Willow Snowflakes

I have always been obsessed with making snowflakes.  As a child I would cut them out of paper, until I discovered you could use very thin yarn and crochet them! 

So many different willow artists create fun ornaments or small items around the holiday season; little willow stars or trees, and sometimes hearts.  I've made trees before but I was never really enthused about them.  For a long time I tried to figure out how I could make willow snowflakes.

The other day I stumbled across a wheat weaving website that sold kits on how to weave wheat snowflake ornaments.  With my german and swedish ancestry I've always been drawn to these beautiful ornaments and wondered how they were made.  So I picked up a kit and started to teach myself.  

Once I learned the basics I was so excited to start working with willow because I was sure I could make it work.  Thanks to a cleave that I picked up from Bonnie Gale I was on my way to skeining some leftover tips from a previous project.

I was so happy with the end results and the ease at which I could make these. The bulk of the time is in skeining the willow but even that is a great exercise for the hands.  

My hope is to make more of these in the future and possibly sell them next year at a craft fair or two. I am going to try all the colors of willow I have to create more interest and variation. What is wonderful is that each snowflake can be altered slightly to create a different pattern, which keeps my busy wondering mind at attention. 

I can't wait until it snows so I can take some great pictures of these outside.