliant! Not sure how I have made do without one before, everything was quickly stuck down and I am so pleased with it!

I’ve tried various places around the bedroom to put it and for now it is on an old mirror hook brightening up a boring alcove. It was so much fun to make and I love using this cotton. I still have lots of it left to play with, which is what I am going to do right now :)

XXX

Pretty Flowers

Last week I found myself needing a quick project to make for a friend’s birthday and as they are so pretty I turned to Lucy at Attic24’s Happy Flower pattern. I love these flowers so much; they are one of my go-to things when I want to make something girly and pretty. I’m sure they aren’t everyone’s cup of tea but I adore the bright colours and cheerfulness of them.

 

I’ve made quite a few of these before but never got around to making one for myself. To be honest I’m not exactly sure where I would put one if I did make one for me; every hook or likely hanging place already has something hanging from it. 

 

So I got my thinking cap on and rooted out an old canvas and started hooking up some flowers to stick on it, hoping I would be able to get a similar effect to the full hanging Happy Flower decoration.

Three of the large flowers from Lucy’s pattern and then a couple of cobbled together smaller versions of my own doing, fill the space quite nicely.  But they do look a bit like small mandalas on the canvas and not much like the original.

My favourite part of the Happy Flowers is the stem and leaves, I like the shape and the way they are made, so I made a less complicated stem for one of my flowers to see if that would work.

Nice but needs blocking! Well, not the heavy duty pinning and PVA gluing blocking they will eventually all get, but a press with the iron and a quick tidy up of all the ends that need sewing in, it makes a huge difference.

I do like that stem and those leaves, similar to the original but less busy as I am going to need a few more of them for this canvas. I can’t get this finished just yet as I need to paint the canvas first, at some point it has had tea splattered on it (oops) so I am going to give it a quick coat of white before sticking these flowers down. How I am going to stick them, I’m not quite sure - would super glue work? It is times like this I wish I had a hot glue gun, maybe something to think about investing in.

I am thoroughly enjoying this little half-term project, bright, cheerful and I have just the place to put it when it’s all done :)

XXX