Fun and festive yarn for Christmas crafting

 

Summer is definitely the time of year to sit at the beach (or on the porch with a glass of iced tea or iced coffee at hand) and work on crocheting smaller projects for Christmas.  I often make hot mats, dish cloths, coasters, and even ornaments.  It's always fun to find a festive new yarn to use.

 

The variegated yarn above has gold sparkles in it.  

The tree motif above is made from this pattern in a sparkly green yarn.  I still want to do a bunch of these and make a garland.

I just used a festive variety of regular cotton yarn in the hot mat above.

Imagine my delight to see in my email this morning a message from Yarnspirations featuring a new yarn simply titled "Festive"!  It is a new color way from Red Heart Super Savers Bitty Stripes.  You can save 35% now on this yarn with the code XMASINJULY.  

For a closer look at this pretty new Christmas yarn, go here: Bitty Stripes Festive.  Happy shopping and crafting!

A fun little crochet project -- granny square trees!

 

I've had this project saved on my Crafting for Christmas board for some time.  I like simple granny square style projects and these little trees look easy and fun to make.  

Here is the link: Granny Square Trees.   (The designer has named them "Grandma Trees", which is sort of fun.)  This tutorial uses the Australian crochet terms, but the author includes US terms in parentheses and it really didn't look too confusing, so I gave it a try.  

I decided to try making one with some pretty Christmasy green yarn from my stash.  You can see it has a bit of sparkle to it.  I used an F hook and it seemed just about perfect.

 

The tutorial, done with clear photos of the various rounds and stitches, is super easy to follow.  I just took it step by step and I was very pleased with how quick it was to make a tree.

 

I think that a number of these, strung together to make a garland, would look really nice.  I initially thought of stringing them together on matching green yarn, but I've also had the thought of red and white bakers' twine.  We will see!  These trees are so quick to make that I probably will make a bunch of them and make a garland.  Maybe two!

Some Christmasy projects I'm working on this July

 

 I'm working on a few projects with a Christmasy vibe, this July, in whatever snippets of spare time I find.

At top is a crocheted scalloped hot mat, a pattern I turn to again and again.  Here's the link: Crocheted Scalloped Hot Mat.  I can't even guess how many of these I have made over the years, but I love the vintage look and the ease of the pattern.  You can't really see it in the photo unless you look really close, but this ombre Christmas yarn has gold threads glinting in it too.  I'm just at the stage of crocheting the two layers together.

I had planned on making a few dishcloths from this pattern -- Dori's Dishcloth -- which has become my favorite, in Christmasy colors.  I've made a red one and recently finished this green one.

And lastly, I'm working sporadically on the Poinsettias and Pines winter sampler from Blue Ribbon Designs, which I would love to finish before December.  But we will see.

 
And that's the current state of my Christmasy crafting!

A festive dishcloth

 

 Well, really, why shouldn't one have a festive dishcloth or two?

This pattern, by Dori at The Red Feedsack, has become my new favorite.  If you follow the link to Dori's blog, you will see that her dishcloths are mostly in solid colors.  I really like that better -- it has a simplicity that I really love -- but I have made many with variegated yarn because I have odds and ends of that to use up.

I've also found that if I keep up with laundering dishcloths on a very regular basis, i.e. light colors with light laundry, darker colors with dark,  I don't need to use bleach to feel that they are clean and thus, the colors are not much diminished, although they do fade ever so slightly with each wash.

This Christmas season I wanted a simple project to have in my bag if I was stuck waiting somewhere or for quiet evening moments at our cottage.  I decided to work on dishcloths in red and green.  I had several partial skeins of the Christmas variegated yarn and decided to use that for the edging.

This red one is the only dishcloth I managed to finish, but I'm happy with how it turned out and have started a green one as well. 

The year of the crocheted hat

 

For Christmas 2020 it seems that I made a crocheted hat for nearly every grandchild, plus one for my hubby and one that I ended up with for myself.  I honestly don't even know how I got started, but it may have been when I was going through some old emails from Everything Etsy and found this pattern for an Easy Crochet Hat.  I decided to try and make one, and I was hooked.  (No pun intended.)

I learned a few things along the way, and one was that the hats turned out too stretchy when made with a soft yarn like Caron's Simply Soft.   They looked okay, but I made one for my hubby using that yarn and it wasn't long at all before it became all stretched out and misshapen.

