Snowflakes

Did you know that snowflakes are actually crocheted and then stiffened before falling from the sky in their beautiful, magical way? No? You aren't convinced about that? My snowflakes were crocheted and stiffened and then used for various decorative purposes, mainly hanging on the Christmas tree.

I used Rico Essentials Cotton with a 1.75mm hook. Sometimes I crocheted King Cole Cosmos yarn along with the cotton. The patterns came from a variety of sources that I've picked up over the years.



Well I hope you liked the snowflakes. Just a few of the many I've made recently!

Not long to go now to the big day. Then Christmas will be over again for another year and we can all relax. I really love Christmas time. I'm actually quite sorry when it's over. What about you?

Crocheted Christmas Decorations

I've been making lots of Christmas decorations to use this year. In this post I'm going to let you see some of the crocheted decorations as well as a few knitted ones.

First of all, this robin is crocheted using my own version of Jacquie's owl pattern. This was my first attempt but I've made a different version that I'll show you later in another post.

This tree, stocking and penquin are made from Val Pierce's Mini Christmas Crochet (Twenty to Make) book. I used different yarn and hook sizes and made other various tweaks to get these results.

This bauble and the little star and heart are made using Lucy's patterns here, here and here. I also made some of the baubles with the points and they were really nice too.

 

The acorn is from the same book as above.

These hearts are made using Teresa's pattern here. I crocheted some King Cole Cosmos along with the red and purples yarns.

This tiny wall hanging was made by crocheting some Drops Eskimo scraps to make a square and then felting it. A crocheted cotton snowflake was then sewn on and a hanging loop attached.

This is my star tree topper ready to be joined up. See that needle stuck into the point at the right hand side? I've lost it. Actually ... my memory has just been jogged and I think I might know where it is. Must check when I've finished writing this. This is my own design crocheted using Rico Essentials Cotton together with Jomil Starmist yarn. It starts out as a hexagon and then the points are made individually by decreasing the number of stitches on each side of the hexagon until only one stitch is left.

The Christmas trees (to hang on the Christmas tree!) are knitted. Basically made up as I went along.

 

Most of the decorations were made using Rowan pure wool as well some 50/50 acrylic/wool yarns. This is just a sample of the decorations I made but I'll let you see them and others when they are hanging on our Christmas tree.

 

Needless to say I had to go and look for my darning needle and I was right. The needle has been found and put away in its proper place.

 

The girls in my crochet class surprised me, on the night of our last class before Christmas, with this beautiful bouquet.

 

 

Stunning or what?

 

Better go and do some more preparing for Christmas. Need to bake mince pies. As well as lots of other things. More decorations coming this way very soon. 

More Christmas Gifts

First I'd like to say welcome to new followers and thank everyone for their lovely comments. A few have asked for the washcloth pattern so I'll get that done as soon as I can.

 

I wanted to make something a bit special for a special girl so here's what I've done; a tam, a scarf and a rose brooch. The tam is the same as my black one (see here) but is done using Stylecraft's new Alpaca DK yarn which is 80% acrylic and 20% alpaca. I've used the Orchid, a lovely soft pink, for the tam and worked it with the King Cole Cosmos yarn to give it all the sparkle.

 

Aside 1: In Northern Ireland, all females are called girls, regardless of age.

Aside 2: If you looked back at the link above you will also have seen a hat I knit for the husband. Well I wasn't happy with it so I ripped most of it back and did it again. It now looks much better. The husband didn't mention a thing about it because he says he knew I would find it so annoying that I would eventually fix it!

 

 

Ingrid showed us the Queen Anne's lace scarf on her blog a while back. I really liked it so decided to give it a go. The pattern is easy to learn and works up really quickly. With the Stylecraft Alpaca Orchid yarn, I used Stylecraft Alpaca Tweed DK, which is 20% alpaca, 77% acrylic and 3% viscose, in Emperor and Plum. Starting with the Orchid, I worked sections of ten fans in each colour and made a total of ninety fans. This made the scarf quite long so it can be wrapped round several times.

As a little finishing touch I made this rose from my 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet book by Lesley Stanfield. I crocheted a small circle to cover the back, where the rose is coiled up, and added a brooch pin.

For the gifts above I had bought two balls of the Orchid (and I still have more than half a ball left) and a ball each of the Emperor and Plum. So I made two more Queen Anne scarves; one using the Plum and the other using the Emperor. I crocheted until there wasn't enough yarn left to make another fan. Here are the results ...

I think they look really nice and the yarn feels very soft and warm. These will be given along with the washcloths I told you about in my last post. Ah! There were three washcloths in the last post and there are only two scarves. That's because I'm weaving a third scarf on my peg loom. Hopefully it will soon be finished and I can let you see it too.

It's beginning to look a little bit like Christmas now. Just a bit. Even though I've been making gifts and decorations for a while now, I still didn't feel at all Christmassy. I didn't tell you about baking my cakes, did I? Every year I bake two Christmas cakes. One is a standard rich fruit cake and the other is based on the same recipe but using more exotic dried fruits such as pineapple, coconut, mango and whatever else takes my fancy. I'd better stop talking about cake!! It's making me hungry and it's too soon to tuck into Christmas cake just yet.

Hope you are all having fun making for Christmas or out shopping for Christmas. Bye for now.