Striped Chocolate Cherry Valentine Candles

My family thought that these striped chocolate cherry candles smelled divine when they came home. They were disappointed when they realized I wasn’t actually baking any sweets though!

For this project I used about a half pound (230 g) of premixed container soy wax. Then I split that in half so that I could add different scents and colors to each.

Half a chip of brown and red candle dye went into each once I took the soy wax off the burner. Then, I added the candle fragrance. Next time I’ll probably go heavier on the brown dye. Chocolate fudge and cherry seemed to suit Valentine’s Day, so I used about a teaspoon of each scent.

This soy wax doesn’t need to be heated above 150 F (65 degrees Celsius) and it’s so much easier to clean than paraffin wax. Other benefits are that it sets fast and holds more fragrance. I only had to wait for about twenty minutes for it to set enough so that I could pour the second color to create the candle stripes. In keeping with the Valentine’s Day theme, I finished by gluing a red heart rhinestone to the candle holder.

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

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