Knitting

I'm three rows from finishing my second-ever knitting project - a pair of baby legwarmers. Here they are in my new yarn bowl made by Tom Emerine of www.raspberrywoods.com.

Christmas afghan #2

I posted last May about winning Ellen Gormley's book, Go Crochet!, and wanting to make a project from it. Since I had made an afghan for my mother-in-law, I wanted to make one for my parents, too. My mom loves sunsets, so I wanted to make a "sunset" afghan. Originally, I hoped to make the entire afghan look like one big sunset, but once I found the "Octagon Medallion" pattern, I knew it would be better to go for a more impressionistic approach. I made the "Octagon Medallion" motifs to look like the sunset, and for the squares to fit in between the octagons, I made "Cherry Cordial," because it reminded me of clouds when I used the right colors.

The picture shows somewhat of a closeup of the squares and octagons. Don't you just love how the middle of the octagon looks like a sun?!

As you can see in the above photo, the edges were still irregular from the octagons, but I thought they looked really neat. I just finished the outside border by doing 2 rows of single crochet around, so I didn't take away from the blanket itself with the border.

Christmas PJs

When Little Miss first joined our family, I really wanted to establish a few Christmas traditions of our own; something that we could do no matter where we were celebrating Christmas that year. We decided to have Christmas pjs every year and open them Christmas eve so the kids were wearing them for Christmas morning. It's hardly an original idea, but we almost always end up buying Christmas pajamas anyway, so why not make the tradition about them? This year, to go along with my crafty Christmas, I decided to make the kids' pjs.

I recently learned how to draft a pattern from an existing pair of pants, so I grabbed a pair of each kid's favorite pj pants and got to work on the patterns. For the top, I had a purchased pattern to follow. I got Little Man's pants done quickly, and cut out the pattern for the top in a size that both kids could wear, and started trying to piece it. For some reason, I tend to struggle with working with actual patterns, and this was no different. First of all, I realized after I started cutting that the shoulders were open, and supposed to have velcro to attach once on the child. I didn't have velcro on hand, but figured I could just put a couple snaps in with my snap pliers. I figured out placement and applied the snaps, but then when I went to sew the top together, the snap got caught on the presser foot, so I had to hand crank it through. Not the neatest job I've ever done! Then I had to take a quick crash course on setting in sleeves. Looking back, it wasn't too awful, but in the process I was ready to give up! As it is, I only finished the shirt for Little Man's pajamas, and we went shopping for a plain matching shirt for Little Miss.

And here are my two lovely models with their new pjs and our Christmas tree!



A Christmas of scarves and hats

In trying to figure out gifts for my family, I was inspired by the scarves I made for my sister-in-law. Part of the reason she asked for them is that she and her family recently moved, and it's colder where they are now, so she needed something to keep her warm. I took this thought, and figured my neice and nephew, her children, could use hats and scarves as well. I found the PERFECT yarn for my 6 year old neice, who is definitely into anything girly. It is Red Heart Shimmer, with a sparkley thread running through it. I'd also been wanting to try my hand at crocheted cables, so I found an awesome pattern that would work perfectly. For her scarf, I pulled the cable from the hat pattern and improvised a way to make it pop.

Continuing with my post stitch obsession, I found a nice, masculine hat pattern for my nephew. For his scarf, I just did a basic alternating 3 fpdc, 3 bpdc to create a wide ribbed look.

While I was working on my nephew's hat, Little Man tried to claim it as his own. I convinced him that it was for his cousin, but when I finished that one, I would make him one of his own. So, once I finished up all the other Christmas presents, I started on a hat and scarf set for Little Man. I used the same pattern as my nephew's hat for his, and then his scarf was the basic single crochet, chain one, repeat, because I knew it would work quickly.

I think he liked it!

(p.s. sneak peak of another gift!)

Finally, we were finishing up a round of secret sister at our church. I'm hesitant to crochet anything for my secret sisters prior to the reveal, because most of the ladies at church know how yarn-obsessed I am. In this case, I got lucky, because I planned to make the scarf as my secret sister's Christmas gift whether or not it was the reveal, but it was. I loved the pattern I used for my sister-in-law's red scarf, and have been wanting to make another one for someone, so I grabbed a skein of green (her favorite color) Caron Simply Soft and got started. The resulting scarf only used the one skein!



Since I've not made too many scarves since I learned to crochet, it was fun to make all of these different ones!

