Wallflowers - Finished!

After almost a year, I have finally finished my Wallflowers blanket.  The course started on April 2, 2024 although I didn’t start actually working on it until May 20, 2024, finishing it up on March 26, 2025.  It is beautiful and I am very happy with it, as is Jezebel, who has claimed it as her own.  

This photo was taken before it was finished.  It is folded up on a plastic box that holds the leftover yarn from the project.  At the start of the project that box was completely full.  She really likes the arrangement, so I think it will stay.

Blocking was straightforward.

As recommended by Sue, I pinned it out on my blocking mats and did a light steam with my iron.  Now I can focus on Tessellation Nation.  I was really hoping to finish Wallflowers up in December before Tessellation Nation started on January 1, but I fell down the spinning rabbit hole and was distracted.  I ordered more yarn yesterday (I only had 12 colors selected, and she recommends more - she used 30) and will finally start working through the video lessons again.  I had paused when I got to the crocheting part.  I’ve been downloading files and setting up the project in knitCompanion.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F) and 3.5 mm (E) for the border

 

Wallflowers - Half-hexi’s Finished!

All I have left to do now is the trim.  Jezebel has already claimed the blanket as hers, which can make working on it a bit of a challenge at times.  The fact that I’m working with dark yarn and want good natural light to avoid eye strain also narrows the window of activity.  I do love the way that it is coming out.  I need to get this finished so that I can focus on Tesselation Nation, which I have not even started - other than coming up with a potential motif arrangement and color scheme.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton, The Mercerie

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

Wallflowers - Hexis Finished!

I finished up the last of the full hexis last night.  Now I just have the half-hexis on the top and the bottom (13 on each edge) and then I can work the border and this will be done!  With the darker yarn I am mostly working on this in the afternoon when I have good natural light.  I have the box with the yarn, with the blanket folded on top next to my daybed so that I can work on it whenever my cat, Jezebel, is not sleeping on it.

She was actually a bit miffed with me last night because after I finished with the hexis I spent the rest of the evening Netflixing and sewing in ends.  I now have all the ends sewn in.  I have been keeping up with the sewing in ends thing, but I would typically wait until I had completed the next part of the project just to make sure I didn’t have to rip back.  If I were keeping to that plan I would not have sewn in the ends for all for my dark purple hexis, but I decided to sew all of them in.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

 

Wallflowers - 44 Popcorns and 8 Pebbles Incorporated!

I have been focusing almost exclusively on this project, wanting to finish it up before the Tesselation course starts in January.  I finished up the popcorns this past week, and managed to get them all incorporated into the blanket in just a few days of focused work.

As you can see, I had already started incorporating the popcorns when I took this photo. I had also already incorporated 4 of the pebbles - those were added once their spaces were created.  The last four I added after add the popcorns.  I had to lay it out on the kitchen floor in order to have enough space, and enough light to take a picture.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

Wallflowers - Sixty-Eight Puffs Incorporated!

Having finished up some deadline knitting, I am back to working on my Wallflowers and today I got the rest of the sixty-eight puffs from Chapter 8 Part 1 through Part 3 incorporated.  I worked these in production mode.

I took a page from Kim and Betsy on the Fleece and Harmony video podcast and started putting my rings onto knitting needles to corral them and keep them safe.

I also have the eight Pebbles made for Part 4.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

Wallflowers - Dark Corners Done!

I finally finished connecting the corners for my blanket.  Of course I worked in production mode style on the flowers themselves.

I finished them up back on September 29.  Jezebel helped by curling up on the blanket when I was attaching them.  Now I’m on to Chapter 8 and making 68 puff hexis, once again working in production mode so I’m making all of the center rings (round 1), and then I’ll do all of round 2, etc.  So far I’ve made 17 of round 1 rings in my B4 color.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

 

Wallflowers - Daisy Chain Done!

Once I had given my elbow a rest, and finished a couple of other knitting projects, I got back to my Wallflowers.  For the next step I had to make 50 popcorns using two of my leaf colors.  Once again I did them in production fashion, Working all 50 of the first round, and then working the second round.  Working the last two rounds and joining them to the blanket took a couple of nights.  I printed out the schematic that showed their placement and crossed them off as I joined them.  As you can see, Jezebel approves.

Here they are in progress.  You can see the first round rings on the right, and the second round popcorns on the left.

And here they are all finished, neatly lined up in five columns of ten.

It is so hard to get a good photo of the blanket.

The next step are the dark flowers that go in the corners.  I am making good progress on those, working them once again in a production fashion.  There are only 12 of these, 4 in one colorway and 8 in another colorway.  I did not get a picture until I had already started on the fourth round.

But you can see the two different colorways.

And here I have finished the fourth round on the 4 to the right, and have started the fourth round on the 8 to the left.

And here they all are with their fifth rounds completed.  They use the same colors, but in different order.  At this point I have woven in all of the ends except the ones for the fifth round.  I like to wait until I have worked at least the next round just in case I made a mistake.  I did actually make a mistake on the third round on one of them and had to rip back and fix it.  Fortunately I leave a pretty good tail and it was just one double crochet that I was missing.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook: 3.75 mm (F)

Wallflowers - Large Flowers Done!

I actually finished placing all of the large flowers back on August 5th, but things have just been a bit busy lately and I didn’t get around to blogging about it.  I did all of the flowers production style - working all the rounds of each color until I got to the point where they needed to be integrated.

Here are flowers ready to be integrated.  I think that is all 14, and the picture was taken back on July 21, so it took me a little while to get them all integrated.  I typically did one or two a session.

