Dishcloths and Cat Toys

Over the last 2 months I have slowly knit these 3 dishcloths.  I've worked on them during movie nights, because I can knit these simple dishcloths with my eyes closed.

We love going to Hershey Park every Summer, so I couldn't wait to make this Hershey Kiss dishcloth in memory of all of the fun that we have had there (including when I was a kid myself).  Here is the free pattern.

I made 2 cat toys that can hang from a door knob.  Inside of the ball part is a plastic jingle ball cat toy.  We just got 2 new kittens this month, and they have had fun playing with their new toy.  Here is the free pattern.  I just added 10 more chain stitches to the blue area to make one of them longer.

Halloween Swap Package to Gekko

Here is the package that I sent to Gekko in Australia for Halloween.  I also included a Kool Aid juice pouch notebook, which isn't pictured here.  The small goodies are a stamp, a pencil, 2 spider rings, a parachuting black cat, and some Peanuts Gang activity pages.

Gekko was one of my Halloween ornament swap partners.  For her main ornament I made her this black cat.  It is a super easy pattern to make.  I made a different main ornament for each person according to what they said that they liked.  All of them liked witches.  Gekko liked black cats.

I also made her a cork witch as well. 

And this wreath ornament.  It was crochet around a plastic bottle ring.  You can find directions for this in any of my other blog posts about Halloween swap packages that I made.

Here are the 4 magnets that I sent out to my partners.  They are just pre-painted wooden pieces that I glued a magnet to.

I put a few of the small items inside of some of these toilet paper tube "pillow favors." 

Here are the 4 cards that I mailed to my 4 partners.  I just put some fun Halloween stickers on the folded card stock.

I hope that Gekko liked them, and I hope that she got them by now.

Halloween Swap Gifts for spookycuddles

Spookycuddles from Ravelry received her Halloween swap package from me!

There were requirements for this swap:

1. Make a Halloween decoration/decorative item (ornament, pumpkin, amigurumi, wall hanging, etc.).
2. Make a wearable item (jewelry, hat, scarf, scrunchie, etc.).
3. Make a treat bag with or without treats.
4. Make a paper item (ATC card, postcard, notecard, origami, etc.).
5. Make a Halloween kitchen / dining room item (dishcloth, hot pad, candy dish, etc).
6. At least one item needs to be made using fiber (knitted, crochet, felted, woven, etc).
7. At least one item needs to use a recycled material.

For her treat bag, I made her a nice size Kool Aid tote bag using Halloween colors: green, purple, and orange.  There are more pictures of the bag below.  I love the picture frame.  I used glow-in-the-dark paint on top of the purple paint, and 3 sizes of google eye.   That was for the decorative item requirement. 

The kitchen items are all candy corn themed: a knitted dish towel that buttons on a drawer handle, a knitted dishcloth, and a crochet plarn scrubby.  The wearable items are a pair of earrings and a matching necklace made out of plastic bread tags.  The jewelry and the scrubby go along with the recycled requirement, and the other kitchen items go with the fiber requirement.  We were also partners in another Halloween swap just for ornaments, so I made her the bat and the candy corn ornaments.  The bat used sparkly yarn, because she loves glitter and sparkle.  Just for fun I included some Halloween pencils, spider rings, a black cat parachute toy, and some Peanut Gang activity pages.  You can also see the Jack-O-Lantern artist trading card that I drew on watercolor paper.

I just love the jewelry, so I made a pair for myself.

I also gave her a stamp that said "I love vampires," because we are both Twilight fans.

The google eyes really add a little something something to the ornaments. 

The wooden "Happy Halloween" is actually a magnet.  You can see the parachuting black cat and a black spider ring in this picture.  I gave her an orange Kool Aid notebook with a paper bead tassel.  There is a cork witch (knitted and made using a wine cork).  I put a bunch of the items in the toilet paper tube treat containers, which I painted.  Most of these items meet the paper requirement of the swap.  I found a really cute pumpkin face kit at the dollar store and included it in the package.  I believe it makes a silly witch face.

I included a 2nd ATC (artist trading card) in her package.  The wreath ornament was made by crocheting around a plastic bottle ring.  Then I glued Halloween sequence on it.  The card was made using fun stickers.

