Attic24

Leisure and Pleasure

Over the weekend the clocks went forward an hour here in the UK, which means that for the next seven months we are living in British Summer Time. Right now that equates to ever so slightly darker mornings, but to make up for it we are treated to an extra hour of daylight in the evenings. It's a wonderful time of year, the extra light in our days is oh-so-very-very welcome after our rather long, grey winter.

The changing of the clocks affects the Little People's sleep patterns for the first week or so - it becomes a bit more tricky to get them into bed when it is still kinda light outside, but the darker mornings can sometimes deliver that rare and precious thing - quiet Mummy time. This morning, for the first time in aaaages, I had that luxury. I got up at 6.30 when J went off to work and for a full twenty minutes I had the peace and quiet of the house all to myself. I made myself a mug of fresh coffee and sat very still for a while, listening to the sound of, er, well, the sound of nothing. I felt so soothed by the quiet of this old house at rest, it was unexpectedly wonderful.

And YAY, school's out for Easter and so we are officially on holidays here in the Attic. Chocolate and hot cross buns for breakfast, pyjamas till lunch time, we are in full slobbery mode and we are all enjoying it enormously (sorry J, it'll be your turn next week)

I've started on a new blanket journey too this weekend, and lucky for you I am going to withhold the lengthy stream of excited exclamations which leap about inside my head whenever I think of this blanket and these colours. (!*&%!>}**&!!). Oh my. Breeeeeeathe. It's all good.

So, after faffing and dithering for over two months with the pattern and the colour choices, on Friday/Saturday I got down to some serious planning and decision making. Happy to say it is really (really) working out well, and I'm looking forward to sharing more of this with you soon. The colours (ooooooooo the colours!!) are just floating my boat in a very majorly pleasing way. They are singing to me of grassy picnics and gentle warm breezes, of babbling rivers and clear blue skies, of bluebell woods and blossom trees and all things light, airy, warm and relaxed.

Now take a look at that - one gloriously technicolour blanket den, constructed entirely by Little B (age 5) without a single bit of help from anyone. I was upstairs this morning pairing up eleventy-dozen socks and folding a small mountain of laundry, and when I came back down, ta-dah, there was this. Oh sweet child, how happy this has made me today! Doesn't this image perfectly capture the complete joy of crochet blankets and holiday weeks spent at home with Little People? I think I delivered approximately eleventy-dozen little bowls of snacks to that blankety dwelling today too, den building and the subsequent lounging around inside the aforementioned den is obviously seriously hungry work. Thank goodness that child loves fruit. And cherry tomatoes.

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Edit to add :: here are the links to the den blanket ta-dah's!

Coast Ripple

Granny Patchwork

Baby Granny Square

 

 

 

Crochet Mini Chicklets

Measuring just 5cm tall, my mini chicklets are quick and easy to make. All you need is some scraps of DK weight yarn, a 4mm hook and a little bit of toy stuffing. Chocolate mini-eggs to aid concentration are optional but recommended.

You can find the pattern ♥HERE♥

Happy Hooking!

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Crochet, Colour and Flowers

This morning on the jaunt between school drop-off and my studio I bought two pots of Spring blooms. A little yellow pot of Tete-a-tete narcissi and a beautifully vibrant pink polyanthus.

Then on the jaunt between purchasing/drinking my first latté of the day at the café and getting down to some work I faffed with my blooms. Oh, such sweet, colourful faffing, I'm pretty sure I went a bit weak at the knees snipping and arranging these small stems.

I already had this little old china pot on my desk with some fading blue muscari and a few twigs of almost-open forsythia, so it was simply a case of snip-snip-snip and adding three more weeny stems. I spent a silly amount of time arranging it all just so, for the absolute simple enjoyment of doing it.

And then I added the Mini Chicklets - oh, aren't they just?!! These cuties hatched yesterday - the idea for them formed in my Creative Mind just like that with no warning yesterday afternoon and demanded to be brought ImMeDiAtElY into reality. I was honestly powerless to resist the cheep-cheep of these chicklets, and now they are here and I love them so much. Today at the studio (after faffing with the flowers and dancing around with my camera) I sat down and made a tutorial for making them - I'll write it all up and share it with you tomorrow (Thursday) all being well.