Christmas gifts - last year's top secret

For my first Christmas gift reveal, I'll finally show off the top secret gift that I alluded to much of last year. I actually started this gift with the intention of giving it for Christmas 2010, but I multitasked so much and it took a backseat to so many other projects that it wasn't done. So I kept working and finished it in July.
The idea began a couple years ago when my Mother-in-law and I were shopping the craft section together, and she noticed a booklet of afghan designs. She commented that the one on the cover was pretty, but we both left the booklet at the store. A few weeks later, my husband and I were out shopping, and I saw the same booklet, clearance priced no less! So I picked it up and planned to make the cover afghan for my MIL. I had some trouble with the individual squares curling as I finished them, but once I worked the yellow border and joined them, everything straightened right out. I was very happy with the results, even though I was ready for it to be done after a little over a year.  It was received very  well!

Items for sale - hackey sacks

This is my final Items for sale post! As a fun, relatively inexpensive toy to have on my table, I crocheted some hackey sacks. They are actually regulation weight according to the pattern I followed, but for anyone not a serious hackey sacker, they make great squish balls or just balls to play with.



They are sitting on the felted plate that I made up a while back. The plate was supposed to be a bowl, and didn't turn out quite like I wanted, but that was just because I didn't have as much yarn as I needed to make what I wanted. In the future, I can have a better plan!



I've been busy with house stuff this week, and haven't even picked up yarn or fabric all week! I'm going through crafting withdrawal. Especially after spending every spare second working on something for Christmas, up until the 27th! We had our own family Christmas that day, after being out of town for extended family celebrations, so I was still finishing up my gift for my Little Man the day of. Christmas gifts will be the next series of posts :)

Items for sale - Bibs and more blankets

Along with the ribbon lovies that I posted about the other day, I had a few other options for baby stuff. The first was a large pile of the receiving blankets I make as baby gifts, figuring others may like to give them as well. I tried to select a wide variety of prints, including gender-neutral as well a a couple girly and a couple boy prints. Altogether I had 28 of them to sell!

My newest creation, and my best seller were the bibs that I made. I had small pieces of material left over from cutting the blankets and ribbon lovies, so I made a pattern from one of our favorite bibs. It's one that my kids can still wear, with decent coverage, so I knew it would make a nice bib to try to sell. I ordered a bunch of snaps to go with the fabrics, and got to work.

These are the bibs that were left after the sale. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of everything beforehand. In addition to those pictured above, I had one other monkey print, that sold out! Both monkey prints have brown snaps with engraved monkeys, the star print has a star shaped blue snap,the duckie print has a yellow snap with an engraved duck, and the others have plain white snaps. The bibs pictured here are available at the Casually Crafty facebook page. Check it out!

Items for sale -- market bags

With the growing "green" trend and reusable market bags becoming more popular, I decided to try my hand at crocheting some of these. I started with a couple of attempts at different designs, that turned out well, but not exactly what I wanted.

early attempts

Then I found two designs I really liked and was able to work up quickly.

These bags are made of 100% cotton, so they are super sturdy and washable. They will expand to hold quite a bit, especially those in the bottom picture. They work great for shopping bags, beach bags, or just to carry along anything you might need!



Items for sale -- crayon rolls

Every child needs some crayons and a coloring book, right? Definitely a great take-along to help occupy a kid. I've toted crayons in everything from the original box to a ziploc baggie, none of which are terribly convenient. Figuring others might feel the same,  I made up some crayon rolls for the craft bazaar.

I love the fabrics I found -- they feature crayons, scribbles, crayon drawings and fun bright dots. Each roll holds 12 crayons, and then rolls up and ties shut to tuck in anywhere to carry along.



Items for sale -- texture lovies

In preparation for the craft bazaar, I tried to figure out what would sell well or be in demand. I figured there would likely be people looking for Christmas gifts for baby or even upcoming baby showers. One of my little ones' favorite baby item was a Taggie blanket. The concept is simple: a small blanket with ribbon loops around the edges to provide different textures for baby to play with. The name, however was a little more difficult. Since Taggie is already a brand name, I had to come up with something different...and texture lovie it was! My lovies were 12" squares, with varying fabrics for the body of the blanket. I tried to vary color and texture of the ribbons around the outside as much as possible, to provide the most opportunity for baby's stimulation.

As I began making the lovies, I started with 2 layers of fleece. And quickly decided that it would be both easier for me and a more interesting finished product if I used flannel prints for one side of the blanket. So I found some remnants and got some cute fabrics to make the blankets from. And made a bunch!

After a pile of those, I found some really cute patchwork fabrics, and had the thought to do some lovies out of "premium" fabrics. I bought the patchwork and some minky - super soft with raised dots, and used those as one side of some more blankets.

