It's Garden Time!

Now that the threat of frost has 'officially' passed in my area, it's time to get down to some gardening.  I love the look of flowers, and each spring spend hours cleaning out my overgrown front garden, putting down fresh dirt and planting flowers.  Then over the summer, I spend more time trying to keep up with the weeds that slowly but surely get ahead of me and finally I give up and let them have their way.  And then start the cycle again the next spring.  I am debating just filling it all in with decorative stone or mulch and plopping a couple of planters with annuals down.

With crochet, you can have flowers year round, whether you choose to create a life-like flower, or one from some corner of your imagination, and they never require weeding, feeding or watering.  And no dirt in the pot for Spot or Kitty to knock over and track through the house.

A few examples of these easy to care for flowers--click on the picture to see the Etsy listing, or click on the name beside to see the seller's shop.  Links should open in a new window.

The rose at left is actually a brooch and can be found in LeChatCrochet's shop.











Flowers can adorn a variety of things, do you scrapbook?

This set of appliques can be used in scrapbooking, like this set from WeeBeeUniquesByJulie .










They can be found on accessories...

  OOAKindness has several headbands in her shop, if you don't find a colour you're looking for, she does accept custom orders.















If you crochet and would like to try your hand at making your own, some of our members offer patterns...

petalstopicots has a pattern for a set of 6 different flowers, use a variety of colours to come up with a blooming garden of fantasy flowers!








Try different yarns and threads and create an entirely new look!

 I think I've fallen in love with this wool blend yarn from crochetgal, the metallic thread and 'midnight' colours would make beautiful flowers!

Just for Fun, May Challenge

Each month is full of little-known and sometimes bizarre special occasions, like National Asparagus Month,  Library Card Sign-Up Month, National BlueBird of Happiness Day, even Hole in My Bucket Day.
I thought it would be fun to challenge people to come up with crafts to celebrate these occasions, so have started a monthly challenge for Etsyhookers Team members (feel free to craft along even if you're not a member!)

This month's theme, a choice of two. Among other things, May is National Barbecue Month and also National Egg Month. Choose one of these (or both, there are no limits) for your 'entry'.

Rules: must be a crocheted item, finished by the end of the month.  Team members can list them on Etsy, and post in our team thread there.  Since this is just for fun, there will be no voting, so no limits on number of 'entries', and no 'real' winner, though everyone who comes up with an idea and has met the challenge is a winner.  Okay, that sounds a bit cheesy, but true.  Pictures of members' work may be posted here.

Overall, play with ideas, play with your yarn, and HAVE FUN!!