Corked Flowers

Here is my latest experiment. Corking, spool knitting or french knitting is something I have shown lots of children how to do using an empty cardboard tube and four paddle pop sticks. Over the years I have collected a variety of spools. I am always interested in what can be done with the metres of cord produced by eager children. I stumbled across this beautiful flower bookmark (edited in 2011 to say sorry but as is the case in webland the link no longer exists) and that inspired me to create a flower in a pot. I have created it in a larger size and it has a skewer threaded up through the stem so that I can poke it into one of my indoor pots. I have used an aran weight wool and the corker I used was this clever Clover design. I will have to create a bit of spool knitting on one of the kids spools to see if it can be used to create these.

A great book that I found all about spool knitting with children is called "Corking" by Judy Ann Sadler. It show various sizes of corkers made from tins with nails attached and has animals created with pipe cleaners threaded through the various pieces of knitting.

A great web page all about corking tools that I have found is "The Lost Art of Knitting Nancies". It reviews quite a few interesting designs. Then just recently I discovered "Spool Speak" and "Hankering for Yarn". I am itching to make a red hat one day soon.

More pictures of my bookmark inspired flower are in my Picasa album - Corking.