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!



And the winner is...

ME! The last week or so has been yet another exciting one in my crafty world :)

Last week was Ellen Gormley's virtual launch party for her book on Ravelry...and she had random drawings throughout the party. All told, she gave away 2 full afghan kits and a signed copy of her book (she blogged about the party here) and I won one of the afghan kits! So I have lots and lots of yarn coming my way soon to play with and make one of her beautiful creations for myself!

Also last week, I found a new blog, as the author had posted about a giveaway she was hosting. So I checked it out, and figured, why not try? Then today she posted that I was the winner! So I get 2 of her sewing patterns for free :) I chose her pack-up backpack and rock collecting skirt, so I'll soon have a couple additions to my to-do list! Please go check out her blog and patterns for yourself!!

As for actually making things...I've been pretty busy! I'm experimenting with felting for the first time...I have a bag all stitched up and ready to felt, but haven't been able to keep the washing machine empty of regular laundry long enough to get my project in! Once I see how that goes, I hope to make some felted bowls for my sewing space, to catch odds and ends. I intend for at least one bowl to be my intro to knitting...since the final work will be felted, it allows room for error in the stitching process! I have lots of diaper stuff in the plans for my sewing machine -- I have one diaper about 1/2 way done, and plan to make another small wetbag for the diaper bag (and hopefully do better on the zipper this time!) and a large hanging wetbag to replace my diaper pail. I also have a few different fabrics ready to make some pj's and pants for both kiddos....so it looks like I better get busy!

Baby's Coming!

Not another one for us, though! One of my good friends is pregnant and due next month. Her baby shower was last weekend, and, of course, I did some crafting for it. I started a crocheted blanket back in January, and had a lot of fun working on it. Believe it or not, in all the time I've been crocheting (which really isn't that long... but still) I'd never done anything with granny squares, so I wanted to try. At the time I started the blanket, we hadn't found out what the baby was going to be yet, so I wanted to do something colorful and neutral.

These are the initial squares, each is a 3 round basic granny square. There are 5 each of 5 different colors.

After completing the initial squares, I added a round of white to each, and used the "join-as-you-go" technique to put them together.

When I finished joining all of the colored squares, the blanket still looked too small, so I decided to do a wide border of white granny squares around the outside. By this time, we found out that the baby is a boy, so I added a blue border to the outside edge. I really enjoyed putting this blanket together because it worked up so quickly, and join-as-you-go saved me a lot of time and energy sewing the squares together.

I also sewed up a couple of my go-to baby gifts. I received several handmade receiving blankets when I had Little Miss, and they quickly became our favorite blankets! From that moment, I determined that I would make at least a couple for every baby shower I go to. This baby has a jungle themed nursery, so I chose monkey fabrics.

finished blankets

The method behind these is really easy -- I buy 1 1/4 yards of flannel, trim it to square ( usually about 42 in square)  and then fold and stitch the hems. They are fantastic blankets for swaddling, laying on for tummy time, nursing cover-ups, giant burp cloths (or burp cloths when nothing else is handy), and my kids still use them when they just need a light blanket, or something that fits easily in the diaper bag!

the finished gift -- who needs tissue paper when you have receiving blankets?!









Yummy, yummy...

Wait, isn't this supposed to be a craft blog? What's up with the food-related title?

Only some of the most fun crochet projects ever :)

Breakfast:

eggs and toast

and some fruit!

I started crocheting food about a year and a half ago, after our kids and one of their friends got the same kitchen set for Christmas. Little Miss and her friend both have April birthdays, so I started stitching, hoping to get sets of food done for birthday gifts. Then when we held the benefit this past fall, I made up a "market basket" with bread, eggs, apples, strawberries, tomatoes, a carrot, pear and orange to put in the silent auction. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the completed basket. The pictures above are just the bits and pieces I've made up since then, and they're just sitting around waiting for a use! I LOVE the eggs ... as there's a pattern for a fried egg, and the shell to put it in, so you can actually "crack" the egg when play-cooking.

whole egg

cracked shell with egg

I love these little projects because it doesn't take much time to see progress, and they're just so cute! They are also fantastic for little ones to play with because they are soft so little throwers can't do too much damage, and they're easy to hold on to. Plus they're washable!

And now that we're all hungry....lets go have a snack :)

My awesome crafty day!!!

Yesterday was awesome!!! My birthday was last Sunday, and several family members gave me gift cards. One of which was an amazon gift card, and I hurried online to my wishlist to decide which items I needed this time. I've been anticipating the release of Ellen Gormley's  (http://gocrochet.blogspot.com/) new book, so that was #1 in my cart! I also bought myself a new sewing book to hopefully use up some of my extra fabric pieces. I placed my order on Thursday night, and with 2 day shipping, expected my items to arrive today. So what a surprise it was to see the Fed Ex truck pull up in front of my house yesterday, and that very kind FedEx man handed me a package with BOTH of my new books! The kids and I ventured outside to enjoy the sun that finally chose to shine, and while little man played, and little miss enjoyed the sun, I read Ellen's book cover to cover, and can't wait to get some yarn and pull out the hooks to start on one of the projects!

