Happy Halloween!

Here is a picture of the costumes that I made for me and Mike. I am the Greek goddess Artemis, and Mike is a Jedi Knight! I used McCall's pattern M3514 for mine, and Simplicity's pattern 5840 for his. My Granny and I worked on them for 6 hours straight to finish them the weekend before my birthday. Thanks Granny--I couldn't have done it without you!




Speaking of my birthday, here is a picture of the fabulous poached pear tarts that my brother-in-law made for me! He also made a large one, but I think these small ones are too cute.














Trick or Treat!!

Give and Take









Sometimes you are the giver and sometimes you are the receiver! Here is another baby hat (follow links to free pattern) that I made for our friends' baby Grant. His dad Craig is a baseball fanatic, so I thought he would appreciate this baseball motif.

We visited them in Pennsylvania the weekend before last during the peak time for fall foliage. It was absolutely gorgeous! I have some wonderful pictures to share, and I will try to post some this weekend.

Below is a picture of the beautiful coasters that my friend Christy sent me for my birthday. They are made out of an unfinished stone, and she handpainted them herself. Just in time too, because the cheap coasters I had from Wal-mart just weren't cutting it anymore. I love how the card she made me matches the coasters too! Thanks so much Christy!

















I will post some pictures of my Halloween costume tomorrow--stay tuned!

Green Scalloped Scarf

Here I am modeling my newest scarf. I used the pattern from Stitch'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker, by Debbie Stoller, and I used brushed baby alpaca yarn that I bought from the Shabby Sheep. I modified the pattern slightly, and took out one of the rows of double crochet in the middle. This made the scarf just a little bit skinnier.













Here is a close-up of the scallop detail:











I highly recommend this book, by the way. If someone only wanted to buy one crochet book, this is probably the one I would tell them to get. The first half of this book is a great how-to section with tons of pictures and diagrams on crochet techniques. Now, I generally think you need some in-person instruction to learn crochet, but you could almost learn how to with this book alone! And of course, there are some wonderful patterns. I think about 40 or so. I have also started making a clutch purse from this book--I just need to sew up the sides and put in the lining. Here is an example of what the clutch looks like. This is an adorable pink version from Craftlog.

Stitch Fashion Show and Guerilla Craft Bazaar!





Ooooh, I am so excited about this event! Stitch is on Saturday, November 11 from 5:00 pm to 2:00 am. It will be at the Austin Music Hall in Austin, TX. According to the website, there will be over 75 booths and over 20 independent designers in the fashion show. Here is a list of all of them! I am taking my friend Christina for her birthday, which is the week before. We will be taking a road trip down to Austin from Dallas, and staying the weekend with some friends. Make Dallas will be trekking down there too. Anyone else interested in coming? Andria? Jessica? Jennifer? Monica?

The tickets just went on sale today, and they are only $10!

Hope to see you there!

Trip to the Shabby Sheep

While visiting the Urban Bazaar a couple weekends ago, my mom, Aunt Debbie, and I decided to stop by the Shabby Sheep. This is a great yarn store in Uptown Dallas that also offers knitting classes and activities. Now the three of us are actually crocheters, but we can definitely appreciate yarn! Whenever I have some more time, I will take the beginner class at the Shabby Sheep and learn how to knit finally.



The Shabby Sheep has every kind of yarn you can think of: cashmere, wool, angora, alpaca, cotton, ribbon, chenille, blends--it's enough to hypnotize me for hours!! The shop also has lots of sample projects for you to see, including the pink scarf above. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but those are tiny little pink beads. My mom in particular loved this scarf, and has commanded that I make her one. Okay, Mom, as soon as I make you the scotty dog.....I'll start on this scarf.














My favorite display item was this hedgehog! It has to be one of the cutest stuffed toys I've ever seen. The Shabby Sheep is going to have a class on how to make it, but in knitting!! Curses! This hedgehog will be my motivation to learn as soon as possible.

We also liked this pumpkin baby hat. Here is a free pattern for a crochet version from Bev's Country Cottage. Enjoy!







PS I will have pictures of me and Mike's Halloween costumes up soon!

Early Birthday Present!

Here is my early birthday present from Mike! I love this camera! It's very small, and will easily fit into my purse. Notice the large LCD screen on the back too. I haven't figured out all of the cool features yet, but it has special settings for taking pictures at night, for fireworks, for underwater, etc. It also makes movies, and you can hook it up to your TV to watch them.

Mike also got a 2 GB memory card to go with it, which will hold over 600 pictures. I took about 450 pictures on my trip to Hawaii, so it will be great for traveling. On that trip, we brought the laptop with us, and had to upload pictures each night. And I had to rotate between 3 different memory cards.