I am constantly finding inspiration in flowers, sometimes it's the real thing that sets me off on a creative spin and sometimes it's a mere thumbnail picture in a magazine or catalogue that does it for me. 

These little pictures are taken from a Sarah Raven catalogue which came free in one of the Spring magazines. Sarah's flower combinations are the floral colour-equivalent of my blankets, I just adore the way she mixes colours. Her catalogues are always inspiring and a feast for the eyes.

 

I stumbled across these today too - posters made from images of vintage seed catalogues from the 1800's. I'm not sure how these pictures arrived on my computer screen, I was searching on Amazon for something butterfly related and suddenly I was drowning in a whole page of these gorgeous floral images.

I especially love the one on the left  as I have a deep love of nasturtiums and grow them from seed in my back yard pots most years. But aside from the nostalgic flower-love aren't those colours just glorious! All these colourful floral images are dancing inside my head at the moment as I am in the throes of choosing a colour palette for my next blanket.

Actually, I'm working on several new projects all at once which is a lovely if complex way to go about things. This blanket-to-be has been on my mind for many months now, I sampled and finalised the pattern for the blocks about six weeks ago but have been stalling on the final choice of colours. I want something super-pretty and light, but not pale. I want soft but not wishy-washy. I've taken lots and lots of yarn-peg photos but nothing has felt quite right so far.

So during the past few weeks I've been crocheting up these squares in spare snippets of time, all the while pondering on the colours as they collect into their neat little piles with their tangled tail ends.

The blanket won't be made from these one-colour squares (although looking at the above picture, crikey, I am LOVING the simplicity of that - dare I make a thirty-two colour blanket>>?? No, probably not.) No, I just use these squares to play with, to test out combinations and stuff, it's the next step on from the pegs. Usually by this stage I've pretty much got it sorted with only one or two choices to deliberate over, but right now I'm needing to halve the above colours, and that decision making process is proving to be very tricky.

I've also been crocheting with two new palettes of Chunky yarn during recent weeks, finally getting to grips with a new bag design. I designed this bag way back in May last year, but for various reasons it's needed to sit quietly on the back burner until now. Coming back to it almost a year later has been great and I've now re-worked some of the bits that I wasn't completely happy with.

I've not quite finished working on the bags just yet (nearly, but not quite), and I can't wait to show them to you. The colours in my bag look like Autumn and Spring don't you think? Gosh, listen to me - colour, colour, colour, flowers, crochet, colour, colour....I feel a bit obsessed.........

......awwww you complete cutie-pie, just look how mini you are!!! Loving my brood of chicklets, more coming tomorrow.........back soon, toodle-oo!

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Magazine Styling :: Spring Inspiration

Right now my Creative Mind is absolutely chockablock full to bursting, in fact it's absolutely bloomin' rammed to the brink up there in my busy thinking-place. It's a bit of a strange sensation, kind of stressy and exhilarating all at the same time. I am forever grateful that (so far) my Creative Mind is in good health and consequently I am never ever short of ideas. They tumble and run and spin and whirl pretty much all day long and sometimes even hold wild boogies in my head at night too. I haven't yet experienced a creative block, or a drought. Waterfalls and floods are more common though, and right now it's positively raging a monsoon up there in my Creative Mind. Well yes, you get the picture. And that's one of the reasons I continue to adore writing my blog - it's such a wonderful way to deal with aspects of my overactive creative thinking and I truly value having this space as a way to sort it all out a bit. The very act of uploading photos and writing out ideas and feelings and thoughts and plans is extremely useful, and I'm sure that's why I remain blockage-free.

Just recently I have been immersing myself in the visual treats of the season and indulging in a bit of a Spring-fest. I have been a devoted lover of home/lifestyle magazines for almost twenty years now, and month after month they never fail to deliver a welcome dose of seasonal feel-good, along with a dash of escapism and a heap load of inspiration.

