This is one of my holiday projects. I seem to be unable to go away on holiday without some sort of yarn or textile project........there are so many things to make and so little time! Of course it depends on how much space there is to pack and since our holidays this year are again UK based and budget holidays due to the barn conversion, I had plenty of room in the car to take some rainy weather activities. Our holidays this summer were split into two separate weeks and two locations. For our first holiday to the North Yorkshire Moors we were largely blessed with beautiful weather and very purple heathery moors. Perfect for walking and photographing. I did have a day out (!) on a train trip to London for work meeting but made the best use of my time on the train to start crocheting a hat. A request had been made to make a 'festival' hat for a friend of one of my son's in law, who had inadvertently binned his mates favourite festival hat. The only clue to what a festival hat looks like was a photo of a little girl wearing a crocheted girly hat so not really much use. I was pretty much making it up as I went along. I used cotton dk yarn with two strands together and found a pattern on the internet and just got on with it adapting it as I went. It didn't go quite to plan as I had intended to do many yarn changes to make it look random but I didn't have a lot of room on the train so made do with a couple of colour changes. I did feel a bit silly trying the partial hat out for size on the train but I had to check that it was going to fit an adult, or in fact anyone. I finished the hat the following day and was entirely unsure that it would be suitable for anyone, let alone a bloke, but at least it was finished. I'm cautiously optimistic that it might be ok as the 'mate' has seen a picture of it. Miracles do happen.

The Yorkshire moors in all their heathery glory. Apparantly the heather was in flower two weeks earlier than usual which timed it perfectly with our holiday.

At last the big Ta Dah for all the Christmas home made presents. This year's theme has been hats for the boys and headbands for the girls. All the headbands were crocheted from a great pattern by Rosedew from Etsy and have the appearance of aran knitting, but are actually crochet but perhaps at an intermediate standard. It probably took a couple of evenings to suss out the pattern, but once I'd worked it out each headband only took two or three evenings including the flower. The especially speedy aspect was that the yarn used was a chunky weight and so the headbands grew very quickly despite the complexity of the pattern. I found another slightly easier pattern for headbands and with the chunkier yarn they were very quick so I made a number of these - see the cream headband below

The boys hats were two different styles. The quick and easy one was a Drops pattern for a slouchy beany in a 'Boshi' style. 'Boshi' hats were devised by couple of snowboarders and you can buy 'MyBoshi' designer style labels to attach to the hat's, which of course I did. The labels hopefully add a designer look rather than homemade or mumsy. I think I made 6 hats in this style.

The second style of hat was also a slouchy beany but made with a Drops aran weight yarn and it was much more densely crocheted and consequently took a long longer. This is why I only made 2 of these!

I'd like to report that all the headbands and hat's were an unqualified success, but I had to make a few adjustments to suit their recipients - the headbands were a bit big but fortunately, they are fastened at the back and so I just needed to move the buttons at the back, although I stitched a couple of them closed so that the button is just for show. The beanies above also needed adjustment - the slouchy one needed to be more slouchy so I added some more rows and the not so slouchy one needs a fleece lining around the forehead as apparently it's a bit itchy! Here's a pic of my homemades on holiday in Scotland.

A Christmas tree decoration was also part of the Christmas homemade bounty. Here are a couple of them, although it should be noted that the tree is a very, very small one and the heart shaped one is for a Hull City fan. The little bird is the Attic 24 bower bird pattern from a Simply Crochet kit.