Autumn Garland ...

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To start this post I would just like to say a really big thank you to everyone who left such

 lovely comments on my last post that showed my Autumn Garland.

I truly love getting all your comments. You are all so encouraging and kind and I love being a 

part of this big old bloggy share-a thon. 

 I do always try and leave a reply but I don't think it can be said too much, so ..

 ♥  Thank you  ♥

Aaaannnyyyway ..

there were quite a few requests for patterns and the like so here goes.

 

The wool I chose was a combination of  Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo

and Sublime Egyptian Cotton.

Both yarns have a very slight sheen to them that I think works really well on smaller three dimensional items. I had used them in the Daisy Garland I made earlier this year 

and had been really pleased with the results.

After a lot of umming and ahhing I decided on using just 4 colours.

 To say I was a bit indecisive about my choice of colours would really be quite 

something of an understatement.

I had such good intentions of using up lots of my odds and ends and I got out

 all my Autumny colours and tried so many different colour combinations.

But, the long and the short of it was that it just wasn't matching the image in my head.

So these ones all had a nice little day out of their drawer but

 sadly ended up back where they started !

 I used a 3 mm hook for the leaves and acorns as the solid tension it gives really helps to 

give a bit of rigidity to the finished garland.

I spent quite a bit of time looking through Ravelry and my crochet books for various leaf

 patterns and it has to be said there are certainly loads to choose from, however because 

 I wanted to include lots of acorns on my garland the oak leaves worked best.

 The oak leaf pattern I went for was one from Ravelry by GoldenLucyCrafts.

I found it was clearly written and very easy to follow.

Once I had got the hang of the pattern I found I was able to alter the sizes of the leaves

 and add extra curvy bits just for a bit of randomness !

The acorn pattern was from Squirrelpicnic.com

These are so much fun to make - 

they work up so quickly and before you know it you have a proper 

little squirrels treasure chest.

I worked a little tiny loop into the bottom of mine so they could

 be hung on to the garland.

As I was working I tried to picture how I wanted the finished garland to look so I could work

 out how many leaves I wanted in each of the colours.

Once I had enough leaves and acorns I worked a branch by making a chain out of 3 strands

 of brown DK wool on a size 6 hook.

I worked out the length of the chain by measuring it up against the fireplace

 where I wanted to hang it.

I then spent a bit of time putting together little clusters of leaves and acorns,

 and once I was happy with them I laid out the branch as it would be when hanging and used 

safety pins to pin the clusters in the right place.

Then it was just a matter of stitching everything in place. 

I found quite solid stitching was needed to stop the leaves from swinging about once

 the garland was finished, and I did find that on first hanging it I needed to go back and put a few more reinforcing stitches in.

The final thing needed to strengthen the garland is a piece of thin wire threaded all 

the way along the back of the branch. 

This was something that I found was needed after making my Daisy garland. I was so excited to have it finished, rushed to hang it up and it just sort of went flop - most disappointing !

The wire doesn't show if you keep it to the back and it allows the garland to still have the appearance of hanging freely whist being beautifully held in place.

 

 Once the garland is hung in place you can carefully bend the wire

 to the position you want.

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 And there you have it ...

one Autumny Garland.

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Happy crocheting !

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