Pythons

The first Thursday of the month is when we have our Lincoln Handmade Etsy team (facebook fan page) meetings.  They’re a lot of fun, full of crafty gossip, eating, knitting, crocheting, and other craftastic fun.  This month the team gave me a baby gift: a thrifted t-shirt and a Hobby Lobby gift card.  We had a good laugh about the shirt and this is what I turned it into.

This is the third gown I have made and once again it was really easy.  It took me about 1 1/2 hours from start to finish and I was not hurrying.  I used red thread to coordinate with the pythons and I really like the way it stands out on the finished gown.  I have to confess that I am totally addicted to sewing with knits, I just can’t stop!

Thanks Lincoln Handmade Team for the awesome shirt and gift card, I’ll giggle a little every time the little man wears it!

The Plarn Adventure

As I was cleaning my dining room/craft table I came across the plarn I had made last month.  I immediately felt the urge to finish the already started bag.  I think I was just looking for a reason to stop cleaning, but my theory was crochet the bag and then I won’t have to find somewhere to store the plarn balls.  I just sort of made this up as I went along, so no pattern to share, however if you’re looking for plarn inspiration check out RecycledCindy’s blog, she has a lot of great ideas and free patterns.This bag worked up quickly thanks to the large hook and I used up all of my plarn!  It seemed like it took me longer to cut the plarn than to crochet it, but the cutting is the boring part.  I made stripes to make it a little interesting, I wish I had more colors to choose from.  It turned out a great size for grocery shopping and the red stripe will coordinate with my “meat” bags.  Plarn was easy for me to work with and I will be making more of these bags, it seems like there is always plenty of plastic bags around even though I normally bring my own bags or at least ask for paper.

I want to try VCR tape next, although I hear that it’s a little harder to work with,(it sticks to the hook).

Thrifty Thursday – Goodwill Treasures

I had a great weekend of thrift shopping, if you remember it was $.99 day at the Goodwill last Friday and Saturday. 

I found a great selection of striped shirts, a few tie dyes, and some plain colors for matching.  I also found a great orange dragon shirt and an interesting gaming shirt, it had Yoda and Darth Vader, so I had to get it. There were also several fun printed shirts, like Sponge Bob with “I’m Ready” on the back, an awesome bleached Catrina shirt, a Jon Stewart shirt, and a fun sarcasm shirt.  I had an Aqua Teen Hunger Force tee too, but my husband snapped that up.  I’m thinking that the Catrina shirt would look great with that orange and black tie dye. I also found this cute women’s tank top.  I love getting these, they are so easy to convent into dresses for Little Miss.  I just have to take in the sides and shorten the straps.  I especially liked this top because of the cute little pockets. It was a great shopping day and I probably would have come home with a lot more if Little Miss hadn’t been with me.  She has now started hiding in the clothes racks, so I look like a crazy lady talking to the clothes while really I’m just trying to get her to come out.  I also bought the cutest little doll cradle, for $4.00 I couldn’t pass it up.  I would look nice with some paint or maybe some decoupage, we’ll see what happens.

The Simple Things: An Easy Storage Container

There is a mitten monster on the loose here and apparently he only eats little girl mittens, I think that this year we have lost at least three.  I imagine that the reason he is not around in the summer is because he’s wearing six pairs of sunglasses that have all magically disappeared.  I would like to note that I have been wearing the same sunglasses for the last five years and just recently bought myself a new pair, but I still have my old ones as a spare.

I have found that in order to keep my sanity everything needs to have a “place” to go.  In our new house a lot of things need designated spots to go and once everyone is aware of what spot everything goes we should be able to find what we’re looking for without organizing a search party.