Since last Tuesday, I have already taken 107 pictures on it! Mike wanted to give it to me early so I could have it for my birthday party this Friday. Thanks baby!







Friday the 13th--Spooky!

Vintage Halloween













Craftzine's blog had a great link to a group on Flickr that is sharing vintage Halloween cards, images, and costumes. You can check it out here. This will get you in the mood for October and for Halloween of course! Here are a few of my favorite images. Enjoy!



Craftzine also had links to How to Make Your Own Bat Costume and How to Make Your Own Devil Horns in case you need some inspiration for your Halloween costume!

Urban Street Bazaar this Weekend!

For all of you DFW people, this weekend is the Urban Street Bazaar sponsored by Make: Your Creative Outlet. There will be over 50 indie designers there! Make has had several of these bazaars, but this by far is the largest one yet. I believe that there will be over double the number of booths that were in the June bazaar. I will be going with on Saturday, and will post some pictures next week! Here are all of the details:

Where:
at 2632 Thomas Avenue @ Boll
Dallas, TX 75204

When:
Friday - Saturday - Sunday 9/29 - 10/1 2006
Friday 5:30 - 9pm
Saturday 10am - 9pm
Sunday 11am - 4pm

How Much?
FREE!!!

The Urban Street Bazaar also got posted on Craft Magazine's blog; check it out here.

Travel Bag on Superbuzzy!






My travel bag is officially on Superbuzzy! Check it out here!

I know these aren't craft related, but I thought I would share some of my pictures from Costa Rica. Mike and I went there for our honeymoon in May, and had an amazing time. I would highly recommend traveling there! We stayed on the Pacific Coast side of the country. Here is a lovely view of the Golfo de Papagayo from our hotel lobby:














This is a picture of the large iguana that was sunning itself just outside our room every morning. I affectionately named him Iggy. There are tons of iguanas in Costa Rica--we saw about 10 of them just walking to breakfast each morning. The morning was the best time to spot them. As the days warmed up, they would hide out in the shade.














Here is a picture of the sunset on the second night of our trip. We took a sunset cruise in the gulf, which was organized by our hotel. We saw lots of dolphins on this trip, and even saw a blowfish floating on top of the water. Enjoy!

Bon Voyage Travel Bag

Here is my newest bag! I made this on Saturday morning with some fabric from Superbuzzy, which I just can't seem to get enough of. The fabric is a cotton/linen mix (I think), and has a nice slight stretchiness to it. It has these cute little swirly figures printed on it in red, with an aqua airplane every so often.













So I used a sturdy aqua cotton fabric for the lining, and accented the bag with red pockets on the inside and outside. I think the red and aqua color combination is fun, and sort of unusual. I used red thread for the top-stitching and on the handles, to really bring out the contrast.















Superbuzzy is going to post a picture of this bag on their gallery page! The owners Kelly and Mariko are collecting pictures of items made with their fabrics and displaying them on their website. My Bon Voyage Travel Bag should be up soon--how exciting!! By the way, if you are in the market for some cute Japanese fabric and other sewing accessories, please check them out. They have a great independent business, and have been very kind to all of their customers. I can't wait until my next order gets here!






Bon Voyage!

Tropical Print Purse

I made this purse a few weeks ago, and enjoyed photographing it outside! I think it looks quite cute nestled up against this tree.

Here is a close-up view of the other side of the purse:

My bonus picture for this post is of the sunset last weekend. We went to the Addison Oktoberfest just north of Dallas. You can see some of the tents and attractions in the bottom of this picture, along with a lone balloon floating among the clouds. This sunset was just beautiful--even more so in person. Enjoy!

Christmas 2005 Handmade Presents

Isn't it irritating that stores feel the need to stock their holiday merchandise as soon as Labor Day is over? The holiday season keeps coming earlier each year! Does anyone really have the overwhelming desire to buy tree ornaments or gift wrap in September?! Halloween hasn't even happened yet people!

Well, regardless of how I feel about that, it gets me thinking about what I'm going to make for everyone this year. Here is a picture of the scarves that I made for everyone last year. I made 7 scarves total, for my sister, my stepmom, my sister-in-law, my cousin my brother-in-law, my father-in-law, and my brother-in-law (Those are in order from left to right).

