Knitting - The bridal bouquet

I have been completely overwhelmed by the response to my bridal bouquet on my Granny's World page on Facebook.  I shared it among some of the knitting groups I belong to on there and it has gone crazy.

I have been asked to share how I made it, so here we go.

Rachel had wanted a knitted bouquet and spent ages on Pinterest until she found the inspiration for her bouquet.  Unfortunately, I don't crochet but thought that I could do it justice with knitted flowers using the same principle.

I did actually learn to do some simple crocheted flower using a tutorial on Attic24's website - Lucy makes it very easy.  Most of the flowers were made using free patterns found on the net or on Ravelry, there are so many out there, just chose what you fancy.

So how did I do it?

We firstly went to Hobbycraft and purchased a foam ball and a cone in a size that Rachel felt fitted her hand ok. We cut the foam ball in half using a bread knife.  This is a bit messy as all the little bit flake out.  I sprayed the cut side with a touch of glue just to stop the mess.  I then covered the half ball and cone in lace, using hot glue to fix (tip here - the glue showed through the lace on the cone join so you may want to rethink this.  I did solve the issue, more on that later).  Using a couple of wooden kebab skewers I poked these down the cone leaving enough to fit the half ball onto the cone without poking through the top.  Then hot glue gunned them together.

Once set, I then went on to make my flowers. This was the fun bit, no yarn was purchased just all oddments from my stash.  I'm not sure how many I made, but vary the sizes for variety.  I also made an assortment of leaves too.  With all the flowers and leaves ready I turn my thoughts to how I would fix them on.  Maize used pearl headed pins but the only ones I could find seemed a bit on the small side.  Problem solved, we popped over to Spoiled Rotten Beads and saw Lynne (a former colleague) and she helped us decide what we needed.  We used Swarovski pearl beads in 8mm and 6mm sizes and these were mounted on flat headed pins (0.7mm x 50mm).  The only criticism of these were they were a touch soft and did bend a bit but otherwise did the job.

I can't tell you how many times I repositioned the flowers! I had the base sat in a vase which kept it stable until I was happy.  I then pinned (using normal pins) the leaves to the underside of the ball to make the base look tidy.

Now onto the glue issue on the cone, it was driving me crazy, I knew you couldn't see it once it was held but it stuck out like a sore thumb.  I then hit on the idea of pinning wide ivory ribbon around the cone pushing the pins in really well and overlapping the ribbon to cover them, then finishing off the a ribbon bow.  I then stood and gave the whole thing a vigorous shake to make sure nothing fell off - nothing did... phew!

So there you have it one beautiful (if I say so myself) colourful, unique bouquet which cost at most £15.00 and she gets to keep it forever.

photo by Claire Taylor

If you go on to make one be sure to share on my Granny's World Page please. For more about the wedding check out here