I love flowers. I was looking for some patterns to crochet of flowers for accessories and ran accross a site for flower bouqets. It started me thinking about all the flowers i really love and what i associate them with. Funny how the "language of flowers" isn't really where my thoughts go, but how those flowers bring distinct memories to mind.
Certain flowers hold memories for me back to childhood. When we lived on California street our backyard had poinsettia plants that my dad would nurture and have beautiful red blooms on outside in the garden. These were not indoor plants for us. I don't remember seeing these outdoors again, until my husband was stationed at the LA airforce base- yes, there really is an air force base there- and the base housing was in San Pedro. There were several homes in San Pedro that had these beautiful flowers outside. To this day poinsettia's remind me of San Pedro and childhood. Dad had these Nicotina flowers that would open and close up with the daylight, and lots of daffodils. I know my dad had other flowers but these are always make me think of that house.
Later on in my childhood we moved to a larger house but it had been a farmhouse at one time. The house was lined on one side with Camelia's. All different kinds, striped, solids, bright and pastels. When i was in elementary school, we used to participate in the Camelia parade in Temple City. I remember once marching with my best friend doing baton twirling. And another time our Camp Fire group marched in it. It was a small community parade, but always when i see camelias, my home and these memories come back to me.
The home came with a rose garden that had some silver tea roses in it, that were this peculiar lavender color, i loved to go out and prune the roses. When i married i chose to have bright peachy pink roses for my bouqet and head piece. This was not traditional at the time- face it 29 years ago people were mostly into white bouqets.
No home is complete in southern California without Bouganvilla. The papery flowers that were in pink, orange or lavendar colors. These grew across the corner of our kitchen and breakfast room. Our patio was covered with Wistieria, which when in bloom has the most beautiful flowers that hang down. The wisteria grew over a metal frame and during the hot summer days was the perfect shade. I still love the drapiness of the wisteria.
My grandmother had a gardenia plant outside. It was and still is one of my favorite flowers. I love the scent of it. I'm always so sad that it browns so quickly when cut off the plant.
Although Lily of Valley is the plant of my birth month, its the plant i always associate with dear friend who passed away from breast cancer. She planted a few in her front yard and they went crazy filling out this area in a year or two. I was always surprised by how prolific they were.
Although Eucalyptus isn't a flower its smell is one of the most memorable to me. Our town had a beautiful and actually rather famous arboretum. We went there often as kids, for a family outing. It had many magnificent plants, but i always remember the smell of the eucalyptus. The leaves would get crushed underfoot and that smell would just be effervescent. My high school had these trees all over campus as well. Still one of my favorite smells, its a little bit holiday, a little bit of home, and a little bit of school all bundled up together. I'm sitting here smelling the eucalyptus wreath i bought for our home. I usually get some kind of evergreen pinetree type. But when i ran accross these at Trader Joe's I just had to have one.
There are so many scents in our lives, that stimulate the senses and memories. These are just a few mine.
Wishing you some fond memories and scents as well.
Just and end note: While I didn't find the crochet flowers i was looking for, I did stumble on these very cute flowers made from rick rack and used to decorate this Christmas stockings on Martha Stewart.
Christmas Eve found me sewing on a tunic top/dress that my daughter wanted to use for warm up at dance. I have fabric for three of them, but wanted to only make one and be sure it met all the requirements she desired. So here are pictures of the finished dress. It looks EXACTLY like the pattern envelope. I made it in a size small for her. Being Kwik sew pattern it went together rather quickly, my hassles were with my serger- my tried and true serger I broke while working on costumes, and had to use my back up serger that I use almost entirely for its cover stitch function. It was a sad sad day I broke my baby lock lower looper. ARGH- I digress. It has quite a bit coverage for being a cross over top. The fabric was a nice purple french terry with just the right amount of stretch. Warm but not overly warm for studio wear, and purple seems to be one of her current favorite colors. These photo's don't do it justice and would have loved to have one of her in it, but you know how it is, you sew it, press and finish it, and then you never see dance wear again in a presentable state. The photo makes it look kind of boxy in the front, but when its on, it doesn't have that appearance. It sits at the hips with looseness above. I made the sleeves the length in the pattern which for her a petite is a bit long, but being the current trend to have sleeves come down over your hands and they stick their thumbs through the seam to keep it there. She won't need to put the hole in the seam, its plenty long. I would make one change and that was the type of interfacing I used for reinforcing the shoulders and front where the skirt attaches. Something with a little more softness would be good like "Seams be Great", but i was able to trim away most of the stabilizer is used that i didn't want to over- enforce the area and make it stick out. Mostly it was a bad choice from scraps that were sitting on my table from a previous project. She also picked out a beautiful teal green bamboo french terry for a second one, but i'm struggling with it, as it has damage from the knitting looms, and was not cut straight, and currently is a beast to work on to cut, but i will get it finished in the next few days! The fabric cannot win. And Yes it does have a label sewn into it. I finally got the labels in for my etsy shop, Red and Curly Bebe by Treva which I will have up the fist week of January. So of course one of these had to go into her garment!
