DIY Spool Knit "Merry" Christmas Letters in Candy Cane Colors

In a similar vein to my candy cane spool knit ornament, I made these festive holiday letters. I decided to spell out "merry", but you can use whatever word or phrase you wish.

You'll need a spool with nails or tacks knocked in, some sort of fiber for the "knitting" part, flexible wires, needle-nose pliers, and a needle. I used red and white baker's twine as my fiber.

For my spool knitting tutorial, please click here.

I used graph paper to draw my letters, making sure they'd be the same height and I used similar widths as well. Make sure you draw your letters as one continuous line. You can see here where I changed straight lines into loops to do this. We'll recreate these letters in wire to provide an inner structure and form for the spool knit tubes.

Here's an example of what some of your finished letters will look like.

A close-up of some of the letters so you can see the details better and the effect that variegated twine creates.

To form your inner wire frames/structures, cut a long length of wire. I believe I used 20 gauge gold-tone wire for mine. Lay the wire on top of your sketched letters (I traced my finished letters onto white paper so I could see the wire better as I bent it). Use your pliers to bend the wire into each letter. I found a few gentle bends where the wire overlapped or curved was all that was needed. You can also use your hands to bend parts of the wire into shape.

Make sure you leave 1/4" or so of overhang at the beginning and end of each letter. You'll be bending this later (see two pictures down).

Here's my almost-finished "Y". I closed my pliers on the place where the wire overlapped to keep the pieces fairly close together. You want enough room to slide your tube past this point, but not so much that the top piece is up in the air.

To finish your wire forms, bend each end down into a loop (you can see this here on the end I left uncovered). This will prevent the wire from getting poked up through the tubes.

When each letter's form is completed, knit your tubes. As I spool knit each piece, I'd pause along the way, lay it over my forms, and make sure I was going to have a long enough knit tube for each length of wire. You want a little bit extra on the beginning and end of each letter so the tube isn't stretched tight. Don't leave so much, however, that your tube ends up bunched and wrinkled. I'd say about 1/4 - 1/3 an inch extra per end is good.

Leave an extra six inches or so of twine/fiber at each tube's end. Pull the spool knit tube's ends up over the wire loops and use your needle to gather the ends together. Cinch tight 

When you're done, insert the needle into the tube for an inch or so, and then back out. Pull slightly tight, and cut the extra off close to the tube. This will ensure that each end "disappears" inside the tube.

The finished product!

And, because I couldn't resist, I snapped a photo of the letters in our tree surrounded by white lights. This year, I'm displaying the letters as a banner. I strung them on white yarn and hung them over a doorway to make my little guy smile!

DIY Heart Doily Door and Table Decor Project

In honor of Valentine's Day, I thought I'd post a project to help use up all those extra holiday supplies. This simple-yet-lovely wreath is great for hanging on a door or using to decorate a table. It makes a great placemat for placing under your teapot, or under a tray of cakes and sweets at a tea party.


If you're anything like me, you have lots of these heart-shaped doilies sitting around after Valentine's Day. They get tucked away in a box, never to see the light of day until the next February 15th. Or you forget you have them and buy more (I have never done this...).



Using a glue stick or a bottle of glue, take two doilies and line them up. I lined up the bottom at the 5th scallop from the bottom, and the top at where the scallops just touched the outside border of the heart. Make sure the doily on the right is on top of the doily on the left.

Add another doily, placing it on top of the second doily, and lining it up in the same. If you line the doilies up at the same spots, they will naturally form a circle! Go around like this until the circle is complete.


Take a red (or other-colored) heart doily, and glue it in the center just at the points where it overlaps the circle.


There you have it! Let the glue dry, and then hang on a door or use as a festive, love-themed placemat.

This would also be a lovely way to decorate your wedding reception space. You could make a few circles and then lay them on every table, or group them together on a wall with marriage-themed words and phrases written on the center heart.

DIY Silver Spool Knit Necklace

I discovered spool knitting last year, and I've become addicted to it! It may look complicated initially, but it's actually really simple to create the knitted hollow tube once you get the hang of it and the end results look elegant and modern.

I made the flapper necklace shown above by spool knitting, and I'll show you how to make your own necklace below!



For tools, you'll need an old wooden spool, a crochet hook, 5 tacks or nails, and string. I used thick vintage silver metallic thread. If you can't find an old wooden spool, they do sell newer plastic contraptions that you can spool knit on.


