A Small Snow Flurry At My House

Very small.  Just five flakes, actually.  This batch is a hostess gift to the dear friends who are having mom and me over for Thanksgiving dinner later today.

Here are the other materials you’ll need besides crochet thread (not yarn!  Cotton crochet thread, such as Coats’ Knit Cro-Sheen or Aunt Lydia’s) and a size 5 (1.9 mm) crochet hook.  (You might also want a set of binoculars so you can see what you’re doing! LOL!)   You’ll need a bottle of Mod Podge Stiffy fabric stiffener, lots of straight pins, a spool of the narrowest white satin ribbon they make (not shown), a small paintbrush, a hot glue gun and hot glue sticks (not shown), and a container of opalescent microglitter.  You want the smallest glitter particles you can find.  Opalescent embossing powder will work if you can’t find the microglitter.  You can use silver or gold glitter if you go for that completely over the top look, but personally, I think the opalescent glitter provides just the right amount of subtle sparkle.

First you crochet the snowflake — this pattern ends up too big for a tree ornament, I think, but I couldn’t tell until I’d made a couple.  Still, they’d look OK as a festoon — hung in a window or from a mantelpiece, or something.  The patterns I’ve selected are all patterns  that are new to me and I can’t really tell how suitable they’ll be til I’ve made one up.

Then you spread some sort of plastic wrap over the top of your ironing board or blocking board and use straight pins to pin the snowflake out in the shape it’s supposed to be in.  (This is why you need so many straight pins!)  If you’re using an ironing board, you’ll need to angle the pins  so that they go between the board and the cover, otherwise they won’t hold.  It is essential you spread down the plastic wrap so you don’t get Mod Podge all over your ironing board cover or blocking board!

Once you’ve got all your snowflakes pinned out, you paint on the Mod Podge.  I would thin down the Mod Podge to about two parts Podge to one part water.  Be generous.  You want the cotton thread to soak up the Mod Podge.   Do one snowflake at a time.  Immediately after you’ve put Mod Podge on it, sprinkle it with the glitter.  You want to put the glitter on while the Mod Podge is still soaking wet so it will stick.

Once the Mod Podge is completely dry, pull out the pins (I use a pair of needle nose pliers to save my fingernails!), flip the snowflake over, and give the other side a light coat of Mod Podge followed immediately by a sprinkling of glitter.  The glitter I got has a “shaker top” but I like to take pinches of glitter (like you do salt) and sprinkle it carefully, following the shape of the snowflake rather than shaking it out all over it.  This allows you to apply the glitter in a more controlled manner and makes the container of glitter go farther.

Note:  The Mod Podge has a tendency to “sheet” across the open spaces in the fabric of the snowflake, and you will probably have to take a paring knife or craft knife to poke these “sheets” out, remove them, and otherwise clean up the snowflake.

Once the second coat of Mod Podge is dry,  and you’ve cleaned up your snowflakes, you can hot glue a small loop of ribbon to one “point”.   And there you are!  The loop of ribbon allows you to insert one of those metal ornament hooks into it to hang them on a tree, or you can tie them to a garland or hang them in a window by tying on some nylon fishing line.

I might point out that snowflakes are “nondenominational” — there’s nothing about them that has any overt religious connotations or symbolism, and they would be appropriate (and politically correct!) as gifts and/or winter decorations for those who espouse any of the world’s major religions — or no religion.   Total win.