In my desperation for quickly leaving the house I came up with these handy and simple containers to store mittens and sunglasses and other stuff, there will be no more hunting.  If mittens and sunglasses aren’t in the container we won’t be wearing them today!They are simply 2-liter soda bottles with the labels removed, tops cut off (I traced the basic shape using a marker and just cut following the lines), and holes cut for hanging over the doorknobs.  I used a large circle punch to start my holes, but I had to cut them larger with my scissors.I have left these plain for now, but they could be easily dressed up in any number of ways: stickers, paint, markers, ribbon, scrapbook paper.  I’m keeping these simple while we test them, no sense in making them fancy if they aren’t going to be an effective solution.  I am hoping that this new system will make leaving the house quicker and also make my life less stressful.  I have also made one for myself for my sunglasses and coupon organizer.  What are your handy tips for staying sane?, (I need all the help I can get).

Rupert the Amigurumi Owl

I have been working on this little guy for a couple of evenings, it was just too cute of a pattern to pass up!  However, I have decided that the only time that anyone in my family wants to really talk to me is when I’m counting stitches or reading pattern directions.  What that means is that some parts of this pattern have been read about 1000 times, while other parts seemed to have been skipped altogether.  I have re-crocheted this little owl about five times and still there are problems, but don’t worry I’m going to master this pattern even if I have to lock myself in the bathroom to finish it.

Here’s where I’m at, I think I may have overstuffed Rupert a bit, what can I say, I like a chubby owl.  The eyes aren’t quite big enough, I think I may have missed an increase round.  I’m not really liking the white eye anyway it’s just to stark, I may need to make it cream or yellow.

I really need to get my craft room in order, then I can hide in there and count stitches and read patterns.  Although I doubt that would work, when I shut the door now even the cat is at the door scratching to get in (they’re French doors and it’s like I’m in an aquarium and everyone wants in).  Looks like I need some more curtains…and a lock…does anyone else have this problem when you’re crafting, how do you get quiet, crafty time?

More Curtains

The curtains for Little Miss made her room look so much nicer that I thought it was time to fix the curtains in Little Sir’s room.

I made these curtains a few houses ago and while they are holding up fabulously they are a tad bit short for the windows in our new house.  It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but they let in a lot of light and at night they allow our neighbors to see right into my son’s room.

I added some more denim to the bottom, lined them with muslin, mounted them on boards, and added ties like Little Miss’s curtains, so we could open them up during the day.

I know that stripes are a little wonky, but in my defense, when I originally made these curtains they were for windows on different walls, so I didn’t worry about matching up the stripes.  I need to add a dowel to the bottoms for weight and roll them slightly to make them look better.  Letting them hang for a few days will help too!

These curtains were so easy and inexpensive to make.  I used jeans that I had been given (my whole family saves their old jeans for making bone crusher quilts) and just tore the legs into stripes, I also had the muslin for the lining on hand (thanks Christy Nelson), but an old sheet would have worked just as well.  (The only reason I backed them was so that from the outside the windows look white.)  The back of the legs were wider that the fronts so the stripe width vary.  I arranged them into a graduated color pattern, I’m sure they would have also been great in a random pattern too.  I stitched them all together leaving the seams on the outside and then snipped the seams about every quarter inch and ran them through the washing machine to fray them.  Make sure that when you dry the curtains that you empty your dryers lint trap often!  The only stuff I had to purchase for these curtains were boards to mount them on and the orange fabric for the ties, which I have also used to make a swaddling blanket and still have plenty left over for some other projects, so I spent about $10 total and most of that was because I wanted fancy batik cotton fabric (and I didn’t want to seam the ties).

I’m really enjoying the difference custom curtains make I may have to get started on the ones for my craft room.  We’ll see what next Monday brings!

The Sock Pig

I fell in love with this sock pig on Craftster.  I reeeeeaaaallllly wanted one, but the book is checked out from the library until mid March and I just couldn’t wait!  I decided I would try to make one from just looking and guessing.It went pretty well, but I don’t think I got the ears quite right, it’s more of a pig/bunny (I think a bunny in this style would be really cute too, some big floppy ears and a puffy tail).I also decided it need more something, so I got out the embroidery floss and just started stitching. Some eyelashes and snout embellishment did the trick.  For a first try, not bad.  I need to get the book (I’m on the waiting list) and see what the deal is with the ears.

It’s $.99 weekend at the Goodwill, so you know where I’ll be, have a crafty weekend!