Then last night, my kind, loving husband volunteered to be on his own with the kids (we refuse to call it babysitting...they are his kids too!) so that I could go shopping and get a few other things. A few weeks ago I stopped into a small Sears store that is close to our house in search of replacement needles for my sewing machine. It appeared they were actually cleaning out their sewing area, as all of their display machines were marked for sale, and discounted. They had a serger 1/2 price, but I couldn't necessarily justify the cost. Well, for the last few weeks, I've debated whether I should have passed up the deal, and figured someone else snatched it since then, but we decided that if it was still there, I could have it. I stopped in last night expecting to find nothing...but lo and behold, the serger was still there! I looked it over, since it was the display model, but it appeared everything was there and ready to come home with me...so it did! Now I get to figure out how to use it, but I'm so excited! I know once I figure it out, it will make my sewing life so much easier!

I've still been working away at various other projects, and have more pictures taken that just need to escape the camera into a blog post! And I promise, I actually have something crocheted to post about!

Top secret gift #1

I've mentioned that this gift was on my sewing machine, and I told you in my last post that it could be revealed :) My Aunt and Uncle celebrated their 40th anniversary at the beginning of April, and my cousins threw them a very nice party on April 16. A few weeks prior to the party, my mom and I were discussing gift ideas, and learned that the traditional 40th anniversary gift is Ruby. My aunt is a multi-talented crafter, and loves handmade gifts, so my dad had the idea that he and mom could fund supplies and I could turn them into something. My godmother makes beautiful tied quilts that are absolutely wonderful for snuggling with...so we determined that a quilt like that would be an excellent anniversary gift.

We started with the "ruby" idea to select colors, and mom thought she remembered my Aunt and Uncle having an 'Americana" theme in one of their rooms. So we selected a solid ruby, a tan with flags and stars, a ruby/tan gingham print, and a ruby background with stars as our fabrics for the quilt. I give credit for the entire pattern to my godmom, because I totally just copied the idea of the quilt she gave me several years ago.

I cut 7" squares of each fabric and pieced them into diagonal lines:

the finished top

Then, it took some cutting and adjusting, but I was finally able to get the top, batting and back to line up so that I could sew them together. This being my first attempt at making anything resembling a quilt, I learned a lot of valuable lessons. The first being that I can't cut even, straight lines if my life depended on it. My "7 inch" squares varied drastically and there are several mis-matched seams throughout the quilt. The second; when sewing a quilt "sandwich," put the batting side down, because it catches horribly on the presser foot. I finally figured this lesson out and got it to sew together using the "turn and topstitch" method. I turned it right side out, and hand stitched the opening closed. (I will say that I normally hate trying to do the blind stitch, but in this instance, it turned out really well!) Then I topstitched about an inch in to create a nice border. Finally, I used embroidery floss and placed ties at the corners of every other square. (This helped cover up a lot of my uneven seams, too!) Once those were done, the finished product looked pretty good, and was very well received!



Notebook cover!

As is obvious...I've been slacking again! Like I said in my very first post -- I'm awful at remembering to take pictures of my projects....and it turns out I'm even more awful at uploading them to the computer! Today's post is one I've been planning since January...but the poor pictures have been trapped in my phone's memory until just last night.

My mom's birthday was in January, and I was inspired last summer to make her something. I had a fat quarter of fabric that I was going to use just a square of for a quilt (that post will come when I actually make the quilt that I've had pieces cut for for about 9 months :) ) and she caught a glimpse and said she loved the print. Mental note at that point -- make something for mom out of the rest of the fat quarter. Pause for something you should know about me...I'm a list-maker. I have to-do lists, grocery lists, sewing project lists, crochet project lists, lists of finished projects to post about and who knows what else! I also have to write everything down or I forget it. I believe I learned my list-making from my mom...who is the same way. She carries around a steno notepad in her purse, and usually has coupons, magazine articles or other papers that are important to keep. So, I had the brilliant idea to use that fabric and make her a cover for her steno pad that had a pocket for her to tuck her coupons and such. It just slips onto the cover of the notebook, so when the paper is all used up, Mom can move the cover to a new steno pad.

the cover on the notebook

the back pocket

flap to secure on the front

The cover was pretty easy to make, although I did hit a couple bumps in the process. I folded and sewed the white fabric so the raw edges were encased and no "wrong side" showed. The problem with that was I didn't quite have enough width to allow for seam allowances. The back pocket helped make up for that, and I crafted that with elastic to hold it tight to the notebook but still allow room to put things in it. The bottom seam of the pocket features a pleat, again to allow room for expansion. The front flap is where seam allowances became a slight problem...and I wound up just sewing really close to the folded edge. If (when) I make another of these, I will definitely allow more fabric so that I can make that look neater. All in all, though, I'm pretty proud of throwing this together and look forward to improving my "pattern" :)

Up for my next entry....one of my "top secret" projects is finished and has been given...so I can tell  you all about it!!