The pattern for this ornament is:

- Chain 20 stitches.

- Take a plastic bottle ring and half double crochet around it.

- Join with a slip stitch.

- Triple crochet twice in every stitch around, and join with a slip stitch.

- Chain 15 to 20 stitches, and tie to the other chain length.

- Then just add accessories.

Here is the free candy corn pattern from Lion Brand.  I just added a chain stitch to one corner for the loop and glued on the google eyes and black yarn smile.  I kept two of these for myself, because they are just to darn cute. 

The bat pattern came from a crochet magazine.

Here are more pictures of the Kool Aid tote bag.

It has 2 pockets: a small one on the back/front inside, and a full pocket on one of the sides.

Here is the candy corn dishcloth pattern and the knitted dish towel pattern.

The plarn scrubby pattern is just simply crocheting a basic circle:
- chain 2
- crochet 8 times into the 2nd chain from the hook
- single crochet twice in every stitch = 16 sts
- 2 sc in next stitch, 1 sc in next stitch, repeat = 24 sts
-  2 sc in next stitch, 2 sc in next 2 stitches, repeat = 32 sts
- repeat until it is the size that you want.
I used 1 yellow newspaper bag, 1 or 2 orange newspaper bags, and one white shopping bag to make the plarn.

This ATC was made by watercolor painting on watercolor paper, then drawing on it with a thin black sharpie.  The paint is a little washed out in this photo.

To make this frame, I painted 2 coats of purple paint on a wooden frame, then I painted 1 coat of glow-in-the-dark paint.  Then I glued 3 sizes of google eyes on it.  Next I wrapped a ribbon around it, and tied a bow on one side.  The ribbon was then glued in the back. Next I glued the wooden piece to the ribbon.

This is actually my cork witch.  I forgot to add the pine needle broom stick to spookycuddle's witch.  I just used my modified version of this Korknisse pattern to make her.  My modified pattern is just using smaller needles and adding a few more rows to the hat and body, and of course adding hair.

Spookycuddles said that she like everything.  I'm so glad.  She has become a friend, and I love swapping with her.  We both love this holiday a lot, and I'm glad that I could add to her ever growing decorations. 

Flower Pincushion - Pincushion Swap

Two weeks ago I mailed off my pincushion swap to my partner in England.  She got it yesterday.  Here is what I made for her.  It is a flower pincushion that uses a jar lid as its base, and I also used eco-fi felt for it.  Eco-fi felt is made from recycled plastic bottles.  I used 3 different shades of blue felt for the petals, and then I painted lines on them with puffy paint.  The petals are good for storing sewing needles.

On the top are some green sequence with yellow paint dots in the center.  Then I lined the base of the yellow center with blue shiny trim.  My partner likes shiny stuff.

I also added some sequence to the base as well.

Here is what I received from my partner: two pincushions, the small one is a bottle cap ring pincushion.  The large one uses a sock around the outside of it.  Here is what my partner said about them: "Hi Hun I am so glad that you liked them. You are right about the sock. The strawberry fabric was left over my friends little girls dress. The black part on the side of the bottle top pincushion was the strap off my old velvet top and both of them are stuffed with wool from my friend’s pet sheep Bertie."


It was fun making the pincushion and getting some in trade.  I want to make another flower one for myself so that I have a good place to store all of my sewing needles as well as my pins.

Pincushion Swap

I received my pincushion swap package today, all the way from England.  My partner made me two pincushions.  The large one used a sock around the side and likely along the bottom.  The bottom has a pink felt flower on it.  A cute little surprise.  The top of it is fabric with a strawberry printed on it.  The small one is a bottle cap pincushion ring.  The ring part of it, and I think also the side of it, are pony tail holders.  Thank you very much fairydell, I love them!  I love that she used recycled materials to make these, and in ways that I wouldn't have thought of.  Very cute!

I'll share pictures of the one that I made for her after she receives it.

