Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, from our home to yours.

Preparing for the Season

As Christmas nears, I find myself preparing, collecting, de-cluttering and so looking forward to THE day. Caiden announced this morning, as he marked off his Advent calendar, that there are 12 days to go. I felt a little sad at the thought of only 12 days and then Christmas would be here, (I do very much want it to be here but...) I still have plenty to do though, gifts to make and we are still creating new ornaments to fill our home. I just hope I don't run out of time, I really do enjoy making homemade presents and I am almost done.

We are now officially on holiday and won't look at our homeschooling curriculum again until January, which isn't too far away. Jen will be going into grade 9 next year, how time flies. We will be starting a new curriculum for Jen because our Waldorf homeschooling curriculum ends at grade 8. Jen would possibly like to pursue a career in medicine and I think we have decided on the Cambridge route, there will be exams in a few years time and eventually a final matric exam that she needs to prepare for. The new curriculum is called Love 2 Learn and is very similar to Waldorf and Charlotte Mason in its approach, so this makes me happy. We also have to learn a second language here in South Africa if you are writing a matric exam and we have chosen Afrikaans.

Our days are still busy though, driving to calligraphy lessons, art and visiting friends.... Today we made pancakes and I found a lovely tutorial on how to make these balloon yarn balls, I can't wait for the glue to dry! I am going to hang these ornaments on our tree and around our home. They would even look amazing in a bowl, I will post photos when they are dry and the balloons have been removed.

Hope you are enjoying your preparations for Christmas and the new year...

Tea / Coffee Cup Cozy Pattern / Tutorial

I really need to start Jenna's Harris Shrug, (which I will be starting later today, I can't wait to begin this project!) but in the meantime I had an idea for a cup cozy, and I built a light box yesterday for taking photos and I really wanted to try it out! I had so much fun building this light box, but I will write about that soon. I have knitted this cozy in Colourspun DK cotton, I love the rainbows!

It's an easy pattern, knitted in the round part of the way and then flat.

I have knitted the beginning of my cozy with a curl at the base, but if you would like it to lie flat, just purl a few rows in the round instead of starting with knit rows:)

Materials:
A small amount of DK cotton
4mm circular needles or DPNs
Sewing up needle
Button
Crochet hook to crochet a small chain for a loop

Pattern:
I have knitted this cozy in the Magic Loop but DPNs would also be perfect:)

If you would like the first few rows to lie flat, purl 4 rows of your cozy instead of knitting them in garter stitch, mine has a little curl for effect:)

Here we go:
Cast on 46 stitches and join for knitting in the round.
Knit 5 rows in the round.
Now, to make the opening for the handle you will no longer be knitting in the round, but rather back and forth as for flat knitting.
Rows 6-24: You will be knitting back and forth on your rows, not in the round. Alternate purl and knit rows, starting with a purl row and ending with a purl row on row 24.  Eventually, as you progress along the rows, you will manage to have all the stitches on one needle.

Measure your cozy around the cup a few times to make sure it fits.

Row 25: Knit row and increase four stitches evenly across the row. To increase without being able to see the increases, simply pick up a stitch between two of your stitches as seen in the photo above. Place this stitch on the left needle.

Once the stitch is on the left needle, knit into the back of the stitch as seen in the above photo. You will now have an increase and not be able to see it at all! :)

Rows 26-30: Knit, this will give you an attractive edging.

Cast off loosely.

Sew on a button on one side at the top of the opening of the cozy. Sew in all the ends. On the opposite top edge of the cozy crochet a small chain, attach and sew into a loop to button the cozy closed.

You are finished!!
This cozy is perfect to gift to someone, don't you think? It knits up so fast, I would say it took me half an hour from start to finish:)
Have a lovely week.

Please note this pattern is for personal use only, thank you:)

Christmas Wreath Ornament Tutorial

This is such a quick little project! I put it together the other night and was so excited to finish that I didn't even take photos of the process. I really wanted to share this with you so Erin and I happily made a few more today. I just love them, I want to make plenty, in different colours! They are perfect to hang on door handles and even on you Christmas tree, all over the house in fact:)

Materials:
1 wooden curtain rail ring
1 tiny pine cone
A small amount of green mohair yarn
A small amount of red mohair yarn

Roll the two yarns into one ball. Wind the yarn around the ring until the wood has been covered.

Once the wooden ring is covered, tie the red and green yarn around the ring and secure.

Thread the green yarn around the cone and secure so that it hangs inside the inner circle of the ring.

Tie both the green and red yarns from the small cone around the ring and tie into a sweet bow in front at the top of the wreath.

Our Christmas Wreaths, Erin made the beautiful purple and green one.

Happy crafting
xo
Linda

Around our Home...

