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 Christmas gift - Red Dragon Scale Shawl

I started mom's gift back in February. I had been on youtube and saw someone do the crocodile crochet stitch. I thought it was pretty and really lent itself to a shawl. Well a few years ago, mom had asked me to make her a shawl. Better late than never.







I did change the stitch up a bit. I wanted the stitches to look more pointed and less rounded. So I added an additional chain stitch between the 2 sets of 5 double crochets. If you are familiar with the pattern then you probably know what I'm talking about. I just did the stitch until I thought it was long enough. My mom was into WOW and other fantasy stuff so I made her a "Red Dragon Scale" Shawl. The points really do make it look more like scales.

I got on Youtube to look for the crocodile stitch pattern that I saw so I could link it for you guys and found where someone actually put together a video for how to make a shawl using this technique. I haven't watched the whole thing (I only watched the first 5 minutes), but it looks similar to how I did mine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LiH9Wk3rHc

This isn't exactly how I made mine, but it looks pretty close.

Emily's Christmas Present 2011

Well since I was blessed with 2 stinky boys and no girls, I got to endulge myself this Christmas and make Emily some dress up clothes. I stared off making some tulle tutus. When I was researching how to make them. I ran across a blog that told you how to cut them quickly and easily. For anyone who has ever worked with tulle, knows that is a welcomed blessing. Tulle is horrible to work with. Here's the website: http://treasuresfortots.blogspot.com/2009/10/cut-tulle-for-tutu-using-quick-and-easy.html

Here's the first one I made:

It was made from the thicker bridal mess, not tulle. I didn't have enough of anyone color to make the tutu so I used all 4 colors (fushia, purple, turquiose and green).

Keeping with the theme of only using what I had on hand, I made a halloween inspired one:

I had just a little bit of black and plenty of the orange.

Black and white:


Maroon and white:


Purple and white, with ribbons:


I made all of these with elastic waists. I went back and forth. I had thought about making them tie on but I figured they would get more play if they were easily pulled on and off.

Well, I put these all in a paper box and had plenty of room so I got to thinking, "What else can I make?" WANDS!!!

So I went to Hobby Lobby and bought dowels and wooden balls that had holes that did not go all of the way through (in other words I didn't want big beads). These were the only supplies I bought for ALL of Emily's gift, everything else was from supplies I already had. I used some star shaped cookie cutters and copied the shapes onto felt and made padded star topped wands. I painted the wood pieces and added ribbon. Here's the result:


One set of barretts. I just couldn't help myself. I wanted to try these out. I might have to make more:


I also made "Boas" out of fun fur and other fuzzy yarn from my stash. They knitted up quickly. the white was actually made on a knitting loom.


And last but not least, I pulled out the 2 alien washclothes from my "to be finished pile" and decided to make Emily a purse. I used some scrap green fabric with white polka dots (from the Dr. Suess outfits I made my boys years ago) to line the purse. I already had the handle knitted as well. I have no idea what I was going to use that piece for. All I had to do was put it all together. Sew the 2 wash clothes together and then the strap on. Sew the cloth together and then sew it to the rest of the purse. I think it turned out cute:

I didn't go so much for "matching" as "make a bunch of cute stuff and fill the box", LOL! I had a BLAST making it all. I had a few more things planned to put in the box, but I made myself stop.

And for giggles, here she is opening it with mommy:

She had to try it on right away so I call that a success.

Gifts for Classmates and Teachers - Winter 2011 edition

Well I did my typical "Should I make something for my kiddos classes or not" that I seem to do every year. I don't know why I do this. I ALWAYS end up making something for them, this year was no different.

For Gavin's class, I just made crayons.



I melted crayons in molds and packaged them up for the kids.

For Colin's class, he and I made page corner book marks. I saw these on pinterest and just had to give them a try. They turned out great. We made 2 for each kiddo. Here they are all packaged up (Sorry we didn't get any close ups):



Here are the directions: http://nheilke.com/blog/?p=2628
We didn't make them monster style. We made the ones that are about halfway down the page.

Now, what to do for the teachers. Well I had a ton of really good ideas that seemed to keep getting waylaid (couldn't find the paint I needed, lost most of my project, etc). So I finally went with a backup... winter themed DISHTOWELS!! I bought a bulk group of washclothes and followed this pattern: http://kleiosbelly.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/hanging-dishtowel-pattern2.pdf I used washclothes instead of cutting a dishtowel in half. I made a TON of these for Colin's one teacher, Gavin's 4 teachers, 4 aides, speech therapist, swim instructor and the boy's piano teacher (I think that was everyone, and everyone got 2). Anyway here they are:










And of course, all of it was done at the last minute.

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.

A gift for Lyla

My brother had another baby in October. I wanted to make something for her but didn't know what they needed, so I just made one of the octopus from my own pattern. It turned out well.



I meant to give it to them when I saw them at Thanksgiving, but ended up giving it to them at Christmas. Oh well. They got it all the same.

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.

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.

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



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.

Teacher's gifts - shopping bags

I made a ton of singlet style shopping bags for my sons' teachers, aides, etc. for the end of the year. My oldest only needed 2 but my youngest has so many teachers, aides and others helping him that I just made a bunch and didn't put names on them and asked the teacher to distribute them to whomever helped my son out, that way they could pick what colors they wanted, LOL. I know that's not the way you usually give out gifts, but it worked for us. he got tons of enthusiastic thank you notes. Since it was summer time, I decided to use up some of my summer fabric stash to make these.







I actually pulled out a stack of fabric that had enough to make bags and let my sons pick which fabrics they liked best to make the bags out of. So they had a hand in picking out the gifts

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.