My two must-haves each month are Country Living (UK) and Country Homes and Interiors. They are both fabulous magazines, consistently inspirational and uplifting, with gorgeous photography and beautifully creative styling. But what I love most about these magazines is the very seasonal bias they have. I am more than a little bit in love with seasonal living, with styling, decorating, celebrating, living and eating according to the time of year. And these two magazines embrace this idea incredibly well.

Summer is my most favourite season of the lot, and I've written about my love of Summer magazines before here on my blog. As the years go by I am learning to love all seasons and appreciate the good in each, but there is no way I would ever love Winter more than Summer, it just isn't happening. Spring though - well Spring is a pretty wonderful time of the year and the March and April magazines have proven to be very inspiring this year.

It helps that Easter is in Spring, and I do love Easter very much. I love the chocolate aspect (!) but also the abundance of decorative opportunities which in many ways I prefer to Christmas.

These few Easter images pleased me enormously (from April issue of CH&I)....

 ...."Vintage Easter" is a very pretty thing indeed, don't you think?

Often when I browse my way dreamily through these pages, it's not necessarily the actual subject matter that I'm tuning into, but the colours. As my mind is on a bit of a colour-obsessed mission most days, I find that I am always, always absorbing and taking note of colour combinations. It's like the ColourSeek button in my brain is permanently switched on, I just cannot seem to see the world in any other way.

Oh these pages!!!!!!!!! Sooooooo pretty and heart-lifting and so perfectly capturing the essence of Spring! 

I am such a sucker for pretty styling and one of my most favourite stylists is the talented Selena Lake. Interestingly, as soon as I clapped eyes on these images I just knew they were Selena's work (she has a very recognisable style) and yup, I was right.

She has a way of mixing vintage with pretty pastel colours which is quite quirky and I love the overall effect. Very easy on the eye, very charming and always inspiring. The above picture makes me want to go immediately and de-clutter my Shelves of Doom just so I could have a go at styling them prettily for Easter. I want my shelves to look like that!

These pages are all from a magazine I picked up in the supermarket last week called "Prima Makes" (issue 6). This is a bi-monthly magazine heavily inspired by the seasons (love love!) and full of creative ideas for home and garden.

The ideas are often beautifully simple and do-able, with many of the makes aimed at mums-with-children. It also covers a wide variety of crafts, from simple paper makes to stitching, knitting, crochet, and baking. It encourages you to get busy creating beautiful, seasonal little decorations for your home, and delivers a real surge of creative energy. I want to plant up a pretty tea cup and make a little paper village! Little B - do you want to help me make little felt trees and cut out some pretty butterflies? Shall we make this happen? I think that next week during our stay-home holiday time we may well have some very busy little fingers and I am pretty excited to see what we can come up with.

Oh cute! Maybe we might be inspired to crack open the box of coloured felt and stitch up some sweet little Easter critters! The above photo has given me some wonderful colour ideas too - I'm looking at limey green and pale pink and sky blue with a dash of egg-yolk orange and soft butter yellow - mmmmmmmm - delicious! 

So do you decorate for Easter or Spring in your home? Are you inspired to create a pretty little seasonal something for a shelf or table? Tell me your creative plans, I'd love to know if your minds are as busy as mine?!

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A Sunshiny Day

Oh my happy heart and soul, we have had a real gift of a day today and I have loved every single little minute of it, truly. My day started as it often does, at 6am with Little B creeping in all warm and dozy from sleep for an early morning cuddle. This morning though, different to usual, he soon got bored chatting to me and promptly toddled off to find his Daddy who was already up and about. This left me alone in bed, still on the cusp of dreamy sleep, so I granted myself the luxury of just a weeny bit of extra shut-eye. Such bliss to indulge in extra sleep, I eventually got up at 7.30 feeling like I'd had the most terrifically lengthy lie-in. 

The sun was streaming in to the house by this time and the sky was the most beautiful clear blue. I love waking up on a Sunday to a good-weather-day, it generally means that a short walk will be possible which = instant happy-vibes in my mind. I drank coffee and ate a mini little pain au chocolat for breakfast, whilst writing a bit of a to-do list for the coming week in my "book of days".

