So today is St David's day...celebrated all over Wales and Patagonia. I used to love St David's day in school as a kid. We all used to dress up in our welsh lady costumes and have special assemblies and eisteddfod, when we would sing welsh folk song and poems and do country dancing. It was always good fun and I always felt that my own 2 girls missed out on this tradition growing up outside of Wales, especially as the English don't really celebrate St George's day at all, it's barely acknowledged in the English schools. I did try and get them to dress up once or twice when they were in the infants schools but they didn't want too which was understandable really....no child wants to put themselves 'out there'. Still.....Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus!
What can I make that is inspired by 'the land of my Fathers'? Well we are a rugby mad family so I was inspired to make myself a little hat to wear to the match! It was really easy to make and very quick. I selected a nice red acrylic yarn as the base colour and started working in the round (but not amugurami style) closing of each round by joining with a ss (slip stitch) at the end. I basically got this pattern for the hat from Lucy at Attic24 but changed the colours to my own. When the hat was finished all red and black, it was a bit plain to be fair. So I threaded some nice green (for the valleys) in a running stitch through the single red round between the black. Result! Looked 'stunnin'! .....but it needed more..
When you think of Welsh emblems you think of Leeks, The Prince of Wales Feathers and Daffodils. Oh and Red Dragons of course. So being girly I decided on a good old yellow Daffodil. The daff is a very large headed flower with that huge trumpet sticking out, this was going to be interesting. So I trawled the Internet for inspiration....it's such a good place, just typed in 'crochet daffodil' clicked on images until I found something I could work with and adapt. I made this up myself..
I needed 4 green leaves and 6 yellow leaves and a trumpet.
The leaves were easy, all the same pattern.
Make a chain of 10 then turn and dc in the 9 chain, then another dc into the next chain then a htr into the next and then a tr and then another tr then another htr then 3 dc into the remaining chains. When you get to then end make a chain stitch to turn and then basically do the whole thing backwards again on the other side of the leaf. Ss to finish. Did this for all the leaves, really was super fast to do.
Next came the trumpet. This was made in the round using the amugurami technique of which I am a big fan. I started with a basic chain 4 then dc into the centre for 6. Increased with dc for 12, then a further increase to 18 using dc the 2dc all the way round. I then ran round about 7 rounds to give the trumpet depth. To give the edges that kind of fluted look I increased again every 3 stitched and then did a further 2 rows so that the trumpet started to curl. Ss to finish.
The green leaves were stitched on first as background, then the yellow ones arranged on top and stitched on. The trumpet was stitched on last, but here I didn't want the trumpet sticking out so I flattened it down and held it down with some extra stitches, but you can still see the inside of the trumpet and it looks 3D.
Finished, Ta dan! = well chuffed!
We went the rugby and outside our spiritual home (Millennium Stadium, Cardiff) I pulled the hat out of my bag and my brother laughed at me and said ' O, you been crocheting Wales hats ha ha', I put it on and his face just turned to surprise and he said ' oh actually that's really nice, looks good'. High praise indeed. Tx
No comments:
Post a Comment