Hello! We've had a super busy weekend here but I didn't forget about the drawing and the roses. Thank you to everyone who entered and for all of the kind comments (if I were a hip and trendy craft blogger I would say 'thank you for all the crocheted rose love'). We put all of the entries in a basket and stirred them up good,
and Eliza picked one out,
and the winner is-
Renee! Congratulations, and I hope your grandchildren enjoy them! Please send an email with your mailing address.
There were about 45 entrants for the giveaway and that's a lot of little people left without roses, so I've been trying to think of other ways to obtain roses. Lydia did once make a set for one of my rosary customers who wanted to purchase some, but we are really too busy with school to make a whole lot of roses. One option of course would be to find someone local who crochets. There are many people who love to crochet and are very fast and prolific in their creations and are often looking for new things to make and a purpose to make them. Perhaps you could locate some avid 'crochet ladies' at your local church or in your neighborhood and commission some roses. You might even be able to barter for them, perhaps with a cake or home cooked meal, or some leaf raking or the like. Look for ladies wearing crocheted hats or scarves and approach them with a proposition. :-) If you find them in church I would think they'd be delighted to crochet roses for Our Lady.
Another option would be to look on Etsy where many people offer handmade goods for sale. Search under 'crochet rose embellishments' and you will find many, many crocheted flower offerings. There is a wide variety of styles and sizes and colors available. The prices also vary greatly as well, but some are quite reasonable and you might even get a bargain by ordering a set of eleven. Many Etsy sellers welcome custom orders as well so you can get what you like.
And finally, I wanted to try to make a different kind of rose that doesn't involve crochet and I came up with this simple felt rose. I used a piece of felted wool cut from a thrifted wool sweater. (You can read about how I felt wool here in this post.) I just cut a circle about six inches in diameter, and then cut it in a free form spiral pattern. You can cut as wavy or as smooth as you like. (That pointy nose part where I started cutting is not intentional - I just snipped off that part.)
Then I rolled up the spiral beginning with the center part, and stitched along on the bottom as I went around to hold the layers together like so -
I just kept rolling and stitching round and round up to the end of the spiral.
I also cut two leaves out of green wool. I applied tacky glue to the bottom of the rose for added durability and then stitched the leaves on, covering up the glue and stitching. My finished felt rose is about three inches diameter, while my crocheted ones are about three and a half inches.
I think it turned out rather pretty.
Thank you again to all my rosy readers!
