Crafting 101

Today I held a knitting/crochet playdate at my house and thanks to Kris who wanted to learn how to make these cute little crocheted flowers, I ended up making some myself! I looked over the flowers and tried making one myself, but couldn’t figure out how to do the second round. So as always, there are others online that have already done this!

Check out Craft Stylish where she has a great tutorial on making these flowers quickly and easily. I found it this morning and had one made in twenty minutes. I then should Kris how to make one and finished making one this afternoon. I made tow different sizes, one I used with a size ‘G’ hook and the other is a size ‘F’ hook. They are much different in size! I also changed when I started the brown on the second one. I think they turned out cute!

Just imagine what you can do with them! I plan on attaching these to hair clips and give them to my friend Amanda’s daughters. Amanda made them yellow dresses with brown polka dots so I think these would go great with those dresses. Just have to get the clips at the store. It’ll be fun!

Last Friday, my younger two were going to a birthday party for one of their friends. I wanted to make her something and she loves dolls so I thought, I’ll make her a doll! Well, I planned and cut and sewed, and somewhere something screwed up. So I had to come up with something else to make for her and quickly! So I made her this really simple and cute bag! This bag takes less than 30 minutes to make, which is great because it doesn’t take long at all. Enjoy!

Materials:

• Two pieces of fabric, 15″ long by 9″ wide
• Two pieces of ribbon for straps, 18″ long
• coordinating thread
• extra ribbon for the inside (optional)

Directions:

This bag was really simple. First, take your two pieces of fabric and lay them together right sides facing each other. Take your ribbon for the straps and place the ends at the top of the fabric on the inside. You are going to sew across the top of the bag first so pin the top. The straps should be on the inside of the fabric because we are going to turn it right side out in just a second. Go ahead and sew across the top of the bag and then across the top of the other side. DON’T SEW THE SIDES YET!!

Now, turn the bag right side out. Your straps should be on the outside and your bag is almost done.

If you want to, you can top stitch across where the straps are before you close it up, but that’s up to you. I did it with this bag and I liked how it turned out.

This next step is optional, but it gives the bag a finished look on the inside (I’m talking about adding ribbon to the inside seam, you’ll have to sew it up either way). Take your bag and fold it over making sure it’s even. Take your extra ribbon and fold it over the sides to cover the seam. You can use the same ribbon that you used for the straps or a different one. Your choice. Pin it so it’ll stay in place while you sew. Do this on both sides. Once it’s pinned sew up each side, making sure to catch the ribbon on the top and bottom.

Finally, turn your bag to where the seams you just sewed with the ribbon are inside the bag.  If you did it right, your bag is done! Here’s my finished bag. I think it turned out cute.

Do you like this bag? Do you like the instructions? Be sure to comment about the post and share it on your blog and let me know! For everyone who does this by May 5th, you’ll get your name in a drawing for a free adult size bag! Be sure to tell me where you posted about it so I can check it out!

Thanks and have a great day! I leave you with Kathryn posing with her new bag! She thought it was her birthday!

I found this online tonight while looking for something else and I thought, how cool is that! I absolutely love NCIS. I had never watched it before until Richard came home from his last deployment and now I’m hooked! But I found a crocheted Abby doll from NCIS. You can find the pattern here and it’s actually a combination of knitting and crochet so you get to do both at the same time! My husband loves Abby so I might make this for him. I searched online to see if I could find anyone who made any of the other characters, but did not find any. She looks fun to make!

So do you have any favorite character that has been made into either a crocheted or knitted doll? Maybe it was sewn? LMK and I’d be happy to post it here. I’m looking for content all the time.

On a side note, my novel is in the hands of three people total who are reading it and editing it for me. I’m looking forward to the critiques so I can polish it up and get it published. I still haven’t been able to think of a title, but maybe I’ll figure out something soon. I’ve already started the second book as a continuation so I know I need to add some things to the beginning of it in case someone picks up the second book first.

Well, thought you’d like this little fun pattern for today! TTFN!

I always like helping friends out so I’m posting about two friends I have from my Tuesday Night Knitters group. Christina and Nancy have created their own business making things out of glass. Their company, TG Designs, is new and getting it’s foot in the door. They have been doing shows to sell their work and it’s some really good work too!

I posted this photo because it’s one of my favorite pieces that I saw on their blog. I’m into stripes right now for some reason and I just like it. They have more pictures of what they’ve made here.

If you know of someone getting started with a business, leave me a comment and I will check them out. I’m all for spreading the word!

Megan’s in a special ballet class at her school that teaches her how to do character dancing. It’s a type of dance characteristic of that found in Russia. They wear special shoes and a special skirt. Megan didn’t have a skirt since it’s her first year in the class. So I opted to make one for her. This is a what I would call a rough draft. I plan on making her another one since I put a zipper in it and the others don’t have a zipper and the waist was a tad too big so I need to adjust that. I also ran out of ribbon so I plan on buying more ribbon in three colors that she likes. They require three rows of ribbon and the one I made only has two.