Just a regular worsted weight acrylic is probably best.  I used the Red Heart Super Saver yarn for some of these.  For others I used a Bernat yarn.  Kim, the designer, said she prefers Vanna's Choice yarn.  The hat in the top photo was made with a self-striping yarn that I really enjoyed using.

These hats are incredibly quick and easy to make up!  You could easily make a bunch of them this summer while sitting at the beach or by the pool.  Check out the Easy Crochet Hat Pattern, grab some yarn and a size H hook and give it a try.  Working in the back stitches gives it an intricate ribbed look, but it is truly very easy.

Week 1 of the holiday planning challenge

 

 Has anyone else jumped into the 2020 Holiday Planning Challenge with  A Virtuous Woman?  As I shared last time, it began Monday, November 2.  This was sort of bad timing for me, since we were out of town until November 3.  We were up north visiting our friend Charlotte at her cabin, and got back on Tuesday the 3rd (Election Day) just in time to get to the polls and vote.

The time away was great, although not exactly what we planned.  It was a quick visit; we arrived on Sunday around 5:30 and would leave Tuesday after breakfast.  Since Monday was to be our only full day up there, we thought we would maybe do some hiking on a nearby trail or at least go for a nice long walk.  It was not to be.  On Monday, it snowed pretty much all day.  Much of the time we simply sat and visited on the lovely glassed-in porch.  I did, however, get to work on a Christmas project as we chatted, as well as a birthday gift.

I am making a crocheted stocking like those above for a new member of the same family, expected to arrive December 20 or thereabouts.  While at Charlotte's, I completed the stocking (making it solid red this time) but the name tag will have to wait until we know the baby's name.

So the time was pleasantly productive even with the snow.  All of this to say, though, that I didn't get started even a bit with the planning challenge.  Later that week I did print out weeks 1 and 2 of the plan, but that's about as far as it got.  I just resigned myself to being a week behind with it.

So this week I've done just a few things toward week 1.  I bought some extra butter on sale to use for Christmas cookies, and I bought some shelled pistachios and some dried cranberries on sale to put in my Christmas granola.

I got out my Christmas card list which I began updating months ago and then set aside.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that I only have 15 addresses to update.

And happiest of all, I managed to clean three kitchen drawers this week, including the silverware drawer mentioned in week 1.  That is a huge accomplishment and I attribute my increased energy levels to the 40-day sugar fast.  (Today is Day 28, and I'm feeling so great that I hope to continue fasting from sugar after Thanksgiving has come and gone.)

So, even though I'm a week behind with the planning challenge, I'm very thankful to have made some real progress this week!

Crocheted goodness to make now for gifts

Smallish crochet projects, like the scarf above, are perfect to make in July and stash away for Christmas gifts.  I don't mind crocheting in summer, even at a picnic table or in a camping chair, as long as the project is not too large or too heavy.  On Kim Layton's Everything Etsy blog, I found this delightful post: DIY Crochet Slipper Patterns.

But this post contains far more than slipper patterns, fun as those are.   (I was really taken with the look of this slipper pattern from 2 Create in Color,

Photo from 2 Create in Color

and could easily have gotten sidetracked by grabbing a hook and yarn to start right in, but noticing it was crocheted in the round and required the use of stitch markers kept me from it.)

Kim's post also includes links to fun scarf patterns, hat patterns, and headband patterns to crochet. Every bit as much fun is a link to her free printable labels for crocheted gifts: Free printable crochet gift labels.  These are adorable and could be used on any small crocheted projects, even dishcloths as shown in the photo.  I love how they look printed on kraft paper!

Photo from Everything Etsy

Have fun with these sweet crochet ideas!

Crocheted scarf for kids

I thought for sure I had posted about this scarf before, but I have not, apparently.  So right now, in July, would be a good time to whip up a bunch of these easy scarves for the kids in your life.  Here's the link, from Design Adventures: Child’s Textured Scarf.

A few years ago (it was 2013, actually -- I had to look it up!)  I made a number of these simple scarves.  My grandchildren, who had asked for scarves, loved them.  Apparently I was too busy to take photos of these at the time, however.  The photos in this post are from this past Christmas, when my daughter in Nevada asked if I would make scarves for her three youngest children who did not have them. 

It worked out perfectly, because I was at the point of wanting to make a few very simple handmade gifts again.  These scarves are so fast that I could easily get them done in time to send out west.

