I made it!

One of my New Year resolutions for 2014 was to blog once a month. Here we are at blog 12 for 2014 - on the very last day. Woohoo, I did it!

I don't think I'll be able to commit to a blogging structure for 2015, much as I would like to. I'm starting a course for work in January which is going to take up a lot of my time. It's a year long course and I'm a bit daunted. And by daunted I mean scared.

I will need to drop in though to show you my niece's kickass blanket which I finally gave to her at Christmas and my other niece's owl scarf which I'm in the process of manically crocheting in time for Saturday!

Preparation for Christmas this year ended up being a big mad rush - as always. I wanted to make little tree ornaments to go inside my cards again - like the snowflakes I made last year. I found a lovely pattern for little stockings which I tried in November, but they took about an hour each stocking but the time I'd faffed about so I decided against it. They did look cute though.

See? Cute.

I did my first ever cross-stitch onto crochet for two of them. This was far harder than it looks. I now have the utmost respect for people who do this type of crafting.

Scrapping the stocking idea, by early to mid-December I found a quick little pattern for Christmas wreaths. I only properly started making the decorations in December which was pretty stupid. I really should remember that the last post is earlier than I anticipate and have them ready earlier.

First batch

I tried out different things. The one top right was my first and the bow was way too small I decided. I preferred generally how the ribbons looked to the yarn, although one of my friends disagreed with me on that, so I kept making them. I try to match the ribbon to the person's personality, as weird as that sounds. The colours and types of ribbon/yarn suit that particular person.

I used this brilliant green wool my friend Martha had bought me from Iceland. It was all unprocessed and wiry - perfect for the foliage of the wreaths.
 

 My fave

After making the snowflakes I knew this time to collect as many ribbons as possible over the course of the year. My main sources of ribbons are from the tags on clothing - those designed to ensure the garment doesn't slip from the hanger. Also Christmas crackers often have some pretty ribbons. Otherwise, I just collected up odd scraps of wool or bits of ribbon wherever possible.

Here you can see my ribbon/yarn collection for the bows. There is more there than it looks! I think I ended up making about 60-70 wreaths this year and I only got through about 1/3 of my supply.

However, I did run out of the Icelandic wool sooner than expected and so went on to using a Stylecraft dk wool in dark green. This didn't have quite the same stiffness, although the colour was pretty.

 

Here's one matching its card nicely

 

Blue!

 Another set ready to go. Apologies if I chat to you regularly on Twitter and didn't send you a card/wreath, by the way. I found it really tight for time trying to get them made up and sent off. The last lot actually went the day after the recommend sending date for Christmas. I tried to get everyone but I know I missed a few people. Sad times.

 

Here's the one I made for home on the tree, top left you can see last year's snowflake creation

One of my favourite things is when people send me pictures of their ones on the tree. It's well satisfying once the cards start arriving to see the little creations across social media. Here are a few pictures I was sent of them being all Christmassy and that.

 

 

 

If I sent you a wreath and you want to send me a photo of yours to add to this collection then do so and I'll put it up! :)


Have a wonderful New Years all. May 2015 be very happy and healthy and lucky for you.

Lots of love x x x