So you can see her in the photos. It’s a full circle skirt which I made using the book I borrowed from Amanda called Sew What! Skirts. It took an afternoon to make, it was very simple.  The hardest part was putting that ribbon on! LMK what you think. I told one of the other mom’s who’s daughter is in need of a skirt that I could make her one as well, just need the measurements to make it right.

So that’s my sewing project for today.  Tomorrow I am going on a field trip with Megan so I doubt I get anything done, but I can post a photo of where we go! TTYL!

Everyone loves a fun and simple project to do in Sunday School class or for Vacation Bible School. You can make these as crosses or use the same technique for making other letters too.

Making a simple cross

Materials:

Two popcisle sticks (they can be the same size or two different widths)
Yarn cut to about a foot in length
Markers or other things to color or decorate it with

Directions:

Place the popcisles one on top of the other to make a cross shape (or your letter shape). Leaving a short tail of two or three inches, hold the yarn in the back of the cross. Take your yarn and go across the sticks at an angle, come up the back and come across at the opposite angle, then come down over one side of the cross and then the other side of the cross. Repeat this pattern until you have two or three inches of yarn left. Make sure you pull the yarn tight then tie it off in the back with two knots. Cut your yarn to prevent it from dangling.

Once that’s done, the cross can be decorated however the child wishes. My daughter decided to draw two sad faces on her cross! Silly girl! This project took a few minutes per child. They enjoyed making them! Have fun!

I got the writing bug last week and in any spare moment I had, I was working on my novel! You know, the one I spent all of November 2008 writing? I didn’t finish it in November, but I wrote enough to be a NaNoWriMo winner (more than 50,000 words). Well, I wrote on it some more and thought that I came to an end (see this post from January), but after taking awhile off from it, I wasn’t satisfied with how I finished it. So I started writing and writing and rewriting. It also helped that I’ve been reading some AWESOME books by Debbie Macomber and I have figured out some tips to my writing that I had sort of forgotten from my classes in college.

So I think I actually finished last night. And I also think I have the beginnings of a book number two. It’s possible that this will lead to a series which would be great. I want to thank my friend Makita who is editing the first third of the book and I’ll send her the rest when she’s done with that. I have two other friends willing to read it to so I’m excited to have some other opinions.

Well, that’s today’s post about my writing. I haven’t done anything crafty the past couple of days. I cleaned out our shed Friday and it needed it! The weather was too good to be inside! I hope everyone enjoys their weekend! TTFN!

I know, I know, Easter is over and done with, but Halloween in only six months away! LOL! I subscribe to The Threadbangers over on YouTube.com, which are some cool people that show how to make things with thread. They put a lot of effort and thought not only into their project, but their videos as well. I wish I had the time and funds to do what they do!

Anyways, here’s one of their latest video’s over making bunny ears. I just got the e-mail about it today or I would have posted it last week. But I hope that you’ll enjoy the video. It’s a neat idea not just for Easter, but I could see this for bunny costumes at Halloween for sure! TTYL!

I have a great friend, Allena, who is hosting a contest on her Momma Crafter website. She makes these cute knitting bags that are perfect for small projects like socks. If you visit her Momma Crafter website, you’ll have the chance to win one of these cool bags (pictured)! They are so neat! She sells them in her etsy.com store too so if you don’t win one, you can always purchase one from her.

These bags closely resemeble the bags I made for Deanna’s party a few weeks ago. I have been looking at fabric and thinking of making some of my own as well. But who knows when I’ll get mine done and Allena has some ready to go on her site today! Support my friend, visit her store and her website and enter her contest. You’ll be happy you did!

P.S. Leave me a comment if you visited her website . I’d love to know that she got some entries from finding my site and then going to hers! Thanks!

No I haven’t started knitting me a new jacket, but I so want to! My friend Jennifer (who works on movies, she works with movie stars! It’s awesome!) put on a jacket the other night at TNK and one woman commented on it and Jennifer said she knitted it and it was all knit stitch. It was so pretty and felt good too. She said she got it from this book, The Knitting Experience Book I: The Knit Stitch by Sally Melville. She said I could borrow it, but I won’t see her until June since I can’t get to TNK until then!

So I told the DH that I will just have to get it to make myself a coat. I can never seem to find one I like and I was thinking of a nice brown coat with some pink speckled in there here and there would be nice. She made the Einstein coat which looked super easy. Amazon.com doesn’t have the book so I’m off to search for it! You might say, um, spring has sprung, summer will be here soon, so why knit a jacket? Well, for one, Virginia weather is so unpredictable so it might be hot one day, cold the next. But what I’m actually is betting on is it’ll take me until next winter to finish it!!

Right now, I currently have a scarf, pair of socks and a blanket on the needles. But those are my small projects to take places (well, not the blanket as I’m writing the pattern as I go) so the jacket will have to be an at home project and sometimes I need those. It gives me a reason to sit on the couch with my feet propped up not doing anything else! Toodles!