Shirley Poppies

(212)

Difficulty: Easy

Shirley Poppies are one of my favorite flowers, their petals as delicate as the thinnest silk, as light as a butterfly's wing. The flowers themselves appear in color combinations that seem to increase in number every year and will surprise you: yellow center to white to crimson. Or bright red with pink edges. Or pale pink with a coral fringe.

In this knitted version of the flower, I sought to capture its delicacy, its ephemeral qualities as much as possible in the medium of wool. The pattern contains several possible color combinations that I particularly like, but the color possibilities are too numerous to count.

Make poppies with long stems to decorate a tote, make tiny stems so you can sew flower clips to the back and then decorate packages, or hostess gifts, ballet flats, a cloche hat, the lapel of your winter coat.

Enjoy experimenting.

See Additional Details for more information about gauge and necessary materials.

Pattern Difficulty

Intrepid beginner to intermediate knitters: requires knitting, purling, increasing and decreasing.

Gauge

Work each felted flower with a single strand of worsted weight, feltable yarn held throughout. To make the flowers in the size pictured, use the recommended needle size. For smaller or larger flowers, change your gauge by going down in yarn and needle size, or up, respectively.

Yarn Requirements

1 skein each of the colors below makes a beautiful bouquet of poppies:

Spring Green and/or Lime Green for stems

Christmas Red, Zinnia Pink, White, Buttercup, Creamsicle, Antique Rose, Midnight Lake and Raspberry for lovely flower combinations. Peruse pictures of Shirley Poppies for your favorite poppy colors

Needles and Other Necessary Materials

Size 6 (4mm) double-pointed needles (set)
1 ball Crystal Palace Fizz in black
1 ball Crystal Palace Fizz in sunshine yellow or tangerine

No errors have been reported for this pattern.