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my creative space

I’ve been spending a lot of time with Country Living’s Crafting Vintage Style and have fallen in love with the thick and thin stripes of vintage tea towels.

Usually I see them with red stripes, but this book has a lot of blue inside its pages. I grabbed some navy and natural wool and started crocheting around some small plastic bottles destined for our recycling bin. This is the result.

vintage inspired crochet bud vase

I like that the bottles are plastic. I’m hoping to put some of these in my shop, and shipping will be less expensive than glass. I’m also hoping to get a picture with a real flower soon. Right now our garden is just starting to poke through the surface. I had to improvise for the photo.

Kirsty is rocking the blue and natural colors this week, too. Visit her blog for more creative spaces.

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inspiration and paper cuts

I’m still spring cleaning my creative space. Last night I went through all of my knitting and crochet magazines. I was surprised how much paper I was holding on to for just a handful of patterns. I cut out the ones I liked and bundled up the rest to pass on to my friends at knitting group on Wednesday.

Tonight I’m tackling my inspiration magazines. I rarely tear out pages, but after seeing all of the advertising that is just cluttering things up, I started ripping. How inspirational can all of these beautiful photos really be when they are mixed in with ads for all kinds of uncreative things? I’m cutting out what I love and recycling the rest.

Both of these steps are in addition to thinning out my craft books, which I did a few weeks ago. I put a lot of stuff on swaptree.com and have given some away to friends. My spring cleaning goal is to only have things around my creative space that are inspiring to me.

I know some of you are out there spring cleaning, too. What are you tossing?

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wardrobe refashion: linen skirts

It’s no secret that shopping for pants drives me nuts. And the capri pants I complained about last year didn’t even make it through the season. So, I’ve decided to make a bunch of skirts for this summer and yesterday I started with these two linen lovelies by Laura Ashley.

laura ashley linen skirts

No before pictures because I didn’t change that much. They were really long and too big in the waist. Here’s what I did to them.

  • Washed in hot water and tumble dried to preshrink them.
  • Chopped off about 10 inches and made a 1/2 inch double fold hem.
  • Used a seam ripper to open up the elastic waist casing.
  • Cut the elastic down to the right size and then sewed everything back up.

I am absolutely in love with the result. The linen is so lightweight and soft—perfect for summer. I thought about making them a little bit shorter, but spending time at the park today with our crazy Nebraska winds convinced me they are the right length. Also, I’m loving the fact that they have pockets!

thrifted: Bought these at the Goodwill 99 cent sale. That’s right! My Laura Ashley linen skirts cost me a whopping $2.

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tiny striped egg pattern

tiny crochet striped easter eggs

So here it is! After many eggs, I finally found the right hook/yarn combination that feels right. My first egg used a larger hook and Red Heart yarn. It was too big and looked a little lumpy. I finally settled on Plymouth Galway wool with a smaller hook. Both are labeled worsted weight, but the wool eggs seem less lumpy. Also, I decided on hdc instead of sc because I liked the width of the stripe better. I’m posting this in Ravelry. I can’t wait to see everyone’s eggs!

Tiny Striped Egg
worsted weight yarn
size D/3 (3.25mm) crochet hook
polyfil for stuffing
tapestry needle for weaving ends

ch: chain
hdc: half double crochet
hdcIncrease: half double crochet increase
hdcDecrease: half double crochet decrease
sl st: slip stitch

half double crochet increase: hdc twice in same stitch
half double crochet decrease: yarn over, hook through stitch, yarn over, pull through stitch, yarn over again, hook through next stitch, yarn over, pull through stitch, yarn over one more time, pull through all five loops

I carry the yarn up the inside with out breaking it for each stripe. Change colors at the slip stitch: hook through stitch, yarn over with new color, pull new yarn through stitch.

gauge: not important, but mine are about 1 1/2 x 2 1/4 inches finished

P=purple stripe, Y=yellow stripe

  • Make a magic ring.
  • R1 P: ch 2, hdc into loop 5 times, pull loop closed, join with sl st into second ch – 6 sts
  • R2 Y: ch 2, hdc in same st, hdcIncrease around, sl st into second ch – 12 sts
  • R3 P: ch 2, hdc in same st, hdc in next st, *hdcInc, hdc* around, sl st into second ch – 18 sts
  • R4 Y: ch 2, hdc in same st, hdc in next 2 sts, *hdcInc, hdc, hdc* around, sl st into second ch – 24 sts
  • R5 P: ch 2, hdc around, sl st into second chain – 24 sts
  • R6 Y: repeat R5
  • R7 P: ch 2, hdc, hdcDecrease, *hdc, hdc, hdcDecrease* around, sl st into second ch – 18 sts
  • R8 Y: ch 2, hdc around, sl st into second chain – 18 sts
  • R9 P: ch 2, hdcDecrease, *hdc, hdcDecrease* around, sl st into second ch – 12 sts
  • R8 Y: ch 2, hdc around, sl st into second chain – 12 sts
  • Stuff with polyfil
  • R10: hdcDecrease around, close up with tail, tie off both colors, bury ends inside with tapestry needle
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my creative space