And speaking of items for sale -- Now that the craft fair and Christmas are over, I'm starting up a Facebook page where I will be listing all of my leftovers from the bazaar (and there are plenty! Traffic was a little slow) and taking custom orders! The page can be found by searching "Casually Crafty" in your Facebook search bar. It's bare-bones right now, but I hope to have it up and running soon!



More felting

As mentioned in my 'about me' section, my daughter is special needs. This encompasses a lot of things, one of which is a speech delay. As an effort to help her communicate with us, we purchased an ipad2 so she could use it as a choice making device/communication device. She has been working hard with it and is making steady progress. However, we are pretty hard on it in carrying it with us back and forth to therapy and all over, so I felt a cover would be a great idea. I found a pattern for a felted ipad case, and decided she needed one!



I can knit!

I've referenced my knitted bowl several times...it's about time I post about it! Over a year ago, I tried to learn to knit by working on a dishcloth on some super long straight needles. It took a lot to get the needles to cooperate with me, and the knit stitches were taking forever on this dishcloth. Finally I gave up and went back to crocheting everything.
I still wanted to learn to knit, especially socks. Crocheted socks just aren't the same. I also really want to do cable knitting, though I have been really impressed lately with some of the crocheted cables I've done. Since socks are knitted in the round on either DPNs (double pointed needles) or circular needles, I figured I'd better learn how to operate those. I also wanted to make some trinket bowls for my sewing space -- I have a lot of things that don't have a home or I need close by and not dig through a lot of stuff to get to them. So....I decided to knit a bowl out of 100% wool, so I could felt it.
DPNs took a little bit of getting used to, and my bowl suffered a 2 year old induced "fall" off the needles, after which it needed to be started over. After the 2nd start, though, it went very well.

in progress

Once I finished the bowl, it took me forever to get it felted, but it's finally done!



Crafting with Kids

With all the sewing I've been doing, Little Man's interest has been piqued. He constantly asks me if he can help sew something. The first couple times I hesitated, told him no and moved on...but I kept thinking that it's always a good idea to cultivate interest when it's shown. The next time he asked, I just pulled out a scrap of fabric and let him sew lines up and down it. During this practice run, I learned how much he enjoys using the reverse button on the machine.

Finally, in preparation for our trip back in September, I came up with the perfect project that he could help with -- we'd gotten several sets of Color Wonder paper and markers, so we needed a marker case to keep them in. I pulled out available fabrics and allowed him to choose his outer and inner, then cut prepped them to be sewn. Once they were ready, Little Man climbed up into my lap and helped sew the case together.

He did a very good job listening when I told him to push the button and when to let go so that we could form the pockets for his markers. As the usual attention span of a 2 year old goes, he was done helping about halfway through the case, so he left and I finished it up so that it was ready for the trip.



The idea for the marker case came from the crayon rolls that I made for the craft bazaar, which will be featured later, in my items for sale series.

Ahhh!

Time flies when you're having fun, and how true is that! I've been working my fingers off (almost literally, more to come on that in a bit) preparing for a craft bazaar that is coming up this weekend! A couple of weeks ago, I tried to hop on and post a blog, but my computer wasn't cooperating so it went by the wayside as I continued sewing, crocheting, sewing some more, and once in a while even taking a break to take care of my family!
All told, I have made several things for the bazaar, and plan to feature a blog post about each type, likely after the weekend is over. I've made: receiving blankets, ribbon texture lovies, bibs, crayon rolls, crocheted Christmas ornaments, market bags and hackey sacks.
As this is the final countdown, I've been working to get as much finished as I could. My goal was to finish all of my sewing last night so I could concentrate on crocheting the rest of the week. However, on my second to last ribbon lovie, I was trying to help the fabric through and caught my finger under the needle of my machine. It's ok, but still painful, and definitely put a stop to all sewing last night! Still, I shall persevere and have already finished the offending blanket and am moving on to my final 4 bibs and my sewing will be complete!

I hope to return soon to post a better update and some pictures of everything I've been working on! And then there will be a flood after Christmas, when I can finally post about all of my top-secret giftie crafting!

Serging marathon

After owning my serger for over a month, I finally figured out how to thread it, and got started on some projects to use it! As I posted about in my diapering post, Little Man's bottom really seems to favor all-cotton diapers, which we don't have too many of. So I pulled out a pile of t-shirts that I cut the designs out of for a tshirt quilt, and used the remainders to cut fitted diapers (so I can play with my snap pliers!). I also cut a couple of prefolds out of the tshirts and some scrap flannel I have on hand.

