finished: beach blanket to go no.2

wedding gift beach blanket to go soulemama

The second wedding blanket is finished! I decided on brown trim and spent a good part of my time at the craft retreat cutting, pressing and zig zagging everything together. The trim fabric was from my stash. I borrowed some brown thread from a fellow crafter because navy, which I had planned to use, didn’t look as nice as I thought it would.

I’ll be adding a tag like the first one and then it’s off to the happy couple.

pattern info: I finally got a copy of Amanda Soule’s Handmade Home. Thanks, Mom!

my creative space

In my creative space today I’m untangling this beautiful mess of yarn. It’s not as bad as it looks, at least I hope it’s not. There are three hanks that are loosely tied. If I can get them on the swift properly, it should be smooth sailing.

thrifted yarn

Where did I get such interesting yarn? I got a phone call yesterday while I was shopping for groceries.

kelly: I’m at the thrift store and there are huge tubs of beautiful yarn that are only 99 cents each.
me: Thanks for thinking of me, but I have so much yarn.
kelly: Yes, but some of this stuff looks hand dyed. It’s really beautiful.
me: Can you send a picture?

thrifted yarn

I think she sent four pictures, actually. One of those “tubs” was a large bin on wheels. I felt weak. A little defeated by my desire for pretty yarn that I really don’t need. I drove up to the store.

thrifted yarn

I exercised tremendous restraint and bought only six skeins. The pink/purple/blue skein is for my daughter. I let her pick out one because she was so patient while I dug through that big bin. I also bought her some stickers.

I’m a little early posting my creative space today. Make sure you check out Kirsty’s blog later today for more spaces.

knitted: golightly gloves

Yes. I still knit. It may be hard to believe with all of my crochet posts, but I still do. Nothing compares to knitting in the round on double pointed needles. I LOVE it.

mason dixon go lightly gloves

Last weekend I knit up a pair of Golightly Gloves as a bridal shower gift and they were so much fun. The pattern is a simple 2×2 rib in dishcloth cotton. These are totally silly and I really want a pair for myself, too. I might knit a detachable cuff because I always wind up with holes in my glove fingers.

mason dixon go lightly gloves

project info: I’m usually not a fan of ombre yarn because the colors tend to pool in weird shapes. I love how these turned out more uniformly striped. Peaches and cream cotton from my stash. Pattern from Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines.

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.

putting a dent in that big spool of wool

more crochet vases

Believe it or not, I’m still crocheting little vases. In fact, I just received a wholesale order for three sets. I’ve finally worked through most of my tan and navy wool and can’t wait to start using some new color combinations.

Thank goodness it’s football season. If you need me, I’ll be on the couch surrounded by yarn.

personalized denim tote bags

small denim gift bag

Thanks to Sister Diane, I spent more time cleaning than crafting this weekend. She wrote a post about how we crafters just don’t seem to put things away and I looked around my room and thought, “Yep, that’s me!” I figured if I wasn’t brave enough to take a picture of my to-do piles then they needed to go.

I did get a little bit of sewing done, though. I was inspired by a denim tote my daughter received as a gift and decided to make a few for upcoming birthdays. I found this denim in my stash and it was already hemmed at the top (yes!) so all I had to do was serge the sides and make some handles. I used Heat n Bond Ultra Hold for the initials. I made a total of three small and one big, which I think is destined to become a project tote for myself.

font: I used the House Industries Haulnhouse font for the initial caps. You can find a similar, free download of the “Austin Powers” font from about.com. By the way, House Industries occasionally gives away free fonts. You should check them out because they are all pretty awesome.

reusable fabric snack bags

fabric snack bag amy karol angry chicken

Ever since Amy posted a tutorial for fabric snack bags on her blog, I’ve been itching to make some. I took the photo after three were finished because I was losing daylight, but I made a total of nine. I easily got three bags out of a each fat quarter of fabric. Serging made this a super fast project, but I don’t think it would take too long with a sewing machine and some pinking shears.

reuse: I’m slowly reducing the plastic bag consumption in our household. The fabric is left over from the toy storage bags I made a few years ago.

how to: crochet jar cover in 3 easy steps

quick jar cover

This is what’s left of my outdoor garden. We did not have very good luck this year: no tomatoes and only one cucumber. My petunias were doing great until a big storm almost blew them out of the pot. Sadly, I didn’t notice the roots were above the soil until the whole thing was turning brown.

You know what is growing? My daughter’s little grass pot. She made this in summer camp and it’s the greenest, healthiest plant of the summer. The container is just a recycled plastic jar and I figured after almost two months, it finally deserved a proper cover.

How to Crochet a Jar Cover in 3 Easy Steps

Materials
worsted weight yarn
size G hook

Gauge is not important for this project.
Adjust your hook size for different yarn weight.

Step 1
Chain enough stitches so that the chain fits snugly around the jar. Join to make a circle.

Step 2
Single crochet around and around until you’ve got the height you want.

Step 3
You’re going to want an even top edge, so we’re going to pick a spot to start the top row. (You can use the tail as a guide and follow the line of stitches up if you want to be precise.) Slip stitch, chain one and single crochet around until you reach the chain one. Slip stitch into the chain one and finish off.

When you weave in your ends, use the tails to even up the bottom and top edges. You can see in the picture that my bottom edge isn’t perfect. Oh, well.

stash: This is a great project for using up leftover yarn. Because the rows spiral up, it’s not great for stripes. You’ll get a “jog” when you change colors.

home ec class: reusable grocery tote

I know today is usually all about my creative space at the moment, but I’m working on the beach blanket and there isn’t much else to show you except a nice pretty fabric pic like this one. Instead, I’m sharing my third home ec project: a reusable grocery tote.

home ec class handmade reusable grocery tote

This project got me thinking about handles. I usually seam up the sides first, fold over and stitch the top hem, then add handles. This project changed the order: top hem, handles, side seams. I can definitely see the wisdom in doing the handles on a flat piece of fabric. It makes a lot of sense. But, I also really like how the top hem hides the side seams when folded over. It’s something to think about. (Yes, I do think about these things.)

home ec class handmade reusable grocery tote

I’m planning to make some heavy duty grocery totes for our weekly shopping because I’d like something with a square bottom. I love this for the Farmers’ Market, though. The fabric is totally appropriate!

stash: I’ve been holding on to this fabric for awhile and I can’t remember where I found it. I was saving it for a farmers’ market tote, so now I can cross that off my to-do list!

home ec class: handmade reusable gift bag

I’m only on my second project and I’m already not following the directions. That didn’t take long! In my defense, it was because I wanted to learn something new.

home ec class handmade fabric drawstring gift pouch

The project calls for a hand-sewn buttonhole, but I already know how to do that. I’m embarrassed to say, however, that I didn’t know how to use the buttonhole setting on my machine. How I managed to tackle zippers, but avoid buttonholes is beyond me. It’s so easy.

home ec class handmade fabric drawstring gift pouch

I also put a few stitches at the back of the casing to keep the ribbon from sliding out. That’s because this will probably go to my daughter for storing her magformers.

stash: Fabric from fat quarter bundle. Matching ribbon from somewhere else completely. They coordinate really well, though!