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48 hours of craft

ice sun catcher

Tomorrow is our second snow day in Lincoln. All of our waking hours since Monday afternoon have been dedicated to crafts: drawing, coloring, cutting, pasting, stamping and sticker-ing. (Every creation has been adorned with at least one heart sticker. It is February, you know.) It’s been more intense than my 24 hours of craft weekend.

So far the only planned project has been ice sun catchers. Yesterday we put bits of my daughter’s nature collection in some containers from the recycle bin and added water. It didn’t take long for them to freeze and she’s been asking all day to hang them up outside. I managed to convince her to wait until the 30+ mph winds are gone so they don’t crash on the deck and break into pieces.

Tomorrow we’re making a groundhog puppet and Valentine’s Day cards. If she’s off on Thursday, I just don’t know what I’ll do.

project details: The sun catcher and groundhog puppet projects are from our favorite winter craft book, blogged about here and here. I’ll be taking pictures of our Valentine’s Day cards and posting a tutorial later in the week (hopefully!).

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wardrobe refashion: puppy nightshirt

This nightshirt used to be a pair of pajamas. Repeated washings have caused them to shrink, but instead of getting smaller all over, they got shorter and wider. I tried to convince my daughter they were ready for the donate pile, but the “doggie pajamas are her most favorite.” She asked me if I could turn them into a nightshirt like her Mickey pajamas.

pajamas turned nightshirt

Since they were so wide, all I had to do was remove the elastic waistband, sew the pant legs into a tube, and attach them to the shirt. I added a rolled hem to the raw edge of the waist to match the shirt for a little more ruffle action: pink hem original, green hem mine.

pajamas turned nightshirt

technical note: I had a serious problem with skipping stitches on this project, no matter what my tension, regular or ball point needle, even different thread. When I switched to a muslin scrap the stitches were fine. I figured it must be the fabric so I tried putting a piece of paper tissue under the presser foot. It worked like a charm and the tissue tore away easily. I’m not sure where I first read this idea, but I’m glad I remembered it!

wardrobe refashion: I don’t think the life of these pajamas really need to be extended much longer. We’ve had them awhile and they are well loved. I’m curious how long they’ll last in their new form.

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quick and easy wrist warmer pattern

wrist warmer crochet pattern

I made these wrist warmers for our mail carrier. She is awesome. We ship and receive a lot of mail packages and she always comes to our door, even in below zero temps. I know she has to keep her fingertips exposed, so I thought wrist warmers would be a nice gift.

The pattern as written fits an average size woman’s wrist. If you need it bigger or smaller (for a guy or child), whip out your tape measure and adjust the measurements accordingly. I measured around my knuckles, not including my thumb, and rounded down to 7 inches for a snug fit.

wrist warmer crochet pattern

Materials
any yarn (I used bulky yarn to make the project go fast)
corresponding size hook (I used size I)

DC: double crochet
SC: single crochet

tip: I tend to make my first chain really tight no matter how hard I try to keep it loose. To compensate for this, I chain and dc my first row with a hook size larger. That keeps my edges consistent for Step 6.

Step 1
Crochet a gauge swatch in double crochet. I know some people hate making these, but it’s really not that hard, so just do it. Figure out how many stitches you have in an inch, then figure out the following:

A = gauge x 8 1/2
B = gauge x 2
C = gauge x 4

My gauge was 3 1/2 stitches per inch. I’ll put my numbers in parentheses in case you find the letters confusing.

Step 2
Chain A. (30)

Step 3
DC back and forth for six inches.

note: You’ll notice that I don’t chain at the beginning of each row. I use faux double crochets instead. They really make your edges much neater.

Step 4
Make the thumb opening: DC B (7), chain B (7), skip B (7), dc to end of the row.

Step 5
DC across, including chain stitches, and continue back and forth until piece measures 7 inches.

Step 6
SC the last row and your first chain row together to make a tube. Cut yarn, weave ends and turn inside out.

wrist warmer crochet pattern

Step 7
Repeat for the other hand, but change Step 4 to the following:
Make the thumb opening: DC until C (14) stitches remain, chain B (7), skip B (7), DC B (7).

stash: I used recycled sweater yarn for these. It’s a soft acrylic that’s machine washable. I may need to make a pair for myself, too!

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heart-shaped christmas card box

My daughter is still obsessed with this craft book. She reads it every day, carefully studying the projects and pictures.

Crafts to Make in the Winter by Kathy Ross

This week she insisted we make the Valentine Card box. Our entire stash of construction paper has been cut into colorful snowflakes, so we made a white heart (which is “the color of snow!”). She added a few squiggles and now we have a Christmas Card box.