Surprise - Blue Crayon Swap Items

I got a nice surprise in the mail today.  As some of you know I participated in a Crayon Swap recently (where everything is made with a main color in mind).  I had wanted items made for me to be blue, my favorite color.  Things happened and I wasn't going to get a package, but I did send one to someone (an angel gift - where you give without receiving because you want to).  My surprise was that I got an angel package of my own from someone else in the Crayon Swap.  She sent me this cotton scarf that has beads in it, a skein of the same yarn, a small package of the same beads, and a fun set of tissues.  

What a great surprise!  I love it!  Thank you!

It was such a nice day out today that I sat in a chair and worked on some birthday knitting for my oldest son.  He wants a sackbot for his birthday.  A sackbot is a version of a sackboy from the game Little Big Planet 2.  I'm using Lily's Sugar'n Cream cotton yarn in a variegated brown color, because it seemed to have a wood feel to it (color wise).  I plan on inserting cardboard inside of it so that it appears more blocky.

Red Crayon Swap

Back in March I hosted a Crayon Swap in ravelry.  Everyone picked out a color that they wanted the items in their package to be.  I put those names on those crayon colors and then drew out crayons and matched them up with partners.  I was matched with someone who wanted red items.  Everyone had to make at least 4 items with the following in mind: a card, an accessory, something knit/crochet/woven, and something made from a recycled item.  I kind of went overboard, lol.  In the end when it was time to mail off the package, my partner went MIA.  So I got to keep all of these items.

I bought a small red clipboard and a red box to mail everything in.

The inventory card in the envelope has red cable knit on the front of it.

I had packed the felt fortune cookies in the Hershey bag.

On the far right is a little experiment that I did.  It is a hanging sculptural piece that has plastic bottle rings in the center of each circle.  You can also see the crochet soda tab flower pin among the soda tab bracelets.

The hot pads use the same 3 skeins of cotton yarn, but I reversed the placement of the two outer colors.

I prefer the darker red on the outside of the petals vs the inside.

One of my signature items is the juice pouch purse.  It has a ribbon handle and a zipper closure.

I've made a few of these crochet egg hot pads over time.  I used 2 strands of cotton yarn for it.

I found the pattern for this hot pad at Michael's craft store.  It is one of the free patterns on the paper pads that are scattered around the yarn section.  I used up 2.5 skeins of cotton yarn making these 2 floral hot pads.  It is an easy pattern that looks really great.

After reading this blog post, I was inspired to make these paint chip bookmarks.  The tone-on-tone one uses stickers and the other is drawn on with a black pen.  These would also make great gift tags.

This friendship bracelet was made from embroidery floss.

It was made using a cardboard circle.  You cut 17 notches in it and a hole in the center.  You then fold 8 threads in half, and pull the folded half through the center hole.  Next knot the folded part and divide the threads (16 of them) and place them into 16 of the 17 notches.  Then you count 3 threads from the empty notch (clockwise) and move it to the empty notch.  Repeat this and that is how the bracelet is made.  When you have the length that you want (remove threads from cardboard), you divide the threads in half (8 and 8) and braid them and knot them.  Very easy.

This fabric postcard was made using fabric selvages (the non-fraying sides).  While sewing it I accidental pressed something and made a bunch of As across it.  Thats how I learned that my sewing machine can sew letters.  Then I stitched the word "RED" across another part of the postcard.  

Then I found a poem about the color red on the internet and wrote it on the back of the postcard.

One night we ordered Chinese take-out for dinner, and my fortune cookie said something about the color red.  That inspired me to make over 40 eco-fi felt fortune cookies for this swap.  Each one has a fact about the color red inside of it.

This sturdy gift bag uses about 6 large Hershey bar wrappers and red duct tape.  I made one like it about 8 years ago and it has held up really well over the years.  Here is my video tutorial on how to make one.

For this garland I just crochet 2 rows around some plastic bottle rings.  I joined them together with the crochet ends.

This scrubbie was made by doubling this pattern.   The crochet soda tab bracelets were made using this pattern.

Here are the video tutorials on how to make the crochet soda tab bracelet and the X style soda tab bracelet.

This is a toadstool pincushion was made from eco-fi felt and a plastic bottle cap.  Here is the website where I learned how to make it.  I like to make the circle for the top a little larger than what the directions say.

It was really fun making all of these red items.