Crafty Christmas

Small Treasures

Once I'd seen this book my sister received as a gift I knew I had to try my hand at one of those little house ornaments, what a perfect way to use some of my fabric scraps! I drew out my own pattern for it as the original wasn't available, so the shape is a little different. It was a pleasure to make, and so easy, I feel a whole housing estate worth of these little objects might be on it's way! Here's a link to the Amazon page for the book, which has some good shots of the inside pages inside: Scandinavian Stitches

A bit rough around the edges but I don't mind that!

 Crochet crazy, crazy crochet!

There's always a point, about 6 weeks before Christmas that I start to get the craft bug. It seems to happen every year without fail, the sudden urge to make lovely, homey crafty things for pressies for my nearest and dearest. In fact, I would say it becomes a full on festive compulsion! There's something about the combination of necessity and pleasure that sends me into overdrive. I seem to need deadlines and purpose to make me get my backside into gear, and that coupled with having specific people to produce things for works wonders for my creative production line. It's like I don't need an excuse to be burying myself in piles of brightly coloured wool or wonderfully coloured fabrics, I can abandon myself to it, no guilt necessary!

So this year, I did struggle for time in the end, and there are always more things I wish I'd done, but I did also manage to get the essentials and some extra projects completed. Mostly crochet again this year, thanks to my large pile of oddments. I've accumulated a collection of different coloured balls of wool, thanks to charity shop buys and feeling the need to buy balls of different colours as I see them in the shops but never wanting to commit to any large amount of one colour. I have found more and more over time that for me the pleasure lies in working with colour, in unexpected and new ways, and exploring it. Crochet seems to be a very effective if not obvious way of doing this. There is such a large choice of coloured wool available in the shops, and I always feel inspired when I see all the contrasting colours and textures, they're like wonderful abstract paintings in the making. I feel working this way has actually really helped me to grow in my ability to design in other creative areas, I have a much better sense of my own style of colour as time goes on and I explore my creativity through this fun medium.

Scarves, of course!

A stripey scarf for hubby

I have to admit I was particularly pleased with the design of this scarf. I've been drawn to colour palettes lately that consist of bright colours mixed with neutrals. I used the wool I already had and went for a mix of primaries mixed with a dark grey, which I think sets off the other colours of nicely. The stitch was half double crochet, or in English patterns, a half treble crochet.

I also made a scarf for my mums main Christmas pressie, in what seems to be becoming a bit of a tradition, since I made her one last year, although that was a very different style. I did the same thing with the colour palette in her scarf as I did with my husbands, using brights with a neutral grey, only with a slightly more feminine feel. I made it using a chevron stitch, ie a zig zag stitch, which is surprisingly easy to achieve. There are lots of variations, this is a good link for experimenting with them: chevron stitch tutorials at CrochetCabana.

Something Small and Pretty

Sometimes I do love things that venture in to real twee territory, like these really delightful little flower brooches.  I got the pattern for them from the Attic24 blog,  a visually delicious crochet site I visit when in need of the fresh and uplifting. Here's a link:  Attic24 blog, crochet flower brooch

A hat made with cluster stitch, on to which I pinned the little flower brooch I made.

Fingerless Mitts and Accessories

These next items were for my younger sister who really enjoys bright, japanese pop inspired clothing. I got the basic fingerless glove pattern from Redheart, and then embellished them with brightly coloured flowers. I would highly recommend trying this pattern, I learnt a couple of new crochet techniques I'd never come across before, including how to do the ribbing along the bottom which looks knitted. They are really quick to do as well, I made several pairs, each one in an evening.

A pair of fingerless mittens for my younger sister.

Fun kitsch headbands also for little sis!

I have to admit I became a little addicted to making these fingerless mittens, they were so easy to make, and very pleasing little objects in there own right. I made these ones below for my sister-in-law, although   I have a pair exactly the same in progress for myself!

Vibrant experimental shopper bag!

Last but by no means least if the amount of time I spent on it is anything to go by! I started an adventure with this bag alright! It began life as a round flat base and an opportunity to go wild with my colour oddments. I also wanted to try out popcorn stitch which I'd never used before and wanted to give a go. I also wanted to use a stitch variation I'd come across called a long single crochet, where you crochet down into the row below, which creates a lovely almost fair isle pattern and added texture. It turned out to be the longest project I have yet worked on, a labour of love for my mother-in-law, who despite the stereo-type is actually a very nice lady. She has always been particularly generous towards us so I felt I should endeavour to create a present reflecting my appreciation for her.

This is a shot of the underneath where you can see it started life as a round, increasing as I went

It nearly all went very wrong when I realised that I'd been accidentally increasing on the rows with the bobble stitch. It was getting bigger and bigger and I couldn't understand it! When I did realise my error I slowly decreased on the rows, making a judgement as I went about how much I should decrease by. I really didn't know how it was going to turn out but had an image in my head of what kind of shape I could maybe work it into. I was pleasantly surprised when it seemed to come together in a proper 'bag' shape, once I'd finished it off with the handles. It was supposed to be a kind of grocery shopper, a handy bag for taking to the shops for bags of apples, baguettes and other such delectable items!