Crafts to Make in the Winter by Kathy Ross

The cutest part: she takes this little box around the house and “delivers” all of the cards to her stuffed animals. Then she goes around and picks them up like our mail carrier.

recycle: Cereal box from our recycle bin, paper and yarn from my stash.

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fave crafts blog hop: reindeer puppet

reindeer puppet

Last week I got this great book out of the library called Crafts to Make in the Winter. The first one we tried was the Reindeer Puppet. The instructions were clear and it was really simple to make. We’ll definitely be making more projects out of this book and checking out the other seasons, too.

reindeer puppet

I didn’t anticipate how much love this little guy would get, though, and silk ties are kind of slippery. He kept losing his eyes and once is ears slipped out! I wound up tacking down everything with a few stitches so he would hold up. Now he can join in all the reindeer games at our house and not feel self-conscious.

reindeer puppet

thrifted: I bought two ties at the thrift store last week so my daughter could make one with her friend. All of the other supplies were from my stash.

Have you been working on any seasonal crafts? Share in the comments!

Don’t forget to check out other finished projects over at the Fave Crafts blog.

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sew, mama, sew! giveaway day

crochet recycled vase

* * * * * Congratulations to the giveaway winner Shana Putnam! * * * * *

Sew, Mama, Sew! Giveaway Day is one of my favorite times of year. I love participating: both in the giving away part and the entering for giveaways part.

If you are new to my blog, let me tell you a little bit about this vase. I love to use recycled goods in my work. I’ve made a few of these. The plastic container has been rescued from my very own recycle bin. The yarn is from the big spool of wool. I talk about it a lot. It’s a big spool.

You don’t have to do anything fancy to enter my giveaway — just leave a comment on this post. I’d love it if you follow my rss feed or follow me over on my facebook page. I’d also love to hear about your handmade holiday plans. Are you making anything special?

Don’t forget to visit Sew, Mama, Sew! for tons of other great giveaways. (They’ll be posted on Monday morning.)

Mine will close Midnight, Central Time, December 17th. I’ll ship internationally, so everyone is welcome to enter!

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finished: baseball bookmarks

baseball bookmarks

So many little baseballs. Seventeen, in fact. They turned out cuter than I imagined. Don’t you just love when that happens? I first posted about these in my creative space. I haven’t forgotten that I promised a pattern. Maybe by the end of this week? In the form of a Christmas ornament?

recycle: White yarn unraveled from a sweater. Red yarn left over from chromium star blanket.

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my creative space

baseball amigurumi bookmark

In my creative space today, I’m slowly getting back into my crochet groove. These little circles are actually baseball bookmarks for party favors. I’m thinking they would make cute Christmas ornament bookmarks — something handmade to go along with a book as a gift. Pattern coming soon.

More creative spaces over at Kirsty’s blog. Enjoy the crafty goodness!

recycle: Bookmarks made from last week’s sweater yarn.

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reuse: oatmeal containers for storing artwork

oatmeal container storage

I’ve been saving our empty oatmeal containers on the top shelf of the pantry for awhile. My plan is to use them for storing my daughter’s artwork. Right now, most of what we want to keep is stored flat in my office closet, which is pretty packed. I’d like to sort and move them to the top shelf of her closet, which is pretty empty.

oatmeal container storage

Of course, she has other ideas. After taking the photo for the blog, she informed me that, “No artwork should be stored in Puppy Dog’s rocket!” As you can see, she’s also in charge of decorating the containers.

reuse: How do you reuse oatmeal containers? I think they would be great for packaging holiday cookies.

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my creative space

my creative space

My last flurry of crochet activity left me with very little black and white yarn in my stash. It also left me with tired wrists. I confess that I haven’t stitched a thing since last Saturday. I’m sure you know the feeling: one more stitch and you’ll be out of commission for way too long. Although, four days is an awfully long time for me. I think Sunday’s long stint in the kitchen chopping, peeling, stirring and dish washing didn’t help. Neither did all of that laundry folding. See where housework gets you?

Back to the yarn. I gave away most of my “amigurumi stash” of acrylic awhile ago because I wasn’t using it. I saved a few balls of neutral colors, but the Halloween critters used up most of that. I just happened to stumble across a black and white cotton/acrylic blend sweater at the thrift store yesterday. Crafty kismet! It was super easy to unravel and now I’m sitting her looking at my hook and trying to decide if I’m ready to start up again. Maybe I’ll just go to bed early tonight and start fresh tomorrow.

What’s in your creative space today? Check out the much more productive players over at Kirsty’s blog.