Christmas llama

I'm still cracking on with the backlog of Simply crochet kits that I've amassed, here is the latest off the hook - Fa-la-la-llama by Erinna Lee.

Quite a fiddly make to do, lots of small pieces to crochet and then join together including some tricky embroidery on the face using separated yarn... which ended up pulling apart so had to make do with some doubled up thread.

When I made up the sequined reins I decided to crochet them straight into the chain which I think gives them a much neater finished than the method in the pattern.

Pretty pleased to have him finished, and also glad to crack on with some other exciting projects I've been keen to start... more on that soon :-)

Crochet decorations

The Christmas decorations are all packed away for another year in readiness for welcoming in 2018. Before they all got sent off to the loft I managed to snap a few photos of some of my crochet (and one knitted) decorations.

These little thread crochet stockings may be the first tree ornaments I ever crocheted and were simple to make up with a heel worked in too. The pattern is by Karen Perkins.

These ginger bread men are also some of my first - you can tell as they date back to when I only ever worked in one loop so my crochet in rows looked corrugated! Pattern by Priscilla Hewitt.

This is my crochet poinsettia - made using the lovely pattern by June Gilbank but with thread instead of yarn so it would fit on my Christmas tree.

I've made so many of these lovely crochet granny squares over the years, they look very lovely in crochet thread and also show up beautifully on a tree when made up in white cotton. 

Pattern by Michelle Kludas from the Royal Sisters blog.

Next up are these very quick and satisfying to make simple crochet baubles pattern by Lucy of Attic24.

These little Christmas trees were designed by myself 10 years ago - one of the first patterns I wrote up and shared. Pattern can still be found here on the CrochetMe site.

Aww - this little bear bauble still makes me smile each year with his snuggly blue striped scarf wrapping him up. Pattern by Stephanie Jessica Lau.

Another favourite are these snow men ornaments - they turned out so very cute (unfortunately I didn't think to keep any for my own tree, all of these made friends in new homes). Pattern by Audra Brown and available as a free Ravelry download - you may need a Ravelry account to access this one.

This is one of my few knitted decorations - made after my visit to the first Yarndale back in 2013. Pattern was published in the Yarndale program that year. I really love this pretty bauble and if it hadn't taken me about 5 hours to make I would have covered my tree with more :-)

Last decoration now - these are the holly leaves I made up this year as presents (as well as making up so many felt hearts) - simple and pretty from the holly pattern by Lucy of Attic24.

Even more decorations

This year I finally got around to photographing some of the handmade Christmas tree decorations I've made over the years for our family tree. I've focused on just the felt decorations this time, I'll also try and take some more photos of a few of the yarn ones as well.

I made a batch of these pretty white decorations back in 2012 (original blog post) inspired by the decorations shown in the Christmas 2011 Mollie Makes issue.

These delicate little bells decorated with buttons were made about 3 years ago, I made them from a pattern in one of my craft magazines but can't remember which one now!

I absolutely love this little felt gingerbread house decoration (original blog post) this one is from a pattern in "Fa la la felt" a fabulous book packed with beautiful felty Christmas goodness.

This little Christmas Scotty dog was made a joke for my husband (original blog post) - he had thought a 'Poinsetter' was a type of dog, so I made him this and told him that was what it was :-)

These stars are what I made and gave out to family last year. They turned out very pretty with some Christmas fabric from one of my sisters and a tiny wooden star button sewn on.

This snowflake bauble was from another year... I borrowed a friend's diecast machine and couldn't stop cutting out these pretty snowflakes. They were quick to sew on with a bit of silver thread and some little silver star sequins as well to add some extra sparkle.

These two gorgeous felt decorations are full of character and detail. They are both from kits by paper-and-string - she does such beautiful and well thought out patterns. (Original Christmas pudding post)

This simple and pleasing felt tree decoration is another one from "Fa la la felt" - I love the vivid pink with the green and the free hand swirls in contrasting colour on each side (original blog post).

This little stocking was a quick attempt at a Pusheen style decoration for my husband who loves the silly and cute cartoons... didn't quite turn out as well as I had wanted... would have been better out of the stocking and looking plumper.

These two felt decorations I made back in 2010 (original blog post) using a pattern in the December 2010 issue of Sew Hip magazine. I love the ric-rack detail across the middle and the little bit of embroidery at the top of the baubles.

