Rainbow Soda Tab Bracelets

I made these 3 soda tab bracelets today using a rainbow yarn.  The back two used 10 tabs each, which is good for small children.  The yellow one used 12 tabs, which fits me perfectly.  My video tutorial for these bracelets can be found here, and the free ravelry pattern for them can be found here.

Wordless Wednesday: Lancaster Quilt Museum

Ceiling

Envelope of Doooom

Yesterday I received these items in the mail all the way from Russia.  I'm apart of an Envelope of Doooom swap.  We collect random items from around our house and send it to our partner.  Our partner then makes something or several items from the things we sent, and then they mail it back to you.  I have started my first project using some of the sample yarns.

More Plarn Baskets

Last Thursday while on vacation, my mom brought home a bunch of orange plastic newspaper bags from work.  I went to work making plarn out of them.  They were made so that they were double the thickness, so the plarn was 4 ply vs the normal 2 ply.  I then crochet this basket out of it.  

On Sunday I took the spun and plied white plarn and novelty yarn that I had made last year and I started crocheting this basket.  I finished it today.  Because of the way the novelty yarn is, it was a little harder crocheting this basket.  It was well worth it though.  I really like this yarn and plarn combination.

I'll be selling these baskets along with other plarn baskets at the Earth Fair in a few weeks.

Cable Cowl & Crochet Soda Tab Bracelets

I finally finished knitting this Kool Aid dyed cable cowl last night.  Its a late birthday present for my mom.  When I got here, all I had left to do was the ribbing, but I could only work on it while my mom was asleep or at work.  I finished it last night and gave it to her this afternoon.  She liked it, and it is her favorite color.  She had requested it after seeing the one that I made for myself last year.  To bad she really can't use it until the winter.

This pattern came from an issue of Vogue Knitting.

I Kool Aid dyed the yarn last year.  It is lionbrand fisherman's wool.

Here are 5 of the 6.5 small soda tab bracelets that I crochet today.  I'm using a rainbow yarn that I bought yesterday.  I lined them up so that you can see how the color changes in the yarn.

Spring Break Crafting

Last Sunday I finished crocheting this blossom hot pad in Easter colors.

I woven in all the ends yesterday.

Today I crochet this blue plarn basket.  

The plarn came from blue newspaper bags that were sent to the  library.

Here are the 6 crochet soda tab bracelets that I made yesterday.

Each one is slightly bigger than the last, ranging from 8 to 13 tabs. 

I made these two soda tab bracelets today using the rainbow yarn that you can see in the background.

They both have 10 tabs each.  I gave them to the two little girls that live near my parents.  They have become fast friends with my youngest son.

Plarn Basket #3

Yesterday we left for a 7 hour road trip to Pennsylvania.  You would think that I would be to tired to craft after all of that, but I started making this plarn basket last night.  This morning I finished it, and I crochet 3 soda tab bracelets.  I also finished weaving in the ends of another blossom hot pad in Easter colors.  I'll take pictures of the hot pad and bracelets tomorrow.  This plarn basket is larger than the other two that I had made.  The base is 9 rounds vs the 5 rounds of the others.  The pattern and a video tutorial for this basket can be found in this link.

I was able to knit a few more rounds of my mom's birthday present this morning before she woke up.  I have 4 rounds left.  I'm hoping to get that done tonight so that I can give it to her tomorrow.

Spring Break

I'm about to leave for a mini Spring Break vacation.  Today I finished crocheting another blossom hot pad in Easter colors.  All I need to do is weave in the ends.  I've been working hard on finishing knitting a birthday present for my mom.  I see her tomorrow night, and I have 7.5 rows left to knit.  It is not going to be finished tonight, so that means knitting in secret while there.  My other crafting plans for this week will be to make two types of soda tab bracelets and some plarn baskets to sell at the Earth Fair in a few weeks.

Senior thesis show: water reflection in ikat weaving.

In other news I finally got to attend a new crafting group.  There are only 3 of us in the group, but these ladies are amazing artists.  I do mean artists.  I am blown away by what they do.  And to top it off, they love what I do as well.  They even think that one of my items is a work of art, and that I should develop it into a series.  I was on cloud nine, especially since I made it as an actual art piece vs my usual craft pieces.  I still want to one day have a gallery show.  I had one once, but it was part of my senior thesis show in college.   However I did sell a large ikat weaving as a result.  Anyway, what is also nice about this new crafting group is that we all have young kids (Middle School and under), thus we are in the same boat as far as scheduling and other things.

