Monday, December 10, 2007

Ghosts of Christmas Past

This is our downstairs tree. It has 72 satin-wrapped styrofoam ornaments covered with tatting, and about a dozen small tatted snowflakes, one crocheted "pineapple" butterfly, and one green wooden tree ornament with "Marty" on it in calligraphy -- those are the ones I've made over the years. It has six glass ornaments covered with blue crochet and a dozen silver crocheted snowflakes -- those a good friend made. It has three clay ornaments -- a sock, a Santa, and a dove -- that my sister made, and the two glass pigs she gave us. Other than the two "sisters" snow-woman ornaments we bought, everything else is a gift that has special meaning.
I started making the covered ornaments (many years ago) with the idea of giving them as gifts. I did give quite a few away -- but only if I had duplicates. There are no real patterns for these, so I used each ornament as a pattern for another. Most of the early ones were doilies or snowflakes from pattern books with one less repeat -- to encourage them to bowl to fit the ornament. At the point I decided it might be a good idea to have patterns I had forgotten which books I used and which patterns I had adapted. I keep meaning to sit down with the box of ornaments and my pile of books to see if I can match them up -- but I can't find my round tuit.