Making Flower Fairies from Wool

"O what can ail thee, business woman, 
Sole Trader, palely loitering?
Looking for fairies, are you?"
I stopped staring at all the brown ferns on the rockery and snapped out of my reverie.
"Well, you know that red one I put in Crafts by the Sea, ready for Valentine's Day?  The first person to spare it a glance said to her daughter, 'Ooooh, look at the pin on that voodoo doll!'"
"Perceptive woman.  Fairies are not cute.  Hang on, I'll get you the poem."

My companion came back out to the garden with Palgrave's Golden Treasury, open at Keats'  'La Belle Dame sans Merci'. 
"A Fairy Affaire - 'Ah, woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold hill's side.'
Love 'em and leave 'em, Beaut.  That's fairies for you."
I turned the page and read to the end.
"Mmm, I see.  Fairy lovers get 'honey wild and manna-dew', but when the party's over, they find they've been seriously shafted."
"Right.  There's not much use in anguish moist and fever-dew in this waterlogged garden.  The sedge is wither'd from the lake and it's time you put the kettle on."

Drinking tea in the kitchen, I was still racking my brains for a better Valentine Fairy product. Needlefelting wool fairies from roving was a small commercial success last Christmas and having got the knack of putting them together, I must admit, I really enjoy making them.
 "I was thinking more along the lines of Cicely May Barker and 'Flower Fairies of the Wayside.'  Pretty creatures anyone would love to find hiding among the primrose and the ivy."
Elinor looked at me sideways.
"Well, I wouldn't want them running in and out of my house."

Deciding that fairies and flowers were the key to romance, with only a few sodden crocuses huddling on the lawn, I found these paper flower making instructions online.  They don't say much about how to attach a stem, so I experimented a bit. If you make a little bend in the florist's wire, twist a pinch of wool roving round it to form a centre for the flower, then poke it down through the middle 
before squeezing in the hot glue, that

works nicely. It's the first time I've used a glue gun and the stuff is rock hard when it sets.  I made the Christmas Fairies with a pipe cleaner running down from the head into the body, Flower Fairies can be made just the same way only using a long florist's wire.  Drill some holes in a piece of wood off the wood pile with a 2mm drill bit and the flowers and a fairy can all be firmly arranged as a table centre or ornament.
"No-one would mistake this pink fairy for a voodoo doll now, would they, Elinor?"
"Hmm, I still think you're on dangerous ground, Beaut."
"Oh, surely not, with all these flowers."
Elinor sucked her teeth.

"As an advert for an amour, it might work, but this is no Valentine enticement to settle in for cosy evenings in front of the telly, 2.4 kids and a labrador.  Fairies are powerful and free and nobody's friend but their own."
"Well, I just hope the shoppers in Crafts by the Sea don't see it your way."
"I hope they are careful what they wish for and don't end up like that knight-at-arms, haggard and so woe-begone. Getting their heart's desire rarely does people any good and fairies know that. They live wild and can't bear to be trapped.  You won't find them looking in the Lonely Hearts column."
"I expect they've got up to speed with IT by now.  It's all internet dating, these days."
"Fairies wouldn't bother, they don't want likes on facebook, or even anyone to admire their knitting."
"You reckon?  Come and see what I found at the bottom of the garden."