I am hoping to blog while away.  If not, then I'll talk to you all in a week.  

Dora the Explorer Birthday Goodie Bag

After allowing the paint to dry for 24 hours, I sewed the two felt pieces together and made the goodie bag.  While sewing them, I also sewed in a ribbon handle at the same time.  My son picked out the popsicle ribbon himself.  It turned out great and he loves it.  Now to fill it with some small goodies for his birthday.

Sneak Peek at the Dora Birthday Goodie Bag

Ever since my first son's 4th birthday party I have been making his birthday goodie bags.  The first year it was very simple: Spiderman with red felt on one side and blue felt on the other side.  One side had a large spider painted on it and the other side had a spider web and a smaller spider painted on it.  Other felt goodie bags have been soccer, mini golf, Elmo, and Pokemon.  Then I made a felt and fabric combo to create a tiger in the forest.  The tiger was his first webkinz, and it was a webkinz themed party.  After that I just made fabric goodie bags.  He was to old for the cutesy themes.  Now it is my youngest son's turn.  He is turning 4 next month.  He isn't having a big party with lots of friends like my oldest son did for his 4th birthday.  His birthday is during Spring Break, and we are going to celebrate at my parents' house.  So I only needed to make one goodie bag (unlike the 8 to 30 that I have had to make my older son in the past  (Yes 30, for his whole class plus a few other friends).  Anyway, he wants a Dora themed party, so here is his Dora goodie bag.... Well, it is almost a bag.  The paint is drying right now (puffy paint).  I'll sew it tomorrow, I hope.  Sometimes they take a couple of days to dry.  The felt is eco-fi felt, made from recycled plastic bottles.  I also bought some Dora felt stickers to add to it.  He picked out a ribbon with popsicles on it for the handle.  I am going to cherish this quick little goodie bag, because it will probably be the only time that I will be making only one for him.  Also this will be his first real party, so it makes it even more special.

In the past I would start making 8 or more of these 1 to 3 months before the party.  It doesn't actually take that long to make them.  I just like to be able to take my time when making them.  However it is good to start making them at least 1 to 2 weeks before the party, because the paint needs time to dry.

I am also video taping myself making it.  The 2 year anniversary of my local access t.v. show is coming up, and I would like to have a birthday themed episode to celebrate it.

Egg Ornament

I've made two of these egg ornaments recently.  Both using the same self striping cotton yarn.  I only took a picture of one though.  Here is the free pattern.  To turn it into an ornament, just chain about 20 stitches and attach the end back to the egg to form the loop.  If I make enough, then I can make a garland out of them.

April Holidays

It is Keep America Beautiful month.  So as part of that, I planted some flowers.

You can also pick up some litter in celebration of this and for Earth Day (April 22nd).

It is also National Garden Month.  Here is a close up of my son's new garden / terrarium.  We bought him 3 venus flytraps and planted them in a 10 gallon tank (which we already had).  He has been doing research on how to take care of them, thus we bought peat moss, meal worms, and crickets for them.  I also filled up a spray bottle with rain water from my rain barrel for them.  It makes me proud that he has researched how to take care of them.  Its also cool to plant a "boy" garden for National Garden Month.  He put some lego skeletons in the terrarium to add a deadly look, lol.

Its Easy Being Green, Episode 36: Easter Baskets

How to make a plarn basket.

I used a size I hook.

sc = single crochet, st = stitch

- Form a loop and sc 8 times into the same loop.

- Row 2: 2 sc in each st = 16 sts

- Row 3: 2 sc in st, 1 sc in next st, repeat = 24 sts

- Row 4: 2 sc in st, sc in next two sts, repeat = 32 sts

- Row 5: 2 sc in st, sc in next 3 sts, repeat = 40 sts

- Rows 6 & up: sc in every stitch

- When you reached the hight that you want, sc in 3 stitches, chain one, and turn work.

- Work these 3 stitches back and forth until you get the desired length that you want for the handle.

- Then crochet the end of the handle into the other side of the basket.

- Bind off and weave in the ends.

