Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!!

This morning I'm hanging out with family, opening presents and eating waffles.  I wanted to take a moment and wish all of you a Merry Christmas.  I hope its a day filled with love, laughter and lots of food.

Christmas Stars

I got so many compliments on the stars I decided to share the pattern.  The only down side is that I don't know where you'll find the plastic crystals but any bead around the same size will do.  They work really well as Christmas Tree ornaments as well as sun catchers.

Christmas Stars by Vicki Clarke

Supplies
Thread- size 10 red or green wound CTM with ball
2 paperclips
Crochet hook
Beads as used in picture-
Center- 15mm hexagon plastic crystal
15 4x4 Miyuki cubes
15 Size 10 seed beads added onto the ball thread
Comment:  This is a pretty forgiving pattern. You can change thread size or beads without much problem. For example, you can also use size 20 thread with a 13mm center and 6/0 Miyuki beads.  I have also added beads to some of the lock joins to add more bling.

Short Terms
Ls- lock stitch, 1st half unflipped 2nd half flipped
Lj- lock join, use shuttle thread to pull up loop and put shuttle through loop
3b- pull up three beads from the ball thread to make a beaded picot

Start: pull loop through crystal and hold using paperclip ls

Round 1
*Pull loop of shuttle thread through cube and hold with paperclip
Ch 8 lj to space held by paper clip* repeat 4X
Once you’ve added 5 beads then lj to space held by 1st paperclip (loop through crystal)
Repeat from * to * 5 X lj to space below 1st ls

Round 2
* Ch 8
pull loop of shuttle thread through cube and hold with paperclip
Ch 4 3b 4 lj to space held by paperclip
Ch 8 lj to space between 2nd and 3rd cubes on round 1* (make this lock join around both threads, not just the ball thread)
Repeat 4x, each joining to the space between every other cube i.e. 4&5, 6&7, 8 & 9, 10 & 1 to give you 5 points.  Tie and cut

Like a little Christmas elf


















The last few weeks I've been working away like a little elf making Christmas themed sun catchers for my sister and mom to give their co-workers for Christmas. I'm done and that's off my plate. If I finish a couple of bookmarks then I've got tatting time to waste! I'm going to waste it with the gingerbread thread I ordered from Tatskool. No idea what to do. But I guess I'll be going with the theme of the thread!
  
 

 The last thread I ordered was from was from Krystledawn.  I have rarely used up a whole skein up hand dyed thread but I used up all of her love potion #9!  It was a fun mixture of greys and purples which became the center of a doily and butterflies...lots of butterflies.  You can't see in the picture but I used grey delica beads that match the grey in the thread.  I was really inspired by this thread and grey is my current favorite color. 

Love Potion # 9 thread by Krystledawne, pattern by me!