Craftmaking

	These are some of the snowflakes I have crocheted. I started crocheting when I was five or six. My grandmother taught me how. The first real thing I ever made with chrochet was a winter touque. By the time I had finished it, it was too small for me! These snowflakes were made during the summer of 1998 for the first Christmas tree I had in Ottawa that same year. They are made of white chrochet yarn and starched with a commercial fabric stiffener. I had patterns for the pointy ones and designed the others myself, based on looking at a few at craft stores and such.

These trees and rocking horses are made of wood and painted with a craft paint. The wood came from a clementine box (crate). It is 1/8 inch thick. Dad cut the shapes with his band saw. Note that it was much faster to cut the trees than the horses, simply because of the straight edges.

These candles, the candy cane and the snowmen start out as flat pieces of white felt. The white is a single layer for the candles and candy cane. It is two layers glued together over a pice of gold thread for the snowmen mobiles. The colored pieces are cut from felt and glued on top of the white, on both sides. There is gold ric-rac at the top of the candle holders and on the snowmen's hats to add some sparkle. The snowmen have body parts that are distinct, so they spin freely around the thread, making a mobile. The pieces are the hat, face, body and legs.

These are small gold bells with bows attached. The bows are made with two pieces of ribbon. Each piece is either red, green or white. I made some of each color combination. The snowman is made of one full-length fuzzy white pipecleaner and half a regular red pipecleaner. I just twisted them together to achieve the shown effect. They are incredibly easy to make!

These decorations are all stuffed and made of felt. The two wreaths are cut from the same shape pattern. The bow on the red wreath is made of starched Christmas fabric and is glued on. The mouse on the green wreath has several pieces. His face is a face shape with ears in one piece. It is cut twice and sewn together and lightly stuffed. There are pink circles in the centre of his ears. Then the smallest craft eyes are glued on and a black bead is sewn on for a nose. He also has black whiskers that are sewn on. His tail and feet are separate pieces that are glued onto the wreath. Finally the wreath gets a red ribbon bow for color.

The other little mouse in the sock is a diamond shaped piece of grey felt. He's cut out twice, sewn together and lightly stuffed as well. His ears are an oval that is scrunched in the middle and sewn to one corner of the diamond. On the appropriate corner, there is a little black or red bead for his nose. And finally his eyes are tiny black beads on either side of his face. The tail is a long narrow piece of grey felt that is folded lengthwise over a pipecleaner or twist tie wire and stitched together. All sewing of edges of these pieces was done with matching embroidery floss and a button-hole stitch. The sock the mouse sits in is cut from white felt and sewn together and stuffed. The red toe, heel and band are red felt that is glued to both sides of the sock and trimmed with some gold ric-rac.

Finally, the polar bear is white felt, cut out twice, sewn together and stuffed. He has black bead eyes and a red bead nose. His red scarf is half of a red pipecleaner folded once over his neck and then the ends are folded up to meet under his chin so it isn't long enough to trip him!

All of these ornaments were made in the summer of 1998 for the tree I had that year. Each ornament ranges in size from the smallest - the bells - which are about an inch and a half high, to the snowman mobiles which are probably five inches tall.

I do make other crafts, besides Christmas crafts. Here is a sample of what I do with cross stitch.

This is a sampler I did for Kenn and Angela when they got married in September 1998. I modified a Victorian pattern which was done in purple and pink with yellow flowers and green leaves, to what you see here, delft blues. I rewrote the whole chart and mapped my blues to the different shades of the original. This piece took about two months. I framed it myself using a pin board.