15 Christmas Crochet Projects Crafters Are Already Making, From a Wall Tree That Lights Up to 10 Birds for a Mother-in-Law Who’d “Hate Them”

The bag of blue yarn my mom left by my couch last winter has turned into exactly one crocheted snowflake, and it is not quite round. The real crafters, it turns out, start their Christmas projects in October, while the rest of us are still buying candy. These 15 Christmas crochet projects are already finished, and a few of them took longer than a semester of college.

This tree hangs on the wall instead of standing in a corner. Its maker designed the pattern from a photo of a pine tree, crocheted it flat and threaded a string of lights through the stitches. In a house with a cat, that turned out to be the whole point.

“I crocheted my Christmas tree this year!”

I threaded a transparent string of lights through the stitches afterwards.

As a fellow cat owner, I totally get the tree struggle. This has been the perfect solution for me too!

Two cats, two stockings, and each one matches its owner’s coat, right down to the paw-print toe. The tuxedo cat’s stocking took one long night, because its maker was too excited to stop.

“stockings for the cats”

They did work up quite fast I’d say :) The one for my tuxedo I finished in one (long) night because I was so excited. The other one I took at a more comfortable pace and finished it within 3 days!

After about eight hours, its maker was sure this snowy granny-square tree had failed. The next day came version 2.0, in a more Christmassy green.

“I wanted to make a granny square Christmas tree, and it is god awful.”

And yeah, I’m definitely being super critical right now and it doesn’t help that I’ve been trying to work on this for about 8 hours now.

A grandparent started this blanket around Thanksgiving: rows of colored bricks, each stud stuffed and sewn on by hand. It’s cotton, so it can go in the wash.

“Grandson’s Christmas Present”

I am putting together a pattern that I will post when done. It is all single crochet stitches, just time consuming.

I guess I have lots of free time. I work part-time 4 days a week.

“I finally finished the Christmas birds for my Mother-in-Law. She’ll hate them.”

My mother-in-law is impossible to buy for. She loves real birds. After months of working on 10 birds and a tree skirt off and on, I finished the skirt this morning.

We will have Christmas with them tomorrow. I really don’t want to watch her open them. I just hope her dog doesn’t destroy them. If she hates them like I expect, my daughter hopes she will re-gift them to her.

I enjoy crocheting. My husband enjoys needling his mother. Regardless of what she receives, she is generally unsatisfied, so he thought her gift should at least be something from which someone gets enjoyment. I have realistic expectations about her reaction.

Update: She seemed to love it. It is currently on her coffee table. She was very interested in the differences in each bird. My husband is feeling very proud that he was right and I was wrong. She made a comment about how much time it must have taken.

She very quickly cleared off space on her coffee table for it. As we were leaving, she clarified if they were knit or crochet. She then told me a story about how a friend wants to learn to crochet. She told the friend that I knit and crochet and said other complimentary things about me. It’s a pleasant surprise.

An advent calendar of tiny stockings, each one hanging from a different Christmas button. The buttons go back to its maker’s childhood, to a grandmother who loved to sew and to trips to the fabric store to pick them out.

“Advent Calendar”

Yes, buttons! Each one is a different Christmas themed button.

I collected buttons as a kid. My grandmother liked to sew and I would pick them out when she took me to the fabric store.

A whole box of ornaments covered in tiny glass beads, every one strung and crocheted in by hand. Their maker swears it looks harder than it is.

“Update on my collection of bead crochet ornaments”

If it makes you feel better, when I started bead crochet I had literally never done any sort of crochet or fibre arts before. The thing about bead crochet is that it looks more complicated than it is, but you only need the most basic crochet skills, just single stitch and increases/decreases.

This Christmas tree hat lights up: each tiny bulb is pushed through a stitch and slides up into the ruffled rows. Its maker is already planning a version with a brown trunk.

“Made a Christmas tree hat, with working lights. Pattern in comments.”

I thought about doing the ribs on the bottom in brown to look like a trunk. Maybe when I make one for my wife.

Every carrot, berry and mushroom here is crocheted.

“Finished fruits and veggies for my son for Christmas!”

I was inspired by other posts to make this for my 15-month-old for Christmas. I let him play with a few while I was still working on it, I feel like he doesn’t have too much interest in them yet, but he loves to help me cook in the kitchen so I think he will soon.

Took me 38 days to make all these, just working in the evening after work. All made from free patterns I found online.

In the UK, a Christmas cracker comes with a paper crown that rarely survives the night. This maker crocheted 30 that will: three sets of ten for three family Christmases.

“Slightly obsessed with crocheting these party crowns”

I have very fond memories from my childhood of competing with my siblings for who could keep the paper crown on for the longest (it would inevitably break when you tried to sleep overnight in it). I wanted to make these as a more permanent version of those.

They come out to like 50p a crown

Four feet of crocheted tree, pulled over a florist’s foam cone. After Christmas it goes in the wash and rolls up into a bag.

“Christmas Tree”

I crocheted my Christmas tree. I was sad about having to dispose of trees every January, and didn’t want a plastic one. I found a pattern for a small tabletop tree and scaled it up. I’ve added a bit more each year. This is year three.

It’s 4 feet tall, and is machine washable. The cone gets stashed in the loft (attic) and the tree just rolls up to be stored in a bag.

“I made stockings for my husband and stepsons”

I learned to crochet from my mom as a kid but didn’t crochet for very long. A few years ago I moved in with my now husband and his 3 boys. My family has a fun multi-generational tradition of having these absurdly large knit stockings that we must fill up.

I picked up crochet again a few years ago so that I could make stockings for my husband and his kids but knew I needed to practice a bunch before taking on this project. The finally felt like I was ready recently.

I have one made for me by my grandmother when I was born. My mom taught herself how to knit so she could make them for my kids. I decided to stick with crochet though for these.

I was anticipating them taking me a lot longer and wanted to make sure I had time to finish all of them before Christmas. They went together much faster than I thought they would.

A last-minute request, filled with leftover rainbow yarn.

“My son told me yesterday that Santa promised him a chameleon toy.”

As the title says, my 2 yo son told me yesterday afternoon that Santa is bringing him a chameleon friend for Christmas and he promised him. Since this was the first that I found out he knew the word chameleon and first time hearing he had any interest in them, I found a quick pattern online. Thankfully I had this rainbow yarn left over!

He will get his chameleon friend that Santa promised. Thanks Santa! lol

From one side it looks like plain red and white stripes. Then its maker turns it around, and the stripes become a whole winter village: snowy roofs, glowing windows, pine trees and a little truck on the road. It’s a mosaic crochet blanket, made as a Christmas gift for the maker’s mom.

“Mosaic blanket I made for my mom”

“My finished star tree skirt”

Made this intentionally too large for my tiny plastic tree in hopes that someday it will be curled around a giant real tree! In the meantime, it’s cat approved

It took me 10 days of working ~2hrs per night, so a faster crocheter than me could likely do this one in 6. I also made it bigger than the intended pattern by 11 rows (one extra stripe and then the border), so the way the stitches multiply means that the end took me way longer to complete than the beginning

[A reader finished the same skirt a year late.] Congrats on being 11 months early!! I’m sure its beautiful and I hope you enjoy it for years to come <3

Handmade ornaments aren’t loved for being even. They’re loved for the year they remember: the cat that climbed the tree, the stepsons whose names went into the yarn, and a tree skirt made too big for a tree that hasn’t arrived yet.