Gift Away – Add some Christmas Joy to your day and enter to win one of 3 colours of the Joy hand warmers shown here. To my Twitter and Blogger friends you can also enter this way:
Bloggers:
Comment “Christmas Joy” on this blog posting here and
Retweet this posting or one of the postings or tweets about this gift away at @vbaberdesigns and comment “Christmas Joy”
or Instagram:
You can also enter through instagram as noted in my previous blog posting and the link to A Little Detail above. This gives you various ways to enter this great gift away for 1 of 3 different hand warmers, a red, a grey and a black one.
Christmas Rose scarves add that special touch to the holidays and can be worn after as well. I wanted to add a special scarf with hand warmers coming later this week to add a Christmas Cheer to your day. I love Christmas as my mother always made is such a special time of year so I felt it fitting to add the roses from her Rose Onie Scarves I designed in memory of her. She was the most incredible woman I have ever met and I was extremely fortunate that she was my mom!! I miss and love you mom! At Christmas it always feel like she is here with us as we continue many of the Christmas moments she began and enjoy the wonderful memories of the past while making new ones along the way. Take the time this year to love those around you and spend time with them. They are the ones that matter the most and truly the best gifts you will ever receive!
Christmas Garland…just beginning the adventure of making my own Crocheted Christmas garland. It will be an ongoing project likely throughout the next year as I keep dreaming of ideas on how to enhance the garland into a lovely treasured decoration for my home. To start with I chose some beautiful hand painted yarn by Malabrigo with different tones of greens. I will be adding other yarns and tones of greens in the future with holly leaves and berries and other evergreens, pine cones and more wintery treasures nature provides. This is just a quick picture of the beginnings of the project. I will be using this crochet technique to make the cedar type texture for the base of my garland. I added a few berries just to see how they would look with a splash of red jumping from the cedar bows. The holly leaves will come later on as I work on designing leaves and finding yarns that work great for that lovely deep green holly omits from it’s unique and glossy leaves.
I love holly, when I lived in Vancouver years ago I was astonished how big the holly grew. It was stunning and beautiful. I tried on many occasions to grow some while living near Toronto for many years, but I really don’t have a very good green thumb and failed on each attempt. It was worth trying to succeed with such an unique and beautiful plant. Instead I will crochet or knit my own holly tree, of sorts. I am sure I will have more success at that.
Have a wonderful week…off I go to crochet and knit my garland goals.
In the Pink…newest knits added to my designs. One of the colours I noticed somewhat missing from my designs is pink. It is not a colour I wear often and perhaps that is why, but after making several designs in different strengths of pink I have realized that I must add this beautiful colour to my wardrobe. Pink can be so soft and gentle or striking and bold. You can wear the tone you feel that day and want to project to others around you. I love these two different hand painted yarns I used on the base of the different scarves. Both have a completely different effect and character.
I love working with hand painted yarns! It’s like a constant surprise every stitch you take with anticipation to see what that next stitch becomes in colour. Always keeping your eyes happy with something new to look at just around the corner or in this case stitch. To top it off each skein is different from the other making it a challenge to bring them all together and so interesting each time I start a new project. I am completely hooked on hand painted yarns as you can see by my designs. I also love mixing solid colours together and working them so they become one. Once again each piece has it’s own character depending on how the yarns decide to land while I knit and crochet them. You can see these and more of my designs at:
The hand warmers are both designs I have previously designed, but in different colours and colour techniques making the design new again. I love reworking a design be it different yarns or colour ways to see how I can improve or change the look. Some designs give birth to new designs with inspiration abounding from the vary stitches of each piece. As you see with my Rose collections, it just keeps getting bigger as I become inspired by the previous piece I designed. Roses happen to be my favourite flower which could be part of my inspiration as well.
Off to be inspired by Christmas and my crocheted garland. I have started working on it this week and of course I am using hand painted yarns for at least some of the garland. I love being inspired by nature and all it’s wonderful gifts it gives us everyday. Must run and get back to my garland…I love Christmas!! Have a fabulous day!!
Warm up your winter day with these new wonderfully soft Chunky knit Rose Onie scarves. A smaller version of my Rose Onie scarf collection with a chunkier super soft hand painted merino wool. These colours are so vibrant they alone brighten and warm a cool day. Here are some of the new colours I have added with a simple hat (that can be embellished with roses too) and some hand warmers to complete the set. This is my favourite scarf I have designed since I designed it in memory of my amazing mother, Onie. Christmas was her favourite time of year, she made it so special every year! I treasure all the wonderful memories she instilled in our family and love instilling the same traditions she did with my own family.
I have some other new designs I will blog about later on and a “crocheted garland” project. I have been trying to come up with Asthma friendly decorations that can look fabulous, but can be washed up and kept dust mite free and toxin free for next year. I had to rid the house of many of my decorations as I finally realized they were causing me serious asthma issues every Christmas, which magically disappeared with in a day of putting everything away. Stay tuned to see what I design for my crocheted garland, or at least the beginnings of this project. There are so many things that inspires me for this Garland project. Can’t wait to start…
You can see more colours below and link to my Etsy store or website here:
Free Knitting Pattern for a Gift Card and Business Card Holder. I was inspired by the thought of designing a card after posting my recent venture in Christmas Card making. Then it dawned on me why not design a gift card cover that can make a gift card a more personal gift as you have added a special touch with your own hands and then be reused as a business card holder by the recipient or again used as a gift card holder. A great way to reduce and reuse with the added perk of a homemade personal touch. This pattern is nice and easy so most people can knit it. I like to keep my patterns easy so more people can enjoy making and sharing their skills and handmade projects with others.
For this design I wanted to stay with a classic feel and added the garter stitch for a nice texture and feel to the card holder. I used a hand painted yarn to add another special dimension and colour to the piece. For this pattern I used Malabrigo Rios, one of my favourite yarns to work with. For those who don’t know Rios is a wonderful hand painted merino wool that is very soft and has amazing colours. You can see more of their yarns at www.malabrigoyarn.com You can use any worsted weight yarn you have as long as your tension is as above.
The Reusable Gift Card Holder and Business Card Holder is perfect gift in itself for those you love. I hope you enjoy making some of these for your friends and family. Change it up and add your own special touch to the design. Have a wonderful day today.
PATTERN:
KNITTED BUSINESS CARD/GIFT CARD HOLDER:
Reusable Gift Card and Business Card Holder is a great way to add a handmade personal touch to a gift. Use it as a gift card holder that can then be used by the recipient as a business card holder specially made by you. This design has a classic touch with the moss stitch and unique buttons. You can use your favourite button style to accent the design. The button size used here is a 1/2 inch button. The only request I have with my free patterns is you “Pass it Forward”. Either make one for someone in need, charities, or do something nice for someone else and pass the gift of helping others forward.
Needle size: 4 mm or a size 6 needle
Worsted weight yarn: I used Malabrigo Rios for this one above.
Tension: 4 sts wide by 7 rows high for a 1” section. This gave a finished measurement once sewn together of 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 perfect for a gift card or business card.
Cast on 30 sts and work 4 rows in garter stitch.
Work 4 rows in stocking stitch.
Work 2 rows of garter stitch.
Work 4 rows of stocking stitch.
Work 4 rows of garter stitch.
Right side should be facing you. Cast off 15 sts and work the remaining 15sts in garter stitch to end.
Work 6 rows of garter stitch.
Button Hole Row: in moss st. work 3 sts, yrn, k2 tog, moss st next 6 sts, yrn, k2 tog, moss st to end.
Work 3 more rows of garter stitch.
Cast off and sew side seam and bottom edge. Attach 2 small buttons of your choice and finish ends.
Christmas Cheer…handmade Christmas Cards are always a treat to receive. I used to make them every year for my family, but over the last few years, more like 5, I had lost my desire to spend time making cards at Christmas. I love receiving hand made cards and will often buy cards made by others as I value the work they have done and love the special and unique touch they add to each card.
A week or so ago I was invited to a card making party and I have to say that it was fantastic. The teacher was very creative and great at teaching us all these lovely designs. I really enjoyed making the Christmas Cards and the variety was a wonderful touch. I definitely suggest trying out making Christmas Cards, or a Christmas Craft. It is one of my favourite times of the year.
Perhaps a knitted Christmas Card would be something to try! Hmmm, gives me some inspiration on a few Christmas Crafts. I am off to try some of them out…let me know what you make for Christmas!