How to make a bird's nest style basket out of cereal boxes.I was inspired to make this basket from this blog post: http://michelemademe.blogspot.com/2011/03/nest-basket-i-do-not-know.html

Easter Eggs (in cotton)

I keep hearing that the price of cotton will be going up soon.  My favorite yarn to work with is cotton, so when I saw Lily's Sugar'n Cream on sale for $1 a skein yesterday, I bought a bunch of skeins.  Then last night I took out my ball winder and made a bunch of yarn cakes with the new skeins.  They looked so pretty that I just had to make something.  With Easter on my mind I wanted to make something simple for the holiday.  A year or two ago I had made an egg shaped hot pad.  So I decided to make another one.  This is a free pattern from lionbrand.  They also have a knitted version.  The pattern calls for 3 strands of yarn held together, but I only used 2 strands (the two ends of a skein).  Two strands is thick enough for this hot pad.  I also used an I hook vs the H hook that the pattern called for.

With what little I had left of that skein of yarn I started crocheting this egg ornament.  There was only enough yarn left to finish 9 rounds, but thankfully I had another skein of the same color-way.  Its a little funny looking to me, but if I make a bunch it won't look so silly.  The is also a free pattern from lionbrand.

Paint Chip Bookmarks

The other day I saw a bookmark round-up on a blog.  One of the bookmarks featured flowers stamped onto paint chips, and another one was of tone on tone letters.  I really wanted to make both of them.

Here are the two that I drew on with a pen.  Next time I'll use a fine tip sharpie, because it does smudge.  

For these I just used letter stickers.  The blue one spells my name.  The red one is just random letters.

I used a few novelty yarns for the tassels.

Plarn Baskets

This week I have been making 2 more plarn baskets.  One is still a work-in-progress.  The other one I needed to film myself making for my local access t.v. show.  The episode will be on making baskets out of recycled materials, just in time for Easter.

This is the one that I made last week.  There are some plastic eggs inside.  I love the bird sitting on top of the eggs.

This is the one that I taped myself making for my show.  I finished it today.

Here is my work-in-progress one.  I'm using yellow newspaper bags to make it.  It'll be much larger than the other two.

Plarn is plastic bag yarn.  Here is a link on how to make it.

Tuesday Tot Craft Time: Shapely Ship

Today's library craft was making a boat out of different shapes.  Below this board were craft sticks, pom poms, construction paper, and painted paper.

At the tables were the background paper, pre-cut paper for the waves, scissors, and glue sticks.

Here is my son's boat.  The yellow paper was actually sticker paper.  I cut out the shapes for him.  We both applied the glue.  Then he put the items on where he wanted them.  It fits right in with one of his favorite bed time books, Ship Shape by Alan Rogers, which talks about circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles.  At the end of the book, there is a ship that is made out of the shapes just like this one.

Facebook Group

I went ahead and started a Textiles4you group on facebook.  There is a link for it here and on the right hand side of my blog.  Basically its a way to share some fun links, updates on my blog and you tube posts, what we are working on, and to socialize.  :)

Yellow Plarn

Yesterday we went to the library to visit my friend and to let my youngest son pick out some movies.  My friend, who is a librarian, always saves the plastic bags that newspapers come in for me (the ones that are delivered to the library).  When I got home I went to work cutting them up to make plarn.  There were a lot of yellow bags, so I was able to make a whole skein of yellow plarn.  If you don't know how to make plarn (plastic bag yarn), here is my video tutorial.  I am thinking of making a basket out of this plarn.

April Fools!

My oldest son watched a video on you tube on how to make your own fake poop.  He begged me to make some before my husband got home tonight.  I caved as you can see.  Here is the video where we got the instructions from.  Since my son is allergic to peanuts, we used SunButter instead.  We also used Frosted Flakes.  It smelled like the Hershey chocolate ride when cooking it.

When my husband got home he stepped on one.  It was extra funny because we had to deal with cat vomit this morning, so he thought that that was what he stepped on at first.  The kids had so much fun playing this prank on their dad tonight.  On Monday I'm going to send some to school with my oldest son so that he can show his friends.

Basically you crush up some Frosted Flakes or similar cereal.  In a sauce pan you mix about a half a cup of peanut butter (SunButter in our case) and a hand full of chocolate chips over medium heat.  Once melted, pour it in a bowl with the crushed cereal and mix.  Then you can form your poop and refrigerate it for about 20 minutes.  It really does look like gross poop, and the kids like eating it.  

Happy April Fools Day!