stars | handmadebykatherine

Now that the Christmas holidays have started it’s time to get into the spirit of things and do a spot of festive baking. It’s very therapeutic to get out the mincemeat and make up some tasty treats. I decided to begin with a batch of my mincemeat parcels. They are so tasty and make a lovely alternative to a mince pie. I have a number of packs of frozen filo pastry in the freezer that need to be used, so this was an ideal quick bake.

After the parcels were finished, I enlisted Alice to make some festive ginger biscuits that we could share with friends and family over the holidays. The recipe we have is in a little Hello Kitty Christmas book that we bought for Alice a few years ago. It’s a really simple recipe and makes absolutely loads of biscuit dough. We chose some different Christmassy cutters and set about making the biscuits.

It was a good job there was loads of dough because I had a minor moment with my oven and completely burned the first two batches! I forgot just how fast my oven is when I’m baking. Anyway, we still managed to make about 60 or so biscuits for sharing. Alice’s favourite part of the baking process is the decorating, and we used plenty of icing pens, hundreds and thousands, and other little Christmassy bits from my cupboard.

Once finished we took some round to the neighbours, wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!

Happy crafting
x

Over the last few weeks I’ve been making garlands to hang around the house over Christmas. It’s been a great way to practice my crochet and I’ve been spoiled for choice with all the gorgeous patterns out there at the moment.

My first one is made using some King Cole dk yarns and was from a pattern on Craftseller magazine. I started this whilst I was in the hospital recovering from my second foot operation. The fairy lights appealed to me as there’s no need to change bulbs or batteries and the garland can even be put in the washing machine! It measures well over a meter in length and drapes beautifully from the fireplace.

Having really caught the bug for crochet I found another pattern in an issue of Knitting and Crochet magazine. This time for a shorter garland, which looks lovely over a door. With my daughter being mad on Frozen still, I thought the stars looked quite like snowflakes.

I’ve made a few of these as they look so pretty over the doors.

I’ve just recently finished another couple of garlands, as I discovered a stash of cotton in my yarn bag. The cotton is lovely to crochet with and it really holds the shape of the stitches well. I’ve made a little flower garland in cream and a dark turquoise.