Here’s a new addition to my stemmed flower patterns: a beautiful realistic tulip flower with a clever one-piece construction. You’ll love how it comes together!

Don’t they look gloriously spring-like in their distinctive tulip colours? (I had so much fun picking the colours for these!)

I’ve also completed a new video (the first of many!) using my new audio/video equipment to accompany this pattern, and all my other stemmed flowers: Easy Yarn-Wrapped Stems for Crochet Flowers. As always, my videos are available in right- and left-handed versions, so you can see exactly what to do.

I hope you can see/hear the quality improvement in this new video, but if you don’t even notice because you’re concentrating on the content, that’s fine too. Clear, close-up and well explained techniques are always my top priority. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel so you’ll always see my latest videos – I have lots more in store!

Here are all my stemmed flowers together: Basic Rose, Daffodils, Carnations and the new Tulips. I hope they all brighten your day!

As I like to reward people who chose to donate for my donationware patterns, the PDF version of the Tulips pattern includes additional assembly photos (including left-handed photos) and my special technique for fastening off the yarn neatly at the base of the stem. As always, the pattern is free for you to use, and you need only donate if you’d like to thank me for my time in creating it, or if you’d like the easy-to-print PDF version.

Go to the free Tulips pattern >>

Or jump straight to donate:

Order the Tulips pattern >>

Not ready to make it yet? Add it to your Ravelry queue:

For the past year or so, I’ve been working on a collaboration with my mum, Lilian Linden, who is an acclaimed Scottish music pianist and the founder of the Invercauld Scottish Dance band.

For three decades, Mum has been composing original music ranging from lively jigs and reels to traditional strathspeys and lyrical slow airs, and now we’ve collected them all for the first time in her own music book, The Lilian Linden Collection of Scottish Music!

From learning how to use professional quality music notation software to create the sheet music (mostly Mum’s side of the collaboration), through designing, editing, laying out and publishing the book (mostly my contribution), via endless international Skype calls to progress the project, publishing this book has been a new challenge for both of us, but we’re delighted with the result.

Doesn’t it look good?

When I visited my parents last week, Mum and I had a final check of the proof copy to make sure it was 100% perfect, and now it’s up on amazon and available to purchase worldwide!

Amazon links: US, UK, CA, DE – and you can also find it on all the other Amazon international sites by searching for “Lilian Linden”. 🙂

If you know anyone who enjoys playing Scottish or Celtic music or who plays for Scottish dancing or ceilidhs, please let them know about this book. It includes 33 original tunes with chords, and is intended to be played primarily on piano, accordion and/or fiddle.

I’m so proud of Mum for all the work she’s put into this project and for finally getting all her original music published in print form. Please leave my mum (Lilian) a comment to congratulate her on this huge achievement!

I’m visiting my parents in the UK this week, and I decided to make a quick travel pillow for the flights. I’d looked into buying a travel pillow, but they all seemed far too bulky. All I want is something to support my head as I attempt to sleep on the plane. Here’s what I came up with:

It’s not just cute (hello, kitty!) but it also has a special feature that I came up with myself. Although I may not be the only person to think of this idea, I haven’t seen a pillow like it before, so I should explain how it works.

When you rest your head on it, the pillow creases in the middle to cup your head gently:

And you can also fold it in half to make a wedge shape. Rest the fold on your shoulder against your neck, and you can sleep with your head resting on your shoulder while your neck remains at a fairly comfortable angle:

Here’s how the magic works: the pillow has two compartments, separated by a simple seam down the middle:

(I stitched the central seam first, then stuffed each compartment separately.)

The seam forms a natural fold line in the pillow, without compressing the stuffing when you fold it:

It’s very compact, which makes it easy to pack. Flat, it measures 9 x 6.5″ (23 x 16cm):

And folded in half, it’s only 6.5 x 4.5″ (16 x 11cm):

This pillow is 100% recycled: the washable, removable cover fabric comes from a pair of Hello Kitty lounge pants that developed a hole, the pillow inner is fabric from an old cushion, and the stuffing is leftover from another pillow that was too thick for me, so I removed some of the stuffing. Total cost: $0 (the best price…)

In practice, the incredibly uncomfortable seat on my plane meant I had to use it, flat, as lumbar support behind my back for the majority of the flight – I should have made two of them! But now I know it works as a behind-head pillow, a neck support pillow and a lumbar support pillow, so it’s even more useful. 🙂