Last one to share with you... these stars I made many years ago to decorate our first Christmas tree together - probably back in 2006. They are as simple as they look - just a simple star shape with some sequins added for a little bit of extra sparkle. The sequins catch the light from the tree lights and I love seeing them up on our tree each year.

I hope you've enjoyed looking at some of my past tree decorations - can you tell how much I love working with felt? I'll get some more photos taken of my yarny ornaments to share soon too :-)

After a bit more sewing I've finished my little deer decoration.

He has a very sweet little embroidered blanket/saddle with gold thread details. He also has a pompom collar with thread tassels attached.

I'm super pleased with him and he is now hanging happily on our very full Christmas tree :-)

Happy Christmas!

I've been trying to finish up this adorable little reindeer felt tree decoration, and I'm very almost there...

I'm a little stuck with the gold embroidery on his blanket saddle so I thought I would just share a photo of him unadorned as he is beautiful already.

He has been made from the lovely kit which came with issue 86 of Mollie Makes.

Crazy Christmas crafting

I've been a busy embroidering bee over the last two months making up a lovely stack of these Nordic style snowflake hearts. For each heart I free hand embroidered the snowflake before blanket stitching together and filling with stuffing.

I'm delighted with how they came out, these are on their way to new homes right now to help make lots of friends and family's trees a tiny bit more Christmasy. 

Christmas tree decorations

 Every year I try to make a batch of tree decorations to give to friends and family - here are some photos of what I managed to make up this year:

First up I did some simple felt candy canes inspired by Bugs and Fishes lovely tutorial.

 

Next I made up a batch of simple stylised robin decorations (my own design)

These thread decorations were inspired by some pretty crochet baubles shown in this years Simply Crochet Christmas issue.

Lastly but most definitely my favourite would be these very adorable crochet snowmen. Loved making them - even thought the tiny tiny pom poms for the hats were a bit tricky! Brilliant free pattern available through Ravelry.

Knitting?

Looks like I may be converting to the dark side... I've finished off the pretty bauble (though it is more egg shaped than bauble shaped) I started work on at Yarndale.

Then I went and made another... and this one even came out round!

Knitting with 4 needles is properly tricky but strangely addictive and I've had a brilliant time making these (pattern by HomeBakedOnline) and may even try something more challenging soon :-)

To finish off I wanted to show you the few pretty bits I bought myself from Yarndale.

Clockwise from top:

Pretty mercelized crochet cotton by Rico
Lovely dark blue flower buttons from Injabulo
Yarndale program
3.5 KnitPro crochet hook (my favourite size)
Antique bone crochet hook
Antique pink needle case with thimble at top
Beautiful grey porcelain flower pendant by Susan Sharpe Ceramics
Yarndale pin
Yummy cake stitch markers by The Undercover Owl

November's craft - Fail :-(

For this month's craft I wanted to try and make some simple tree decorations with a variation on salt dough that produces a white finished item when baked.

There is a great tutorial for making these on the woodside kitchen blog and the ones shown there look really lovely.

I mixed up my ingredients, cooked it on the hob until I had a clay and then cut out and baked my decorations which I decorated with snowflake stamps... all good so far, however after baking only half the recommended time they and dried out, bubbled up, cracked and fallen apart.

So either used the wrong ingredients (quite likely as I substituted cornflour for cornstarch and baking powder for baking soda) or I baked these too long.

I think I had best stick to crochet & felt to finish up the rest of the Christmas decorations I need to make!

October's decoration: Little birds

So sorry for the lack of posting over the last week - Tea Towers is in full party preparation mode as the big event is this Sunday and there is still lots to do.

Thankfully I've managed to make up all the party bags now and I'm really pleased with how they worked, love the look of the simple brown paper bags and I'm hopeful that their recipients will like the contents.

This is just a quick post with my latest Christmas decoration - yet another felt project from the wonderful "Fa la la felt". I took this project along to a new craft group this week and made a couple of the birds up to be sold in aid of The Christie, however the pattern really is very small so I copied it up a bit larger at home and made a couple more birds to add to my fast growing box of decorations. I really love the mix of blue & cream in these and again will have trouble giving them away.

September's decoration: Felt Christmas pudding

Wow - look how early I've managed to get this month's Christmas decoration done!

Once you've recovered from your shock at seeing this month's Christmas decoration complete I'll have to admit that the reason I've made this so quickly is that I won the kit in a giveaway and just couldn't wait to get started on it.

