12 Gifts of Christmas {day one}

Welcome to the first day of The 12 Gifts of Christmas here at Life Made Creations!

I made some homemade gifts this year that I just couldn't share with you until they were given.  So now we get to extend the holiday season for 12 more days, with none of the stress (since most of these posts I drafted before Christmas and scheduled to go live each day).  So grab yourself a hot cuppa something and enjoy!

For day one I'm going to share probably my most favorite gift of the season:

It, of course, began with this pin:

Source: lindamade.com via Michelle on Pinterest

which originated from this tutorial from Good Knits.  Lisa has a fabulous step by step photo tutorial to walk you through wrapping the wreath with crochet.  I then crocheted a scallop edging by repeating this pattern: [sc, sk 2, 5dc, sk2]  around the whole wreath.

I used various patterns to create the flowers.

First flower on left was made by following this video:


The other two red flowers come from this fabulous book by Linda Permann (who happens to be the one who made that bright green wreath above)
On the smaller one, I inserted a grey center made from 8sc worked into a ring, and on the larger 8-petal layered flower, I created a bobble from 6dc, leaving loops on the hook after each dc.

The 6-petal grey flower was just a simple little pattern I made up:

sc12 into magic ring, sl st to close
ch3, sk sc, slst into next sc repeat around to have 6 ch3 loops
in each loop: 2sc, 4trc, 2sc
slst in 1st sc to close
attach bobble (as made above) to center

And the shaggy grey flower is a variation on this flower by AnneMarie

I started with a ch4 loop, and s10sc into loop
Working in front loops only, I sl st, ch5, sl st in every sc around.
Then repeated the pattern in the back loops around.  Another bobble in the center to finish it off.

This was a really fun project, and I will definitely be making more of these soon--like a pastel on for spring.

Hope you'll come back tomorrow for day 2!