Now that we are officially in Springtime, I am really, really, really appreciating the glorious light and noticing with more than a teensy bit of joy that our days are lengthening rather nicely. It's just so lovely to see the sun streaming in through the window and dancing over the sofa in the mornings.

My Mother's Day tulips are a week old and still looking mighty fine I'm pleased to say.

I'm also really loving this miniature glass jar of Spring blooms sitting on my kitchen drainer, so simple but a real visual treat.

J isn't well at the moment with a head full of cold, so for our walk today we decided to keep it short and local. 

It was still glorious though, and do you know it was the very first time this year that it's been warm enough to venture out without a coat - yipppeeeeee for early Spring warmth and sunshine!

Little Lady and I wandered along the small beach looking for treasure, and watching her climb and run took me instantly back to this time when she was just three years old. Woolly pink stripes have been replaced by opaque black, she is growing up so fast but I refuse to feel saddened by the natural passage of time. It is as it should be.

I confess I am beginning to really long for Spring. Living here in North Yorskhire, I've learnt that Spring arrives late and it's arrival is often followed swiftly by a last bite of winter (we've had snow at Easter before). But it doesn't stop me longing for it once we head towards the end of March. 

I have LOVED the warmth of the sun on my face today, it felt delicious after so many months without it.

Our walk this morning was really enjoyable, just an hour out of the day for all five of us to be together.

I'm hoping that it won't be too long before we can climb The Crag again (that's it up there in the picture above), although Little Man's groans were so heartfelt when I voiced this notion that I think I may well have to employ some serious bribery when the time comes.

Today's warm sunshine meant that our sweet piggies Pip and Lola could be put out to graze again for the first time this year. They were visibly thrilled with this turn of events and gorged themselves stupid on all the lush green grass available to them within the rectangle of their run. It was joyful to watch them speed-nibbling.

I sat for a while on the wall of our front garden drinking chocolate-dusted coffee out of my old enamel mug. Face turned up to the sun, listening to the sound of the Little Peeps playing in the street, it's such a good sound isn't it, the sound of children playing? We are so lucky living here on this narrow, hilly street lined with it's tall rows of old terraced houses. Our children can play safely in the street (literally in the road) as it is so quiet and fairly free of traffic. Street play seems to me to be delightfully simple and old fashioned. Bicycles and scooters feature heavily, then there are things like skipping, chalking and bubble blowing which haven't changed a jot since I was a child.

Today when we went to fetch our tub of chalks from the cellar there were only a few stubs left from last year. So I took Little B and off we trotted down the hill into town to purchase some new ones.

I love these big chunky sticks of chalk very much, they are actually called "Street Chalks" which pleases me enormously. There was an awful lot of chalking going on this afternoon, I was going to photograph it but forgot, so you will have to imagine the colourful chalky rainbows and space rockets and dinosaurs and traffic signals and houses.

I did manage to photograph a bubble (just the one) and what a palaver that exercise was! Have you ever tried to take photos of a five year old swirling around with a bubble wand? It's fast and exciting and those bubbles whip up into the breeze in a split second, you gotta be quick-quick-quick to catch them!  

Another first today (added on to the no-coat walking and the piggies in the grass and the al fresco coffee) was the beginning of the pegging out season. Oh happy day! I managed to snap my washing line this morning whilst in the process of untangling the three metres of passion flower vine that had grown along it last year. So at the same time as purchasing street chalks and bubble wands, I also bought a new washing line in a lovely minty green colour.

Pegging out my freshly laundered bedding to dry in the afternoon sunshine filled me with domestic bliss. Right now (9.30pm) poorly J (suffering badly with his Man Cold) is tucked up in bed and I am about to go and join him. The thought of gently creeping beneath my crisp white cotton duvet, laying my head on those plump rosy pillows and breathing deeply inwards is sooooooooooooooo good. I am loving that thought - a lovely end to a beautiful sunhiny day.

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❤ Three Things ❤

❤ Three things that have made me feel heart-skippy happy today....

❤ Thing #1 :: on my table ❤

A jug of little orange-centred daffodils with the most incredible scent. The sight and smell of them has made me incredibly happy all day today. In fact the whole of my studio has made me happy today, as it does every day.

