As long as I can remember, I have not been able to keep plants alive. How can that be? I am a descendant of farmers and gardeners. Plant after plant in possession has not survived long, even as hard as I try to follow the instructions to the letter. People have given plants that are dubbed “unkillable,” yet after a short while, they cease to exist.
I’ve resigned myself to staying away from live plants, for their sake, and stick to faux plants in the house. My husband purchased some a couple of small aloe plants; they’re in his care, along with the hibiscus bush in the front yard (my favorite flower).
About three years ago, a dear cousin of mine, who is an avid gardener, asked if I could knit plants. Oh, um, hmmm. Tiny pieces parts, stems and what not. I hesitated. At the time, I was focused on scarves, shawls, and blankets, along with branching out into a few home décor items. But plants, I didn’t think I wanted to branch out that far.
Fast forward a year later, in early 2022, this same dear cousin asked again. I was already primed when I asked for a book for Christmas called “200 Fun Things to Knit” that I found on Amazon.
I told her, I’ve never made anything like plants before, but I was ready for the challenge. There was one plant that seemed like it would be easy to duplicate, and I think it was a trend in home décor at the time: the succulent.
In the book, I found a pattern for some petals that I could modify to emulate the succulent and began to workshop a prototype. As I pieced the petals together, the succulent started to take shape.
The next challenge…the dirt. (More math.) This first rendition of the dirt wasn’t quite what it needed to be, but I had a visual of what it was becoming.
Making some minor modifications, the next edition of the succulent came out perfect.
The reception of the succulents was incredibly positive. With that challenge conquered, what was next?
Another popular plant was the pothos. Vines, okay. Challenge accepted. The workshop began. I pulled out the “200 Fun Things to Knit” book again and found a pattern for the leaves (which I slightly modified, of course).
And shortly thereafter, the birth of the vine plants arrived.
This was fun. What else could I do? The terracotta pots we had came with saucers. Since the “plants” didn’t need to be watered, the saucers weren’t necessary. But they could be used for something else. Smaller yarn could create smaller succulents. An item that could be a bright spot on someone’s office desk. And the mini succulent cluster was born.
One of my aunts fell in love with the vine plants, but she had a request. She wanted them to be variegated green. Hmmm. How do I do that with such small pieces? The hunt for the perfect yarn began. My fear was that the yarn I found knitted up would come out too striped. All you can do is trial and error. Pleasantly surprised, the yarn I found came out perfect the first try.
And my aunt loved them, along with others.
What’s next? Getting lost in the land of Pinterest, having searched for knitted plants, most of what I came across were crochet pattern after crochet pattern after crochet pattern. Not helpful for this knitter. Then I found a pattern for knitted cacti, one that seemed simple. Let’s try it.
End of December 2022, early January 2023, nearly a year after the creation of the succulents, the vision I had of a cactus garden came into being.
And then another type of cactus garden…
Would that be the end? Would I now stick with making succulents, vines and cactus gardens in a variety of colors and styles? Nope. I was too far down the rabbit hole to stop now. (Insert diabolical laugh here.)
This year, 2024, two years after I started this journey into hand knit plants, I dove, headfirst into flowers. I’ll admit, I was a bit intimidated by the stem. How do you attach the flowers to the stems? So, they’re secure and don’t flop around? I’ll figure that out later. The first challenge was making the flowers themselves. Valentine’s Day was coming, and I wanted to have a few rose bouquets completed before then. Challenge accepted.
Ugh…the stems. I found some floral wire stems that were coated in green paper. But how do you attach yarn to wire? Reflecting on all that I’ve accomplished to date, things I never thought I’d learn how to do, to create, I gave myself a pep talk. “Breathe…you can figure this out.” A great resource for learning something new is YouTube. Or as it’s lovingly called in the fiber community, “YouTube University.” How were others attaching their creations to wire stems?
After watching a few videos and acquiring some fabric glue, the attempt was made with bated breath. Success!
And the rose bouquets were ready and available by Valentine’s Day.
Easter and Mother’s Day were coming around the corner. My Mom’s favorite flower is a daisy. I knew that was going to be the next challenge. Challenge crushed!
Am I having too much fun? Maybe. But I’m only scratching the surface. I may have a “black thumb” when it comes to live plants, but I’ve become the hand knit plant lady.