Heart Dishcloth

I started knitting this heart with wings dishcloth on July 1st, but put it down after only a few rows.  I picked back up the other day and finished it last night.  Here is the free pattern for it.

Tuesday Tot Craft Time: Gingerbread Men

Today is the last drop in craft day at our library for a few weeks.  We made gingerbread men, which are super easy but very festive.

They provided the kids with foam pieces, glue sticks, crayons, and pipe cleaners to decorate their gingerbread men with.

My son's gingerbread man is on the right and one of his friend's is on the left.  I cut out the background because it had to many kids' faces in it.  I'm ok with showing my son's face, but I don't feel right showing his friends' faces without permission.  Anyway, the kids had a great time making this craft, and now we have something else to decorate our walls with for the holiday.  

Tuesday Tot Craft Time: Christmas Ornaments & A Tree

My son made this snowball / snowflake ornament using a paper circle, some packing peanuts, glue, ribbon, and a stapler.  So easy and a great way to recycle those packing peanuts.

I love to go shopping after the holidays.  I found some blank wooden candy shapes for about 8 cents in the after Halloween sale bin.  I thought that they would make great peppermint candy magnets for Christmas.  However my son really wanted something to do, so I gave him these to color and put foam stickers on.  It took a little bit of time and some muscle, but I got my small hole punch to go through them so that they could become Christmas ornaments.  He is giving them to his friends for Christmas.

This one is supper easy, just cut an ornament shape out of construction paper and let your child decorate it.  Then punch a hole at the top and attach some ribbon or yarn to it.  Don't forget to date the back of it so that you'll always remember when your child made it.

I saw this at a preschool recently and I just loved it.  All you need are some green circles, a yellow star, and a brown rectangle, add some glitter glue and some sequence and you're good to go.

Hat Ornaments

Yesterday and this morning I made these 8 hat ornaments.  Two of them are on my Christmas tree right now.  I'll save 2 more of them for gifts, and the others will be donated to my church's craft fair.  I have a lot more to make before the craft fair's deadline (this Friday).  

Below is the video tutorial that I made last year on how to make these hats.  All you need are scissors, a toilet paper tube, and yarn.  The new ones use a wire hanger instead of yarn to hang them on the tree from.

Candy Canes & Wreaths

I put the last touches on my candy cane and wreath ornaments today by adding bows and bells.  I have 2 more wreath ornaments that need to be assembled, I finished crocheting them today.  I am planning on giving these as Christmas gifts this year.  I will keep at least one of each pattern for myself though.

Here is the super easy pattern.

Here is a close up of one of the candy canes.  I first wrapped the white crochet curl around a chenille stem, and then I wrapped the red one.

Before I added the ribbon bows and jingle bells.

This is what they look like after they have been crochet but before they are wrapped around a chenille stem.  This pattern is really a piece of cake.  Right now it is my on-the-go and t.v. watching project.  I think that I might even try to make a curly wig using this pattern.

Peppermint Ornament & Candy Cozy

Before making things for the Halloween swap took over my crafting life, I had started making a cozy for a plastic M&M container.  I thought that the container would make a good crafting supply container for things like needles, beads, and buttons.  I used some sock yarn and a size B crochet hook to make it.  I want to try and make different types of cozies for the M&M containers that I have been buying for this purpose.  My kids are very pleased with this crafting purchase, because they get to eat the chocolate candy.  On a side note, you can see our first snow of the season.  Its to early for snow!!!!  I've been told that tonight or tomorrow we are suppose to get more.  Yikes!

Christmas is the next holiday that is on my crafting radar.  Sure I would like to make a few things for Thanksgiving, but I really need to make some Christmas gifts.  I have some sparkly red and white cotton yarn that I wanted to make something small with, so I chose a peppermint ornament crochet pattern from Ho Ho Celebrations: 22 holiday projects to knit or crochet by Loops & Threads.  It was very easy to make, and I learned a new way of crocheting with 2 colors.  The pattern requires that you make 2 swirly circles and then crochet them together.  This just might be one of the things that I make for various people.  I could even put them on the outside of their gifts like a gift tag.

Yes, More Cork Elves

I've been busy making more cork elves.  This time with smilie faces.

I finished knitting the red one's hat at the Farmers' Market yesterday, which is where this picture was taken.

Here is the yarn that I have been using:  Bernat mosaic acrylic yarn: Calypso.  I want to make the whole rainbow of cork elves.

More Cork Elves

I am loving these cute little cork elves.  In case you missed it before, here is the pattern.

I made this little guy during the tropical storm known as Irene (on Sunday).

