The lovely Jacqui Fink, curator of our Hand Made Markets, is herself the creator of Little Dandelion and maker of incredibly appealing knitted textiles made using giant needles and huge 'bumps' of natural wool.  Her knitted throws, vessels, scarves and wall hangings are now available through her Little Dandelion online store, and she also takes commissions for her heirloom-worthy work. We asked her to share her Christmas plans, and styling advice.

My Christmas style is semi-casual with a predominantly white palette interspersed with bunches of hydrangea blooms, frangipanis and gardenias from the garden. I adore white paper decorations and I hang these everywhere.  Think of the movie Elf and you'll get my drift. Our tree is white with which we decorate with brightly coloured baubles. The table linen is white. The plates are white. We really love white.

This year I'll be buying a couple of new decorations for our tree - we do it every year. It's an irresistible pleasure isn't it? Christmas is also a good excuse to buy my favourite chocolates for the table from Sweet William in Paddington.

My failsafe Christmas styling tip is Keep it simple and use fresh flowers to add interest and texture to your table.



Jacqui working at home, as featured in Artisan magazine. Image - Natalie Hunfalvay.

This Christmas I'll be serving A traditional roast meal with all the trimmings in the evening.  I love keeping Christmas day free to loll about with family and friends, look at our pressies, go for a walk to listen to the happy neighbourhood noises and, of course, play with our children. An evening meal also gives me something to look forward to: it somehow elongates the day thereby prolonging its specialness and joy. I never want Christmas Day to be over.

My Christmas playlist includes all the classics with some Michael Buble and Mariah Carey thrown into the mix. From 1 December, the carols mix will be on rotation and the kids and I will be deliriously happy. Not so my hubby.

All I want for Christmas is A wet suit. Yup! A wet suit. I really feel the cold and so rarely go for a swim. It drives my children crazy because they are water babies. I'm always sitting on the beach watching them have the fun. So – I've written my list to Santa and will hope for the best.



"My new decorations, bought my sister on a recent work trip to Boston. The sparkly birdie is my fav as it remind me of our Grandmother - she used to have similar birdies all over her tree," says Jacqui.

My biggest Christmas disaster was 2012's Turducken. I saw one being made on the Jamie Oliver Christmas special just days before Christmas. It looked delicious.  I was very disorganised and so when I saw a Turducken in our local butcher shop I was in seventh heaven… or so I thought. It was dry and miserable and everyone was terribly polite about it but I am still not over the Turducken.

After Christmas I'm planning...my birthday is on the 29^th of December so I'll just let that roll past before I get back to work. I then have to knuckle down and do some writing and prepare new samples for the winter 2015 season.

For more, visit the Little Dandelion website or follow Jacqui on Instagram @jacquifink