We have been busy decorating our home over the last few days, we usually wait for the 1st of December but this year we started a little early, there was just too much excitement to wait. Anyone else start early this year? We have made many decorations from felt for our tree, popcorn chains and paper ring chains too (in fact, there are paper ring chains all over the house:)

A gift from a dear friend...

This is a lovely gift I received from a special friend called Lori, if you haven't discovered her blog yet, you simply must pop over and visit, you will be so glad you did...

The view from my studio window this afternoon, rain... and it is most welcome:)

The Winter edition of Rhythm of the Home went live today, too beautiful!

Minature Knitted Mittens Pattern, a Christmas Tree Decoration

We have been making plenty of Christmas decorations for our tree and home from felt over the last few days. I had some oddments of red wool and I knitted up these tiny mittens that will hang on our tree. They could even look sweet on a garland. I am still working on the red and beige project and will share it here soon, but for now I have this mitten pattern to share with you:)

Materials:

Oddments of red wool, mine is hand spun but DK is perfect too

5mm circular needles or DPNs

Wool needle for sewing up

Some red and beige wool to braid the strand holding the mittens

Pattern:

Cast on 14 stitches and join for knitting in the round

Round 1: Knit

Round 2: Purl

Round 3: Purl

Round 4: Knit 6 stitches and then place the next 2 stitches on a piece of waste yarn, continue knitting to the end of the round.

Rounds 5-9: Knit

Round 10: (Knit 2 together, knit 1) across the round

Round 11: Knit

Round 12: Knit 1, knit 2 together, knit 1, knit 1, knit 2 together, knit 1

Bind off stitches.

Turn the mitten inside out and sew the top of the mitten closed neatly.

Pick up the two stitches that have been on the waste yarn with one needle and pick up another 3 stitches opposite these 2 stitches with the other circular needle, this will form the thumb, (you will be knitting in the round for the thumb).

Knit these stitches in the round for 3 rounds.

Then knit 1, knit 2 together, knit 2 together.

Break yarn, thread wool onto a wool needle and thread the needle through the stitches, pulling tight, finish off.

Sew in all the ends.

With 3 strands of wool, 2 red and 1 beige, braid a strand. Tie each end and sew them into the inside of each mitten.
Now they can hang on your tree as a cute ornament:)

Happy knitting:)

© Linda Dawkins, this pattern is for personal use only and may not be used for commercial purposes.

Roses and Potpourri

 Our rose garden has been so beautiful this season, usually in Spring, we will have a few lovely roses appear and then all too soon they wither and are gone. Not this year, they have given us such tremendous blooms and not just one or two on a bush, but eight or ten flowers. When we bought our roses, we wanted plants that were not only lovely to look at but also ones with intense perfume... There is nothing quite like inhaling the scent of a rose, it feels as if you could breath in forever...

Some of the blooms have started to fade and I just couldn't let them fall to the ground, so I picked all that I could find and decided to use them for soap and potpourri.

I picked the petals, the smell was heavenly...

Placed them separately on a piece of paper and left them there to dry, turning them often. Once they were all dry, I placed them in a pretty bowl and dropped a few drops of Lavender essential oil on the dry petals.... You could also put the petals in a little cotton bag with some essential oil on them to perfume your linen or cupboard. I have placed ours on our dining room table at the moment.

This could also be a sweet gift for someone for Christmas or a birthday...
Have an inspired day
xo
Linda

Botanical Soap Tutorial

Erin is busy with a Botany block at the moment for Spring, she has been learning all about flowers and plants and as an activity, we decided to make some little soap bars. We didn't actually make soap from scratch, but we melted down glycerine soap in a double boiler and added dried flowers, Lavender essentail oil and poured it into moulds to set. It was such a sweet project for us to do together and most importantly we had fun!

Thank you so much to everyone who sent me links for how to make soap from scratch, I am so looking forward to doing this. I am still collecting all my ingredients and I should have most of them by next week.

The project from today could also be used for Christmas gifts, you can really add so many different things, dried flowers, essential oils etc...

This is what we did:

Materials:
Glycerine soap bars
Dried rose petals
Lavender essential oil
Double boiler
Moulds
Stick for stirring

Method:

1. Cut up the glycerine into little cubes.
2. Set up a double boiler, I used a pot and immersed an old, clean tin into the water.
3. Heat up the water.

4. Place the glycerine into the tin and let it melt, stir with a stick.

5.Once the glycerine has melted, remove the pot from the water, add the essential oils and the dried rose petals and stir.

6. Pour the melted mixture into some moulds, I used ice cube trays.

7. Wait for your soap to dry and then pop your soap out of the moulds.

This really was a lovely little activity and hardly took any time at all.

Warmly
Linda