Yellow-Mellow Flower Garland

This was a story and a half! It was meant to be a pink rose garland!

The vine necklace part was ready, I'd made some lovely flower centres from pink variegated cotton and was about to assemble the flowers when I realised, no pink silk rods! I thought I'd bought pink ones, and then realised what had looked pink on the screen had been a sort of coral/tangerine orange.

Never mind, pink roses became yellow-mellow sunshine flowers. :-)


Problem was, I had to change the centres. I could have crocheted some more in a deep golden brown, but then decided that I might as well use the natural cocoons. Works well I think. See the pictures below:



This is the shortest of the three garlands I've made so far. It works really well as the flowers are closer together and it has a lovely luscious organic feel to it. The methods used are as before with the green silky cord and detail added with a green wool covered steel yarn. The beads in the centre are little plastic moulded transparent flower cups, golden coloured shimmery glass beads and buttermilk opaque seed beads.



The cocoons are a matching orange.



The clasp is a simple toggle design where the bead slips through a hole in a leaf shape. The bead is porcelain with a butterfly design on it.




This garland will be available together with the blue and yellow one in my Etsy shop (hopefully later today). The gothic one will be available as a custom order. I have many more colours in the silk (just no pink!), the cocoons and the silky cord so you can choose your favourite colours.

Flower Garland Fun

Just a quick post. I wanted to show this off, but it's almost bedtime...


The garland has been made with beautiful chartreuse green string crocheted into a lovely vine complete with leaves. It has then been embellished with moss green paper moire yarn and the leaves have been filled in. The garland is closed with a little wooden bead hidden amongst a leaf and a few tendrils.



The flowers are silk rods in three colours: emerald green, kingfisher blue, golden yellow. I've also used sage green cocoons cut in half and with scalloped edges, golden natural cocoons and wooden and coconut beads.


The garland can be worn as a long necklace, wrapped around your neck twice, and in your hair (or whatever else you can think of - a scarf maybe? or wound around a green or turquoise silk scarf?) - the possibilities are endless. :-)

Fairy Queen Dewdrop Corsage Bracelet

I've been busy experimenting with new materials. I got the most gorgeous silk rods and cocoons from the LARKSPUR FUNNY FARM & FIBER ART STUDIO on Etsy and decided to make a corsage bracelet with some silk roses to match the tiara I made a little while back. The most difficult bit was to restrict myself and not buy the whole shop! The colours are amazing and they're even better in real life than on the pictures in the shop.




I started off with the band. It was made from the same silk/steel yarn and paper moire yarn I've used for the tiara. I made two ribbons of the same size in the paper moire and then a third but this was crocheted in gunmetal wire. I sandwiched the gunmetal ribbon between the two paper moire ribbons to get a sturdy base. Then I embellished it with lace made with the silk/steel yarn and lots of tiny Japanese beads.


I added a little lip to one end and a flowery embellishment for the button to go through so the bracelet could be closed securely.



Next, I had to fabricate the roses. Grace from the Larkspur Funny Farm & Fibre Art Studio was extremely helpful. I had never worked with either silk rods nor with cocoons and was a bit at sea as of how to use it and prepare it. She patiently answered all my questions in great detail and, finally, I felt ready to play. :-)

Here's a picture of the materials I used:


Three strips in two colours of the silk rod (old gold and natural). These were prepared by moistening them with water and then gently peeling the layers apart. With a little patience I managed to get two layers. I then patted them dry and went over them with a rolling pin to flatten the fibre after all the handling. The golden cocoon (a natural cocoon rather than a 'grown' cocoon was also moistened with water so I could gently pull it into the shape I wanted.



I've also used some dark green cocoons that I cut into two halves and then I created scalloped edges with some embroidery scissors.


Next, I attached Swarovski and Czech faceted beads (the same ones I used on the tiara) to the centre of the golden cocoons and attached 3 layers of silk rod, stuffed each into the green cocoon halves and finally attached them all to the bracelet.



It was a lot of work but I think the result is quite natural, and every fairy queen would love to have one for her wedding. :-)

Here are a couple of pictures that show the corsage bracelet being worn:


I am planning to make a few hair pins and other items to embellish hair with the silk rods and cocoons. Some will match this set, others will be a riot of colour. It's all planned out (in my head). LOL Check back soon.