I'm going to talk about both the how-to of these two types of flowers with the two techniques, but then I am also going to talk openly and honestly about the long process itself. The repetition for the crochet flowers in particular became almost unbearable! I am actually writing this entry post-wedding, because that's how many months it took me from start and completion of all 51 crochet flowers. Was it worth it, was it enjoyable, would I do it again, hmmm... Yeah of course, it's my wedding, it is special, especially the planning and preparation... that's special alright!
I'm really glad that we started getting so stuck into the organising and planning as soon s we'd decided what we were going to do, France, or England, and once the venue and date was secured we really started making and buying. And thank goodness we did. The crochet flower idea came to me quite early on in the process. To put this into context, we decided in January/February 2017 that we would have the big wedding celebration at Crewe Hall on September 2nd 2017, this gave us around 8 months to get everything ready. I had found the crochet flowers on pinterest around feb/march and located suitable yarn in my stash AND even made one or two immediately. I thought that with a piece of ribbon they'd look pretty as napkin ties. (In the end they were kind of placed on top of the napkin with the lace dangling from the table, it looked very pretty, if I find a photo I will insert it). The other 50 or 49 I did in the month leading up to the wedding.
I promise, I didn't want to procrastinate because there are definitely worse, more tedious tasks to do other than crocheting, that's nice really. No not really when you know how many of something you have to do. I tried alternative arrangements to see if I could reinvent the process from time to time, not really. I couldn't feel a difference between completing the petals and leaves and lace ribbon all in one sitting to have at least one finished product OR crochet more like a production line, a solo production line. All the petals, All the leaves, All the lace, All the construction. Either way it just became so repetitive and I can't really decide why I disliked this so much, because I have never regretted this idea because yes, to answer the question earlier, it was worth it, but I didn't enjoy the process. I couldn't get into a particularly mindful state with this project, nor did it give me much satisfaction to see the finished product because what I really wanted to see was them in situe. That was pleasing.
I don't usually complain about a crochet project in this way, and I don't think it was necessarily a case of repetition in numbers only, because we had to make 51+ of lots of things. The difference is those other things had slight differences, ie in colour, name, difference in materials available, and I could share the making with other things. The more or less identical nature of the crochet flower task perhaps made the project less and less special? I don't know. Maybe it's because things like nampe places were more personalised, and these were not. I don't really think that's why I'm just clutching at straws here!
Here's another possible reason, I'm used to crocheting one off things, usually, things that can be commissioned, or made using my own pattern. Nothing that can necessairly can be compared to original from the pattern that the other person made...and 51 fold! One pet peeve, wait for the pun, was that my black cat's hairs, Lola, kept finding their way into the box where I was keeping the crochet, and usually not such a terrible thing as my commisssion projects are usually for people that would understand, but these were to put on a table, near your food, where people eat. I don't think cat hairs are so appropriate at the dinner table in a posh stately home. meow
Crochet instructions for the flower petals, then leaf base. If you did want to create something similar to mine then I would definitely go for lace ribbon, you'd be doing yourself a favour. My iintension was for these crochet 'napkin ties' to be multi functional and go on people's wrists, like a corsage accessory, and that's what people did at our wedding, off their own accord. Smart guests ;) Anyway, I would recommend the lace ribbon because it already has little holes in the thread the ends of the yarn for both the petal and leaves, once you start trying to cut into satin ribbon it will look untidy and may fray. The lacey type ribbon has holes that you can then sew the ends of the yarn to disguise it and make it neat underneath.
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| Source: https://www.duitang.com/blog/?id=208141062 |
I preferred much more this crohect below. It was a new technique, again found on pinterest. I wanted to make a garland for the table that would hold cards, gifts, guest book.... It turned out really pretty, and again if I manage to get hold of a photo I will insert it here. As a piece of advice for this technique, I would recommend using pins with beads on the end, because as the twine builds up when you wrap the twine maybe three full times around the circle, the twin can pop off the pins. The larger headed pins can help prevent this. Although it looks like my pins a=have been pushed into the card too far compared to the photos from pinterest, this was because after I had made a few the pins had wriggled a larger hole for themselves in the cardboard and they just fell further to the centre. You could pop a bit of superglue where the pin enters the cardboard to stop it falling to far in, I chose not to because I wanted to keep my pins for future wedding related tasks because of that wedding appropriate white bead on them.
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| Source: https://www.modernwedding.com.au/diy-twine-flowers/ |
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| Source: https://www.modernwedding.com.au/diy-twine-flowers/ |
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