Crochet Christmas wreath

Margaret is getting in early! She found a Christmas crochet wreath  (bottom right)  and loved it so much she wanted to make it herself. She used the ring from a milk bottle top as the foundation. Good way to repurpose and upcycle plastic. She has used picot stitch around the edge and she has made one with French knots. The colourful one she made shows you you can use the pattern for other purposes too. She wrote down the pattern as she did it. That in itself is an indication of how careful and attentive Margaret is to her work.

Show and tell

We had a really productive day and had plenty of ideas to share which was really good because it was cold, wet and windy outside.

Marina: Jumper in blues, maroon, gun metal grey and other flecked colours. Mostly hand spun wool with some commercial wool. Scumbled stress ball in light blue.

 Margaret: 3 Christmas decorations. One she bought with the little metal Christmas tree and she made the others herself in white with various colours.

 Alexis: A really big skein of hand dyed wool she had spun in perigord and lilac Jacquard dyes.

 Cathy: Knitted beanie decorated with freeform puff stitch crochet in  navy, green grey and purple. Spun blue merino tops plied with Alex’ hand dyed alpaca in soft lavender and blue. 

 John was weaving a pink mohair scarf.

 Sheila:Two beautifully sewn story books and then padded number squares which she had made for her granddaughter.

 

Show and tell

It was a good start to the new year. We were all happy and productive and the weather was not as hot as it has been. There were some really lovely colours and some great things to look at.

 Marina and Peter: woven project bag in fawns and other understated colours. Peter wove the fabric and Marina sewed it into a bag with string handles and zip.

 Marina: Colourful woven bag with a solid bottom; green crocheted hat where Marina tried to remember the pattern without consulting it; colourful striped crochet beanie with furry pom pom; oddments beanie to use up all the bits and pieces of spun wool in her basket, mix of soft colours in stripes.

 Maria: four homespun, knitted beanies , two in coffee colours, one in white and rust, one in pinks and purples; sheep appliqué on hessian bag – part fabric , part knitted

 Janette: rainbow coloured blanket with fringe in garter stitch; cake of spun alpaca plied with Brenda’s dyed wool tops

 Wendy: handspun, hand dyed, hand knitted lace dress and underwear for Barbara, her doll since she was a girl.

 John brought along one of his other looms and is weaving fabric for a jacket.

 

Blog stats

Our blog started towards the end of 2017. We had 406 visitors by the end of the year.  In 2018 we had 2569 visitors . Last year we did even better with 3884 visitors. That is really nice to know. Most of our visitors come from Australia but we continue to be popular with people in other countries . We have only posted a picture of the top countries. It is a good mix.

We have 252 followers now and have had 15,602 hits. That’s a good achievement and a nice way to start the new year.

 

 

We now get thousands of hits from search engines and that was always the aim. people are now landing on our blog from the things they search. The WordPress reader continnues to bring us plenty of visitors and then things like Fcebook and Instagram…even dear Twitter which is not very good on textile arts and crafts.

 

 

 

 

Christine’s Celtic knot scarf was the top post of the year. Congratulations!! Her rust colloured crescent shawl was the second most popular post for the year 🙂 Talented lady.

Maria’s crochet Alpine stitich was very popular as was Alexis’ idea for poppies for Remembrance Day in 2018.

Glad to see theat the post we put up about knitting not just being a hobby went so well. it is NOT busy work!

Then there was Marina’s idea for the fidget muffs.

So it was mainly knitting and a bit of crochet which won the day for us last year but we would not get he numers or commitment from visitors without all the other things we do.