I do apologize for the quality of these photos.  I snapped them quickly -- just before wrapping and packing them, I would guess.  But you get the idea.  This is a nice textured pattern and so easy to do.  The kids in my life really like them.  So if you need a quick handmade gift for a child (especially one who likes to play outdoors in winter) this might be just the thing!

Crochet-embellished gift tags

Photo from A Spoonful of Sugar

Here's another fun idea for gift tags that are unique and special and could easily be worked on this summer.  These simple crochet gift tags are another nifty idea from Lisa at A Spoonful of Sugar.

These are so simple and quick!  The crochet motifs are just tiny granny squares made with perle cotton.  The little squares are then affixed to blank tags.

This could be a nice little project to work on at the beach.  A lazy day at the lake could yield big dividends in the form of a nice little stash of cute tags all ready for Christmas!

Some March posts from the Christmas Kitchen archives

 I've done a couple of posts like this on my regular blog, and thought it might be fun to do the same here on my Christmas blog.  Most of these are crafts, with a couple of other topics thrown in.  Enjoy!

 I'll start with the non-crafting topic -- a gorgeous vintage Christmas card.

 Read the story behind it here: Of berries red, of candles’ mellow light.

Of course the card at the top of the post is vintage also -- I found a set of these snowflake cards in an old box in a closet.

 If, like me, you enjoy crafting ornaments, and if you have access to hemlock cones (those are the teeny tiny ones) you might like to try these Snowy hemlock cone ornaments.  In the post you will read about my expensive inspiration for this project.

 Speaking of inspiration, this post: Inspiration for your handmade gifts, with ideas gleaned from other bloggers, will inspire you as it did me, I'm sure.

A Christmas place mat finished shows you the first installment on something that took me a long time to finish.  

But I now have a set of ten!

 Lastly, here are three different craft projects that make fantastic gifts for kids.  I featured two of these in the "March archive" post on my regular blog, but I know that not everyone reads both blogs, so I am featuring them here as well.

Chefs' hats are a surefire gift for any child who enjoys cooking or dressing up.  As you can see, this birthday boy decided his gift made a great party hat!

This Crocheted chocolate doughnut is a simple and fun project to make for kids who like playing with felt food.  You wouldn't let a baby or toddler play with it because of the beads, but older kids would be fine with it.

I  showed these on my regular blog today also, but these Felt Play Mats are so cute.

 The only problem is that the hot glue on these did not hold up well at all.  After putting so much work into these and trying to make them sort of personalized for each family, it was disappointing to have pieces begin to fall off as the kids played with them.  Even though it would be a lot more work, if I ever made any of these another time I would sew the pieces in place.

If you missed these posts the first time around, I hope you have enjoyed reading them this time!

Two Christmas-themed crochet projects

Here are two recently completed projects.  One is out-and-out Christmasy; the other could be used all winter as well as at Christmas time.  The project above is a vintage-style scalloped hot pad from this pattern: Scalloped Potholder.  (Although the pattern calls it a pot holder, I feel that this is too thick for a pot holder, so I always leave off the hanging loop.)  What these work perfectly for is just as a hot mat or trivet to use on your table for placing a hot dish on.

I made stacks of these in many different colors over last spring, summer, and fall.  The pattern is easily memorized and the project is small enough to be very portable.  I worked on these while overseeing my dad's home health care last spring, as well as countless hours in waiting rooms, hospital and nursing home rooms.

I ended up with many, many hot pads and so, this past Christmas, I took a bag full of them in so the members of my ladies' Sunday School class could each choose one as a gift from me.

The Christmas variegated yarn in the top photo is some that I acquired for free.  I had used it to make a Christmas doily

and thought it might also look nice in a hot pad.  You can't see it too well in the photo, but there is a metallic gold thread running through the red, white and green cotton yarn.  I was pleased with how the hot pad turned out and will make another one or two at some point, as I still have more of the yarn.

Then the second project is this snowflake hot mat:

I've made this one before, a couple of times, in blue.

It's a vintage pattern and relatively easy.  It does use a LOT of triple crochet, however, so if you don't enjoy doing that stitch (I don't; it just feels too floppy and unwieldy to me), you probably wouldn't care for this pattern.  I have sort of a love/hate relationship with these hot mats.  I love the way they look when finished, but they are a lot larger than I really like in a hot mat.  I may give the pattern one more chance using smaller hook sizes.

