Wednesday, December 25, 2013

what I swapped

Happy Christmas!  I'm writing this post in the past (ooh, spooky!) but scheduled it for Christmas Day in the hope that everyone in the swap would have received their decorations by now and knowing that I probably wouldn't be stopping by to blog about anything else today.  I'll be too busy opening presents and generally stuffing my face, I hope.  (I'm resisting the urge to type something morbid here...)

The Christmas swap ended up having enough people for two groups of six or so.  Being mad keen on the whole idea, I decided to put myself into both groups, meaning I had to make 11 decorations in total, but also meaning I would receive 11 decorations in return.  Since my sister was in one group and her daughter was in the other, I decided to make a different design for each group, but crocheted them both.

For one group, I made the crocheted circles in the top picture.  Why do I always use wool so bright that it ruins every photo?  Aargh!  But the ones with bright pink probably ended up being my favourites.  The pattern I used for these was the first few rounds of Attic 24's crocheted hexagons.  They were quick and easy but I loved the way they turned out.  I sprayed them with a little bit of starch once they were finished, so hopefully they won't curl up when they are hanging on people's trees.
For the second group, I turned to Attic 24 again (if you crochet, you NEED to visit her blog - she was also responsibe for the ripple blanket pattern) and used this pattern to make litle snowflakes, again super easy and really sweet.  I'm not sure you can see it in this picture, but I used sparkly wool so they are subtly twinkly, just like real snowflakes.

I got loads of lovely decorations in return and my tree is looking even more spiffing than usual.  I'm already looking foward to opening the Christmas decoration box next year and rediscovering them all.  

I did find the responsibility of having set up the swap a little bit stressful (it was super easy to organise but I felt personally responsible when participants starting getting short of time and stressing out) but that's not to say I wouldn't do it again.  So much fun!  Thank you to everyone who made the time and effort to take part.  I hope you all enjoyed it too.

Anyway, enough rabbiting on.  Merry Christmas! :)

2 comments:

  1. Merry Christmas Laura! Thank you so much for organising the swap, it was really fun and I really enjoyed doing it. I love the crochet decoration I recieved from you, it is one of my favourite decorations now :) Juts want to say a big thank you to everyone who was involved in the swap too, I loved all the decorations I recieved, thank you so much, safxxx

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Saf, and thanks for taking part - I've loved seeing your decoration on the tree this year and will look forward to rediscovering it in festive seasons to come :)

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