Crochet Poppy

Yesterday I went with my son and daughter to see the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red poppy installation at the Tower of London.

This wonderful work by artist Paul Cummins is to remember the sacrifice made by British and Commonwealth soldiers in the First World War. It was a very poignant yet remarkable sight and I feel very lucky to have been able to see it.
Today whilst contemplating our visit yesterday I decided to have a go at making a crochet poppy. I have donated as usual to the British Legion Poppy Appeal but the little paper poppies don't tend to look good for long. I have looked at many poppy patterns over the years but never found one completely to my liking so  thought I would try and make my own!

To make this pattern you will need a knowledge of the following stitches:

Double crochet
Half Treble crochet
Treble crochet
Double Treble crochet

You will need a small amount of red and green yarn (I used Stylecraft lipstick and willow), 4mm crochet hook, scissors, a tapestry needle, black button and a brooch back.

First make a magic circle and do 10 dc, ss to join.
1ch 1dc into same space then 2dc into each stitch (20dc) ss to join

3ch 1dtc into same space, 1dtc, 2 dtc repeat x 4, 3 ch, ss into next stitch and ch 3.

That's your first petal shape and you continue the pattern for the second petal. So starting with the last chain 3 you will do a dtc in the same space then 1dtc, 2 dtc repeat x 4 and ch3.
Each petal has a ch3, 13 dtc, ch3,
Hope you can follow this as I am not a pattern writer!
Leave a good length of yarn for sewing up later.

Make a second one of these to form your poppy.
Now for the leaf.
Ch 10, 1dc into 1st stitch from hook then 1htc, 1tc, 3dtc, 1tc, 1htc, 1dc, 1ch then continue up the opposite side repeating this pattern and finish with a ss into first dc.

Sew on the button first then add one flower petal onto the other at different angles.

Sew on the leaf. Now traditionally the leaf should be in the 11 o clock position so you may want to keep this in mind when placing your leaf.

Add the brooch back


And there you have it!

Different buttons alter the look...

Don't forget to still donate to the British Legion while wearing your super handmade poppy!

xxx Eirawen

The Big Bang Theory Blanket Part 2

Ok so having chosen the colours which I think I can see in the blanket and ordered more black for joining I am ready to begin. If you haven't seen part1 it is here.  Just a recap on the colours:

I am going to use Stylecraft willow, parchment, lemon, aster, pale rose, gold, wisteria, lipstick, plum and black.

Looking at  my pattern I worked out that I needed 18 squares in plum and lipstick and 18 squares in  lipstick and plum for the triangle patterns on the blanket and 8 squares in parchment and black for the corners. They are the definite elements you see in the picture of the blanket.

143 granny squares later...

This was not as difficult as I anticipated as once I started laying the squares the pattern seemed to form by itself... I did not in the end follow my grid pattern to the letter.

After all the squares were carefully picked up in the order they would be joined the fun begins!
( The 'post it's' have the number of the rows on.)

I used the join as you go method and it took an hour for each row of 11 squares!

Half way!

Approx 40 hours of work and 12 balls of Stylecraft later I had a blanket 110x130cms which I am very pleased with.

The border is 5 rows of tr (granny stitch), 3 rows of tr (granny stitch) in black, 1 row in lemon and last row in black.

This blanket is as close as I could get to the original. I have tried to incorporate the pattern elements, style and colours I could see but it could never be identical. I also made it smaller in size as that size blanket Sheldon is under was quite a daunting prospect on top of trying to replicate something that did not have clear pictures.







 xxx Eirawen