Shortly after moving to Florida (how has it been twenty years already?), I met someone who would become a very good friend. She was my first friend here and showed me around the city. Through the years, she’s become like a sister to me. So, when she came to me a year ago with a request, of course, I said yes. It wasn’t just any kind of a request, it was a creative challenge, which, as you know, I love a good challenge.
My friend was renovating her kitchen. She had a very specific look she was going for. Her request: she wanted me to create some original hand knit plants to match the cute wallpaper she planned to cover the walls. With her own creativity, she painted four pots, matching the wallpaper characters.
The challenge: her pots were bigger than the ones I used for the hand knit plants I made, which meant more math to resize the dirt, to start with, then the plants themselves. To go along with the resizing, she wanted each pot to have a different plant, and plants that match the ones in the wallpaper would be a bonus. On top of that, the plants could only be a certain height, 11 inches tall. It was very important to have the correct height for where they were going to be placed. Another piece of the challenge – complete all four in a month.
She picked out the yarn and instructed which colors to go with which pot. I hoped I could do her adorable pots justice with my plants.
I tackled the yellow pot first, which reminded me of Lego person’s head…so cute. Once I figured out the size of the dirt for this one, the others fell into place.
She chose a variegated green yarn for this pot. My first thought was a cactus; something I’ve already done. I just needed to enlarge it. (more math) It came together, with a cute little embellishment to enhance the design.
Next, I tackled the turquoise pot. She chose yarn that automatically changed colors from a bluish purple to pink with a gradient effect. The trick was to have less pink and more purple. Also, the surface area of the pot was wider than the yellow pot. More purple than pick while saving the gradient look…hmm. Looking through Pinterest, once again, most of what I found were crochet patterns. I found a plant that would look super cute (crochet of course), so I got to work on figuring out how to knit it. I must say, it exceeded my expectations.
The blue pot was next, a similar size to the yellow pot. This design that was decided on was a bit tricky. It couldn’t be too chunky, and it couldn’t be too thin. How do I get the leaves to stand straight up and not flop over. And, of course, how to make it not look like lettuce.
Finally, the last pot, the purple pot. He was a big one. I struggled to figure out what kind of plant to put in this one. Scouring Pinterest, I searched for ideas, anything that would go with the other pots and the wallpaper. Cacti kept popping up. The tricky part for this one, well, a couple tricky parts, was the surface area and keeping it under 11 inches.
The family of pots were complete. I’m a little proud of myself for tackling this challenge and succeeding. They turned out so adorable. And my friend, she was so excited. And I think I was able to coordinate with the wallpaper pretty well.
Throughout the process, I kept asking myself, would I want to incorporate these, or ones like them, into the shop’s inventory. They are ridiculously cute, and people seemed to enjoy seeing them on social media. I would definitely commission my friend to paint the pots. Thankfully, I wrote down what I did, so I wouldn’t have to redo all the math I did. The tricky part would be shipping, as they’re a little on the heavy side and an awkward size; the cost would be high. I’m still contemplating. What do you think?