I created some crochet art for members of my family this Christmas and I can now finally show it off after they’ve all received their gifts.

First off, for my sister I created a branch of cherry blossom, with some embroidery to create the branch:

Mum had some Japanese Anemones, again with some embroidery for the stems:

For my Dad, I made some Wood Anemones and a fern, giving a woodland feel:

And finally some vibrant blue Pansies for my uncle. Not sure if they really come in quite this shade of blue, bit they’re still pretty if not entirely realistic.

I took quite a while experimenting with different flowers, using different patterns and making things up as I went along.

Once I’d reached the point where I’d found a collection of flowers that I was happy with I began considering how I’d lay them out and whether some embroidery was needed to complete the picture.

With the cherry blossoms I went for an embroidered branch and leaves. The Japanese Anemones also had embroidered stalks but their leaves were crocheted. I would have liked to create accurate leaves to match the real plants but they were tricky so I went with simple leaves for the most part. The fern was fun to make, if a bit fiddly, but it needed to be pinned out and blocked to give it a good shape. I decided to add an embroidered vein line down the middle of the fern fronds to keep them laying nicely. When I did the Pansies I managed to give them relatively realistic leaves and decided that they didn’t need any extra embroidery, so they’re entirely crochet.

It was at times frustrating when I was trying to make realistic flowers and one of the things that helped was using a smaller hook. I also did a lot of experiments and I think that was very important. If I’d tried to use my first attempts they would have looked pretty rubbish!

So there we are, some crochet art that my family have appreciated and I have enjoyed making 🙂