I also made potholder sets for just about everyone I know! I sewed about 45 potholders in all! My friend Monica was a wonderful assistant, as she cut the squares for at least half of these. She was in a mode, and wanted to express herself with a rotary cutter. I think cutting perfect squares appeals to her perfectionist nature! It was fine with me--her help allowed me to make enough for all of my family and my good friends. I now have a distinct groove in my cutting mat at 8 1/2 inches. Here are pictures of the potholders:

















My sister Tracy also requested some more potholders recently, so here is a picture of the set of four I made for her. She likes neutral colors, so I used cream and linen colored fabrics with very soft prints. I took this picture in my photography class at Make, by the way!

Crafting Supplies Bring Happiness!

I have purchased or received lots of new crafting supplies in the past couple of weeks, all of which have lightened my mood after stressful days at work. First, the almost infamous hedgehog fabric from Superbuzzy!!:














I checked the Superbuzzy website patiently every day, knowing that the hedgehog fabric was going to be for sale soon. One morning, there it was! I ordered some right then, and it came in the mail last week. I got these cute little hedgehog buttons as well.

I also went on a felt-buying spree at Michael's last week. I was actually there to buy some more yarn for the blanket I am working on, but couldn't resist stocking up on these felt squares. Felt has the lovely advantage of not needing a seam allowance, and I learned to appreciate this when making my scottie dog. I plan on making some more plushies with this felt, and experimenting on some other projects. What could be better than a rainbow of felt!




This item is definitely in the same league as these! My friend Jennifer gave me this yarn keeper yesterday, and it really made my day. Right now, I'm using a big black bucket to hold my yarn while crocheting, but this will be much more compact and cute. It has a hole in the top lid, and a handle for easy carrying! Thanks so much Jennifer!














Bonus picture!
Here's Sadie again, sitting in the kitchen waiting for Mike to come back inside.

Cute and Easy-to-Make Baby Hats

It seems that I am at the age where everyone I know is having babies! Of course, I like to help new parents out by sending them stuff from their baby registry, but I can't just stop at shopping. I have to give them something handmade too! Hence, these very cute little baby hats! I used a modification of this pattern on the Bev's Country Cottage website. Instead of using single crochet, I used double crochet in both the front and back loops. This website also has a head size chart, where you can adjust the circumference of your hat from preemie size on up to adult size. The basic rule is to make the circumfence 1 to 1 1/2 inches smaller than the person's/child's head.


For the pink hat, I added a row of single crochet in seafoam green yarn for edging, and a flower in the same color. I used the free pattern at this blog, which also includes another type of flower and a butterfly applique. I made this pink hat for a coworker of mine that had a baby over the summer--I made the blue hat below for the son of my cousins-in-law, and the yellow hat for our friends' baby.











There are hundreds of free crochet, knit, and sewing patterns for baby items out there on the internet, and these items are wonderful for giving to charities. Here is a link of charities in the US where you can donate handmade items to. Most of the major hospitals also take newborn and preemie hats for their neonatal units.

Bonus Picture!

Here is my dog Sadie looking oh so cute! She is carrying a soft bone toy that I made for her out of fleece. Enjoy!

Bright Crochet Washcloths

Here are a couple of crochet washcloths that I've made recently. Washcloths are a nice project because you can try out a new pattern or technique, and finish a project quickly. This first one is from the Spring Shells washcloth pattern from the online magazine Crochet Me. This link also shows you how to crochet a matching bath fizzy bag, but I haven't tried that out yet. Sorry for the dark pictures, but these were taken before I learned my new tricks from the product photography class at Make!














This washcloth is the Bumped Shells Dishcloth pattern from the JP Fun Crochet Club website.

Both of these patterns were easy to follow and taught me something new!
I hope you all are enjoying the Labor Day weekend! Happy crafting!

Crochet Grocery Bag Dispenser and Beer Cozy


The only thing better than knowing how to crochet is knowing how to crochet things that are actually useful! There are only so many scarves that one can make before thinking, "What can I make that I can use all year round?" Here are two projects that I finished a couple months ago that fulfill that need to be practical! First, here a grocery bag dispenser that I made on in one evening while watching TV. The pattern is available for free here from The Crochet Dude. He had the ingenious idea of using two ponytail holders: one for the ring at the top, and one at the bottom to pull the bags through. This worked very well. I did add more single crochet stitches around the top ring than he called for in the pattern, just so the ponytail holder wouldn't show through.

Here is a picture of the grocery bag dispenser (aka dog poop pick-up bags) in action! I used Lily Sugar and Cream cotton yarn, and for the beer cozy too.

Here is a picture of the beer cozy that I made, using variegated cotton yarn. I found the pattern at The Midnight Knitter's site here. This pattern worked up very quickly too.

By the way, that is my lovely husband in the background there, holding the beer can!

Happy crocheting!