Waiting for Spring and Anticipating Summer

Subliminally, I must be tiring of winter. It's almost over here. We still have a fair bit of snow in our fields but every day it is warm, a little bit seeps into the earth. The sap is running and maple farmers are harvesting sap. The sugar houses that dot the countryside were all boiling sap this weekend and we took the ubiquitous trip to one this weekend where we all enjoyed a bit of the super sweet. Pancakes have never done it much for me and the syrup wreaks havoc with Julia's diabetes. But it's once a year that we go and then it is over until the next year. No matter how hard I try, I usually guess wrong with the amount of carbs to plug into the insulin pump.

For the past few weeks I've been playing with Lesley Stansfield's 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet. Man, is this a lot of fun. This book is so well done - lovely straight forward, simple photos where you can really see what you are knitting or crocheting. The instructions are fine and there is a lovely selection of all kinds of flowers. I have tried a few of them. I can't get real excited about knitting the flowers. The crocheted ones go so much faster and I think crochet naturally is a better medium for making flowers. I'm trying to stay open about knitted flowers but they just take longer! I'm an impatient person, I must say.

Here's a crocheted (sort-of) sunflower.


Makes me pine for these.


With the days getting longer, it's not going to be long before we have more than we can handle doing outside. I know in some parts of the northern hemisphere, things are growing like nuts but we're still a couple months off.

I have decided that I prefer a lot of the crocheted flowers I make to be felted. It just makes them softer looking. I love how the stitches disappear into the mass of fibers that develop in the washing machine. To me, the process of felting is very similar to loading up a kiln full of ceramics, turning the heat on and then waiting to see what the finished pots look like. There is such anticipation in waiting for that buzzer on the washing machine to ring.

Here's what the above pseudo sunflower looks like felted.


I think it would be great with a little embroidery added to the brown colored disc.

Have you tried crocheting flowers yet? If you are a knitter, is this something you might like to learn crochet for? I'm just wondering because as I develop patterns for my website, I worry about turning people off with added crochet bits to the patterns. Any help you can give me in this market research is very appreciated.