Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Crocheted Heart Sucker Covers/Cozies

I needed something to make the kiddos' classes and teachers for Valentine's Day celebration (or as their schools call them "Friendship Parties"). I racked my brain and finally decided to write a pattern a heart pattern. I crocheted 2 hearts and then stitched them together, leaving a large hole in the top so the sucker could slide in and a small hole in the bottom so the stick could come out. I let my 10 year old pick the colors that he wanted out of my yarn stash. I made them out of cheap ole' Red Heart Yarn.

Picture of all of them together:



Maroon/Burgundy:



Purple:




These next 2 are made from the same varigated yarn with totally different looks. Of course we had to have some "MANLY" boy hearts, LOL.





Green, this is my son's favorite color, so we had to make some green hearts, LOL:



And last but not least a close up of the multi colored pink and red. This was the closest I had in my available stash to pink. I have boys and never needed pink cheap yarn, LOL:



I also made plain red and white hearts as well. Red crochet never photographs well for me and I forgot to take pictures of the white, but you can see them in the group shot well enough. They were a hit. I gave some to Speech teachers, Piano teachers and doctors before I took pictures, so I made more than what was pictured. They were pretty well received.

Flower Loom Gift Bows

Well, I had nasal surgery in January. It was pretty minor surgery but I couldn't do anything while I was recovering. I couldn't see well (between the surgery and the meds, my vision blurred), so I couldn't read, look at the computer or watch TV. I couldn't see well enough to crochet or knit, so I needed something pretty easy to do that wouldn't take a whole lot of focusing. I popped in some audiobooks on my MP3 and decided to make some bows from curling ribbon. I have had this in my mind for a while and had been putting off experimenting. Well this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try.

I used a flower loom. Mine has 3 different ringed rows of pegs. It is a Studio Twelve Magni-Fleur loom from the 60's or 70's. I've seen similar flowers made out of some kind of plastic straw, but I couldn't find any easily, locally and I couldn't go shopping for supplies. I've made flowers for gift bags out of yarn before, so now was my chance to try out the idea of using curling ribbon.

Basic supplies
2-5 colors curling ribbon
flower loom
scissors
tape (used to hold the beginning ribbon in place on the back while you wrap)
yarn needle
Double sided tape
optional supplies:
ribbon shredder



I tried different techniques for different looks. Some I simply wrapped, finished off the center:



Some I cut the ribbons after I secured the center, but did nothing else to them:





Some I wrapped additional colors around the longest posts, and after securing the centers, I cut the some of the longer loops and used scissors to curl the ribbon:













Some I wrapped the longest pegs, then unwrapped them (I was getting the length of the ribbon I used to wrap the longest set of pegs), used a ribbon shredder to shred the ribbon, the rewrapped the longest pegs. Then wrapped the longest pegs with unshreded ribbon and finished as normal. I left the shredded ribbon in loops but I cut and curled the unshredded ribbon from the longest loops:





Some, I wrapped across 3 of the longest posts. Then wrapped like normal. After is was secured and pulled off the loom, there were really long back loops (the ones wrapped across 3) I cut those in the middle and curled them so that there would be longer curls:



Here are the ones that I did between sleeping and a few other things (I got bored just doing these):



You can see the ribbon I used on the spools in the background, I also took pictures of some other looms that you might be able to make some of these on:



Here is the back of one with the double sided tape on it:



Here is some in use for my son's birthday (I made these in Spiderman colors, LOL):



The thing I like best about these bows, is that they don't get messed up easily like normal gift bows, so you can make a bunch in advance and don't have to worry about them not looking good. They can be stacked and not get smushed and out of shape easily (Unless flattened by something heavy) And they are pretty cheap to make. Those spools of ribbon usually only cost between $2-$3 a piece, so you can just buy the colors you want/need.

I found a really neat site a while back on flower looms, how to use them, what to use on them, etc. http://knitting-and.com/small-looms/index.html

The site has alot of techinques. One thing I didn't see was using curling ribbon with the flower looms. It gives them a different look.

Sweet potatoes

Here are the sweet potatoes we harvest this fall. These were the sweet potatoes that we grew in the cement mixing trays. Only 3 of the 4 varieties produced, so we only actually got 3 trays worth of potatoes. It was still a pretty big harvest considering the size of the trays.

We harvested the white sweet potatoes first:








Baby Shower gift

A friend of mine wanted a baby shower gift for Gavin's pre-K teacher. I made wash clothes out of micro terry and flannel. Then I rolled them up added ribbon to keep them in place and make them look purty :D , added a popscicle stick, wrapped them in celophane and tied them off with ribbons and put them in a small goldfish bowl with a few loose wash clothes in the base. I added some pipe cleaners in matching colors that I had curled around a pencil on one end to shape them for a little added interest. I think they turned out well.

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Kids' Christmas handouts 2010

I know, I know, I've been uber slow about posting. I haven't down loaded my camera in a while and before I knew it, months had gone by and I still had stuff to post so here it is.

I made these Snowmen Candy Cane Covers for my sons' classes & teachers for the winter holidays

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And of course, I didn't make sure I had a good shot, so this is my only shot of the candy canes. I think I made between 60-70 covers.