The theme for Month of Softies this month was ‘May Flowers’. My first thought was of daffodils, as I remember loving how they came up all over the place in lawns in the chilly spring in York and Cambridge; and I thought I might try to make Talitha, the brave daffodil princess from the book ‘The Mouldy’ by William Mayne, and illustrated by Nicola Bayley:
Then I decided to consider Australian May flowers. There isn’t much flowering here in May, except some irises which usually flower in July, but this year are muddled by our late winter and drought. But there are a few winter-flowering eucalypt trees, so I started planning a red gumnut flower fairy. I thought the stamens could make a kind of drop skirt, or hat fringe, but in the end decided that I liked the flower just as a flower.
Its quite big; including the leaves it measures just over 40cm (16in). For the stamens I used lycra, an idea that I had previously found worked well for making small octopus tentacles! I like the soft colours, too. There are few more pictures:
