Flowers everywhere!

Spring has really taken hold on me!  This weekend (another beautifully sunny one), I cleared a little space in the greenhouse and started sowing seeds.  I must confess that I didn't clear the greenhouse out completely - just enough space for me to stand and to work.  Got to leave a little job for another weekend, yes?

I found these shallow pots to do the initial sowing of some snapdragons and rudbeckias.  They'll get individual little pots later, when they've germinated and are big enough to handle.

 These are the rest of this weekend's sowings - they don't look much like this...

 ... but this is going to be the end result, hopefully.  Sunflowers (short, multi-headed ones), stocks, begonias (seeds like dust!), ageratum, rudbeckias, sweet peas and snapdragons.  I have to keep these lovely pictures in mind while the seeds are germinating, because nothing's happening right now.  (Only sowed them yesterday, of course nothing's happening yet.  Even though I keep going to look...)

 In the meantime, pretty gardening gloves.  I'm not really a pink and white girl, but these are light enough for me to feel what I'm doing and waterproof enough to keep my hands clean.

 This is what I'm planning to plant the seedlings into when they sprout.  They're cardboard pots that can be planted out as they are, and rot in the soil without disturbing the plants.  Once I'd bought them, I remembered you can do the same thing with eggboxes, so I've saved some of those too.

 The seed trays are on the shelves in the extension, soaking up the light from the Velux window.  My little crochet hanging birds are watching over them.  No eating the seeds, birdies!

 So if my seeds aren't flowering yet, I can still have flowers!  I'm trying to choose light summer colours for these flower brooches, and I've used some slowly variegating yarns, so that each layer is different without changing the yarn.  I've borrowed a pattern from Lucy of Attic 24 for this bit - her beautiful Triple Layer Flower pattern - and then I add fabric, ribbons, beads and buttons to make them all unique.  Many thanks to Lucy for sharing her patterns!

And even more flowers, using the granny flower pattern this time.  These are for some bunting.  I have lots of different colours of Paton's 4 ply 100% Cotton, and I'm planning to make a few flowers in each of those colours, before mixing them up to make bright strings of flower bunting with randomly mixed colours.  I'm not very good at 'random', so that might be a bit of a challenge.  Maybe throwing them all in the air and seeing how they land will work for that...

New Stuff

Some new items on my shop today.

A pretty little pincushion.

Some bunting.  These colours remind me of seventies shades.

A little handbag, decorated with crochet flowers and beads, with ribbon threaded through the handles.

 And some relistings - colourful hearts decorated with ribbons, buttons and sequins.

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Flower Power

I got a book out of the library recently about crochet blocks.  Who doesn't like crochet blocks?  Trouble was, everything I tried needed altering one way or another because the patterns just didn't work.  Whether that was down to me getting something wrong, or the pattern being written wrong, I don't know.  However, I made my alterations and wrote the pattern down the way it worked for me.

Both of these blocks are lovely flower patterns, and really versatile.  Decorations on a top, bag or skirt?  Tick.  Coaster?  Tick.  Flower garlands?  Tick!  The eight-petalled flower could even be joined together as a  throw or shawl.  I've worked them in Paton's 100% Cotton 4 ply with a 3.00 mm hook, and it works perfectly.

Patterns here!  I hope they work.  Any problems, let me know.

Granny flower

• Ch 5, join with sl st to form ring
• Ch 2 (counts as tr), 2trtog (1st cluster worked), ch 2, (1 tr cl into next ch sp, 2 ch) 7 times to end, join with sl st to top of Ch 2
• Sl st into 1st ch sp, ch 3, 2 tr into same sp, ch 1, (3 tr, 1 ch) into each ch sp to end, join with sl st to top of Ch 3
• Sl st into next 3 sts and ch sp, ch 3 (counts as tr), 2tr, ch 1, 3 tr into same ch sp, (3 tr, 1 ch, 3 tr) into each ch sp to end, join with sl st to top of Ch 3
• (7 tr in next ch sp, sk 3 tr, sl st between sts) in each ch sp to end, join with sl st to last sl st of previous round
• Fasten off.

Lacy Flower

* Ch 3, join with sl st to form ring
* Ch 3 (counts as tr), 10 tr into ring, join with sl st into ch3 - 11 st
* Ch 3 (counts as tr), 1 tr into same st, 2 tr into each st to end - 22 st
* Ch 4 (counts as tr & ch), tr into next st, 1 ch, (tr into next st, 1 ch) to end, join with sl st - 44 st
* Ch 3 (counts as tr), 2 tr into next ch sp, 1 tr into next st, (2 tr into next ch sp, 1 tr into next st) to end BUT lose 2 st on round by only working 1 tr instead of 2 in 2 ch sp - 64 st
* Sk 3, (7 tr into next st, sk 3, sl st into next st) to end, join with sl st
* Fasten off.

Here are some flower garlands I made with these patterns.

All these will be going on my Folksy shop later on, when I've got them measured up.

I've also started a new cushion cover, in  my ongoing bid to brighten up our living room.  I made a cover for the chair in the extension, from a pattern in Inside Crochet Issue 36.

It worked really well with that Rowan Lenpur Linen yarn I had, and the colours match the scheme there really well.  I had an idea, though, that if I took the central two squares and used them as blocks, then I could build an interesting fabric from that, so here's the start of that project.

One block...

Five blocks...

Each block seems to be a little less than 10 cm, so 16 blocks and an edging should make one side of a 40 cm cushion cover.  That's the current plan, anyway.  We'll see how it works out.

On to measuring bunting!

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