Advent Calendar

Photo of all the decorations made from the advent calendar scattered on a white surface.

Time spent: 1 month

Pattern: TOPP Happy Häkel-Adventskalender

And there's more of these festive little things this year! These are all from the Happy Crochet Calendar. It's super exciting to make one small thing everyday and add it to the tree as it gets closer to Christmas. Here's what the finished tree looks like. I'm super happy with it!

Photo of a tree, about 30cm tall, on a wooden surface. On the tree hangs various crocheted decorations all made from the advent calendar, surrounded by mini fairy lights. Visible from the top to bottom, an angel with messy white hair, a candy cane, a pink bell with yellow lining, a mushroom, two snowflakes, a robin, Santa's face, a gingerbread heart, a reindeer, a star, a stocking, and a snowman. Beneath the tree sits toys from the calendar that are too big for the tree. From left to right, Rudolph, a teddy bear pencil cap, a polar bear, and a penguin. Many tiny presents in foil wrapping surround them.

Some of my favourite decorations are the mushroom, the teddy bear pencil cap, the penguin, the tiny tree with the bells and the angel. The angel's hair was so much fun to make and I love how it turned out, and the pencil cap is something I'd love to have around even after Christmas.

The yarn is one big hassle to work with from day one, but I already have my own yarn to make up for most of the colours so it wasn't too much of a problem. The instructions are another thing that adds to the difficulty as I couldn't understand it but I had the text recognition feature on my phone and ChatGPT to help me translate everything so it all works out at the end. Also improvised as I go with the designs when the instructions don't make sense. I think I tug a bit too hard sometimes when crocheting so the body of some of the amigurumi ends up being stretched so everything's a bit longer than expected and the extra parts (limbs and accessories) seemed a bit smaller in size.

Overall, I had a lot of fun doing this, and I'm proud of out they all turn out. I love this for the idea, amount of fun, and the cute designs but the yarn and instructions can make it very challenging. Throughout the month I've also seen some other crochet advents out there that look amazing, but I also saw there are other advents of different crafts which I have read positive reviews about and they all seem to be good ideas so I guess we'll see what I'll be up to next year.

Date Published: 26th December 2023