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Dogwood Flowers and a Special Pin Loom

Dogwood flowers made on a special pin loom

Dogwood flowers have sets of petals made up of slightly different sized loops.

The petals can be made up of 3, 6 or 9 loops, depending on how many strands of yarn you hold together as you wind on the loom.

Because cog looms are very difficult to find, I’ve included instructions and a template to make your own loom with a board and pins.

The Cottrell flower loom Dogwood yarn flowers are unique to the Bucilla and Cottrell adjustable flower looms of the 1930’s and 1960’s respectively (The Cottrell loom is shown on the left). Since these looms are extremely difficult to find, I have created a pin loom that can be used instead.

To make a dogwood flower you will need a loom with spokes or pins that are very close together.

Dodgy dgwood flower If you try to make one on a regular 12 spoke flower loom you’ll end up with something totally different and rather messy like the flower on the left.
A dogwood flower loom made with pins To make your loom you will need:

  • Firm board. I use an old macrame board made of compressed paper fibre.
  • Pins. I like lace pins for fingering weight yarn and dressmaking pins for anything thicker. You will need 12 pins to make a loom for just dogwood flowers or 20 if you want to make a two colour flower.
  • A printout of the size loom you would like to make. I have made templates for 2 1/2″ and 3″ looms.

Cut out one of the loom templates and put it on top of your board.

If you just want to make a dogwood flower, put pins on the red spots.

If you want to make a two colour flower, put pins on the green spots as well.

To make a more permanent loom, use small nails instead of pins and use the templates provided to make a wooden loom.

Diagram 1 Start by winding your flower as you would when making a regular daisy.

Take your yarn up around pin one, down and around pin three and back to the centre of the loom.

Diagram 2 Now take your yarn up to the left of pin 1 again, across the top of pin 1 to pin 1A,
Diagram 3 all the way around pin 1A,
Diagram 4 and back to the left hand side of pin 1.
Diagram 5 Take your yarn down to the right hand side of pin 3, across the bottom of pin 3 to pin 3A
Diagram 6 all the way around pin 3A,
Diagram 7 and back to the right hand side of pin 3.
Diagram 8 Repeat this process one more time, using pins 1B and 3B instead of 1A and 3A.
Diagram 9 Bring the yarn back up to the centre of the loom and hold it in place with your thumb.
Diagram 10 Turn your loom 1/4 turn counter-clockwise. The empty pins are now at the top and the bottom.

Repeat the winding process for these two sets of pins.

Flower on the loom Your loom will now look something like this (I am using two strands of dk weight wool held together and a 2 1/2″ loom).

Cut your yarn, leaving a tail at least 20cm/8″ long.

Thread the tail into a blunt tapestry needle.

Secure the end of your yarn by making a couple of stitches into the back of your flower. Dogwood flowers are made with the back facing you.

This will stop your petals pulling tight when you stitch the centre.

Weaving the centre Going from right to left, take the yarn under the top petal. If you feel the first tie is going to be loose and sloppy you can tie a single knot on the back to hold it tight.
Weaving the centre Turn the loom 1/4 turn counter-clockwise
Weaving the centre Repeat, pulling the yarn tight each time you make a stitch.

Continue all the way around, making sure to stitch the first petal twice. Darn the ends of the yarn into the back of your flower.

Working the chain stitch edging To crochet the edging I used dk weight yarn (Australian 8 ply weight), and a 4mm hook.

Join the yarn to one set of petals.

Crocheting the corner picots *Chain 11, make a slip stitch in the 6th chain from the hook to form a picot
Joining to the next petal chain 5 and make a slip stitch into the next petal
The finished crochet edging Repeat from * around, making the final slip stitch into the back of the stitch you used to join the yarn to the first set of petals. Darn the ends into the back of your motif or use them to sew the motifs together if you wish.

You can adjust the edging for different weight yarns by changing the size of the hook and the number of chains worked. There’s no reason you can’t use a fine yarn to make the edgings on a thicker flower.

Working a two colour flower To work two colour flowers, put pins in the red and green spots on the loom template.

Wind a dogwood flower with a single strand of yarn but don’t tie it off yet.

Winding the second color Wind a regular 12 petal flower with two strands of yarn over the top of the dogwood flower.
Stitching the centre Work a stem stitch centre with the end of the yarn used to wind the dogwood flower and darn in all the loose ends.
Working the crochet edging on a two colour loomed flower To work the edging on the two layer flower I used dk weight yarn (Australian 8 ply weight) and a 4mm crochet hook.

Join the yarn to a dogwood petal and the daisy petal taht lines up with it and *work 6 chain, slip stitch in the same petals to form a picot,

(chain 3, slip stitch in the next petal)three times.

 

The finished two colour loomed dogwood flower Repeat from * all the way around your flower. Join to the first picot by working the last slip stitch into the back of the stitch where you joined the yarn to the first petal.

You can adjust the edging for different weight yarns by changing the size of the hook and the number of chains worked. There’s no reason you can’t use a fine yarn to make the edgings on a thicker flower.

When joined together, these flowers make an interesting grid design, especially if you work the crochet edging in the same colour as one of the sets of petals.


Copyright Sarah Bradberry, January 6th 2011. All rights reserved.