I was looking into creating a gift for a lovely friend of mine. She is a very talented crafter herself, so I needed to come up with something she hadn’t done herself already.

Thanks God for Pinterest – I am actually addicted to it and keep collecting ideas for later. One of these ideas was crocheted snowflakes – just loved how filigree they were lookings. I had some mini baubles and a piece from an old artificial Christmas tree laying around so the idea of creating a decorative hanging was in my head.

I crocheted five different snowflakes I found on Pinterest (unfortunately, I am not creative enough to come up with my own designs) and needed to stiffen them. For that I purchased a bottle of fabric stiffener – I had never used it and wasn’t sure how it will turn out. The first batch of snowflakes turned out nice but I stretched them on a wooden board I had with nails I had in my ‘toolbox’. That wasn’t such a good idea as the timber stained the snowflakes where they touched the board after being sprayed with the stiffener and the nails left dirty marks on the tips. So the first batch wasn’t usual for what I had planned.

So, off I went crocheting five new snowflakes (the beauty of them is that each only has rows between 3-6 rows so you can do them quickly in an afternoon). This time I used a cork board covered in plastic and sewing pins. I pinned the snowflakes tight enough to keep them off the surface (just in case) and sprayed again with the stiffener. Left them to dry overnight and the result was stunning.

I hung the snowflakes on white yarn I used to crochet them on the piece of old Christmas tree and added mini pearl baubles to the mix. I love the look and getting ready to crochet more snowflakes for my own window – just use hooks with suction on your window and hang the snowflakes in different heights and hey presto, you have a stunning window decoration.

I used white as I had lovely cotton yarn in my collection of wool but you can use any colour really. I recommend using cotton yarn rather than wool to give you clean edges.

 

 

What I learnt:

• Fabric Stiffener is quite wet so make sure you dab off the excess. PVA glue thinned with a bit of water does the same trick.
• Leave the snowflakes at least overnight to ensure that they have dried properly
• Pin opposite sites to ensure an even stretch
• Using a spray – make sure you are not near anything as it sprays wide. My phone looked a bit funny after being misted.