Merry Christmas Tree!

I was having trouble posting this over the last few days, but I was finally able to get it posted.

My final Christmas project for this year was a Christmas tree I designed myself! This adorable tree decorated with poinsettias and lights stands 27.5 inches tall and was a delight to make!

First I started by deciding on how I wanted the poinsettias to look. I created them all in one piece, using the flower loom and Homespun candy apple red yarn. But they came out looking more like a star (the one on the left), and they weren't the right color. I tried again, increasing the number of leaves and using red heart red yarn. Now it looked more like a poinsettia to me (the one on the right):

I knit 20 poinsettias and set them aside.

To knit the tree, I used Homespun Evergreen Christmas yarn and every round loom I had. I knit each section of the tree from small to large, and then sewed them together with yarn. I knit the bottom section of the tree a little longer than the cone so I could pull the tree taut against the cone and cinch it underneath.

After I completed it I thought of a different way of creating the tree in one piece; maybe next year I'll try it out and see if it works.

To assemble the tree, I purchased a clear plastic cone from an online craft store to use as the inside of the tree, because I knew styrofoam wouldn't work well with the lights. Plus I didn't want the color of the styrofoam to show through the knitting. I bought a wood dowel and painted the bottom part of it brown, to use as the tree trunk. I bought a strand of 20 red Christmas lights. Then I bought some styrofoam discs that I would cut to insert and glue inside the bottom of the tree and into the base of the pot, to hold the tree steady and upright.

Before I put the lights in, I sewed the poinsettias onto the tree. This could have been a big mistake, since I didn't take into account the distance between each light bulb -vs- the distance I had sewn on each poinsettia. But fortunately all of the lights were able to reach the centers of eack poinsettia as I had planned.

Another problem with sewing the poinsettias on the tree first happened when I had to space and match each light with the center of each poinsettia I had sewn on. I had to use an exacto knife to mark the center of each poinsettia on the plastic cone. Then I enlarged the hole in the plastic cone and pushed each light through. Then I secured the lights using black electrical tape, which I knew would be covered up by the poinsettia.

Next I carefully turned the tree inside out, and pushed the lights through the center of each poinsettia, starting at the top. This was difficult, but not impossible. I poked a pencil through the center of each poinsettia to guide my finger and to make the hole big enough for the light to push through. The ones at the top were the hardest, but after the first few I was able to position the lights both inside and outside the cone through the yarn.

At first I had planned to knit the star on top of the tree. I was going to make a large poinsettia for the top, but I just wasn't getting a good design together for how I wanted it to look. So I found a star at the craft store to use instead.

The last part I bought was the pot itself: a cute wicker basket that I found at the craft store, in the shape of a snowman's hat. It was just the right finishing touch!

Here is what the tree looks like with the lights on,

and an artistic rendering of it:

Hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas bulb ornaments!

For years I have had some clear glass bulb ornaments lying around, buried in a box, in hopes that one year I would get creative and make something out of them. Well I finally did it. I used the Knifty Knitter spool loom to create some wreaths, decorated them, and carefully inserted them inside the bulbs! For each one, I used Lion Brand Holiday Homespun green and red, and some wire ribbon I had at home.

For the first one, I inserted the wreath inside the bulb and then knit the ends together once it was inside.

But this was a little bit too tricky to repeat over and over, so for the next ones I just knit them together first, decorated them, and then inserted them inside the bulbs. I don't have a picture of the very first one because these bulbs are hard to photograph, and the picture I took really didn't come out that well.

This one has a small rose on it that I had lying around from some Valentine's project. I didn't make it.

Some of my coworkers saw me knitting and creating these bulbs, and even though they saw how I got them in there, they still marveled at them when they were completed. The people who received them as gifts were amazed and excited by them as well.

But below is my favorite one: the Christmas tree!

I made a poinsettia a while back, so I just used the same technique that I had learned to make the poinsettia leaves to make the Christmas tree. I already had some miniature Christmas presents among the Christmas decorations at home, so I just used them and glued them and the tree inside the bulb. The tree only took about an hour to make, including decorating both sides. I tied the red ribbons myself! No small feat. But voila! What results! I would still have it if someone hadn’t bought it! Not that I’m mad about THAT! And they loved it. The person's wife said it was too good to hang on the tree, that it was heirloom quality. What a compliment!