Try to evenly space the tacks around the hole in the middle, and hammer them down about 1/3 to 1/2 of their length. Don't worry about it being perfect - you can see my spacing is just a little bit off, but the necklace still turned out well!


Take the end of your thread, and feed it down the hole from top to bottom.

Working counterclockwise around the hole, loop the string at the top of the hole clockwise around each tack/nail. Your string's tail should still be sticking out of the bottom of your spool.

Go around one more time, counterclockwise around the hole but clockwise around the pegs.


Now take the end of your string that's hanging out of the bottom of your spool, and hook it around your pinky. Then feed it back up the hole from bottom to top.


Hook the tail under the two rounds and then over them. Feed the tail back down the hole again from top to bottom. Remove your pinky when the tube is longer (hanging out the bottom) and pull the end so that the loop over the rounds is tight. This locks the thread around the bottom of the knitted tube so that pulling the tube down as you go along to make room for new rounds is easier.


To knit, use the crochet hook to pull the bottom loop on each peg over the top loop and off the nail. Go around each peg (5 total). Then loop your string around again, counterclockwise around the hole and clockwise around each peg.

Repeat until your tube is the length you would like! It really is that easy.


Here's what the tube looks like when it comes out the bottom of the spool. When your tube is the desired length, cut the silver thread you've been looping around, leaving a generous tail (6"). Leave only one round of loops on the nail. Thread the tail through one loop, and then pull the loop off the nail. Do this with all remaining 4 loops, and then pull the tail tight to finish! You may pull it through the last loop again and knot it at this point, just to be extra-secure.



I decided to make my knitted tube about 75 inches long, so I could comfortably loop it around my neck three times. I tied the tails of the ends together, and trimmed them so they wouldn't show to make one big loop. You can cut the tails to 1/4" to 1/2" if you like and weave them in with the crochet hook to hide them.



You can also knit three shorter tubes of the same length, and then braid them together to make a bracelet. Here, I mixed two silver tubes with one gold one. I think metallic accessories are perfect for the holidays - they go perfectly with red and green, and gleam against the soft whites of freshly-fallen snow and candlelight!

To create the flapper-style necklace shown in the first photo with your tube, loop the tube around your neck twice. Pull on the bottom loop so that the top loop is close to your neck (as you can see in the photo) and the bottom loop hangs very low over your stomach. Take the bottom loop, and treating it like one big piece of string, tie it into a knot. Gently adjust so that the knot is where you want it to be along the tube, and then tighten the knot.

You can vary this project in lots of different ways, however - larger spools, smaller ones, yarn instead of silver thread, and colored thread instead of silver! You could even spool knit with leather cord instead of string. Use whatever you have, or just whatever you like!

DIY Photo-Topped Box

I had this round box just sitting around in my basement, taking up space. I wasn't crazy about the lighthouse scene on the top, but I wasn't sure what to recover it with. While looking through Martha Stewart one day, I saw a candy box she'd made with a photo top and it sparked an idea.


First I repainted the bottom and the sides of the top in a lovely pale green. It's one of my favorite colors, and reminds me of the green sea grasses blowing the salty air.


Since the box held sand dollars collected one sunny summer day, I decided to top the box with a black and white photo of the beloved beach they'd come from. We still fondly call that morning "The Day of the Sand Dollars" - we'd find one sticking out of the sand, pull it out, and then find many more in the same spot. I think we each found 12 - 15 each that day...and we've never found that many since, no matter how many times we've looked!


I printed the photo a bit larger than the top, let the ink dry, and then centered the top over the photo as a guide and traced around it with a pencil. I carefully cut it out and applied it to the top with Modge Podge. I then applied a few more coats of Modge Podge to the top as a sealant.


If the photo hangs over the edges a bit, you can fix it after the top coat has dried. Just flip the top over and cut off the extra with a sharp X-Acto knife or boxcutter.

Boxes like these make great keepsake gifts. You could use a portrait of you & your spouse, your family, or a photo that reminds you of a special day like I did! Color photos work as well, I just like the way the grey tones pop against the more colorful bottom.

For a holiday twist, add snowflake pictures to the top and make the bottom a bright blue or red!

Curly Purly Pumpkin Pattern

How cute is this knit pumpkin from Curly Purly? It's perfect for Halloween, and seems to knit up very quickly. All you need are double pointed needles, yarn, and something to stuff in the middle!

Get the free pattern and spin-off ideas from Curly Purly here.