Now Christmas has well and truly crept up on us – Christmas carols are being played everywhere, the super giant Christmas trees have appeared in their natural habitat: the shopping centre, and the bombardment of Christmas catalogues has hit my mailbox – it’s time for my yearly panic about gifts. Well, this year I have decided to fight back and get organised early. The plan is to crochet Christmas decorations for the girls at work (Don’t worry as all real knitters do I’m sure I’ll decide two weeks out that there’s plenty of time to make that Christmas sweater!).
So out came the crochet stitch dictionary and I came upon an adorable star motif that’s 136 if you have this book.
Making use of my train journey to and from work (one hour 20 mins each way I have to find something to do) I realised I could make 3 motifs, there and 3 back. Even with adding the loop (See below for instructions). How quick is that?!?
And my stars were born and then improved by the quick steam block. Crochet cotton seems to respond really well to this.
As proved by my before blocking:
While blocking: (My super cool red dotty ironing board adds to the festive spirit)
And after blocking pics:
And if you’re going what’s blocking then click here to find out more. Once you discover it you can’t go back! Also, if you’d like to make your decorations hard you can also spray then with a bit of starch but I like them a bit malleable.
So if you’re looking for a quick gift then go to your crochet stitch dictionary and give it a try! (If you don’t have a dictionary don’t give up! Just google “Crochet Star Motifs”. It is amazing how many are out there. This site – http://allcrafts.net/crochet/crochetmotifs.htm – especially has some lovely ones.) And when you’ve made your motif all you have to do is make a loop for it to hang on your tree.
The loop instructions:
Once you’ve completed your motif slip stitch to a centre point. In the case of mine it was slip stitch to and including the centre chain in the chain space. Then I simply chained 24 and slip stitched back into my centre chain space. Easy peasy!
AdeleWest Designs 