❤ Thing #2 :: in my hand ❤

Ten little rolls of rainbow washi tape which I ordered from Amazon weeks ago and had completely forgotten about. They arrived today (unexpectedly all the way from China as it happens) and the colours have made my heart very happy!

 ❤ Thing #3 :: on my feet ❤

After a long Autumn/Winter wearing boots and wellies, I've felt super light-footed stepping out in shoes and socks today. I've had these greeny-blue mary jane shoes for many years now and absolutely love wearing them (they're made by Oxygen Shoes, but sadly no longer available)

❤....here's hoping you've enjoyed some happy little moments in your day too....have a great weekend..

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My Granny Stripe Blanket

Do you know, it's almost five years since I made my Granny Stripe blanket, inspired by the purchase of our beloved caravan on 1st May 2010. By the end of that same month, I was beginning this colourful blanket journey using 17 shades of Stylecraft Special DK which I bought from my local yarn shop. I remember it all so clearly, the joy of these bright, jolly colours and this easy pattern, mixed up with a huge dose of caravan induced excitement. Happy times indeed.

I have so many memories wrapped up in the making of this blanket, memories of a wonderful seaside holiday when the Little People were still oh-so-little (Little Man and Little Lady were 7 and 6, and Little B, awwww Little B was a weeny 5 month old baby!) Oh the emotion of it!! Just look at Little B's fingers and toes in this post!! 

Crochet blankets are such terrific guardians of memories, which is one of the reasons I love making them so much. Of course, the memories which attach themselves to the making of a blanket are really only the beginning, because blankets are made to be used. This happy stripy blanket has now given us five years of layered holiday memories, oh I treasure our caravan holidays so much, they are an incredibly precious part of our family archives.

 

It's funny looking back at the history of this particular blanket now - at the time I made it I had absolutely NO idea that these seventeen colours (chosen in less than 10 minutes in a rather badly lit corner of my local yarn shop) would become so well loved by so many people around the world. To me, they are my "happy colours". They are colours which remind me of sunshine and camping and seaside jollies, of picnics and happy little children playing, of star-gazing and dewy early morning grass, of the joys associated with simple outdoor summer living. The fact that this collection has become known as "The Attic24 Colour Pack" really pleases me enormously, and I honestly love seeing these colours together as much today as I did five years ago. Simply put - they make my heart happy ♥

Over the years since I shared my blanket I've been meaning to write up a proper tutorial for it. I wrote out the basic pattern for working the Granny Stripe (find it here), but never got round to making a proper blanket-making tutorial. I'd really like to find time to do this during the next few months if possible, I'll keep you posted on that. In the meantime, in response to frequent requests I thought it would be helpful to share my colour order for those of you who are wishing to make your own Happy Blanket. I used 17 colours of Stylecraft Special DK, and worked up sixty stripes in total (two rows for each stripe).

♥

1. Pomegranate        21. Shrimp                  41. Lipstick

2. Plum                      22. Lavender               42. Aspen

3. Fondant                23. Turquoise              43. Meadow Green

4. Lavender              24. Magenta                44. Lavender

5. Aspen                    25. Lipstick                 45. Magenta

6. Spring Green       26. Meadow                46. Plum

7. Aster                     27. Aspen                     47. Cloud Blue

8. Turquoise             28. Spring Green        48. Spring Green

9. Lipstick                 29. Saffron                  49. Turquoise

10. Shrimp                30. Cloud Blue            50. Clematis

11. Saffron                31. Wisteria                 51. Pomegranate

12. Meadow              32. Plum                       52. Shrimp

13. Magenta             33. Aster                      53. Saffron

14. Clematis             34. Pomegranate         54. Sherbet

15. Sherbet              35. Turquoise              55. Fondant

16. Spring Green     36. Sherbet                 56. Lipstick

17. Wisteria              37. Clematis                57. Aster

18. Aster                   38. Shrimp                  58. Meadow

19. Pomegranate      39. Fondant                59. Plum

20. Fondant              40. Saffron                  60. Pomegranate

The border was made in six rounds as follows ::

1. Lavender :: granny clusters

2. Aster :: treble crochet

3. Aspen :: treble crochet

4. Clematis :: double crochet

5. Sherbet (two rows) :: double crochet + soft wave edging*

* The edging pattern is written up in the Ta-dah post here.

