Blooming roses

Since my last post, about embroidering roses on a knitted background, I’ve been busy making roses of a different kind. These are knitted roses, to wear as a “buttonhole”, is a flower decoration worn at formal celebratory occasions. In the UK this is mostly done for weddings, and I have done this at all the weddings I have attended. Then when I became a councillor last year I learned that councillors dress “up to the nines” for the first council meeting of each municipal year, and that each political group wears buttonholes in their party colour. For my Labour Group that is red, and our official party emblem is a red rose.

Last year we had fresh flowers for the buttonholes. These were made locally, but afterwards some of the Labour councillors commented that the blooms that were used were probably sourced from abroad, possibly even from as far away as Africa. As importing them involves air freight, this international trade in fresh flowers is of course very bad for the planet. I was asked if I could design and make knitted roses for us to wear instead.

I admit I wasn’t keen to do this! I knew it would involve a lot of work, and I wasn’t sure the results would be worth it. However, one of my fellow councillors (Victoria Porritt, one of our Labour councillors for Elland ward) is also a keen knitter, and she has found and adapted an existing pattern to make rose brooches that does produce a good result. So we are doing it!

For good environmental measure, the yarn we are using is locally produced (made in Keighley) using British wool. It is West Yorkshire Spinners ColourLab. Local yarn, perfect colours, excellent pattern (well done Victoria!), pleasing result. Here are the first 9 that I knitted. I’m now on the 27th!