I'm a huge fan of the paper-and-string blog and I love all the beautiful felt products that Sarah sells in her shop so I was delighted when she let me know that I had won one. She usually runs one giveaway each month but as she was bringing out a new range of Christmas goodies she decided to hold a whole week of giveaways.

My favourite out of her Christmas tree decorations (part of her 'sew your own' range) was this little cheerful Christmas pudding - simple and very, very cute. I'm tempted to raid my ribbon stash and have a go at making a few more as presents, but this little guy will definitely be added to my own Christmas tree decorations as I just can't bear to part with him.

Her kits contain everything you need to make your own decoration (apart from a needle and the thread) even the stuffing! The ribbons and button included are just adorable and make the finished item extra special :-)

August's decoration: Felt baubles & bells

These adorable felt decorations are so pretty that I really don't want to give them away. The pattern is from the Christmas 2011 issue of Mollie Makes and I kept as close to the colours they used as I could.

They are very simple to make - just two pieces of felt cut into a bell or bauble shape and decorated with chain stitch and 'lazy daisy' flowers. I embroidered both sides of my decorations which took a little extra time but I think it was well worth the effort.

July's decoration: Mini crochet stars

Just finished up a batch of these cute granny style Christmas stars up using crochet thread. I just need to find my gold crochet thread to make hanging loops for them and then they too can go in the Christmas box.

The pattern is very simple and includes a great photo tutorial so well worth having a go at if you are stuck for a last minute Christmas present. I think these would also look great strung together as a Christmas garland... I may even give that a go too!

The pattern is by Michelle Kludas and you can find it on her blog here - Grandma Twinkle pattern

June's decoration: Felt hearts

After a day of unsuccessful crocheting I needed a break so I dug out my back copies of Mollie Makes magazine and found that I had marked these felt hearts as a quick project to try.

These hearts were very quick and satisfying... once I had cut out the felt heart shapes I started adding buttons from my stash and had a great time picking them out and sewing them on. Once the buttons were all on it was a very quick job to join the hearts with a running stitch, add a ribbon hanging loop and stuff them lightly.

Ahhh - feeling much better now, nothing like an enjoyable couple of hours of crafting to help you relax :-)

April's decoration: Teddy baubles

These little bears look so cute all wrapped up in their warm winter scarves. They are pretty simple to make - being a basic ball shape with a few extra details added and then their snuggly scarves glued on at the end.

They are from yet another free pattern, this one being available through the wonderful All About Ami blog. I'm really starting to make some headway on my Ravelry queue... though by the time I've completed anything I usually have added another 3 projects to the queue!

Now I've just got to go and add some hanging loops to these and they will be all finished - these three are going to be so hard to give away :-(

March's decoration: Gingerbread house

This tasty looking gingerbread house makes me smile so much. It will have to stay as mine, all mine as I can't bear to give it away.

Very simple to make, a little fiddly to cut out the circular sweeties for the roof, but everything else was easy to do. Annoyingly though I only had enough of the gingery coloured felt to make one decoration so unless I get some more felt supplies in this will be the only one I make.

This is yet another of the decorations from "Fa la la felt", this book is fast becoming my favourite craft book yet!

February's decoration: Crochet baubles

I've had these very cute crochet baubles on my Ravelry queue to try making for ages so when it came time to choose my decoration for February I thought I would give these a go.

The bauble pattern is by the very talented crocheter Lucy of Attic24 - a beautiful blog filled with colour and crochet. She has written it as a photo tutorial and it is so easy to follow that I think even a complete beginner could do these.

Because they were so quick to make up I managed to finish 15 decorations this month, so I'm well on target for having a nice stash of decorations to give as gifts next Christmas.

January's decoration: Maroushka dolls

Even though 2012 is still very young I'm already thinking and planning about what I want to have made as presents for Christmas. I'm going to try and make all my Christmas presents again this year and after the rush I had when I tried it for Christmas 2010 I think starting as early as possible can only be a good thing.

These lovely ladies are from "Fa la la Felt" (a fantastic book full of wonderful felty Christmas inspiration) and apart from some fiddily cutting out were simple and quick to make. I love their sleepy eyes and I'm extra pleased with how the simple embroidery I did on the flower centres turned out. More decorations out of Fa la la Felt will definitely be making an appearance during the year, the hard thing is going to be resisting making everything in the book!

Oops - I only just managed to get this post in at the very last minute, I'll try to be better organised for February's decoration.