Tag: Christmas

Seed Stitch Scarf

On By maraewestIn KnittingLeave a comment

scarfdadI wanted to do something simple, but not just a straight knit pattern for my father for Christmas. I perused Ravelry for a while looking at various scarf patterns, when I came across the seed stitch. It gives a nice texture that is simple, but not nearly as boring as just doing straight knitting. It seemed perfect for my dad.

The yarn I used is Loops & Threads Charisma in Lakeside. It’s a super bulky acrylic yarn. I cast on a total of 20 stitches and went back in forth in the K1, P1 of a standard seed stitch.

I’m pretty pleased with how the striping in the yarn worked out. There isn’t too much crossing over of colors to other rows, so it almost looks like a used four different colors of yarn.

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The Colorful Christmas Tree

On By maraewestIn CrochetLeave a comment

Undecorated Christmas TreeI finished my Christmas Tree a few days before Christmas. You can see it here in it’s undecorated glory. I ended up taking it apart a second time when I realized I was adding too many rows in between the branch rows past the first three, which I also noticed after I started taking apart the last two branch rows when I noticed I forgot a row on the branches so it was a bit shorter than the others.

After fixing everything, I was much happier with the result, however, I think if I make another one I will add back in that extra row I had between branches. It gave it a lot more height and gave more room for adding decorations.

Decorated Christmas TreeBecause the rows were really close together I decided to forgo adding beads as ornaments and instead just made a star and garland to put around the tree. You might recognize the colors of the garland from my Jasmin Headband.

The star was made using some scrap sock yarn. I was really hoping that I could get three stars out of it and give it more dimension, but I only squeaked out three and just enough extra yarn to sew the pieces together. You can find the pattern I used for the star here. I didn’t block the stars, but I do plan on doing that at some point before Christmas next year.

And I may also add beads next year for more color to the tree, or I may just leave it as is, but I will probably also make a second taller tree. But I’ve got almost a whole year before I need to start thinking about those things. Until then, I’ll be removing the star and the garland and storing them away while the tree will adorn the top of my dresser.

 

Work in Progress Wednesday – Christmas Tree

On By maraewestIn Crochet1 Comment

I’m not a big fan of fake trees. If given a choice, I much prefer to get a nice pine tree. However, I don’t have the funds to purchase a tree, nor do I really have a whole lot of ornaments to even decorate a tree this year. So, I plumbed through the depths of my yarn stash trying to find a nice green yarn to crochet a mini tree.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any solid green yarn.

christmastreeunfinInstead I ended up picking out a yarn that I thought was fun and sort of Christmas-y since it had red and green as two of the main colors in the yarn. So here is my still in progress colorful Christmas Tree.

I will say that the green is much more vibrant in real life than in the picture. I plan on adding some beads around the tree as ornaments and I’m going to also pick out another yarn to make a chain with for a garland. And I haven’t decided if I want to make a beaded star for the top or if I’m going to crochet one.

I wish I knew what brand this yarn was, but the tag was not stuck in the middle of the cake. All I can really tell is that it’s a worsted weight yarn that I believe is cotton that has a rough bits that weren’t completely combed out. It is also a pretty sizeable skein. If you happen to recognize this, I’d love to know what it is! This was of course, one of many skeins given to me by my mother and she certainly doesn’t remember anything about it.

I also didn’t really follow much of a pattern. What I could find online usually involved making a cone and then making a row of branches and cutting the yarn each time you went to make a new row. It felt like an awful waste of such a fun yarn, so I tried to muddle through a poor translation. In then end I just ended up making sure that each time I was adding branches that I made that row a multiple of three. You can find the pattern I’m loosely following here.