crochet easter egg

In my creative space today I’m writing up a pattern for this little egg. My daughter has it in her head that Peter Cottontail is going to leave her striped eggs under her blanket Easter morning. She’s also very specific about the colors: yellow and pink, purple and yellow, orange and yellow, pink and purple. How on earth did she come up with this? Why, Easter stickers of course!

easter stickers

I should have the pattern up tomorrow or Friday, depending mostly on what she’s doing. I want this to be a surprise for her, so no egg crocheting or picture taking while she’s around.

Visit Kirsty’s blog for some more eggcellent creative spaces!

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elephant blanket becomes a pillow

baby gund blanket pillow

When my daughter was born, we received a sweet elephant Baby Gund blanket as a gift. It’s super soft and cuddly. It’s also pretty small.

The other day I asked her what she wanted to do with it. She definitely wasn’t ready to part with it, so I suggested making it into something else. Something else that might get used, like a pillow.

baby gund blanket pillow

She loved the idea! Especially when I told her she could help. If you have one of these and are looking to turn it into something for a big girl or boy, it’s easy.

Step 1
Using a seam ripper, open up about 2-3 inches of stitches on the side.

Step 2
Stuff it with polyfil, starting with the legs first and working your way toward the middle. This is a great step for your child to help. My daughter LOVED doing the stuffing.

Step 3
Close up the side with a blind stitch.

baby gund blanket pillow

reshape: I love it when my daughter gets excited about working on a project with me. She adores the pillow and is proud to say she helped out. I think we just added a few more years to Ellie’s life with us.

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momi the mermaid amigurumi

My daughter is in love with Momi the Mermaid. My parents gave her Tropical Water Hide-and-Seek last year and I found Land of Delight at Neat Repeatz last week.

momi the mermaid by yuko green

A few weeks ago, she asked me to crochet a Momi. She opened to a specific page in her book and made sure I understood that Momi needed a “flower necklace” and a flower in her hair.

She was a tricky little mermaid with a multi-colored tail and that hair! Let’s just say, I’m not the best doll maker in the world. Hearts, flowers and hats I can do great, but arms with hands? (Yes, Mom, she needs hands!) The hardest part was her lei. I used an incredibly small hook (1.3 mm!) and embroidery thread.

momi the mermaid by yuko green

I think I did a pretty good job. My daughter is a little bummed that I didn’t crochet flowers all the way around her neck. (But Mom, she’s missing part of her necklace!) I guess I’ll be adding a few flowers to her lei. In the meantime, Momi has been released into the wild, i.e., my daughter’s bedroom. I think she likes her new home on the shelf next to Octopus and Orca.

momi the mermaid by yuko green

thrifted: I don’t have a lot of pastel yarn, especially pink. One day when I was running errands I felt a pull to the nearby Goodwill. I went in and followed The Force back to the craft section. There was a big bag of pastel yarn with everything I needed. I love crafty kismet!

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thrifty thursday

It’s that time of year again: Neat Repeatz. I feel like there was even more clothing to go through than years past. I’m so glad I went while my daughter was in school or I might have come home with a lot more dresses!

red white and blue dress

She loved everything I bought, but these are my two favorite. I almost put the red dress back on the rack, and she told me that it’s her favorite. So glad I decided to get it!

red strawberry dress

thrifting: This is such an overwhelming event, but I’m always glad I go. I looked at both 4T and 5T sizes. Hopefully, everything will fit my string bean!

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my creative space

pink fabric for purse

In my creative space today is this beautiful pink fabric. I think it should become a purse. Not a boxy, tote-like bag, but a fancy, dressy purse. It’s got this shiny, metallic thread woven in it that glitters in the sun. It was hard to get a close up, but you can kind of see it here.

pink fabric for purse

It would make a sweet Spring purse, don’t you think?

You can visit more creative spaces over at Kirsty’s blog.

thrifted: I think this was originally a long, wrap-around skirt. I bought it at a church sale last year and figure it’s about time I did something with it!