Crocheted Christmas Tree Garland

 I was watching tutorials on how to make air dry clay ornaments last December and thought how wonderful it would be to have a beautiful white lacey garland on the tree to accent the white air dry clay ornaments.  A garland that would last for years and years.   I don't put up a Christmas tree but my daughter does and she could use a pretty homemade garland.

I ordered 10 balls of No. 3 white crochet thread (not enough to finish this project but enough to make more than half) to make the garland.  

I did some math, created a pattern and started crocheting.  In the end I will make 4 strands of 80 feet of garland which will be more than enough for a 7 foot tree.  Figure 10 feet of garland for each foot of tree. 

 The garland is pretty by itself but it's awesome when it's twisted with three more strands. 

My math went like this:  I need 4 strands of 80 feet of garland, that's a total of 320 feet.  I am crocheting it in 2 foot segments so I need 160 pieces of garland.  I can get 11 strands from one ball of no. 3 crochet thread using a size D/3.25mm hook.  I will need a total of 15 balls to make the entire 320 feet.   

My pattern is three simple rows including the chain row.  I make 81 chains, I single crochet in the second chain from hook and across for 80 single crochets.  At the end I chain three turn my work and make 4 double crochet in first sc to make a shell, *single crochet in next three stitches, then make 5 dc in next stitch, continue from * across.  I don't worry if the end of this row works out perfectly.  You will never be able to tell once the piece is added to all the other pieces.  

I will sew 40 of these 2 foot pieces together for one strand of the garland.  

New Living Room Wallhanging

 I had to replace my living room wall hanging.  I recently washed the old one and it shrunk up on the corners.  I should not have put that darn thing in the dryer.  Doing dumb things.  That's me.  

The replacement is a big star.  I used Missouri Star Quilt Company's video tutorial found here.  It a super easy block and it a lovely large size.  One block makes a gorgeous wall hanging.  The cool thing about this pattern is that if you adjust the size of your squares to any size you can make the block the size you need.  Using 10" squares of fabric for my block, I have a star that is 24" square.  

I love stars and this big star is easy to make.  The light blue fabric is the fabric I used to cover my ironing board, so my wall hanging matches it.  I made this in about 5 hours from fabric cutting to adding the hanging sleeve on the back.  

Clothes Line Rope Bowls

I bought more cotton clothes line to make rope bowls.  I've been wanting to make more of these since I made the other bowls back in December.

I bought cotton clothesline from Amazon, it was Household Essentials, 3/16" - 100 feet  in each package.  I paid $6.99 for each package of  clothes line.  I couldn't find cotton clothes line locally, I did try.  I even went to Harbor Freight but they only carried synthetic.

  

 I used the video tutorial here -  Rope Bowl video tutorial.   This tutorial is great to get the basics.   Ms. Patti did a good job explaining the best way to make these bowls.  I watched several videos on this subject and found information on another tutorial that was also very helpful in making my bowls.  The best tip I found was to use an open toe foot (it might be called an embroidery foot) to sew these bowls.  The open toe really makes it easy to see where you are sewing.  

I wrapped the beginning of my rope in muslin to cover the loose threads and I like that a lot.  The muslin disappears in the bottom and it secures the end of the rope.

 I didn't increase my stitch length as much as Crafty Patti does in her tutorial.  I like closer stitches.  This project uses lots of thread and because I didn't lengthen my stitches, I probably used a lot more thread.  I used a full bobbin and a half on each bowl.  

When I wanted to finish my bowl I just moved the end of the rope to the inside of the bowl and stitch over it a few times covering up any loose ends of rope.  I did not use any cellophane tape on my rope.   

I did add little blips of blue fabric throughout the bowl since these are going to DD and that is what she requested.  

Each bowl took about an hour to make (not including time to set up and time to wind several bobbins).   The bowls measures approx. 4 1/2" across the bottom and 3" tall.  Each bowl used about 42 feet of rope.  

I think if you make large rounds or ovals with the rope they would be awesome hot pads in the kitchen or you could make little rounds for coasters.    

This is a fun economical project.  It was extremely easy to sew and the bowls are super useful.