Crepe Paper Flowers

Recently, February 18th to be exact, I got married! I decided pretty early on that I wanted to keep everything simple. So, of course I decided to make most of the décor; the bouquets, the boutonnieres, and the centre pieces.

While never being a huge fan of flowers, despite working in a flower shop, I still wanted to have the traditional bouquets and boutonnieres but made out of something a little different. I scoured the internet looking for ideas. I found bouquets of brooches, of felt flowers and of flowers made from panty hose stretched over wire, but none of them really appealed to me until I saw flowers made out of tissue and crepe paper. Practically all were found on the Martha Stewart Weddings website where I immediately discovered the perfect design was the Tissue Bubble Flower. I altered it to crepe paper instead of tissue because I wanted it to be less delicate.

Crepe Bubble Flowers

Materials: 

Crepe paper

Floral wire

Floral tape

Thin cotton yarn or artificial stamens

White glue

Tools:

Scissors

Needle nose pliers

Golf ball or other spherical object

Making the Petals

The size of your spherical object determines your petal size. Measure the circumference of your object. Create a cardstock template using that measurement for the length and slightly less than half for the width. For instance I used a golf ball that is 5½” making my width 2½”. This accommodates the stretch of the crepe paper as you shape the petals around the spherical object.

Next cut out 5 pieces of crepe paper per flower with the grain running lengthwise.

Centre the golf ball in the piece of crepe paper and pull paper up the sides of the golf ball slightly stretching it into shape. Then twist up the long ends one at a time much like you would twist up a candy wrapper, but making sure you twist it all the way to the end.

Once both ends are twisted carefully remove the sphere and put a dab of white glue at the base of each twist. This will hold the twist and the shape of the petal once assembled.

Repeat the above steps four more times, you will need 5 petals in total for each flower, and set them aside in a safe place for the glue to dry.

Making the Stems

I made my stamen using 2” lengths of yellow cotton yarn. I needed six lengths that I would divide into pairs and tie small knots into either end. You can use anything that you have on hand like yellow tissue paper or ribbon, let your imagination be your guide.

Cut a length of floral wire the desired length, I cut mine to 10”, and wrap with floral tape. This base of tape helps later on when assembling.

Fold over ½” about 120o from one end of the wire, centre the stamen in the fold and pinch the wire around the stamen. Fold the stamen up and tape around the base to hold them in place.

 Assembling the Flower

Position the first petal with the stamen centered in the petal and secure with floral tape.

Position the second petal so that it is hugging the first petal, so roughly half of the first petal is covered by the second and secure with floral tape.

Continue adding the petals in the same way. The last petal will be over the fourth and under the first. Now that all the petals are in place wrap the base of the flower with floral tape several times to make sure that the petals stay in place.

Clip off the twists at the tops of the petals and gently pull and twist the petals to open the flower.

Voila!

Knit Night On The Brain!

This past weekend in Hamilton was amazing. Supercrawl was so so good. The best ever. I was so impressed and thrilled to share such a great Hamilton event with some friends and family who were visiting. And we completed our giant knit façade of The Brain, which we've been working on since June/July.



We were literally knitting and piecing the installation together as it was going up. And many of us were knitting non-stop in the week leading up to the deadline. Towards the end we pulled out the big guns to speed things up - mega huge knitting needles! Thank goodness for chunky yarn and big needles.



We couldn't have done this without our friends and family. In addition to all the knitters that helped with the actual creation of the piece, we could never have installed it without the tireless help of Gary. THANK YOU GARY! Sky Jack operator extraordinaire. And Kieran and Mike. HEROES. And thank you Heather who patiently let us take over The Brain, inside and out.



Oh, and that amazing knit recreation of The Brain logo? Yeah, that was Courtney. She's the mastermind behind this entire thing. Not only is she speediest knitter I've ever met, she's also a genius when it comes to making up patterns. Three cheers for Courtney!!!




And now it's done. Our first giant Beehive project! If you swing by in the next little while, you can still check out the yellow section with The Brain sign, which is still up.