My 4 year old is really into rainbows right now, and he asked me to make some rainbow elves.  I knew exactly what yarn that I wanted to use, and at the store my 4 year old was the first to find it.  Smart kid.  Here are the two elves that I made yesterday out of the rainbow yarn.  They don't look like a rainbow, but I'll be able to get a wide assortment of looks out of one ball of yarn.  The elf on the left looks like his clothes shrunk in the wash, so I had to tweak the pattern for the 2nd one (this yarn is a little thinner than the cotton).  For the sweater I knit 5 rows of stockinette instead of 3, and for the hat I added an additional knit row to every knit row in the pattern.

I'm co-leading and participating in two Halloween swaps next month.  I'm thinking of using black yarn and making cork witches using this pattern for the swap.  I'll make a little broom for it.  Maybe I'll also make a purple wizard with a beard, a cape, and a wand.  My husband wants me to make a Santa Claus one complete with a beard.  Maybe I'll sew in some fuzzy white trim on the clothing.

Cork Elf

I made a 2nd cork elf today using white cotton Christmas yarn.  It has sliver spun into it.

Here are my 2 little cork elves inspecting the debris from Irene in our yard.  So far only some small fallen limbs.  I haven't looked in the back yard to see if any more big branches fell off of one of our pine trees (they usually fall of in the Winter with ice).

Christmas Cotton Projects

I started this white cotton Christmas scrubby a week ago.  It is a variation of the red scrubby pattern where I doubled every stitch.

The pattern for it is: 8 sc in loop, dc twice in each st for 2 rounds, sc twice in every st for 1 round, and sc 3 times in every stitch for remainder (about 3 or 4 more rounds). 

If you hold on to the center, it is perfect for scrubbing dishes or for the shower.

It reminds me of brain coral.

I made this little cork elf yesterday, and I plan to make more today.  Irene is coming to us today in the form of a tropical storm.  My little elf is watching it before it gets worse.  I hope that he doesn't get blown away ;)  The pattern for him is here.  He was super easy to make.  I used size 5 dpns and Christmas cotton yarn, but I am going to use size 4 for the next one.  I might glue his hat to him and turn him into an ornament.

Crochet Group Today

Someone that I know asked me 2 weeks ago if I could help her make a crochet scarf.  The pattern was in chart form, which I had never done before.  So I needed to learn how to read a chart.  Also she wanted to invite a few friends with various crochet skills to the get together.  The scarf pattern is made up of several floral motifs in fingering yarn with a small crochet hook.  Since the pattern was for a single floral motif, I thought that it would be easier to make coasters using worsted weight yarn and a larger hook.  After they get the hang of it, then they could move on to the smaller hook and yarn.  The above picture was taken before we got started.  I was working on a scrubby while I waited.  There were 3 ladies, one who did not know how to crochet, one who was rusty and wanted to make a granny square blanket, and the one who organized the get together.  I showed the one lady who was new to crochet how to chain and single crochet, and she practiced doing that.  It was a nice morning crocheting with these ladies.

I had made two cotton versions of the motif before the get together today.

Here is the pattern.

I'm working on a different version of the red scrubby that I made the other day, but this time with the white Christmas cotton yarn.  There is a sparkly silver thread that is in it.  

Pattern:

Chain 2

Single crochet (sc) in the center / first chain 8 times

Double crochet (dc) in each stitch two times for two rounds

Sc in every stitch 2 times for one round

Sc in every stitch 3 times for the remaining rounds.

Here is where I am at with my son's granny square blanket.  I don't know how big it is, but its not that big at the moment.

Apples for Teachers

Here are the 3 apple ornaments that I made for my sons' main teachers.  My 3 year old gave the one above to his teacher today.  The pattern came from Tasty Crochet.  I just modified it slightly to turn it into an ornament.  For the stem, I chained 40 stitches, slip stitched in the 9th chain (from the beginning), and single crochet the remaining 8 stitches.  For the leaves I chained 15 stitch, slip stitched into the first chain, chained 15 more stitches, slipped stitch into the first chain again, and bound off.  They turned out pretty cute.  The bottom two will be given to my other son's teachers on Monday.

Amigurumi apple and Mistletoe Ornament

I made another mistletoe ornament today. The pattern can be found in the post before this one. I used Red Heart Holiday yarn for this one. The other one I used Vanna's Choice yarn.

Even though they are the same patten and colors, they look different from each other.

I also made an amigurumi apple today. The pattern can be found at lionbrand.com. I thought it would be fun to do a sock monkey version of the Twilight book cover. Next time I'll try to have a darker filling. The white shows to much.