EDIT TO ADD :: A few of you have written to say you've lost your yarn labels and can't remember what the colours are called. So here is a colour-map for the stripes. I've split it into five sections - remember to read each image from the bottom up to the top!

Above photo shows the beginning of the blanket. 1st stripe is Pomegranate, 15th stripe is Sherbet.

Above photo shows part 2 of the blanket. 16th stripe is Spring Green, 27th stripe is Aspen.

Above photo shows part 3 of the blanket. 28th stripe is Spring Green, 39th stripe is Fondant.

Above photo shows part 4 of the blanket. 40th stripe is Saffron, 52nd stripe is Shrimp.

Above photo shows the final part of the blanket. 53rd stripe is Saffron, 60th stripe is Pomegranate.

At the end of last Summer, we took Connievan up to the coast of Northumberland. We had a terrific week away and I realised just now whilst searching in my archives that I never shared that holiday on my blog. How very slack of me!! I'll try and find time to show you some "postcards" from that holiday, I'm quite fancying a bit of a virtual seaside pootle.

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USEFUL LINKS ::

Granny Stripe Pattern

Granny Stripe Ta-dah (includes pattern for the edging)

Attic24 Yarn Pack

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A Happy Mummy

Different to other parts of the world, we always celebrate Mother's Day during mid March in the UK. Here in the Attic household, it's generally a low-key affair and I am more than happy with that. I don't especially require cards and gifts or fancy meals to know that there is a lot of love and affection bubbling about within my precious family. 

We had no set plans for our day, preferring to take it gently and make our decisions based mainly on the weather. I had prepared my leisure activity in advance, filling my yarn bag on Friday afternoon with eight squidgy balls of chunky yarn. I figured that even if we managed to venture into the great outdoors, there would still be plenty of time for hooky.

I crocheted for much of this morning, whilst drinking mugs of chocolate dusted coffee and eating chunks of Green&Blacks 85% dark chocolate. The chocolate was very sweetly handed to me this morning by my Little Man and it was the very first time he has bought me a gift with his own money, and of his own accord. I was so stunned I almost started crying. Sweet boy.

After many, many years of huge mixed floral bouquets from the supermarket (in pastel colours with loads of foliage, costing a blinking fortune, you know the ones, right?), these past few weeks I have been very gently saying T-u-l-i-p-s to my nearest and dearest. Tulips, they're the ones I love. Just one bunch would make me incredibly happy cos I absolutely love tulips, they are my favourite Supermarket Flower. Uh-huh, just tulips on their own, nothing fancy, just them, any colour will do. Oh the joy of coming downstairs still drowsy from sleep this morning to find our water jug stuffed full of tulips. YAY!!! Yay for stunning floral simplicity!!

Early afternoon, we rallied the Little People (cripes. not easy. At. All.) and drove out of town and into the cold Yorkshire Dales. We walked briskly along the riverside path, chatting, enjoying the fresh air and scenery, but seriously, fresh? Springlike? Nah - totally freezing and still winter here you know. Catkins dancing from bare branches, lambs in the fields, but not a whiff of warmth yet.

Thankfully this walk is quite short and although I lOvE this river beach very much we didn't linger long here today. I tucked a few smooth pebbles into my pocket with pebble-painting activities in mind and watched Little B heft a huge rock SPLASH into the water, then we were briskly on our way....

....we drove a little further up the road to park at Strid Wood, not to do any more walking but to visit the cutely named "Dusty Bluebells" cafe. As it happened, the sun decided to make an appearance just as we arrived which meant we could sit outside (there are also fleecy blankets provided here by the lovely cafe owners).

It was quite possibly the highlight of my day (actually, the gift from Little Man comes top, but this was a close second) - a superb cappuccino and a delicious slab of lemon cake, oh yeah. The Little Peeps had milkshakes and then ran off to play hide and seek which was rather amusing to watch as the only hiding places available on the patch of open green grass were six (rather slim) tree trunks. 

