Christmas Special Blanket

Long time without posting-I'm working really hard which isn't leaving a lot of crochet time-a little frustrating as despite supposedly earning a wage, I'm still financially struggling.  Last year, I made most of the Yule gifts as I had no money-this year I have no money and no time to make anything!  Bit of a nightmare.

Anyway, a while back one of my close friends told me about fundraising she was doing to help out the people in her community who were saving through Park Christmas Club and whose savings were taken by their Park representative and not passed along.  Many have literally lost all the money they've been saving all year and due to a criminal investigation, Park say they cannot help with any compensation.  So there's a lot of fundraising going on to help out.  Follow this link for more details.  I suggested making a blanket (as usual lol) to go towards the raffle or to be auctioned, originally planning a 6 by 9
size but due to time constraints I made a much smaller 6 by 6 which will either make a lovely gift for someone's Grandma or be a nice tablecloth centrepiece.

The holly leaves pattern is from the amazing Attic24 but the stars, snowflakes and trees are mine :-)  Very pleased with how they turned out.

I kept the border simple with a round of sparkly deep purple, a round of white and a chain stitch round in red.  For the last round, I used red and put (in american terms) 1sc 1dc 1tr ch2 slst into first chain to make a small picot point and slst into the top of the prev tr then another 1tr 1dc 1sc and slst into the next chain sp and repeat along.  In the corners, I just did a slst 1sc slst and slst into next space as I didn't want to mess with corners.  Uses a LOT of yarn and took quite a while but worth it I think!  What do you think?

Edited to include my pattern for the snowflakes.  I've been playing with hexagons of late and they make a great snowflake base (they're also the base for the star).  My sister left a lovely comment asking for a link to the pattern for the snowflakes (which made me grin this much :-D) so I typed it out and messaged her.  Thought it may be nice to copy it here as well but be warned, I'm terrible at writing out a pattern (I tend to make things up as I go) and it may not make much sense...

I'm using american terms cos I'll only confuse myself if I try to translate it...Apologises for the poor pattern writing, it's not something I've practised much!

Snowflake 1) (round 1) ch 5, join with slst to first chain to make a ring. ch 3 and put 1 dc into the ring and ch2. (2dc, ch2) five times and join with a slst to the beginning chain3. You should have a small hexagon with six groups of 2dc separated by ch2.

This is the base for the first type. (round 2) Slst into the first ch2 space and ch3, 1dc. Then ch5 and put 2dc into the next ch2 space. (ch5, 2dc) into each space around until you have 2dc in each space separated by ch 5 spaces. Slst to close the round.

Now for the fun part...

(round 3) slst into the ch5 space. (1sc, 1hdc, 2dc, 1hdc, 1sc) into the ch5 space and join with a slst into the top of the dc from the previous round. (ch4, slst into third chain to form picot, ch5, *picot in third chain, ch3, picot, ch3, picot, slst into base of *picot, slst across the other side of the chain 2, ch3 picot, slst into base of opposite picot, ch1 and join with slst to dc from previous round.

Repeat this around so that in every ch5 space, you put the 1sc, 1hdc, 2dc, 1hdc, 1sc and on the top of the previous round's dcs, you make the picots. Join with a slst to close and fasten off.

Snowflake 2) (round 1) Make a small hexagon as above.

(round 2) slst into ch2 space and ch3, 1dc, ch2, 2dc, ch1. (2dc, ch2, 2dc, ch1) into each space around and slst to close. You should end up with a bigger hexagon with 6 groups of 2dc, ch2, 2dc, separated by ch1.

(round 3) slst into ch2 space. ch5, picot in 3rd chain, ch5, *picot in 3rd chain, ch3 pciot, ch3, picot and slst into the base of *picot. Slst along the other side of the ch2 and ch3 picot, slst into base of opposite picot, slst along other side of last two ch2 and slst into the ch2 space again. Slst across the top of the 2dc and into the ch1 space. ch4, picot in 3rd chain, ch3, picot, ch3 picot and slst into base of first picot and slst along the other side of the first chain, slst into ch1 space again. Repeat this around so that in each ch2 space you have a long piece with 5 picots in total and in each ch1 space you have a small piece with three picots. Join with a slst and fasten off.