If anyone is interested in this pattern, it is from Annie's Pattern Club, December 1980.  I did locate a few copies of the magazine online, although I can't be sure they are still available at this time.  Here are the links:
Snowflake Hot Pad pattern on eBay or
Treasured Heirlooms Crochet.  You could probably find even more by doing an online search for Annie's Pattern Club, December 1980.

I've just started another of the scalloped hot pads in a combination of blue yarns to have as another portable crochet project in my needlework bag.  My gift stash is depleted, only four left in it, so I'll begin making more in free moments of waiting time.  I hate for my hands and brain to be idle!

A different look for the Christmas Star doily

 I might as well start calling these Christmas Star doilies.   The original pattern called it a Christmas star dishcloth.  But it seems to me that these would make a nice doily-type item for Christmas decorating, not just a dishcloth.  And in fact, everyone that I've gifted with one of these has said just that -- they see them as doilies and plan to use them as such.  Here is the link to the free pattern, which downloads as a pdf and is easy and fun to crochet:  Christmas Star Dishcloth.

 The original pattern calls for cream colored yarn with gold yarn on the edging part, but to my mind white yarn with red or green edging looks even nicer.  I have done some in cream yarn with a burgundy edge --  a dark forest green edging would be pretty with the cream as well.

I was making a few of these for my gift stash and decided to try a green star with red edging as seen at the top of the post.  Then I was inspired to do one with variegated Christmas yarn.  This yarn, which was given to me,  actually has gold sparkles in it as well.   Obviously, neither this nor the green one would work well at all as dishcloths, but would be fine as doilies or decorative mats.

I think I still like the white with red edging the best, however.  Now I need to make a few of these for myself.  This might make a simple project to work on at the beach this summer!

Christmas Star dishcloths

I've posted about this pattern before, but it's been five years and I think more readers would like to know about it.  I saw these adorable dishcloths over at Miss Abigail's Hope Chest and just had to share.  Here is the link to the free pattern, which downloads as a pdf and is easy and fun to crochet:  Christmas Star Dishcloth.

 The original pattern calls for gold yarn on the edging part, but Kathleen, at Miss Abigail's, used red, which to my mind looks even nicer.  I have done these with green edging also.  These look to me as if they would make a nice doily-type item for Christmas decorating, not just a dishcloth.  And in fact, everyone that I've gifted with one of these has said just that -- they see them as doilies and plan to use them as such.

If you need an easy handmade gift or a little something to tuck into a gift basket, and you crochet, here is your answer.  Have fun!

Some simple after-Christmas crafting

Super simple gift tags

Since Christmas, I've been able to craft a few simple items so thought I would quickly share them.  One of my goals this year is to nurture my creativity, so I'm not losing any time getting started.  I'm trying to do something creative every day, even if it's only cooking or thinking of a creative solution or tactic in homemaking.

For Christmas gifts for my daughters and several friends, I made these fabulous "Best of My Days" cards from Ashley at Under the Sycamore.  I had such fun designing the packaging.  This is one that I made as a New Year gift for a friend. 

Christmas Star dishcloth

Gift tags from 2014's Christmas cards

Winter-themed table topper (more pics on my regular blog)

More of the simple gift tags I made from the metal-rimmed paper tags and small embellishments

These projects are simple, but they have been fun for me and have definitely helped me stay sane during a cold and busy January!

Time to make a new stocking!

The family's stockings interspersed with those of their local family members.  You can see that the crocheted stockings are third, sixth, seventh, and ninth in line.

 Some years ago, I crocheted some stockings for a few of the grandkids that we had at the time.  I didn't really expect these to become their actual Christmas stockings -- I just thought it would be fun to make them some personalized decorative stockings and had a crochet stocking pattern I wanted to try.  However, one of the families -- our daughter, son-in-law and family who live in the West -- has made them their default Christmas stockings.  I'm tickled about that!

Cream with dark red trim and a green tag

They just had a new baby in June, and so I am getting ready to crochet another stocking.  I'm thankful that they sent the picture of their stockings hanging from their local parents/grandparents' mantel, because I couldn't remember just what color combinations I had already used.  I've been trying to keep it to the same 3 colors -- dark red, dark green, and cream -- but just using them in varying combinations.  The photo at top will help me decide what to use this time around.

