Easter is over and the work is still slow.
Plenty of web cruising happening and ebbs and flows of creativity. Problem with that is then I really wish for a group of children to try out the idea with. Latest one had been with french knitting. I have always loved teaching my classes the age old tradition of spool knitting (also known as corking, french knitting) using a cardboard tube and 4 icy-pole sticks. Then I always have the dilemma of what to do with the metres and metres of cord created. A link to a site provided one answer – flowers. Noreen Crowe-Findlay has some very easy to follow instructions on how to create a flower bookmark using a fine piece of spool knitting. A little thinking and the larger pot version is created.
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| From Corking |
In my head I keep thinking that this would be a nice Mother’s Day Present or just a great display along the top of a cupboard or windowsill. The flower has a skewer poked through the middle of the stem and the pot is filled with scrunched up newspaper which can have skewers poked into it. The pot could simply be a milk carton creatively decorated. If it was too light and in danger of tipping over a little bit of weight could be added under the scrunched up newspaper. Of course there will still be children who want to make a piece of spool knitting long enough to wrap around a building or two.
Previously I have shown a class how to use a spool with about 16 nails to create a beanie for a pompom critter. This was for an idea I used about interpreting a 2D picture into a 3D model.
Wool craft has alway been a favourite of mine and is a great way of keeping little hands busy and nimble.
What a great idea!! We usually save ours as woolly tinsel at the end of the year. A bit of woolly topiary may be in order-thinking long pipe cleaners threaded in the middle and shape away 🙂
Thanks for looking through my older posts. Unfortunately the link to the bookmark that inspired the flowers no longer works. That is one of the downsides of the internet. I developed a cardboard template that the flowers were wound around and then we stitched around the petals to hold it all together. Hard to explain in writing. After I wrote this post I did indeed get the opportunity to have a class make a pot of flowers for Mother’s Day and there was an interesting reaction to them from the mothers of the class. Some thought they were wonderful, others thought they were atrocious and then everything in between. I remember it being good fun. We designed a card that looked like a seed packet with appropriate Mother’s Day wording to go with the potted flowers.