Say It With Knitted Flowers

If you're a crafty bride, or love one who appreciates handmade things and could use some help with her wedding preparations, one DIY wedding planning option is to knit bouquets for the bride and bridesmaids instead of buying fresh floral bouquets. It will cost less, and a yarn bouquet is not only guaranteed not to wilt while the bridal pair are pledging their eternal love, but can be kept as long as desired. Not to rain on anyone's parade, but realistically the odds are the bouquet will last longer than the marriage, like a cross-stitch piece I saw at Value Village last year that depicted pink roses and ribbons and blue birds and featured the words, "James and Amy, United in Love, August 16, 2003". Do you suppose James and Amy got tired of the cross-stitch or that they are no longer united in love? The lesson learned here is that cross-stitch projects, like tattoos, should never include names.

Two good sources for patterns are Lesley Stanfield's 100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet: A Collection of Beautiful Blooms for Embellishing Garments, Accessories, and More and Nicky Epstein's Knitted Flowers and Crocheted Flowers. The knitted tulips above were made by Ravelry user sehepworth, employing a pattern from Lesley Stanfield's book.





The Stanfield and Epstein books offer patterns for individual flowers, such as this morning glory, lavender, and rose, and some aren't shown with stems. To make a bouquet you'll have to make and attach stems (which is just a matter of running florist's wire into some I-cord) and envision your own arrangement and colourway.





I must admit that when researching this post, the best yarn bouquets I came across were all crocheted. Crochet seems to lend itself to floral designs better than knitting does — the knitted flowers I found tended to look rather lumpy and shapeless. If you crochet at all, you might want to go with a crocheted bouquet, or mix the two techniques, as did the maker of the tulips pictured at the top of this post (the leaves are crocheted). The red crocheted roses above were made by Etsy vendor Suili, the calla lily bouquet was made from a pattern from Epstein's Crocheted Flowers, the crocheted pink rose bouquet is a Red Heart pattern, and the crocheted carnations were made by the blogger at Sue's Favourite Things.

I wouldn't toss such a bouquet to your single female guests, though. Women who don't care one bit about getting married might not be so blasé about the chance to score a handmade floral arrangement, and the resulting melee might be a bit unsightly.