Painful but rewarding! I think I know better than to crochet with ribbons (or wire!) again. Hopefully. Knitting is better because the work is not as stiff and the stitches are distributed. I made these flowers as a gift for my mom and grandma when I went to live overseas for a few months (possibly moving there). They were worried that I would stay and would rarely see me. So I made them in three different sizes to represent our three generations and put them in the same vase to show them that we will always be together, no matter what. Then I wrapped the flowers and vase, hid them in my closet, and told them on Christmas to go into my room and find them. I think despite my best efforts to hide it, they found the gift while cleaning, but didn’t open it until I told them about it.
The How
For this project, I bought three sets of ribbons that each had two flowery colors in different shades but similar style and one green ribbon in the same style for the leaves. The largest flower (purple and white) was the easiest because the ribbons were softer, which is why it also has 4 layers instead of 3. The layers are pretty basic crocheting with single crochet and double crochet for the waves or petals. I also made extra stitches throughout to get them to curl. The beads in the center were just random beads I found that matched and had a big enough center for the ribbon to go through.
The leaves were a chain the length of the leaf with double crochet on each side with single crochet on the ends for the pointy look. Some leaves also had a single crochet row in the middle to be a little bigger.
The stalks were even more of a pain (literally and figuratively). I couldn’t crochet them, so I knitted them from green garden wire into a cylinder that I thought would be strong enough to hold the flowers. Unfortunately, it wasn’t (not even close), so I put chopsticks inside them for support. It took away the slight dropping effect I was hoping for, but it worked.
I filled the vase with rocks between the flower stalks because the whole flower turned out to be quite heavy. They also added a nice touch though.
Here are links to this project on Ravelry and Pinterest.
