Not having started any more knitting and crochet as I am not sure what to choose, I thought that I would share what I made in 2017.
This was very much the year of Celtic crochet.
I started by devising some plaitwork bookmarks and published the best pattern. I also then made some Celtic cross bookmarks, though this time I included all versions in the pattern.
Later I moved on to seeing if I could design a hot pad and made two: one with extra chunky cotton from my original coaster pattern and one in chunky cotton to a new design. I also worked out how to make a larger version of my coaster pattern to create a table mat to match a coaster and later used this idea to create the cushion cover you can see.
I devised some new Celtic coasters and a modified version of these will be published when I am feeling up to it.
Of course I also crocheted some other things. 
The teddy was from someone else’s pattern (and I also used patterns I found to make a pot holder and fold up shopping bag – not shown).
I made a pattern for a spray of orchids to put on the kitchen windowsill and I didn’t think the pattern was good enough to publish but they give me a lot of pleasure.
I did share a pattern and tutorial for a ‘beginner coaster’. The first free one for a while.
I also published an angel pattern and my ‘real snowflakes’ pattern. The multi-coloured angel was made from my angel bookmark pattern but in #20 cotton instead of #10.
The blanket used my ‘sea and sand’ colours and introduced a symmetrical version of my granny ripple pattern that I called ‘smooth granny ripple’.
Towards the end of the year I devised a new cup cosy for my breakfast mug and a new larger dishcloth.
As always I did some knitting but not as much as my crochet.
The Womble was a Christmas present for 2016. The socks on the right plus the blue hat and the cowl and hat were all given to my eldest daughter. The other socks were for my granddaughter and the two plum coloured hats for seamen.
One of the first things I finished was my 2016 ‘temperature scarf’ and it has proved to be very warm and I love the extra length.
The only other thing I made was to try to see if I could create some ‘planned pooling’ from some yarn I had. I have now redone this in a more useful shape and when I get round to making a lining, I will share it with you.
This is why I bought the cotton thread I showed you here. 
I used the cream #20 thread and some red that I had already to make another bookmark and being very happy with it have published the pattern in my Ravelry store – 
and the new one in a smaller book. 
So what do you think?
and I remembered that I had a cushion that could do with a new cover. 
So I worked out a way to make a surround and thought I could turn the placemat into a cushion cover. 
The only question was what should I do for the other side? I found a pattern for a Celtic style weave using front post and back post crochet stitches but didn’t really enjoy working it and thought it was a bit too holey, so I am not sure what to do for the reverse.
Of course this is larger than life size. (Unless it is on a small screen!)
This one is finished, though neither the cross or angel has been stiffened and ironed yet.
I feel I am on the home straight now as I am working the last repeat of the colours.
the most popular one with the purple edging and pointy corners. 
With the pineapple bookmark the pages don’t quite lie flat where it is. 
But as I suspected with the Celtic one they gape rather more. Similarly with my latest version of the slip stitch one. 
Even my plain Celtic cross lifts the pages a little more. 
Now with cord and tassel. 
And of course my latest Celtic cross bookmark. 
(Not yet with added cord) operates more like the other embellished Celtic ones.
Just thought it was useful to give an idea of their relative thickness! Though when in use in the middle of the book they show slightly less!
which is why I started experimenting with adding slip stitches. 
At the time I did try adding the slip stitches to the back loop only so as to give an edge but found that this made the strip so much wider. I thought of using dcs (US-scs) for the central ribbon but knew this would be more fiddly so decided against it.
but could see that the cross was then so much bigger. (I did increase the number of stitches as well and could have reduced them a bit but it would still have been bigger than I wanted.)
I could see that this was much smaller than the original and was not entirely surprised as crochet is very stretchy in a sideways direction (especially the upright of the cross) but had noticed that adding the slip stitches removed this, as with the cross with the purple slip stitches above.
You can see here how these two attempts compared with the original. 
So I decided that as with my other slip-stitched crosses it wasn’t necessary to increase the stitch numbers except for the upright and the circle and tried again.
The slip stitch edged cross (bottom right) does not really need stiffening and had finally given me what I was after.
on Pinterest I have had about three weeks of hundreds of people every day coming to look at the pattern. Even now it seems to be over one hundred.
(I can’t find it at present so it is probably keeping a place in a book somewhere!)
I found that this was naturally stiffer and was probably not worth starching.
I thought that a totally plain bookmark would be boring and wouldn’t show off the plaitwork to best effect and so I decided to add a dc (US-sc) edging. I had increased the number of stiches per crossing back to four.
I thought that this was reminiscent of this style of plaitwork in my book. 
However I still wanted to try a dc edging so I increased the number of stitches for a crossing to five. (I made a slight adjustment to the ends too.)
The leather bookmark on the left is rather large, more suitable for a large book like a bible, but I often use the two papyrus ones in my library books; so you can see that they are all useable.
Here is the final card and this is how I put them together.
I used it to make a hole and pull the loop at the end of the cord through the hole.
the dot is to guide me as to where to make the hole.
Here is the inside when I had fixed the angel in place with a piece of cord securing the bottom of the robe to the loop. 
These pictures were taken the other day when I was in a hurry to make a couple of cards to send abroad. On Sunday I finished the other twelve cards and here you can see all twelve angels. 
And the twelve finished cards. 
Originally I was intending to make more angels but pains in my wrists and lots of problems to sort out meant that I only made seventeen (including the three for the Giveaway). So for a few people that I wanted to give home-made cards to I have folded some origami angels to go on the same cards. I will share these with you next week when I have made the cards and taken some photographs.
Having felt that this showed promise I then tried out a small version in #10 thread.
It is possible to make the back look pretty much perfect but I decided that this was good enough. 
However I decided that I would really like a lighter colour and found a blue/green mixture on the internet that looked appealing but didn’t want to buy it on-line if I could get it locally because of the cost of postage.
It was lighter in colour than I would have liked but I made this? 
What do you think?
You could also try multi-coloured thread. For this I used a 1.25mm for the starting chain and a 1mm hook for the rest. I also increased the picot stitches from two to three.