Returning home in the late afternoon, happy but cold, we lit the fire and I settled down to finish stitching up my weekend crochet project. Ooooooo colourful chunky stripes, how happy you make me!!! I'll show you more when I can take some good photos. 

As I got so carried away with my crochet I forgot to actually make dinner, which was a weeny bit inconvenient to say the least. So we made a family decision and declared it appropriate to dispatch J with two Little Helpers to go forth and gather in some Fish & Chips. Oh happy day, no cooking and a really rather naughty, lazy dinner eaten on our laps in front of the fire. And I might even have had a cheeky little glass of something chilled to wash it all down with.

A Happy Mummy indeed.

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Wreath Love-love-love

♥ THANK YOU ♥

Thank you, thank you very much for so much Wreath Love!! I love-love-love that you love what I made! Thank you for your kind and beautiful words about my Winter Wreath, it has been amazing to take it all in and I am hugely grateful to you for sharing my joy. Thank you from the bottom (and the middle and all around) of my heart.

You are all twinkling stars in my night sky ✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴✴

 

Winter Wreath :: Ta-dah!

I am oh-so-so-so excited to be sharing my latest hooky project with you! It feels like I've been chatting about my Winter Wreath for such a long time already, even though it's only been a couple of months since I set out on this journey of Winter celebration. I know many of you have been patiently waiting for the Big Ta-Dah moment, yes, me included. The shared anticipation has been almost palpable in Blogland/Facebook/Instagram as I've shared glimpses of my progress in recent weeks. And now I'm here to show you how it all finally came together, I really can't wait to share.

Lets start out by talking about yarn. For all of my wreaths (this is number five) I've chosen to work with wool rather than cotton or acrylic. Over the years I've gathered a pretty good stash of merino and cashmerino yarns in various weights and in many colours, and they've become my go-to yarns for small decorative projects. When I first start out on a wreath-making journey, I spend a while thinking about colours and the overall look I'm aiming for. As these are seasonal wreaths, the colours are of course directly inspired by the seasons - flowers, foliage, berries, skyscapes and landscapes, traditions and festivities. All these things have very strong colour associations and it's lots of fun to have a play with all these elements. I begin by choosing my base colours - the colours that will make up the striped cover for my polystyrene wreath form.

For my winter wreath I used six shades of Drops Merino Extra Fine DK. Those are the colours I used in the picture above, starting from the top and moving clockwise ::

Pistachio, Light Brown, Light Grey Mix, Denim Blue, Light Grey Blue, Light Greyish Green.

 

 

My wreath-making method is very simple if you fancy giving it a go. You will need a 35cm polystyrene "Half Round" ring, which is flat at the back and round on the front. I made a foundation chain of 32 stitches, then worked up some stripy rows of double crochet until the length fit easily around the circumference of the polystyrene ring. With each colour change I left dangly yarn ends which are used to stitch up the seam at the back.

 

 

Use neat stitches to draw the edges together, matching the stripes as you go.

 

 

The seam runs right around the centre of the flat back - for a while it looks as if it's not going to work out but keep going and you should find that you end up with a very neat woolly cover for your wreath base....

 

 

With my winter wreath, I made a colour distinction between land and sky, which is the first time I've done this (usually the stripe colours are random all the way round). It worked out really well, and I would definitely try this approach again (oh hello Summer Wreath with butterflies fluttering against a pale blue sky???!!!)

 

 

Once the wreath base was finished, it was time to turn my attention to the decorative making. I wanted to crochet lots of foliage using a soft palette of icy blues and soft greens (you can read more about my inspiration for the colour scheme here). I gathered a collection of colours into my bag, all oddments of merino DK yarn (Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, Rico Essentials Merino and Drops Baby Merino 4ply). I'm afraid I have no colour info for these yarns at all, much of it was leftover from my workshops last year and there are oddments which I snapped up on eBay. I didn't buy any new yarn for this project.

I crocheted many little bits and pieces during the weeks of January and February, delighting in the fact that the weather here in Atticland was very wintry, snowy and icy during that time. I made lots of leaves, some little balls/berries, and some plump little pine cones. Last of all I made some hellebore flowers in soft purples and pinks, and a flurry of miniature snowflakes using fine white cotton yarn.

