Halloween Kitchen Items

I finished crocheting this Halloween hot pad set this week for myself.  I was inspired by the colors of candy corn.

Here is the pattern for these hot pads.

Here is the pattern for these hot pads.

These Halloween coasters were easy to make, and took only 1 day to crochet.

Yesterday I knitted this candy corn dishcloth.  Here is the pattern for it.

Halloween Hot Pads: Orange

I'm continuing to make Halloween colored hot pads this week.

Right now I'm working on the orange ones.  Each one will have a different colored border.  I am mainly using orange, yellow, and white cotton.  However yesterday I bought some black and violet cotton, and I might add some green as well.

Fall Colors

I got an itch recently to make this hot pad in candy corn colors for Halloween.  I love the way it turned out.

I also made another chrysanthemum hot pad using the more neon yellow from the candy corn colors with the white cotton.  I'm thinking of making a Halloween set, much like the patriotic set that I made earlier this year.

We were at the park yesterday when I saw this tree in all of it's Autumn glory.

And I couldn't resist taking a picture of these rings on the playground.

Floral Hot Pad Set

I finished the hot pad set for my grandma's sister-in-law.  I sent my mom the above picture, and she said that she will love them.  My mom will pick them up later this month and mail them to her.

This is one of my favorite patterns to crochet.

I used Bernat's cotton yarn for all of these hot pads.

Here is the pattern for this wonderful hot pad.

Crayon Swap Package & Other Items

Before the Summer I lead a swap called the Crayon Swap.  We each picked a color that we wanted someone to make things for us in, and then we each made items in that color for the other person.  Recently I found out that one person's partner never followed through with the swap; so, I made her a bunch of things with her color in mind (turquoise) as an angel gift.  An angel gift is when someone sends something to another person without wanting anything more than a thank you in return.  The diamond patterned item is a notebook made from a juice pouch cardboard box.  There is a crochet soda tab flower pin, a plastic bottle cap pincushion that looks like a flower, a juice pouch notebook, a juice pouch coin purse, a small drawstring bag made from a t-shirt sleeve, 5 paper bead stitch markers, an artist trading card (my drawing), a crochet cotton scrubby, a crochet cotton dishcloth, and a crochet cotton floral hot pad.  She received everything last week and loved them all.  I'm so happy that she liked everything and that she got something from this swap.

Here is a close up of the hot pad.

Here is a close up of the scrubby.  Normally I knit scrubbies, but I found a crochet pattern for them.  It works the same way as the knit one: increase on one side and decrease on the other side, then do a running stitch on the sides to make the top and bottom like a circle / spiral.  Very easy.

The top stitch markers are the blue paper beads ones that I made for her.  I'm new at making stitch markers, so they aren't perfect. I found some cool skull beads at the craft store, and made some fun Halloween stitch markers for myself.

Here is the front of a card that I drew and mailed to a friend recently.

I then took an out of date calendar and made an envelope out of the October page.

Here is one of the Summer months calendar page turned into an envelope.

Here is a recent artist trading card (ATC) that I made using watercolor paints and a black pen.  An ATC is 3.5" x 2.5" - the same size as a baseball trading card.

ETA: Here are more photos of the swap package.

Set of 9 Patriotic Chrysanthemum Hot Pads

Between yesterday and today I have finished my Patriotic set of 9 Chrysanthemum hot pads.  It was fun seeing how the 4 different balls of yarn looked when combined with one another.  I've been getting a lot of compliments from different family members over the set that I made for my grandma in May.  I see myself making more of these in the future for gifts.  After making so many of them in a row, I now have the pattern memorized.

Patriotic Chrysanthemum Hot Pads

Between yesterday and today I have finished crocheting 4 more Chrysanthemum hot pads and am 2 rows away from finishing 2 more.  I have 6 of the 9 that I am making as part of my Patriotic set finished. 

I have 2 of these blue ones finished, which is the center of the flower.  The last two rows are in another color.  I wanted to show how pretty it is even before it is turned into a flower, and how it is a circle as well.  The last row of the pattern has you crocheting down 4 rows and back up again.

Flowers 3 ways

This week I have made two chrysanthemum hot pads.  I want to make a Patriotic series of them, which would mean a set of 9 hot pads.  I have a solid blue cotton and a variegated patriotic cotton as well as the solid white and red ones that I used for these two.  With the 4 cottons combined that would mean 9 different hot pads (the variegated one would look strange as the center color to me, so I'm only going to use it as the outer color).  

Earlier this week I bought some 3" origami paper and made these 4 tea bag rosettes using the same paper and the same folds, but with 4 different looks.  I want to place something like a button in the center of them and turn them into either ornaments or gift toppers.

Here is a picture that I took this morning from my garden.

More Blossom Hot Pads

I've been slowly working on this blossom hot pad for Easter.  To me Easter colors are purple and yellow.   Yes pastels and white are totally Easter colors, but purple and yellow really say Easter to me.  What's funny is that they are pretty much the colors shown on the pattern's picture, except my purple is much deeper.  Last night I had to frog an entire round, because I crochet into the front stitches instead of the back ones.  I only have 2 more rounds to go before I'm done.

I finished this one last week.  I reversed the red and orchid / dark pink colors that I had used when making the 2nd blossom hot pad.  The darker color (red in this case) looks better in the back.  I used up all of the red and dark pink skeins of cotton making the two red ones.  The center yarn is the same as the other red one.  Its a self striping yarn, so thats why it looks different.  I still have a good bit of it left over even though it was small to begin with.  

Here is my current crafting bag.  Its packed with a variety of cotton yarn, the blossom dishcloth pattern, scissors, a crochet hook, needles (in an Altoid container), my kindle, a notebook, a jelly jar (it contains threaded needles (this needs to be removed from my bag), some soda tab bracelets (those also need to be removed), and a Leapster 2 handheld system for my youngest son (he needs something to do while out and about as well).  The bag itself is a reusable shopping bag.  Normally I use something more fun, but this bag was around when I needed one.  

After I finish this blossom hot pad, I want to experiment with crocheting soda tabs some more.  I want to figure out how to crochet a soda tab bag.  I know that there are patterns out there for it, but they cost money.  I can buy one, but I would rather figure it out myself.  Thats part of the fun.