Mums The Word

Ah! she is not a "Summer Friend",

She stays when all the rest have flown,

And left us flowerless and alone;

No singing birds, or blooms to lend

Their brightness to the autumn haze,

Tis' she who cheers the dreary days;

Tis' joy to know so sweet a friend;

No fairer flower blooms 'neath the sun

Than autumn's queen Chrysanthemum."

Hattie L. Knapp

Although I much prefer gentle Spring and sweet~ sweet Summer to Autumn any day, one thing I do love about Fall is the beauty of mums. Of course, as I'm sure you have all gathered by now, if it blooms ~ it's working for me! But, back to chrysanthemums. I love the delicate fresh scent and compact frilliness of them. I like the fact that they stand up tall and crowd in close to each other. And I especially love that they show up just as I'm starting to mourn the loss of my beloved summertime. They bring with them the fresh promise of hope. They tell me that after the earth and its living flora take a winters nap, there will be new life blooming just around the corner.

When I stumbled upon this vintage pattern for a crocheted dishcloth with a lovely mum blossoming up from its center, I knew I HAD TO make one! Instead of using the cotton I would normally use for a dishcloth, I crocheted it from my favorite Debbie Bliss cotton yarn. It's 100% pure cotton and NOBODY makes a cotton yarn as soft and lovely to work with as Debbie Bliss {you may remember I have mentioned before that Debbie Bliss is my favorite knitting designer and I always love her yarns}. I chose this yarn especially because, in my opinion, the design is just too pretty to stick down in a sink full of dirty dishes {funny ~ I seem to remember mentioning a sink full of dishes in my last post ~ now you know where you can usually find me ~ I'm at the kitchen sink! When my nephew was little he asked me, "Auntie, why are your clothes always wet down the front?" I told him it's because I'm ALWAYS washing dishes!!!}. Anyway, I used a better quality, softer yarn and made this one a face or body cloth {or just a "look pretty"!}.

And with Spring knocking at our doors {HOPEFULLY~ because I, for one, am sure ready to let it in!}, I went with my favorite springtime color combination of soft pink, celery green and cream.

This was so much fun to make and is SO ~ SO HEAVENLY to touch and look at that I'm going to play around with the color combination and crochet some more. This one will be on my Etsy shop pretty soon. What a lovely gift these cloths would make with some bubble bath and scented soap!

One last tidbit~

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post. You all warm my heart so much! Gabby is doing better and we all got a full nights sleep last night. What a difference that always makes.

May you all have a warm, happy evening with your loved ones.