Here I will show you how you can quite easily pull together your own Christmas light Garland like the one on the left.

I hope you enjoy making your garlands.

Wealie x

What do you need?

• covered bells in silver and/or white.
• 15-20 medium coloured metal bells.
• 6mm Jute string – approx. 6 metres.

• 6mm christmas style butcher’s string – approx. 6 metres.
• One set of LED Christmas lights approx. 4 metres, with 80 bulbs and preferably battery operated.
• Approx. 15 Christmas wooden shapes – I used three different types, but you could use more or less.

Putting it together

Cut three lengths of the Jute string approximately 2 metres long. Knot the three lengths together at one end leaving about 5 cm of string above the knot and plait together. You could also substitute one of the lengths for butcher’s string for a different effect.

Leave about 5 cm of string free at the end of the plait and knot the lengths together - you should have around 1 – 1.5 metre plait length.

Attach the light furthest away from the battery pack to the beginning of the plait using the 5 cm of free string. Weave the plait over and around the lights. At the end of the plait tie the closest light to the end and then turn the lights, tie down the first light after the turn half way between the next two lights. Weave the rest of the lights in and out of the plait and lights so that they are evenly spaced and you have lights on both sides of the plait. Tie the final light to the plait using the free string at the end.

Cut a length of about 1.5 metres of the butcher’s string and tie it around the first light on the plait leaving about 10 cm of string free. Weave the string around the lights tying it around every second light until you reach the end of the plait and tie it around the final light and again leave about 10 cm of string free at the end. Cut off any excess string and knot the 10 cm ends so that they form loops for hanging the garland

Using the jute string attach one of the small coloured bells aroud every second light. In the lights without bells proceed to knot your shapes and the larger bells in sequential order.

You’ve now got your very own Christmas lights garland!

For extra colour why not incorporate some ribbons or faux berries and holly.

Where to buy the materials

If you would like to make the same garland as me you can buy all the materials I used here:

• You can buy a variety of pre-cut wood shapes on Amazon
• Buy three rolls of  the jute twine string on Amazon
• Buy the red and white butcher’s twine on Amazon
• You can buy two sets of the battery operated christmas lights on Amazon
• I bought the coloured small bells in my local Rymans stationers
• The large white and silver covered bells I bought in Waitrose, red and white versions are available to buy online

Just lately I’ve taken up crochet and I’m really enjoying it. It turned out to be a lot easier than I had originally anticipated and I’ve already made a number of items from scarves to crochet flowers and the beginnings of a granny circle blanket, though I do find following patterns a bit challenging still.  I’ve mastered the basic stitches and played around with some special stitches all of which has been great fun.   I bought myself quite a few good books for learning to crochet, learning different stitches and some lovely patterns and designs to try out.  I also used some of the great videos from crafters on YouTube and have pinned many, many great crochet designs from Pinterest, all of which you can find on my Arty Crafty pinterest board.

As a left handed person from the UK (US terms for many basic stitches are different to the UK versions) it was a bit more difficult to find good books and instructions on how to learn crochet, follow patterns, complete certain stitches, but there are a lot of good resources out there if you look.  The book I found most useful in helping me to get to grip with the basics of crocheting UK style was Crochet Unravelled: A Clear and Concise Guide to Learning Crochet which you can buy on Amazon for just £6.29.  I highly recommend this book, it had instructions for both left and right handed people and explained the basics very well and is an excellent starting point at a reasonable price.

Back to my crocheting, below are a few of my creations so far, some are completed, others are still a work in progress, but as I’m having so much fun with the crochet, it is hard to focus on just one project at a time.  To see all my crocheting projects check out my Wealie’s Crafts pinterest board.

Happy hooking!

Wealie
x

My Crochet Projects

1. Sid the Sloth purse - this started out with the intention of being a monkey purse, however as my partner Ben pointed out the purse looked more like Sid, so the ears of the monkey turned into the eyes of Sid

Sid the Sloth purse

2.  Flower motif – I made this motif using a multi coloured bamboo viscose yarn and it will be going on a scarf that I’ve made out of the same bluey-green yarn, but have not yet had a chance to block , so for now it’s just the flower to see.

Crochet Flower Motif for Scarf

3. Granny Circle Blanket – A work in progress as it is more of a dinner plate size at the moment.  I’m enjoying working with the bright and colourful cottons on this project, but envisage that this may take some time to complete.

Crochet Granny Circle - WIP

4.  Crochet Baby Hat – This was my first proper item that I created from following a pattern, which I’m still finding a little bit challenging; so I was very proud when I completed this and the fact that it did in fact look like a hat at the end of the process.  I used a pattern in the UK magazine Craftseller, but changed the motif from a flower to a star and changed the colours to blues so that it would be more boyish for my new nephew Jack, who unfortunately had grown out of it before he got it :-S  It was a great project to work on though and I was very pleased with the end result.

My first crochet baby hat

5. Crochet heart flowers - I found this pattern on the wonderful pinterest and decided to have a go.  Took me a little while to get the hang of crocheting in the different loops on the same row, but once I got into the flow it was quite an enjoyable process and I’m hoping to maybe use this design to make some kind of cushion cover or blanket.

Crochet Love Hearts

6. Crochet pansy – Making up my own patterns here for flowers was an interesting experiment that turned out quite well. I might add a bit of black as stamen detail and yellow pollen stain at the centre to make it look more realistic though.

Crochet Pansy

7. Crochet headband – Having mastered the rose effect I made up quite a few little roses while practising and decided to put them to good use as a head band, which one of my lovely friends Ashlee now has

Crochet Roses Headband

8. Rainbow crochet flower - One of the first crochet flowers that I created using a lovely rainbow bamboo viscose yarn. Haven’t decided what to do with this one. I might make it into a brooch or headband at some point.

Crochet Rainbow Flower

9. Experimenting with Chevrons – I’ve mastered chevrons in crochet, what I found most difficult was keeping the number of my stitches even; on my first attempt the number of stitches per row, increased and decreased alarmingly! This swatch is a bit too small to be a cushion, but I thought I might be able to work it into a hot water bottle cover or maybe a handbag design.

Yay I can do chevrons!