It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

I'm officially in the Christmas mood!!! The tree is up and the apartment is gradually becoming more and more festive!
We went and bought our tree on Tuesday and came home to find that it was a tad too big!! Nothing that a light pruning couldn't sort out! After a little snipping and sawing it fits nicely in the corner of the living room.

I love to decorate the Christmas tree, and its been one of my favourite things for as long as I can remember. I used to love it as a child when Mum would ask Dad to go up into the attic to get the box of Christmas decorations. I always knew that when I saw Dad fetch the ladder from the garage the festivities were about to begin.
Mum was always in charge of the Christmas decorations but she would always need help from her little elves (my brother and I). Once the tree would be finished I used to love to lie underneath it and look up through the branches at all of the magical fairy lights.

Dennis and I put the tree up together. Once it was finished I had to have my little moment of laying under the tree and was once again mesmerized by the lights.

We decorated our tree with bright white lights and deep red ball balls. Then added a little bit of crocheted Christmas flair!

Sparkly wooden stars.

Gold glittery pine cones.

A little white crochet star sits perfectly on top.

We also had a little ornament bought for the two of us by some good friends, who will be spending Christmas day with us. Its the most gorgeous shiny rocking horse, that sparkles in the light.

I went out and bought some Christmas crackers for Christmas day.  These are really common back home in England, but not so common here in Hamburg. I managed to find them in an English store in the city, a little over priced but they are very pretty. Here they are next some gorgeous holly Dennis made this week. (The holly pattern is by Lucy at Attic24, isn't it cute!)

Our snow man gift bag from last Christmas hangs on the door smiling across the room.

Dennis' crocheted trees are out once again. He made these last year. I love them so much, they look great clustered together on our table.

The Christmas cards have started to arrive from my family in England and Dennis' in Holland

Crocheted stars and Christmas trees are hanging from the drawers.

Dennis had also been busy making lots of stunning snowflakes to hang around the apartment.

As you can see things are fully underway here in our apartment. The next week is sure to be busy as we sort gifts out for each of our families, prepare for Christmas dinner and fit in the occasional Gluhwein :-) We both hope that all of your preparations are going smoothly!


and Dennis xxx

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(Good Old Fashioned) Bunting!

As you all know over the past couple of weeks I've been going barmy for bunting! I've been so desperate to make some! I told myself that once I had finished off some of my other projects, I was allowed to give the bunting a whirl. Well.... I finished off a couple of Christmas presents and got going with the bunting!

Now usually I jump straight on in with a pattern. This time was different. I really spent time looking at different patterns and giving them little trial runs. I also looked around my favourite crafty shops for inspiration on colour and shape.

I decided to settle on making a granny square but with just three sides. I ended up making a small mountain of "granny triangles" in many different colours. Maybe I went a little over board!
I made these with Stylecraft but could not settle on a suitable border for them.

I made them in white creative cotton, maybe for a Christmassy snowflake bunting?

Then once again in Stylecraft but with three colours instead of four.

At work one night when I wasn't on stage, I had a play around with some bunting edging. Yet again I couldn't come up with something I was happy with. I went home from work that night with a bag full of assorted triangles, but no bunting in sight. :-(

On a bit of a whim, I decided to take some time out from the crocheted bunting. I made a start on some fabric bunting and ended up working on it into the early hours of the morning.  I made the bunting out of the fabric squares recently bought from the craft store.

I first tried sewing triangles on the sewing machine, but soon decided it was way too fiddly. I decided to make it a little easier on myself and ended up cutting triangles out of cardboard. I then stuck the fabric to the cardboard with glue. It worked a treat!

I glued the triangles to a long length of ribbon. My bunting was taking shape!! I added some stitches for a little extra strength. Would you like to see my scrap fabric bunting?

I'm really pleased with it! Look at those gorgeous printed fabrics! Such yummy vibrant colours!

I added buttons to the top of each of the triangles. I simply bought cheap white fabric buttons and coloured them pink with a fabric marker. They turned out great! And they were much, much cheaper than buying individual pink buttons!

Here it hangs in my apartment from window to window, brightening up the wintery Hamburg view.

Adding a touch of colour to the black and white pictures on the wall.

I'm sooooo happy with my fabric bunting, it makes me smile each time I look at it. I keep moving it around the apartment, hanging it in different places from day to day.

Now I still wasn't done with the crocheted bunting, but I was totally over my granny triangles! I showed them to Dennis and we both decided to try a different design.
We had a little hooky improv session and between the two of us came up with a cute little piece of bunting.

I was sooooo happy with it! We sat down and worked out exactly what we had done and figured out the pattern for it. 

We decided to keep the colours a little more neutral for a more simple look. We used 5 different shades of Rico baby cotton dk. 

We joined each of the pieces with a combination of simple chains and clusters of double crochets, keeping the look really simple. Here it is in all of its glory, Our 'Good Old Fashioned Bunting!'

This has really been one of my favourite projects. It was really fun trying out different patterns and finally making one up between the two of us.  We were both really proud at how the bunting turned out! We have decided to write the pattern out in full and share with everybody!  The pattern for 'Good Old Fashioned Bunting' will be coming very  soon!

and Dennis xxx

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