Fringe Loop Stitch Flower

This flower is recommended for faux fur (yuck) or ribbon (which I don't have on hand) so I tried a variegated yarn. I used Bernat Felting Natural Wool bulky (100% wool) in colorway Wild Flowers. Ha! It comes in 75 gram balls which will make lots of these flowers. I found that they were fun and easy to knit up -- and especially great for early knitters because you unravel part of the rows, which will help the children better see how a piece of knitting comes together. Also, the pattern is only 4 stitches wide so the children will feel success because they can quickly complete a row.

I found that the pattern didn't assemble well, because I used the wrong kind of yarn and the loops weren't stiff enough to look like a flower, and I think that had I used ribbon it would have been hard for the children to work with and confusing for them to sew so I am offering another option. I simply tied the two ends together as a bracelet! You can make a flower necklace to match. I calculate 20 rows (10 loops in your fringe) for a bracelet and 40 rows (20 loops in your fringe) for a necklace. Of course, the child could keep going and make it as long as they like. I think this is good, to give the students an easy pattern which they can use to explore their creativity. Maybe even try small ones in silver ribbon to be wreaths on a Christmas tree? Or I can see possibilities for using this technique to make a giant squid's tentacles... octopus... sea anemone... barnacle? Many creative knitters could probably do a lot with this.

Speaking of creative knitters, I found some other knitting and crochet books on Amazon when I was making the link to this one. I have Nicky Epstein's Knitted Flowersand I found when looking for the link that it's been re-released in paperback with a new cover



and that one knitter recommended a different book in her review, which she says is more complete and more inspiring: 100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet: A Collection of Beautiful Blooms for Embellishing Garments, Accessories, and More



Curious, I purchased it. Because Amazon tempts us all with their "Frequently Bought Together" options I fell into the deep pit they had dug for me and got an additional book. It's a crochet book and since I don't know how to crochet and need to learn, and these patterns are for small projects, and we are doing Number Shapes and Patterns as our Math block, I thought I would give it a try: Beyond-the-Square Crochet Motifs: 144 circles, hexagons, triangles, squares, and other unexpected shapes



I am looking forward to reading these new books in a few days!