This picture is everything cut and ready to go -- 2 prefolds and 3 fitted diapers with snap-in soakers. I did the prefolds first to just get used to the serger before doing anything with curves, which were a little bit of a challenge, but I found some good hints and they turned out ok. My serging needs more practice, but it's ok because we need more diapers!  Little Man loves his new diapers, and they are definitely our new favorites. We recently bought Wall-E and have been watching it, so he's super excited about his Wall-E diaper! The sharks are a big hit, too.

Here's a picture of them post-serging:



Recent crafting adventures

I've been pretty busy crafting lately, and have several things I plan to post about. I've just been so busy making things that I haven't taken the time to write about them!!
I've finished my knitted bowl, but still have to felt it. I find that I can never do things the "easy" way...like learning to knit on a straight project on straight needles...no, I have to start knitting in the round on Double Pointed Needles! It took a little bit to get the hang of it, but once I got into my project it went smoothly.

Now, I'm working on a pair of baby legwarmers on really little DPNs! I'm surprised at how quickly I'm picking it up and getting pretty efficient.

I've also been hard at work on building up a stock for a craft fair this November. A friend and I are going to have a booth together, and I've been trying to get a lot of things made to try to sell. These projects will go up in a series of posts about my products for sale.

I finally got my serger threaded and was able to use it! This is another post I have planned...but I made some more new diapers for Little Man and they turned out really cute! The serging is obviously done by a novice, but I'm very happy with how they turned out for my first projects.

Finally, I've been working on Christmas gifts. I've alluded to it before, but I'm planning on making a lot of the gifts for our family and friends, so while I've been super busy making things...I can't necessarily blog about any of them until after Christmas! Planning these has been fun and I'm pretty excited about some of the gifts I've made!

Along with the Christmas gifts, I have plenty of other projects planned. I need some ponchos/capelets/sweaters with fall coming up, as my wardrobe is pretty basic and they're the perfect way to dress it up and keep me warm at the same time. I plan to make this poncho in the yarn I posted about last time -- Universal Yarn Uptown DK. I bought a dark silver and can't wait to get started! I'm also planning on furthering my knitting skill with this poncho, though I haven't decided for sure about the yarn I'll use. I need to hunt something down in my stash that will be perfect! I have fabric laid out and ironed to make myself a new purse, as my current one is falling apart...so that will likely be my next project!

Scarves

Earlier this year, my sister-in-law emailed me and asked if I would be willing to make a couple of scarves for her. I was completely flattered by the request, and excited to do it for her! I had been wanting to try  a couple of scarf patterns, but as I'm not much of a scarf-wearer, there was little point in making them for me, so it became a perfect blend of circumstances.

I had on hand some amazingly soft and beautiful red EllaRae Extrafine Heathers yarn that was just begging to be something, and I found a perfect pattern for it. I absolutely LOVED working with both the yarn and the pattern. I did have to hunt down some more of the yarn, as the scarf took 4 balls, and I only had 2 to begin with, but that was the only hang-up with this scarf.

the whole scarf                                                              the stitch pattern in detail

I LOVE how the stitch pattern lends to the scalloped edge...and if I wore scarves, I would make one of these in every color!

For her second scarf, I have been wanting to learn Tunisian Crochet and, again, waiting for the perfect project to come along to learn/ practice it. Prior to starting the scarf, I did make a small dishcloth to practice the different Tunisian stitches, but generally speaking this was my first tunisian project. This was also done with a new-to-me yarn. It's Universal Yarn brand's Uptown DK that I found at my local yarn shop. It's acrylic, but goes against every "eww, acrylic" stereotype there is. It's so soft and was absolutely lovely to work with and it has a shine that I'm afraid my photos just didn't capture. I will DEFINITELY be buying more of this in the future!

full scarf                                                                        stitch pattern detail

Tunisian crochet came pretty easily to me. I did have to restart the scarf once because I was adding an extra stitch when turning, so I had one edge longer than the other. And I made the scarf quite a bit shorter than I wanted to, simply because I ran out of time to keep adding on and still be able to send them to my sister-in-law for her birthday.

I'm still lamenting the fact that I don't wear scarves much...because I would love to make more of both of these!



New tricks!

When Little Man was born, I quickly discovered the need for a baby carrier. I tried a few, found out I didn't like them, and finally found the amazing resource that is http://www.thebabywearer.com/, and that opened a whole new world for me. They have an entire forum devoted to DIY carriers -- wraps, slings, and everything else! I browsed the forum and committed everything I could to memory, so I could shop for fabric and make myself a carrier. In fact, this is also the point where I decided I needed a new, better sewing machine and got the one I'm currently using. I made a couple wraps, and realized how tedious it is to fold and iron a hem for a 3 yd piece of faric -- and that was just for a short wrap! If I wanted anything longer, I would need something easier. So I invested in a set of rolled hem feet for my machine, tried to use them once, failed miserably, and let them and my fabric that I bought for a wrap sit for well over a year.

