These are the flowers that inspired my felted vase.
I have a wall vase that I just love and buy flowers for it regularly. My favorite filler for this vase is Alstroemeria and I usually buy one large bunch or two small bunches in the same color. A couple of weeks ago my daughter wanted to get two small bunches in different colors—one a deep pink, the other a lovely orange—and I thought, “Why not?”
Combining the flowers at home, they made a beautiful bouquet, and I so liked the colors together that I was inspired to try making a small felted1 vase. The pink and orange together seemed so spring-like and cheerful and a similarly-colored vase would make such a happy addition to our dining table.
The vase before being felted.
One of the things I love about felted projects is that my end product is always something of a surprise. I had a general idea of what I thought my finished vase would look like given my previous experiences with felting, but I’m not enough of a felting expert to be sure what I was going to get. And that’s part of the fun of felting for me.
Close-up of the felted vase.
I had hoped the rectangular blocks I created by alternating colors for two rounds would be sharper than they turned out to be, but overall I was happy with my simple design and the resulting vase. I put a small glass in the bottom to hold the water, and also to help weight the vase so it won’t tip over.
I used the vase with some light pink Alstroemeria as a centerpiece for our Easter dinner and both my mother and mother-in-law commented on it. My mom wasn’t very subtle, saying she’d like one for herself in the same orange-and-pink color scheme. Luckily Mother’s Day is around the corner and I have enough yarn leftover from making my own vase to make another one for her. So the vase for my mom will not only make a lovely Mother’s Day present but will also be a great stashbuster. And it’s a quick knit: you can start and finish it in one day,2 so if you ever need a last-minute gift, keep this vase in mind.
Finished vase with light pink Alstroemeria.
The yarn I used is Cascade 220. I love to use this yarn for felting projects. It’s a good quality 100% wool yarn that felts up beautifully, with a generous 220 yards per hank, and it comes in so many colors that you may have an awful time choosing which to use. However the good thing about having so many color choices is that you can find colors to suit whatever felting project you’re working on and can customize your project to suit yourself or your recipient. So whatever colors your mom likes, you’re just about assured to find those colors in Cascade 220 and you can make a Mother’s Day vase perfect for her.
Although I intended this to be a vase, it also could be used as a pen or pencil cup or as a holder for knitting needles. Try adding some pennies or marbles to the bottom for weight if needed.
To make your own felted colorblock vase, download my pattern here:
- Just so I don’t get a bunch of e-mails on the subject, let me state that technically what I made was a “fulled” vase–I used a spun, non-superwash fiber and shrunk it in a washing machine–but I’m using the term “felted” because that is what is used colloquially, even though we all know it’s technically wrong. [↩]
- Although the vase may take an additional day to fully dry depending on the temperature and humidity in your house. [↩]