Fun with Thread or A Bit of Christmas Sparkle

I dug out my balls of crochet thread recently to make some snowflake ornaments. I could have gone with the traditional white, but I had a few bits of leftover red and gold sparkly fiber from other projects and some size 10 cotton crochet thread in silver and gold with a metallic strand. Time to play! Here's the result.

I started with this lovely snowflake pattern from my friend the talented designer Andee Graves. I added one little tweak - the gold picot edge. You can't see the metallic sparkle in the photo, but it's there.

Andee's pattern is lovely on it's own, but gosh, I have these pretty red and gold bits that are so Christmasy! I started leafing through my motif stitch dictionaries to see what I could find. This is a modified version of one of the patterns. I layered him on top of Andee's snowflake.

I like it! But it's not quite there yet. The center is too plain. How about a button.

I like this a lot. But...the gold of the button is a bit dull and antique looking. Not really what I'm after. And I wanted the center piece to be a bit bigger.  Let's try something else. I fiddled with all of these. None of them were quite right for one reason or another. But they are all saved and might go on my Christmas tree.

 I gave it one more try.

Now I've got the size and shape I want, but I need something in that center hole. What have I got in my bead stash?

A shiny gold filigree bead and bead cap. Now I'm happy. I could easily spend hours and hours leafing through stitch dictionaries and playing with snowflake or flower patterns and leftover bits of yarn, thread, beads and buttons. Dive into your own stash (you've got one, don't you?!) to see what you can find and where your creativity takes you. These are great for ornaments, package decorations, or fancy gift tags. Hang one around the neck of that gift bottle of wine. No wrapping necessary!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a very Merry Christmas!