Crafting Craziness

Pausing in the crafting craziness to show off a little of what is going on around here...I hope I don't spoil the surprise for the recipients :)

Some pretty flowers for some pretty girls:

Pear pin cushions:

And a whole lot of knitting going on...

Simple Striped Baby Hat

Have you ever tried to knit a simple baby hat and wanted to add stripes? I've tried several times and always wondered how to get the stripes to line up better...and then I happened to see a video describing how easy it can be to make jogless stripes (hooray)!

So, here's my first try at it and it's barely noticeable (I think).

Crochet Flower Embellishment

It appears harvesting and preserving vegetables from our garden has practically eaten up all of my extra time! I'll try to take pictures of all the pretty jars we made...

Before I do that, I wanted to post the instructions on making that flower embellishment that I made for the Starling Handbag, just in case there is someone out there who might like to make one too.

Makes a 4.5" diameter flower

Materials

Worsted weight yarn

Size G crochet hook

Instructions

Make a magic ring with 16 sc. (here's a good video to learn to make a magic ring)

Round 1: ch 7, sl st 6 down the chain, sl st in same as beginning of chain,

[sl st, sc, ch 7, sl st 6 down the chain, sl st in same as sc before chain] 7 times (8 petals total).

Round 2: sl st, [sc, sc, sc, hdc, hdc, hdc, hdc 3, hdc, hdc, hdc, sc, sc, sc, sk 1, sl st, sk 1] 7 times.

sc, sc, sc, hdc, hdc, hdc, hdc 3, hdc, hdc, hdc, sc, sc, sc, sk 1, sl st, fasten off.

Now attach a button, yo-yo, or fabric scrap or any combination of those to the center....and now go embellish away!

Starling Handbag

I love the Starling Handbag from Futuregirl. I finally got my act together and made the medium version.

This was a great pattern. It was easy to follow, and I especially love that it's seamless. I added a simple flower embellishment, which is a modified version of the floppy flower pattern.

This bag is perfect for anything. At the moment it's being used by my four year old, who packs it full with all her coloring supplies. So, I guess I'm off to whip up another one for me!

Simple Gift

For some reason we tend to under celebrate birthdays once we reach a certain age, and I find that unacceptable! As mothers who wants to make our own special meal and cake? Going out might not always be an option. We often even buy our own gifts or defer it to the last big purchase. This is sad, and I think it should end!

Having just under celebrated my own birthday, I wanted to make a little something for a friend who was having a birthday to hopefully brighten her day...nothing fancy, a sewn version of this fabulous flower by Vanessa of V and Co. as a wearable pin and homemade cinnamon pancake mix in a lovely homemade drawstring bag.

Birthdays, regardless of the number, should always be celebrated. How do you celebrate birthdays without "breaking the bank"?

A Garden Birthday Party

The requested ladybug cake:

Eyes from marshmallow pieces and mouth made of stretched laffy taffy. Hmmm, notice the upside down candle? Ooops!

Since the cake was small we also had these cupcakes

Cut marshmallows for the flowers and a sour gummy thing for the center.

Happy children, who could ask for anything more?

They all left with their own little garden to plant too!

Gong Xi Gong Xi

Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Valentine's Day! These are those great fabric fortune cookies I made a while ago using Brassy Apple's fabulous tutorial. I love that they unfold and store flat for the next year.

Puppy Dress up

What little girl doesn't love to dress up her puppy?

I used these instructions for the puppy and made leashes out of ribbon and put some velcro on the backs of the flowers I made a while back so she can decorate her puppy to her little heart's content!

Maybe I'll add some skirts...any other ideas?

Projects

The Stardust Cloth Shoe is probably my favorite pattern at the moment. There are LOTS of other patterns (cute ones too), but I love this one because it stays on!

I also decided to crank out some matching hair clips (yo-yos, scraps, and buttons). One of these days I'm going to try Heather Bailey's scrap flowers...guess I'm just waiting for the right scraps to come along :)

Petite Scarf

I had some leftover yarn from the sweater, so I made another petite scarf. I actually created a few scarflets/neckwarmers for Christmas gifts, but I failed to get pictures of them since I had to get them in the mail pronto.

To give you an idea, here are some of the other patterns I used:

Lacy Luxe

Leaves

Double Seed

Lazy Susan

And the local yarn shop, Yarn Explosion, is my new favorite stop for beautiful yarn.

Ribbed Jacket

I've made a wearable item! Sadly, although it looks like it fits like a charm on my oldest, it's a bit short...so it's a good thing I have a smaller daughter who will be able to wear it for a bit!

Since I'm a beginner knitter, this pattern was great for me because it is knit in one piece. I originally found the pattern on ravelry.com, but here's a link to the page with the downloadable pattern.

With all the sales going on I bought more yarn (whoot!) so there's more projects in the works :)