Frida' s Flowers & Frida Primavera

The Frida's Flowers blanket was my crochet along project in 2016 and it has been such a joy to see versions of it out in the wild ever since! The design was inspired by the personal style and costumes of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo - it features bright flowers and leaves on a black background, typical of the kind of traditional embroidered textiles Frida favoured for her dresses and skirts.
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The patterns for my blanket continue to be available as free downloads via the Stylecraft website. You can find them in UK & US terms and the Dutch and German languages by following this link.
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One of the things I love about creating crochet blankets is seeing them made in alternative colour choices by other people. While many crocheters have made the blanket in my chosen shades over the last few years, many have posted images of their own blankets made in alternative yarns.

I think it is fabulous that this project really inspired people's imaginations and I was especially excited to see the images below of lots of different colourways made by a crochet group in Indonesia. Lita Johnathans - who originally posted these images on Instagram has given me permission to post them here. Aren't they amazing!

A few years ago I asked Lucia of Lucia's Fig Tree if she would consider recolouring the project and was over the moon when she created her version, which she called Primavera. With Lucia's permission we created yarn packs for this colour way, but when Stylecraft discontinued the Classique Cotton DK a little while ago we were unable to continue to make the kits.
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When Stylecraft recently introduced a fabulous range of Organic Cotton DK to their collection I knew immediately that it was time to look again at Frida and Lucia's Primavera blanket again, so I am really excited that we are now able to sell the kits once again and that the yarn substitution document for Lucia's version is now available via her website and not just as part of a kit.

As I said already - it always makes me feel really proud when I see my designs out in the wild, so you can imagine how I felt when I spotted my flowers on a Dolce and Gabanna design. It was a bit of a shame that they didn't ask permission to use the design, or credit me as the initial designer, but it was still a wow moment to see my Frida on the catwalk!
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Frida and Frida Primavera will be Stylecraft's make along project for February. You can join the dedicated Facebook Group and find out more by following this link. I am hopeful that this re-release of the project will tempt some of you to make the blanket and I am really looking forward to seeing more of them out in the wild over the next few months.
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