A few weeks ago I found a tutorial for using a rolled hem foot, and decided I'd try again (plus I really needed to get some fabric off my shelves!) and this time, it went lots better. I still had some difficulties with not feeding enough fabric in, so my hem got awfully skinny, but I have a hemmed, functional wrap.

the fabric going through the foot...finally the right way!

My finished hem! (one of the better spots ;) )

Diapering

Ever since Little Miss was born, I've been vaguely intrigued by the idea of cloth diapers. I looked into it, but the only research I did took me to the expensive all-in-one type diapers and I was scared of the startup cost (which still would have been less than all I've spent on disposables for my kids, but I digress...). After Little Man was born, I started researching more thoroughly, and found several sites devoted to frugal cloth diapering and how to make your own...so that's what I did. My first ones were rough and I'm still figuring out exactly what works for us, but they are SO fun to sew! I am now to the point, though, that I am able to use them consistently, and discovered the need for some accessories!

As I started to use them more often out in public, I decided I needed a wetbag to carry with me. I mentioned this in a previous post, though never posted pictures. I made another to try to better my technique with zippers, and still failed miserably. I think the 2nd actually turned out worse than the first. But, they are still functional.  They just don't look as pretty as they could.

The bag on the right was my first, and the polka dots were my second. I didn't get a close up of my zipper issues, but I have since found a tutorial that puts the zipper in differently, so I'm hopeful for my next one!
Once using my cloth diapers more regularly, I also figured out that my diaper pail (a small trash can) was not working, as it was 1) too small, and 2) taking up too much space in my itty-bitty bathroom. I had a large piece of the PUL fabric left over from making my smaller wetbags, so I decided to try my hand at a large hanging one.

I used more of the same polka dot fabric (just a basic cotton) and the bag is lined with PUL for waterproofing. The handle snaps closed so I can hang it over a towel rod, or I can just drape the loop over the door handle, pictured below.

It takes up so much less room and is so much more useful than my old pail! The bag holds about 2-3 days worth of diapers, which is about as long as I would want to go between washing anyway. And it's so easy to just throw the bag in with the diapers to keep it clean!  The only problem is, I only have one...so I just bought more PUL to make another for when this one is in the wash :) I also want to make a large zippered one to use when the family goes swimming. My small ones are perfect to stick wet swimsuits in, but are not big enough to hold the wet towels as well, so I want a bigger one :)

The other awesome thing I've learned in the process of cloth diapering is how amazing wool is. When I started using cloth with Little Man, he did get fewer rashes, and the ones he did get were easier to solve. But by far, he gets the least irritation when he wears an all-cotton diaper with a wool cover, because that combination is so breathable. Wool, especially when lanolized, is very water resistant, and can absorb quite a bit of moisture before it soaks through. Plus they're cute! Here's my most recent pair of crocheted shorties on my shy little model:

I love how cute they are, and so fun to make. I only wish I could crochet faster so he had more to wear!





My first felting adventure

As I referenced in my last post, I was mid-project with my very first attempt at felting. I followed the "Chocolate Felted Tote" pattern from Mary Jane Hall's Positively Crochet. The bag stitched up quickly, using a double strand of worsted wool and a large hook.

the bag - before felting

Then came the adventure -- actually felting it, without ruining the work I'd done! I threw it ina pillowcase and tossed that in the washer with my dryer balls and set the washer to warm...and then let it go. I checked on it about every 20 minutes to make sure it wasn't sticking to itself where I didn't want it to. I have a front loader, so progress was relatively slow. Even still, each time I checked I could see it shrinking down and getting more solid. By the end of 3 full wash cycles, it was perfect! I draped it over a cereal box to dry, and then it and the straps sat abandoned for another week before I finally put them together.

bag after felting

Completely finished!

The straps stitched on pretty easily, and I think the project turned out really well! The pattern includes instructions for adding a fabric lining, which I may do eventually. But for now, I love it and am so excited to use my bright purple bag (color is most true in the second picture), so I'll see if I feel the need to add a lining later.

Little Miss has been in the hospital this week, so I've not had a chance to sew anything, but I've made some big progress on my top secret gift (which is a Christmas present, so I still have 6 months to tease you all :) ), and a couple of other crochet projects. Looking forward to get back home so I can sew!