missy42's Lily Square (original) (raw)

October 25, 2010 Baker’s Dozen’s description:

In this swap you will be placed into groups of 13. Each group member will knit or crochet one 12 inch square per month to send to the member of the month. As the MEMBER OF THE MONTH (MOM), you can choose the weight (fingering, sport, worsted, bulky) and color scheme. Please do not ask for certain brands, or fibers unless allergic.

The Baker’s Dozen is my very first swap, and this is the second 12”x12” square being made for the Eddy Group I was assigned to. For September, 2010, the MoM is FadedLily. In order to keep the square a surprize, I won’t be posting any further information until I confirm that FadedLily has received it. Heck, it may not even be a crochet project!

November 12, 2010 So FadedLily was much more difficult to stalk investigate than some of the previous MoMs of the group. I checked up on her ravelry profile and saw that she’s from Ohio. I imagine it gets pretty cold there in the winters, so I thought some wool in a solid square would be just the ticket. Plus, it’s what she asked for. She also asked for purple, which got me really excited, because I have lots of purple yarn - it is my favorite color, after all! As it turns out, though, I love it so much that don’t actually have a whole lot of purple yarn that I’m willing to part with, and I couldn’t find any at the local stores that I liked. However, I did find some Cascade 220 wool in green (another colour she requested) that I had gotten when a friend of mine was de-stashing. I had forgotten about it, but once I saw it, I knew it would be perfect!

I had checked out her favorites page, but most of what I saw there was a lot of lacy, leafy stuff, which wouldn’t be that helpful, since she didn’t want anything lacy. But then I thought, maybe I could add a leaf appliqué or something. And then it hit me. Faded**Lily**.

For the lily, I borrowed 100 Flowers to Knit Crochet by Lesley Stanfield from a friend of mine. I liked the stem and leaf they had for their crocheted Lily of the Valley, but I didn’t really like any of the patterns they had for the actual lily. So I made one up using some cotton I had. For the flowers that went on the square, I wanted something that looked a little more like the lilies on her former ravatar, with the beautiful bright colors changing to a deep red. I had a small ball of an unknown yarn (also obtained when a friend was de-stashing) in variegated shades of red, orange and brown that I thought would be just right for a couple of lilies.

So, I worked up a square of solid single crochet and several rounds of a single crochet border. When I made up the lilies, the first one was great, but the second one ended up coming out a little more brown than I had hoped. By that point, though, I was so incredibly behind I decided to just go with it. For the stem and leaf, I went with Lily Sugar’n Cream Cotton Solid in Sage Green (which I have a ton of from previous projects) and after several somewhat frustrating attempts, I managed to get the stem and leaf crocheted onto the square, working the lilies onto the ends of one of the stems. Washed and blocked the square and finally – finally – sewed the petals of the lilies down.

I was incredibly late in shipping it out, and I’m not 100% sure that’s the hook size I used, but I really like the outcome.

♥