Christmas crochet anyone?

Way back in January I shared some grey crochet flowers I'd made with super bright accents.

A number of people have asked for a more detailed tutorial for the over-sewed edging on the roll up rose flower. So this year, for Christmas, I have been playing with the idea some more and taking some step by step photos as I go which hopefully will help.

I'll start with the Roll up Rose.

This is what you need:

• Scraps of wool/yarn, I've not weighed them but what is shown here is enough for a flower or a bunch of hearts

• A crochet hook, I used a 4mm one

• A big fat sewing needle

You can find the crochet pattern here. Once you've done it, it should look something like this.

Leave yourself nice long tails as they are handy later, longer than photographed here is better.

Now thread your sewing needle with a nice long length of contrast colour wool.

Start at the small end of the crochet strip, the one with the little petals, right side facing you. Bring your needle up through the middle of the first stitch. The photos show it best but please do remember we are looking at the stitches here and ignoring the state of my nails!

Now just come up through the middle of the next stitch. I've skipped a few stitches here but these were the clearest photo. Pull gently and stop when the contrast yarn is just filling the gap between the stitches.

Just keep going until you want to stop. On this big flower I stopped when there were 5 petals remaining so the last "round" will be plain. You can carry on to the end if you prefer.

To finish the contrast yarn just give a couple of little over-sew stitches and then weave the end in.

Don't pull to tight or this will happen

Now start rolling from the little end

You can roll these as tight as you want, I've seen similar roses really quite round and packed together, or really flat and loose. It's up to you. I like the base to be flat like this.

Just use the long tails from the original crochet to sew long stitches, criss crossing across the base, catching all the layers.

And that's it!

I've also made a smaller one, just by making the original crochet chain shorter and doing less stitches in each petal. I will write the pattern up some time but I need to test it a few times first.

Then I just couldn't stop and made this cute little heart garland too.

I found the little heart pattern here at Craftaholics Anonymous. The tutorial there is fab - so clear and easy to follow.

I over-sewed round the hearts in exactly the same way as the flowers and then attached them to a simple red chain.

I think they are so cute!

When I have time I'd like to make a longer garland too. The flowers will most likely be used on someone specials gift wrap this Christmas, but you can probably think of a million uses for them! They would look great sitting on dark green leaves too, or on a wreath, tied on a mason jar, as a brooch.....

I'll be linking up to all these great link parties