On The Brain

We are busy busy busy busy bees (how many times can we make this joke?). Our knit installation for Supercrawl has been taking up all of our time for the past couple of weeks. Knit knit knit knit knit knit knit. We'll finally be installing the whole thing tomorrow, and it will be available to view tomorrow evening at the art crawl and all day Saturday at Supercrawl on the facade of The Brain at 199 James Street North.

Over 70 knit scarves, 2 knit window boxes, a knit sign for The Brain, half a dozen crocheted flowers, 18 constructed wood frames later and we're ready. It's going to be incredible. We do hope that you'll be able to check it out. It couldn't have been possible without the local crafting community stepping up and pitching in. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Okay. Back to knitting for us. See you this weekend.

Pea Preparation

Several weeks ago a few of us were able to get up to the farm, and after an evening of much needed weeding we rewarded ourselves by pick some peas. We ended up with so many peas (about a bushel and a half) that I decided to take the opportunity to bring a little over half a bushel home to freeze some so that we could have tasty peas all year round.

First you need to shuck the peas. We did this while watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 to get ready to see Part 2. I have to say that fresh peas might be a better movie snack than popcorn.

To properly prepare peas for freezing (and most other vegetables and fruit) they have to be blanched to kill the enzyme that causes the peas to lose their freshness. To blanch the peas they need to be submerged in boiling water for 90 seconds.

I put a few handfuls of peas into a metal steaming basket to contain them so that I didn’t have to chase the loose peas around with a slotted spoon in a boiling pot of water.

Once the peas had been in the boiling water for 90 seconds I dropped the basket into a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process.

After cooling in the first bowl of water for about 30 seconds I would dump the peas out of the basket into a second bowl of cold water. I would keep the peas here until the next batch of peas had come out of the boiling water.

The peas would then be poured into a strainer, then onto a paper towel to blot off the excess water.

(To me it looks like the peas are in the shape of North America, anyone else see that?)

Once the peas have been dried off they can be spread out on to a cookie sheet to freeze. When the peas have frozen solid they can be collected into sealable container. Freezing them this way allows the peas freeze separately, not stuck to their neighbour so you can take as many as you want to add to your meal.

I had so many peas that I had to make a second layer on both my cookie sheets with tin foil.

How do you use your peas throughout the year?

photos by Courtney Lakin

Knit Night on the Brain

The Beehive has been working on something big and by big we mean huge. So big, in fact, that we need your help.


We are creating a large installation piece for SUPERCRAWL! The piece will be a replica of the façade of the Brain, home to Knit Night, that will be suspended over the front of the building. We will be recreating the brick work and structural elements of the building while also adding a few touches of our own.


The majority of the piece, all the brick work, will be made up of knit scarves. Once SUPERCRAWL is over the piece will be dismantled and the scarves donated to Mission Services Opportunity Centre where they will be distributed to those in need of something warm to guard them against the cold.

This is where your help comes in. Although many of us in the Beehive are avid knitters we will simply not have enough time to get all the scarves completed while working on the rest of the piece. Also, we think it would be awesome for the entire craft community in Hamilton to get together on this one!

We have created a pattern of the scarf we will be using to recreate the brick work. The pattern is available for you to download here. The yarn you will need to make the scarf is Lion Brand Wool Ease - Thick and Quick. We have also created a list of yarn colours to use to keep the whole piece uniform. The brick colours: Hazelnut #640-125, Pumpkin #640-133, Spice #640-135, Apricot #640-136, Butterscotch #640-189 and Wood: #640-404.

And the mortar colours: Linen: #640-098, Wheat #640-402, Oatmeal: #640-123 and Barley #640-124

Lion Brand Yarn has graciously supplied us with yarn for creation of this piece. If you would like to contribute a scarf to the project you can pick up yarn at Knit Night at the Brain every Wednesday from 7 to 10pm. If would like to support the project but are unable to come to Knit Night you can head over to your local yarn shop to purchase any of the Lion Brand colours listed above.

Completed scarves must be submitted by 5pm on August 13 at The Beehive Summer Craft Fair. They can also be dropped off up until that deadline at Knit Night

If you have any questions about the project or the pattern either stop by Knit Night or send us an email. We are happy to help you with any of your questions, and could even teach you how to make one.

Photos courtesy of Hollie and Courtney