Dark green with dark red trim and a white tag

I'll be starting this project soon.  It will be fun to crochet another stocking!

Fantabulous Felt Food!

Kids love felt food!

 For many weeks and months (maybe years)  now, I have been wanting to put all of my links to various felt food projects in one place.  Here on my Christmas blog, I'm posting today with all of the links I can find.  These are all felt foods I have made over the past three or four years or so.  I have other links and projects saved, but only want to share links for the items I have actually made.

If you think you might like to make some felt food for children in your life for Christmas, birthdays, or just for fun, now is a great time to get started.  Felt food is easy, small, and portable, making it an ideal craft to work on during a road trip, at the beach, etc. 

So let the linkage begin!

I think that these Felt Cheez-It® Crackers were the first felt food I attempted.  Very, very easy.

You can see the cheese crackers toward the right back of the table.  We recycled a cracker box to present them in.

Unfortunately, I can no longer access the blog where I got the pattern for bacon and eggs; it has become a private blog.  This  pattern looks like a good one: Felt Fried Eggs and Bacon.  The bacon I made has a wavy, realistic look because one stitches along the edges using a wired floss in a tan color.

Bacon and Eggs

 These Felt Cinnamon Rolls are probably the easiest felt food I've ever made, but they sure do look delicious!

Cinnamon Rolls

These Felt popsicles are also very easy to make.

Grape, lime, and orange popsicles

Orange, cherry and lime popsicles

Felt Toaster Pastries might be a great starter project.  They are so quick and easy!  If your grandchildren are very little or if there are babies in the house, you might prefer to make colorful french knot "sprinkles" rather than attaching beads. 

Pop-tarts®

Pop-tarts® in packaging

 I think I failed to take pictures of the Felt Coffee & Mini Donut set I made for these two.  (Maybe because I was somewhat disappointed in how the coffee cups came out.)  Their uncle owns a coffee shop, which is why I made these.  They are drinking from the coffee cups, which have sleeves from their uncle's shop.  The large donuts in the picture are the crocheted ones.  I think the pink and chocolate frosted mini donuts from this tutorial are in between the valentine cookies and the cheese crackers, in front of Emily.  (You can actually see these mini donuts better in the very top photo, where they are in the foreground.)

This pattern for Felt sandwiches and bags of chips has directions for potato chips, bags, and two kinds of sandwiches.

Sandwiches -- ham, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes on burger buns

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich

Bags of chips

Another look at the potato chips

I tried several tutorials for felt strawberries, but one came out as big as tomatoes!  I salvaged them by putting them in a tomato box and calling them tomatoes, but they weren't all that easy to make, so I've scrapped that pattern.  These Felt strawberries are the best pattern I've found.  I like to package them in plastic berry boxes.

A basket of strawberries

This Felt pumpkin pie with whipped cream is truly amazing.  I've made lemon, chocolate, and cheesecake pie slices as well.  A good bit of the sewing on this is done by machine, so it's not as complicated as it looks.

Pumpkin pie

Lemon pie

Chocolate cream pie

Strawberry cheesecake

Pumpkin, lemon and chocolate pie

And here is the link for pancakes:Felt Pancakes.  Again, very easy.  Partly sewed by machine.

Pancakes with butter pat

And here is one for Christmas cookies -- these are also very easy!  Christmas Cookies.  Obviously, you can make these into plain sugar cookies or into Valentine cookies -- or just cut-out cookies for any occasion!

Christmas cookies

Christmas cookies in their packaging

Frosted sugar cookies with sprinkles

Valentine cookies

More Valentine cookies

This Fabric Bow-Tie Pasta is not made of felt, but is still very easy.

Fabric bow tie pasta

A package of pasta

Not all play food is made of fabric.  Here are a couple of links for foods I've crocheted:  Crochet Sandwich Cookies

Crocheted chocolate sandwich cookies

and Crocheted Donut, which I've made in varying "flavors".  Again, if you suspect these or the felt cookies (really, any play food with "sprinkles") will go into a tiny child's mouth, then please use french knots rather than beads.

A pink-frosted doughnut

Chocolate frosted donut

A packaged chocolate donut

So there are all my links! 

My grandkids are always happy to get more felt food!

Have fun cooking up some felt food!  A word of warning, though -- it's addictive!