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.

Tuesday Tot Craft Time: Weaving

My 4 year old checked out a book all about Textiles for kids today.  Unfortunately he is to young to make most of the crafts in it.  However I thought that he was old enough to learn how to weave.  He recently got new shoes, so I used the shoe box for the loom.  I cut 6 notches on each side, then I strung up some yarn.  Then I made a shuttle (out of a food box) and wrapped yarn around it, and then showed him how to weave with it.  It was to hard for him.  My husband recently weeded out his magazines, so I cut up some pages from one of the magazines.  This was a lot easier for him to learn how to weave with. He really enjoyed it.

Then I made some paper looms and showed him how to weave with them.  A paper loom is just paper with slits cut out from the center but not at the edges.  Now he can go to town with weaving.

Weaving at the Textile Museum

Today I went to the American Textile History Museum.  They were celebrating their 50th anniversary, admission was free, and my friend was volunteering there.  It was great being able to work on my weaving in public while my 3 year old played.  They have a great kids' room there with lots of fun crafts to do (which I'll talk about on Tuesday).  Plus it was really nice hanging out with my friend for a little while (she took this picture of me).

As an early birthday treat to myself, I bought this cute messenger bag at the museum.  It is made from a recycled, plastic woven material (hagar design).  The museum had a special exhibit called "More Than A Number: a collection of Khmer Refugee transit photos and the stories of our heroic survivors."  A very sad yet moving story of Cambodian refugees, what they went through, and their textiles.  The purchase of this bag helped disadvantage women in Cambodia.

One of my last posts talked about how little critters seemed to enjoy hanging out with me while I wove outside.  Well this spider came out on my swing two days in a row while I was weaving.  Its kind of cool to be weaving around the original weavers.