Christmas 2013 Crocheted Ornaments

In addition to several commissioned pieces, I crocheted a ton of gifts this past holiday season. Did I remember to take pictures of everything? Nope. I'm so annoyed with myself!!  In this post, I have linked the name of each ornament to the pattern's location on the web.  For posterity's sake, I'm listing  all of the Christmas items I made, even if I forgot to take a picture.

I made this Santa and Rudolph pair for an ornament exchange I went to with some preschool & dance mom friends. Both patterns were so great!!  They weren't originally meant to go together (the patterns were written by two separate people), but they were roughly the same scale, so they looked nice next to each other.  Sorry for the slightly blurry picture.

This Santa & Snowman pair were crocheted for Sonia's preschool teachers, and they seemed to be a big hit!

After being inspired by the pattern I saw here, I freehanded this minion ornament for my playgroup ornament exchange. To get the perfect sphere shape, I used this amazing tutorial on crocheting mathematically perfect spheres.  It's awesome!! (For the uninitiated, minions are characters from the Despicable Me movies.) 

I chose the one-eyed minion because I knew it would end up in a house that contained a four-year-old kid, and all the four-year-old kids I know seem to love the one-eyed minions the best.

I had a hard time sewing the strap to the minion's monocle straight....

In action as an ornament!

For our fabulous Hindu friends that subscribe to the "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" philosophy and celebrate a secular version of Christmas (the parents of this family are originally from India and now live in the US), I crocheted this Ganesha (a Hindu deity) and tied a hanger on it so it could be a Christmas tree ornament.  The pattern was wonderful and amazingly detailed.  I did some research on Ganesha to educate myself and I love how the pattern has him holding some of the classic items that Ganesha figures hold: an axe, a rope, and a delicacy.  This Ganesha even has the classic broken tusk.  I have to admit that Ganesha might be my favorite of all the ornaments I made.... He was so much fun!!  (Note the "'Tis the Season" wooden ornament to Ganesha's left, made by my wildly talented Aunt Janet, AKA the Roonie Ranchers' crafting hero.)

- Niki's tree received a flying pig ornament based on Lucy Ravenscar's pig pattern (remember the rainbow of piggies I made last year?) with free-handed wings.  I seriously love this tiny piggy pattern.  I'm pretty sure I've used it for at least 15 piggies at this point.

I made my nephew, Nicholas, this adorable penguin. In the picture on the pattern, he was shown as an ornament, but when I used Red Heart Super Saver worsted-weight yarn rather than the suggested sport-weight yarn, he turned into more of a small stuffed animal. All the better to cuddle with!  Not sure why the hat turned out a wee bit too small, but by the time I realized it was too small, I had already added the puffball details and was too in love with it to start over.  Now I've talked myself into thinking that it just adds to the penguin's charm.

And now for the ones with a glaring lack of pictures....  I am selfishly including these in this post just so I don't forget that I made them.

- Perhaps next year the Roonie Ranchers' mom will be able to take a quick picture of the angel I made.

- For our hilarious brother, I thought a lobster in maroon would make the perfect Christmas tree ornament.

- I gave this Santa ornament to Andrew's Aunt Anita and Uncle Bob before I took a picture of it. Whoops!!

Even more ornaments!

Corey decided that the Christmas tree ornaments I was making looked like good gifts to give to his coworkers, so I cranked out 12 more this morning.  That brings my total to 25, I believe.  That's nothing compared to the crazy numbers of ornaments my awesome Aunt Janet makes every year (sometimes from fabric, sometimes from wood and other materials), but I have never claimed to be nearly as amazing as she is.

The Michigan State one at the bottom was only folded twice instead of three times so that more of the Spartan logo could show.  I think Corey is going to give that one to his buddy, Paul, at work.  This time I used embroidery floss as the hangers and it worked really well.

For future reference, a 1/4 yard each of two contrasting fabrics is the perfect amount to make eight ornaments.

Fabric tree ornaments

When it comes to gifts for teachers, my usual modus operandi is to make them at the last possible second.  Thus, I am absolutely shocked that I am actually sitting here on December 10th with all of my teacher ornaments made.  I also want to make some cookies to send in with the ornaments, and I'm predicting I will be up past my bedtime making all of those the night before the last day of school.  It's not like you can make those very far ahead of time though, right?

Here are the cool little ornaments I made, using a tutorial from Life After Laundry.

No, the kids don't have 14 teachers.  I actually made 15 of them (one has already been gifted to my friend, Ivette) to give to all sorts of various and sundry people.  Peter has three teachers and an administrator, and Charlotte has a teacher plus a teacher's aide.  The other eight will go to other special people who shall remain nameless for now.

Here is a shot of an ornament up close.

The changes I made to the tutorial was to use two different fabrics instead of just one.  This gave the ornament more visual interest, in my opinion.  To make this change, I had to use a half circle that added a bit on the straight side to take into account a seam allowance.  I also added light-weight fusible interfacing to one of the fabrics to give the tree some body.  Then, I used a glue gun to tack down the folds at the tips, as well as to glue in the cord to make the hanger.  I glued in flat ribbon as a hanger for one of them, realized that it would make the ornament hang sideways, and then went to plan b (thin cord and string) for the other ornaments.

I got the cute polka-dotted/striped fabric from my mother-in-law (she de-stashed and I was the happy recipient!), and the rest were scraps from my scrap basket.  I just had an idea to glue on teeny jewels or a felt star at the top, but maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead.