Last minute, quick and easy crochet decoration. Customise the colours to suit your celebration and the length between the flowers for the location and time available.
It's the Queen's Platinum Jubilee today and there is a street party on our road. Lots of the houses have bunting, flags or balloons in red, white and blue. I thought it would be fun to make some yarny decorations for the front of our house but realised I'd left it a bit late to make proper bunting, so I made a garland of red, white and blue flowers to drape across the front of our house along with a small flag at the centre. It was a really quick and fun make. Now I just need to bake some scones for the afternoon tea!
If you would like to make a flower garland for your own celebration or just for decoration, here's how you can do it. You can choose up to three colours to suit the theme of your event or your décor and you can choose whether the lengths between the flowers are left as strands of yarn or worked as chains for a thicker garland and also how long the lengths are, which can speed your project up a bit if you're in a hurry like I was.
Crochet Flower Garland
Materials
three shades of aran or worsted weight cotton yarn. I've used Drops Paris (red and blue) and Rico Creative Cotton Aran (white). Lily's Sugar 'n' Cream is ideal too, if that's more readily available to you
9mm (US M/13) crochet hook
yarn needle and scissors
Notes and Abbreviations
ch chain stitch/es
sl st slip stitch
rep repeat
Instructions
Note: work either option 1 or option 2, not both.
Preparation: unravel a little yarn from each ball and place the ends together. Treating the three strands as one yarn, make a slip knot and place on hook. Tension the three strands together in your usual manner. Continue to treat the three strands as one yarn throughout the instructions as shown in the picture alongside. It doesn't matter if the yarns twist around one another as long as they don't tangle in a way that causes one yarn to double up or prevent you drawing yarn from the ball
Work flower: 7 ch, sl st into first ch, *6 ch, sl st into first ch of first petal; rep from * three more times.
Option 1: Work the length between flowers as chains: either work 12 ch to give you a length between flowers of around 15cm (6") or 24 ch to give a length of around 30cm (12").
Option 2: Work the length between flowers as strands: open the loop on the hook very wide and pass the three balls through together. Tighten the loop. Measure a length of the three yarns equal to the distance you want between flowers. You can choose any length you like. As mine was a last minute project, I left 30cm (12") between flowers so it worked up quickly to the width of our house. If I'd had more time, I think I'd have left 15cm (6") instead. At the end of the length, make a new slip knot and place on hook.
Work to desired length: work as many flowers and gaps as you need to get the length you require, ending after working a flower. Cut a short tail of yarn and fasten off. Weave ends into the stitches of a flower.
Hang the flowers on hooks where you want to display them. We used the little 3M hooks that we put in place to hold our Christmas lights. You could also drape your garland through the branches of a tree or around the trunk.
If you make your own flower garland, I would love to know which colours you chose to suit your celebration and how it turned out. You can leave a comment below to let me know.