@EcoMonster Snow Globe Yelp Event

This past Sunday I got the chance to check out EcoMonsters new store space and participate in their Yelp Event. There are many of these events going on around the area through mid December, including another I will be going to where you can make your own bottle cap earrings! At the EcoMonster event we got to make cute snow globes out of mason jars and a bunch of little trinkets including trees, bells, sea creatures, angels, elves and all sorts of other things.

You select a jar, then pick out your decorations and hot glue them to the inside of the lid, see my work in progress photos:

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Then you fill your empty jar with ‘snow’, water and a few drops of glycerin. Carefully turn your lid upside down and tighten the lid to the jar then hot glue gun the edge to prevent leaking. The last step is to decorate the outside of your jar and you are finished!

Check out my finished snow globe, it ended up having an ocean seahorse theme to it.

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I really had fun, these events are great for anyone who likes to get crafty but does not want to buy all the supplies each time for what you want to do. Also great for kids and adults alike, a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Be sure to see if there are any Yelp Events in your area and try one out! Thanks for stopping by!

Holiday Accessories: Stockings

One of my favorite times during the holidays was decorating the house with snowmen (my mom had a huge collection of them), putting up the tree, and hanging our stockings on the banister of the stairs. My mom had sewn up one for each of the four of us in the family, and even 1 for  our dog and cat. Mine had my name embroidered on it with an angel. The stockings were felt and fabric sewn together with thread. Each Christmas morning my sister and I would get up and run down to grab our stockings while we ate breakfast before opening presents. Oranges, nuts and other small trinkets were always customary for stocking stuffers are our house.

When I moved away to go to college and subsequently to Atlanta, and presently California, I did not get to enjoy my stocking unless I happen to be visiting my parents for the holiday (which was not every year unfortunately). So one of my goals when I began to learn how to crochet about a year ago was to become efficient enough to make new stockings for myself and my husband, to use as a new family, and one for Chester Cat of course too!

I decided to give this pattern by Red Heart called Holly & Berry Stockings a try because I liked the cuff part because I wanted to put our names on them. I also wanted to use the Red Heart Super Saver yarn because it will always be available if/when I need to make another one.

The pattern is easy to work up and I followed it as described except for 1 part. When I was putting together the first stocking I made, I felt that after I made the cuff and was stitching it together that the cuff part was a tad too small and I did not want a seam to show at the back of the stocking where you join the sides together. So for the remaining 2 stockings I added 2 stitches to the noted 44 they put down in the pattern. This gave me enough to work with at the back so the cuff fit snug but not too tight. Just me maybe, but I liked it with the extra stitches better.

Before I put them all together I had to learn how to stitch letters into the cuff. I had not done this before so I turned to my trusty YouTube search to find a helpful video and this is the one I used:

From that video I was able to figure out the basics and started to put the letters of our names onto the cuffs, my husbands name and the cats name are both 7 letters so I started with the middle letter and worked my way out, I did not remember to take a photo of them prior to putting them together so I took some close ups of the finished ones instead to get the idea. My name is short so I put it all on one side since that seemed to make more sense. Here is a closeup of mine to see the letters stitching.

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I am thrilled with how they turned out, I hope to get many many years of holiday fun out of these stockings. Here are some more photos of the finished stockings below.

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Thanks for stopping by and Happy Holidays!

#Mashup – Wintergreen Skies Shawl

The Yarn

Company/Store: Schaefer Yarn: Nichole (sadly out of business)
Colorway: Peter; mint greens and light blues
Weight/Length: Fingering/405 yards
Material: 80/20 Extrafine Merino Wool/Nylon

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This is the last of my Schaefer yarn, I got 2 of these skeins pictured above for this project so I had a total of approx. 810 yards to work with. I opted to find a pattern for a shawl that would show this yarns lovely mints and blues off well and be a bit airy to be able to wear throughout the year. Great colors for spring and winter both! Reminds me of wintergreen or spearmint mints like tic tacs or altoids and the blue is just a great gradient of lights and medium baby blues. So pretty!