 

It's a really funny moment when you suddenly stop crocheting, tip out your bag of bits and wonder if you've actually, really, truly finished. Is there enough? Too many leaves? Not enough flowers? Will it all come together ok or will it just be too much, too over the top?

At this stage it's rather hard to get the measure of it, and I have to admit there is a certain amount of anxiety. Lots and lots of work has already been done, but there is a very real chance it might not actually work.

I didn't really plan the quantities of anything at all, and up until I took the following pictures I had no idea how much I'd actually made.

Would you like to see?

Here it is then, the result of two months work....

My Winter Wreath :: [ d e c o n s t r u c t e d]

Enjoy......................

ONE stripy wreath base.

 

THIRTY TWO Little Leaves (pattern from my May Roses here)

 

 

FIVE Frilly-edged Leaves (no pattern for these as they were experiments, but there are lots of brilliant crochet leaves in this lovely book)

 

 

NINE Fern Leaves (pattern here)

 

 

FOUR Little Pine Cones (pattern half way down in this post)

 

 

EIGHTEEN Weeny Balls (pattern half way down in this post)

 

 

THREE Hellebore Flowers (pattern here)

 

 

NINE Tiny Snowflakes (no pattern for these, but lots of lovely patterns in this beautiful book)

 

 

ONE cheeky little Winter Robin (pattern by Little Conkers, available to purchase/download here)

 

 

In total, 82 individual pieces of crochet make up my Winter Wreath.

 

EIGHTY TWO!

 

 

I absolutely adore the colour palette, oh those sweet, soft colours charmed me no end. I am still very much a "brights" girl at heart, but it was very refreshing to come out of my rainbow comfort zone and fall completely in love with something different.

 

 

No doubt about it, wreath making on this scale is a bit of a labour of love. You do need to have a pretty clear vision and a certain determination to see the project through to completion. It's a journey to be taken in stages - the crocheting is really only half the work with the Final Stages being the hardest of all.......welcome to The Pinning & Stitching....................

 

 

Pinning everything in place is not easy. My top tip is to go slowly and take as much care as you can with the placement of your bits. For this wreath I started with the flowers first, followed by the pine cones and berries (which I grouped in clusters of 3). The leaves came next, filling in the gaps and balancing everything out. You should aim for balance, but not necessarily symmetry ie each side has roughly the same spread of things (flowers, leaves, berries, cones etc) but they are not a mirror image of each other.

 

 

After the Pinning comes the Stitching. Oh boy, this is easily my least favourite part of the whole journey. My top tip here is to use one colour yarn and work methodically around the wreath in sections. And don't over-stitch - your leaves and flowers need to be securely attached without being flattened. Allow the petals to curl and the leaves to waft a little!

 

 

Once everything is stitched in place, it's time to add a  little bit of sparkle. I used some sparkly pom-poms, mini snowflake buttons, diamanté pins and delicate wired bead stems (more details in this post).

 

 

Adding in those extra sparkly bits gave such a beautiful finishing touch to the wreath, I just love the way that worked out.

 

 

My cheeky Winter Robin sits snugly in his pretty nest and I think his bold flash of red breast looks amazing. I am so pleased with him and the character he adds to the wreath is magical (read more about the making of him in this post)

 

So my friends, I think you know what's coming now.

 

I think now might be the time....

 

....to step back a little and take it all in.

 

Ready?

 

Here is it then.............................................

 

 

my Winter Wreath :: Ta-dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

I absolutely love what I have created. It is so very much like the vision that appeared in my Creative Mind and turned out exactly as I had imagined it. Actually, maybe it turned out just a little bit better than I had imagined.

This is a pretty special bit of crochet, and already I treasure it.

 

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I hope you've enjoyed journeying along with me, here are some links....

 

♥Winter Wreath Inspiration

♥Winter Wreath Beginning

♥Winter Wreath Progress

 

and some links to my other Wreaths....

 

♥Easter Wreath

♥Christmas Wreath

♥Autumn Wreath

♥Wreath Love