...especially this year in Vancouver, as the city is covered by a blanket of snow and there is a definite nip in the year with the temperatures dipping below 0 C and staying there for the last few days; while we are suppose to get more snow this weekend, it will eventually turn to rain, but I am hoping some snow will hang around until Christmas Day because I would so love a white Christmas, not the norm in Vancouver! Whatever may be with the weather, my usual pre-Christmas hustle and bustle is in full swing as I'm starting to get the food together for our Christmas Day dinner, as well as our Polish Christmas Eve dinner (Wigilia) to which we invite some of our closest friends (all non-Polish!). Our house, after what has seemed like a never-ending stretch of renovations, is nearly there and is ready to be decorated for Christmas. (Our tiler is still coming in on Monday to grout the fireplace hearth and kitchen back splash tiles he laid earlier this week -- and I thought I was joking back in September when I said that I hoped all the work on our main floor would be done before Christmas!...)
However, as I pulled out our Christmas decorations, I realized that some of these would not work as well as they used to because the colours of our main floor furnishings have definitely changed due to our renovations; from a fresh and vivid palette of red, green, blue, mint, pink, yellow, and white, we have gone to a colour palette best described by the Designer Guild rug below which finally graces our living room floor after having been bought almost a year ago (on sale at a very sweet price!)...
I have to admit that I am quite smitten by this lovely hand-tufted rug which has so impressed me with its deep luxurious woolly pile and stunning floral pattern and colour scheme. Needless to say, it has become quite the focal point in our living room, its colour palette inspiring my selections for the other furnishings in the room as well as my Christmas decorations right now; as much as I like these bobbled candle holders I made for Christmas a couple of years ago, I just felt like the living room needed a new batch of these in a colour palette better synced with my new rug... So, I pulled out my hook and a few bits and bobs of yarn and made these up...
...which look like this with lit candles...
...and like this closer up...
After not having made these in two years, I forgot how much fun and fast they are to crochet; I think I'll still try to whip up a few more before Christmas to add to my collection, using shades inspired by those beautiful blues in my rug... Now in case you haven't noticed, you can find the crochet pattern for the bobbled covers right here or in my right sidebar; so if you have a few quiet moments before Christmas and a bit of yarn, with hook in hand, you can start your own little collection...
I will be quite busy with my Christmas prepping this next week so I temporarily closed my Etsy shop until right after Christmas -- I probably will re-open around December 27th. I'm still putting the finishing touches to a little Christmas project I've been working on which I hope to show you next week, right before Christmas... In the meantime, I hope you have a great weekend filled with Christmas spirit (and little or no festive stress!) and thanks so much for popping by!...
