Ok so let's start off with a little recap on the beautiful projects we've seen so far!
Sarah from Crafts from the Cwtch started the blog hop with this stunning Knitted Star Motif
Next we visited Kirsten from Haak Maar Raak for a tutorial on making an extremely cute Reindeer Mug Cozy (including fluffy butt....oh you can't beat a fluffy butt!!!)
The following day we were off to visit Atty's blog for a lesson on making some bright and cheerful Christmas Coasters.
Yesterday we popped over to visit Nerissa at Miss Neriss where we were treated to a fabulous tutorial on making a Christmas Wreath.
And that nicely leads us to today!
As this weekend is traditionally the most popular weekend for decorating our Christmas trees I thought it would be cool to make some baubles. Something special that can be used year after year.
Ready to get started? Ok, let us begin!
You will need....
Yarn of choice. This can be small amounts of leftovers so great for stash busting! I've used Scheepjes Cotton 8 in white (502) and pale blue (652)
Crochet hook (mine is 3mm)
Scissors
Bodkin or darning needle
Needle and thread (if you are adding seed beads you need to make sure that your needle will go through the bead!)
Co-ordinating Buttons
Seed Beads (mine were by Gutermann in colour:1005)
Stuffing
Small lengths of ribbon to hang your bauble
The first step is to make your crochet bauble. There are lots of different free sphere patterns out there on the internet. I found this lovely one. Not only has it got a free PDF download, it also gives you lots and lots of size options. So basically you can make whatever sized bauble that will suit your tree :-)
A word of advice!!!!
When starting on the decrease rows, sometimes you can be left with fairly noticeable holes.
Lalylala has a lovely video tutorial on making an invisible decrease. Give it a go! It really does work!
I would advise starting to stuff your bauble once you've done the first couple of decrease rows. Leaving it to the end will be very tricky and may even cause you to utter some very bad words!!!
Stuff as you hook the decrease rows. That should be your mantra ;-) And remember to stuff firmly. There is nothing worse than a badly stuffed bauble!
Ok, well yes there is....but let's not go there :-)
So now you have your finished bauble :-)
Yes it's fiddly, but isn't it worth it????
This is 14 row sphere. I also made 18 and 22 row ones to decorate.
Basically you can decorate your bauble however you wish :-)
I chose to use buttons on one and seed beads on the other....because I'm a glutton for punishment!
Drag out your button box and choose some buttons that will work with your colour scheme and begin sewing them on. This is a nice activity to do while watching TV.
I evenly spaced out the buttons I was sewing and didn't worry about it being too uniform. I wanted a rustic appearance hence the different sizes and shapes. I finished by attaching a ribbon.
The seed bead bauble was made by sewing the beads in every little hole made by a double crochet stitch.
This may sound like a whole heap of sewing but actually, it was very quick! I finished the bauble in about 2 hours whilst watching TV. I love the effect the beads give!
So there you go! Two different baubles to hang on your tree this year and for years to come! You can alter the colours to suit your colour scheme :-)
I suppose I should really put my tree up this weekend to display them!!!
I hope you've enjoyed my little bauble project. Don't forget to pop over and visit Tammy at Canadutch tomorrow! I can't wait to see what she has in store for us. When am I going to find the time to make all of these wonderful projects????
Tomorrow I shall try to explain my prolonged absence from blogland and update on a couple of projects. See you then!
These are SOOOO pretty!!!
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Oh I love these!!
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