Sara's Spirit Scarfs

My oldest niece is in her first year of college at Sam Houston State. Their colors are orange, blue and white so I decided to make her some spirit scarfs for her birthday. I found a spool of thin yarn at Goodwill of all places that was in those colors. So I used it by itself and with others to make a bunch of skinny scarves that can be used together or by themselves. I also used blue fun fur, some white fuzzy yarn, and some cheap acrylic yarn from my stash (odd bits that my mom had picked up at a garage sale and gave me).







I made a total of 6 in different lengths and patterns. Some were crocheted, one was done on a knitting spool and one was knitted. The result was fun, I think.

Mom's Birthday

We were sitting around after Thanksgiving talking when my mother asked me to make her some potholders, hanging kitchen towels, etc. for Christmas. Um, hello, its THANKSGIVING DAY, that's a little short notice. Yes I wanted to scream it, especially since I already had a gift I was making her mostly finished that took me MONTHS to do.

Well I was determined to make these for her, so I got to thinking what I had in my craft room that was unfinished or samples, etc. Well I made a bunch of washcloth sized swatches when I was trying out the Tunisian crochet. SCORE!

I put some borders around 2 of them, added a hanger and a button and you have a dish towel:



Then I took 4 of the wash clothes and made 2 potholders with them. I sewed 2 wash clothes, wrong sides together and added a loop hanger to make the potholders:



Then I had some odd shaped ones that wouldn't make good washclothes, potholders or dishtowels. Well mom has some cast iron skillets so I made some cast iron skillet handle potholders. You just slip the potholder onto the handle and you don't have to worry about burning yourself. I folded these in on themeselves and stitched up the back and across one end. I then took some cotton muslin and some heat resistant fabric and cut them to the same size as the sample. I folded it in half and sewed one end closed then stuffed it into the crocheted piece. I hand sewed the muslin to the crocheted part and came up with these:



I may have to make some of these for myself. I don't have a pattern since I was just clowning around with the samples, I'll have to come up with something.

These were made out of cotton yarn that I bought years ago on clearance. Best of all, I was able to give these to mom for her birthday.

Seth's Birthday Gifts

My nephew's birthday was in January. For Christmas he got a leapster tag and The Cat in the Hat book to read with it. He loved it so I used up my Cat in the Hat fabric scraps to make him some 4 placemat sets for his birthday. I make these sets smaller for young kiddos. I also make a separate coaster so that the child is not trying to put his or her cup to close to the plate to cut down on accidents. And I made a napkin to match. He seemed to love them.

Here is a picture of the sets with a small place setting. The plate is a salad plate.

Here are the sets:








I wrapped it in the lime green and teal loom knitted gift bag I made a while back and pinned on a bow that I made with a round flower loom. I made 2 other bows to put on gifts about the same time also on flower looms (one square and one round).

I used the bow on the right for the gift.


I forgot to take a picture of the gift all put together but it was cute. He loves Cat in the Hat so this turned out perfect.

Goody Bags

Well I decided to use up some of my fabric stash and make the goody bags for my 9 year old's birthday party this year. I wanted to do something different and I didn't want to give the kids just junk.

I found this pattern:
http://mylittlemochi.typepad.com/my_little_mochi/2005/05/origami_pocket_.html
And thought I'd give it a try. The bag ended up being too small but it was cute:





So I made them using a 16X16 inch square in stead of the 12X12 the pattern called for. The finished product is about 7 inches wide with this size.

I also made tissue holders and tic tac toe games and small drawstring bags to house them and the pieces. Then I stuffed them with left over party stuffers I have from years past. All I bought to finish these bags were ribbon, game pieces, tissue packets (all 3 of these from the dollar store) and some smarties candy. I ended up making 17 of them.

My son's 7th Birthday party

I had to share what my husband did for our son's birthday party this last weekend.



Can you believe this cake? For those of you not in the know its a Transformers cake and this is Bumblebee's head.

He turns 7 today. Ugh I can't believe it. And he informed me yesterday that he has his first wiggly tooth. They grow up so fast.