Playing with French Knots

I've been playing with French Knots on the bottom left-hand corner of my class block. I know it looks like the silk ribbon flower is the main focus, but I was having fun re-visiting a method I use of adding background flowers. In this case I was using perle 8 crochet cotton (the white), and a large needle.

The flower spike (best seen on the top left of the arrangement) has a four-wrap knot at the base, then a three-wrap, two-wrap and one-wrap knot. (Jenny Bennett, who taught me stumpwork, would always insist a French Knot was two wraps). Then the spike finishes with a strait stitch. Curve the whole lot, following the line of the "stem", and I like it very much.

The perle 8 gives a lovely, fat little knot - and is the cheapest of threads.

The set for this block on Flickr is building up nicely, and the end is coming into sight.

But needless to say - the button cluster in this picture isn't finished yet.