The Pattern

Name: Colchique (Ravelry Link)
Author: Alix Gonzalez

Colclique Shawl

At first when I downloaded the pattern I learned that it was written in French, I took French in grade school and barely remember any so I wasn’t immediately set on using this pattern. However thanks to a great Ravelry user who left great notes and photos in the Project section for this pattern, I was able to follow along quite well. I will note, that the converted pattern and chart is in UK terms, which I noticed after making the first row! So once I learned that the chart was easy to follow, and works up quite quickly. Here are some in progress shots:

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This shawl is fun because you mirror the pattern on both sides so it makes it symmetrical. Another nice thing about this pattern is that it is very easy to lengthen or widen, the foundation chain is simply a multiple of 7, and it is an easy 4 row repeat. Based on the original pattern I followed it but added an additional 28 chains at the beginning to make it just a tad longer. I kept the suggested 5 times repeat on both sides as well. I really like how its turning out and as I am writing this post I have just finished it so I will be adding completed photos very shortly!

Final Stats

Size: 66 in long x 10 in wide
Yarn Used: Out of the 810 yards I have on this yarn I estimate I used about 750 yards total

This item is For Sale! Link to Etsy Product Listing!

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Thanks for stopping by!

Cloudy Skies Scarf Pattern!

Grey skies are gonna clear up, crochet a fun and easy scarf!

I am happy to announce another new and FREE pattern called Cloudy Skies. I was again inspired by yarn I got from Western Sky Knits, a neat combo of blues and greys in DK weight. You can read all about this mashup on the pattern page HERE.

This time I have included a Symbol Chart along with photos. This pattern is great for beginners and experiments alike as it is easily customizable to any size, width and finishing desired!

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Cloudy Skies Scarf

For those that prefer downloadable PDFs you can use your favorite crafty site here:

  

Please Note: There are no restrictions on the use of my patterns however the patterns themselves are not for sale, resale or duplication. Please give credit by linking to the pattern if used, I enjoy seeing what others make with it!

 

Project Completed! DROPS Squares Blanket

I have finished my first squares blanket! Head over to the project page for it for all the details but here are the final stats:

Squares: 70 total ; 10 colors ; 1 x skein of each color to make up the total squares
Joining/Edging: 3 x skeins of dark grey used for all joining and edging
Size: 64 inches x 88 inches
Time: approx 24 hours to complete all squares ; approx 10 hours to complete joining and edging

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#Mashup – Bold Berries Scarf

The Yarn

Company/Store: Western Sky Knits
Colorway: Renaissance
Weight/Length: DK/280 yards
Material: 100% Superwash Merino

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Another awesome color combo from WSK, I love the bold colors. Also, it was on sale, so how can you pass that up!

The Pattern

Name: Sweet Lorraine Lace Scarf (Ravelry Link) (CrochetMe.com link to pattern, free to register with email, pattern #4)
Author: Doris Chan for CrochetMe.com

Sweet Lorraine Lace Scarf

At first I thought that this pattern wouldn’t work well with a variated yarn, but after the first few rows I really liked how it looked. Reminds me of a fresh fruit cup with blackberries, melon, strawberries and blueberries, with a sprig of mint on the side. When you download the pattern, it shows in both written and diagram form, which is very helpful, once you get familiar with the written pattern, the diagram is great for reference. It also works up quite fast so I am excited to finish this one soon and post up some completed photos!

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Post Update: 10/1/2013

I am happy to say that I am finished with this scarf and it turned out super cute, worked up super fast too, just a few hours. Take a look at the final photos, I really like this pattern and would use it again on other colors of yarn too.

Final Stats

Size: 6in x 48 in
Yarn Used: All but a few yards so approx 270 yards

This item is For Sale! Link to Etsy Product Listing!

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Thanks for stopping by!

Project Update: DROPS Blanket

I am happy to say that I have finally finished all of the squares for my DROPS blanket project that I started back in April, I have worked on it off and on since then and have just now started to stitch the squares together, here is a photo of all of the squares and then what it will look like in the final pattern.

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Will update with final pictures once I am finished!

Granny Square Blanket

I had a bunch of Red Heart My Love yarn lying around and thought I would try the crochet standard Granny Square blanket.

While very basic, I enjoyed learning the classic stitch pattern. Wanting to use up the yarn I had resulted in some odd rows with color swapping, however I still like how it turned out. Here are some photos.

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The blanket came to about 3 feet by 3 feet once I used up all the yarn I had, so not really big but that is ok, I still like how it turned out. Overall it was a fun quick project and a great way to use up a bunch of yarn if you have a lot of the same lying around that you want to use up.

Thanks for stopping by!