Beautiful bobbins

Pictured above are some of the vintage embroidery and crochet yarns I've been adding to my stash lately.  I did buy/collect them with the intention of actually stitching and hooking with them - but its oh so hard.  With new yarn its easy - you use it and if you love it you buy some more, but these bobbins are at least 60 years old and are not easy to find.

Lots of them are silk or artificial silk and I also like yarns labelled rayon, which I was pleased to find is made from cellulose fibre and not completely created by some industrial process.  The colours are soft and beautiful and have a lovely sheen.

However its daft to have them just sitting there, looking beautiful but gathering dust.  So I'm using them sparingly in my crocheted garlands and hopefully they will last out until I find some more.  The little crochet motifs have plain crochet cotton centres and vintage yarn petals.  I make them into a garland by crocheting a chain and attaching them as I go along, spacing them out with natural beechwood beads.  If you want to try something similar don't forget to thread the beads onto the yarn before you start hooking your chain.

Here's the pattern for the motifs - you can of course make them in a single colour.  (UK crochet terms)

Chain 6 and join into a ring with a slip stitch

Chain 1 for first double crochet and then 14 double crochet into the ring.  Join with a slip stitch to first double crochet.

Chain 1 for double crochet, *4 chain, miss 2 chain, double crochet into next stitch.  Repeat from * around and slip stitch into first chain (5 chain spaces created)

Fasten off yarn here if changing colours (or carry on if making a single colour motif).

Attach new colour to a chain space and 7 double crochet into same space.  Slip stitch into double crochet.  *7 double crochet into chain space.  Slip stitch into double crochet.  Repeat from * around and fasten off.