Minature Floristry

Please excuse the absence - many things to make and not much time! Life is slowing down a little now, though, so hopefully I'll be able to get more photos of the larger items shortly. From the enormous lacy wrap I made for my friend's wedding (which I was still working on the night before we flew out!), I've got to the other end of the extreme - a miniature bouquet for the Skeleton Bride I made some time ago.

It's not the first time I've gone a bit above and beyond with my amigurumis. I thought that making Crazy Jack's Bag of Fruit Weaponry was a bit loopy, but this is...well. See for yourself!

The completed bridal pair, with bouquet and buttonhole

Bouquet in detail - there are eight flowers in various shades of purple DMC embroidery thread, centred with a Mill Hill bead; four leaves and three wire curls. The bunch is "hand-tied" with purple wire.

Next to a penny, for scale

On a penny - the entire bouquet is resting on it, it's not hanging over the edge anywhere

And just to prove it's as teensy as I say it is!

So, the details - I used a single strand of DMC 6-strand embroidery floss for each flower, pre-threading each strand with a Mill Hill Petite Glass Bead (liberal application of Thread Heaven is a big help, especially for the metallics). I think my hook was 1mm - I have a number of old steel hooks with varying numbers on them which I haven't been able to decide whether they're metric or old English grade. It's damn tiny, anyhow. The flower pattern is simple - magic ring, [dc into ring, ch 3] six times, ss into first dc and fo with long tails. The trick is to get the bead onto the right part of the thread so that it sits up in the centre of the ring between the dcs and not down the first tail somewhere! You could of course stitch them on later but I like showing off. The leaves are simply ch4, ss back into first ch, fo with long tail. The wire curls are 24-gauge copper wire, in this case purple - just do six or so twists round some needle-nosed pliers and again cut long.

Then you need to have a look for a hand-tying demo vid on YouTube - there are loads, just pick one which appeals to you. Work your bouquet round until all the pieces are in, then take one of the long wire tails and wrap around the thread bundle, starting very high up, for stability. Take some more wire and wrap all the stems closely like you would with a ribbon. Clip all the tails and there you go!