Integrating the flowers was also complicated by the fact that if I set the blanket aside my cat would settle on it almost immediately.  She really likes to curl up on my wooly things.

I have started the elements for the next part - the Popcorns for the Daisy Chain.  I have all of my centers done and am working on the popcorn part.  I’ve taken a little break from this project to finish the Canby Cardi, which is a present for my step-daughter for her wedding next month.  I’ve also been experiencing a bit of tendonitis in my right elbow, which the crochet aggravates, but the knitting does not, so a break from the crochet is also necessary to allow it to heal.  I am looking forward to getting back to my Wallflowers!

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

Wallflowers - Filling the Void!

Once I had integrated in the large 3D flowers I started working on filling the void.  Instead of making all of the pieces and then integrating them, I worked in stages, integrating as I went.  I still did each flower in a production mode, working each color on each flower before moving on to the next color, and then integrating them in.

First up were the popcorns. 

I did start out making the darkest ones for the center, but then switched my approach and focused on the ones with the leaf colors that were the first to be integrated. 

Next up were the four pebbles.  It was fun seeing the void getting filled in.

Then the puffs.

The last two puffs, and the final popcorns.  When I got to this point I almost ripped back and switched my B3 and B4.

This photo has B2, with B3 and B4 swapped, and B5.  But I decided I preferred the Rage next to the Pink Bliss, so I left it as is.  All my ends are woven in, and I’m working on more Pebbles for placing the Large Flowers.  I am back into production mode, working all 30 of round 1 and all 30 of round 2 before I started on the Pebble stitch for Round 3.  I have also split the in-progress flowers into two groups, for the two different leaf colors for the Pebble round.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

Wallflowers - Large 3D Flowers Done & Incorporated!

I worked the large 3D flowers very much in a production mode, working each color for all six flowers in turn until I got to the point where I needed to start incorporating them.

I did make a couple of stupid mistakes when I was working these, mostly by not paying attention to the instructions.  On round 13 I did not work through the back loop on the first three flowers, only realizing it when I picked it up again after a break to start on the fourth, so that required me to undo some work, which was not so easy as I had darned in my ends (I had gotten cocky again).  But I was able to unpick the end, and when I worked them through the back loop it took less yarn, so that was good.  I also tripped myself up on UK versus US crochet terms when I was working round 16, even though I knew better, and didn’t realize until I was working on integrating the third flower, so I had to undo the first two and redo them.  Thankfully I had not darned in those ends.  Before I started round 16 I put in locking stitch markers at the beginning and end of each of the petals so that I wouldn’t get off track.  It worked very well, except for those two flowers I had to redo.  Fortunately I did not have to rip back the entire round 16, just most of it, so I had a starting point and just had to be careful with my counting.  I am enjoying this project a lot though, and it is actually making me a pretty monogamous crafter, even though I have other projects that I really need to work on (including one with a deadline that is approaching).

Project:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweek DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

Wallflowers - Pebbles Done & Incorporated!

The Pebble flowers worked up fairly quickly, and went into the Garlands easily.

The shape of the central portion of the blanket is starting to emerge as the insertion of the Pebble flowers pulls the inner edges of the Garlands together.  Now I start the large 3D flowers.  There are six of those and they begin to fill in and further define the blanket center.  It is hard to get a good picture that shows the colors, but I managed to take one on the deck of one of the Garlands that begins to do justice to the colors.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

Wallflowers - Small 3D Flowers Done!

The small 3D flowers worked up fairly quickly, and there were only fourteen of them to make.  They also went in to the garlands fairly quickly.  I did one last night, and one this morning.  Now I’ve started on the next part - Pebbles.

I have to make 30 of these, in three different colorways.  These are the colors:

From right to left they are:  L3, F3, F4, F5, and F6.  The first color way is L3, F3 and F4, the second colorway is L3, F4 and F5, and the third color way is L3, F4 and F6.  The first two rounds will be the same in all three colorways, only the third round changes.  Once I finish making all of them I turn them into hexi’s with B7 and join them to the garlands.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

 

Wallflowers - Two Garlands Done!

Well, not quite done.  I still have the center holes to fill with the small 3-D flowers, of which you can see one.  But both garlands are assembled and all of the ends have been woven in.  I am almost half-way done with the small 3-D flowers.

I love my Della-Q train case.  My elements are in the tray, along with my tools (my darning needle is secured by a magnet on the inside of the lid).  And my yarn is down below, in the order that I use it for each flower.

I realized that I never shared a photo of the tray filled with popcorns.

At this point I had already started the garland assembly, so I don’t have the full complement.  I did find several popcorns that only had 11, as opposed to 12, petals but I was able to cannibalize the original garland, with the original background colors, to get the ones I needed to replace the defective ones. 

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)

Wallflowers - One Garland Done!

After I took the photo of the in-progress garland yesterday I realized that I had a mistake in the hexagrams with the darkest color as the background.  Instead of grabbing the third popcorn colorway I had used the first.  I had made notes on the garland page to avoid just such an error, but I guess you have to actually pay attention to those notes.  I still have lots of ends to weave in.  I learned the hard way about weaving in ends too early.  Once I weave in the ends it will be on to the second garland.  I’ve already looked ahead to the flowers that fill the holes - downloading the PDFs that go with the videos - but I haven’t watched the videos yet.

Pattern:  Wallflowers by Sue Maton

Yarn:  Rowan Felted Tweed DK

Hook:  3.75 mm (F)