Crochet Bear Rug Coaster (and killing yarn)

I saw some bear rug coasters on the Internet and couldn't resist trying to make a crochet version.

I made up the pattern as I want along, just making a circle for the body adding some arms, legs and a tail then sewing the head on. For the head I used the same head as for the Crochet Bear that I made last year.

The only issue I had with these was that the arms and legs did not lie flat which really annoyed me. A search the interweb showed me how to make yarn projects lie flat through a process called Killing. Killing sounds very dramatic but it's quite easy to do however done wrong and you will literally "kill" your project. I was a bit skeptical of the method but gave it a try anyway. Really, I should have tried the method on a swatch of crochet first but I was running out of time. Another worry was that the coasters would curl up again after time or after being folded for a period of time.

I pinned the arms and legs down so that they were lying flat and then used the iron on the lowest steam setting about 1/2 an inch above the yarn. It only took a few seconds for each appendage and I was incredibly careful not to touch the yarn with the iron.

Firstly the steam method worked and the coasters became flat without too much affort. Secondly as I was giving these away as a gift I had to gift wrap them, not being able to gift wrap them perfectly flat I was afraid the arms and legs would curl up again. They did not! When the gift wrapping came off (after being wrapped for a good few days) the coasters lay perfectly flat. I was extremely surprised and happy about this. At least for the future I know that I can flatten my crochet, if needs be, using this method and it will stay flat. If I am using a different type of yarn and have the time I will definitely make a crochet swatch first just to make sure that the killing method won't ruin my project.

In hindsight I should have taken before and after pictures but I was too determined to uncurl the coasters that I forgot...

Not so Tree Like Christmas Tree Cupcakes

A group of friends and I meet up every two weeks for a catch up and board game night. Every year we have a Christmas night and have a Secret Santa and mini buffet. This year I decided to make some cakes.

They are vanilla cupcakes with buttercream icing, the recipe I used can be found Here.

I have used this recipe many times now and always get compliments, it hasn't failed me yet! I decided to do green buttercream icing to try to make the cupcakes look a bit like trees...not sure they do but i tried. I didn't have any green food colouring so I added some yellow to the buttercream and then added blue gradually to get the colour I wanted. (This took me ages as I didn't want to add too much blue and cause the colour to go awfully wrong). Eventually when I got a colour that I liked I piped the icing onto the cake.

Now, I don't actually own a piping kit for icing so I had to DIY this by using This Method it works and it's useful if you have no other means of piping icing. This, however, is very very messy and not easy to get a good shape for the icing. After using this method twice for my cakes I have decided to invest in a piping kit. Just for ease of use and different icing effects.

After piping the buttercream icing onto the cakes I added some multicoloured sprinkles to look like decorations on the "trees". Then for the final touch sieved a little icing sugar over the cakes to look like snow.

The cakes went down a treat! Even if they don't really look like Christmas trees...

Crochet Snowmen

To help get into the Christmas mood I made these Cute Mini Christmas Snowmen:

For these snowmen I used this very easy to follow Pattern. I had no safety eyes so I used black yarn for the buttons and eyes and I used a small orange bead for the nose. I think the one on the left looks slightly evil with his horizontal eyes and top hat...

I also added tassels to the scarves and made a mini bobble hat for one of them as I am now obsessed with mini bobble hats! 

I followed This Pattern for the mini hat.