I recently walked down to the local knitting shop to get some buttons to finish these gloves and found some really cool ones.
Apparently these buttons are Civil War replica buttons. They are also really pretty and go nicely at the bottom of these gloves.
I managed to sew them on while simultaneously teaching “school at home” because the teachers decided to go on strike this week. I’m not letting these kids fall behind on the already ridiculously low standards of the California school system.
Six months or so ago, I was making a KnitPicks order and needed to get to the free shipping threshold. I know it would save me money in the long run to just pay the shipping fee and not get extra stuff, but it’s yarn. It’s not like it’s something I’m not going to use. There was a special run of Felici worsted weight yarns, and this color way called out to me to be turned into leggings.
I got two balls so the stripes could be the same, and then had to figure out where to start to make that happen. The leggings went very quickly, and I had plenty left over to make a matching hat.
Because of the color, I decided to make everything in a large child size.The colors reminded me of Limited Too/Justice, so I made it in that tween sort of size.
This yarn is super soft, and the best part is that it is fully machine wash and dry. The only downside is that it only comes about in limited runs. Otherwise I’d be buying a whole box of it right now. But I should probably use up some of the other yarn I have first.
Well, not the only one I gave, but the only one I made.
I had a bunch of light blue and gray Palette yarn from Knit Picks from a frogged project, so I set about making a hat at random.
At first I thought I was going to end up selling this hat, until it came time to decide on Christmas presents. I decided instead that it would be perfect to give one of my grandmas.
Once I had that in mind, I also decided to make a pair of gloves to go along with it.
I was going to wing it on the glove pattern, until I realized the book I was using the sizing chart from, Custom Knits Accessories, had the perfect pattern.
I applied the same style of stripe pattern to both the hat and gloves, a bit bigger for the hat than for the gloves. It’s my favorite way to stripe two colors together.
I’ve got a problem with buying fabric remnants. You know, those leftover bits at the end of the bolt that fabric stores conveniently wrap up and put on deep discount to clear up shelf space. I really shouldn’t let myself go near those racks. Or let my mother go near them either. I think it’s a hereditary thing.
Anyway, this has led to us having quite the stash of fabrics that are less than a yard long. I wanted to trim this down, so I came up with the perfect solution: drawstring bags.
I had followed a Craftsy tutorial many years back to make a drawstring bag that I use for projects, so I thought this would be a great use of those remnants. I mapped up in illustrator how many bags I could get out of a single yard of fabric (it is two at this 9×9 size for all pieces, including the drawstring), and created myself some pattern pieces out of plain paper. Then I set about cutting as many of each piece as I could out of each fabric.
Once I had all the fabrics I had gathered cut, I had to figure out how to match them up since there weren’t always enough to make each one the same combination. I matched everything up that I could and sewed all the pieces assembly-line style, because that is my favorite way to do anything.
I’ve only got four combinations up right now at my Etsy shop, but I am working to get more put up in the coming weeks.
I also started experimenting with some heat-transfer vinyl, but I have to perfect that method before I’m ready to do any personalization since I don’t have a cutting machine and am just using an exacto knife.
I went a little overboard in the mini-candies aisle at Ralphs a couple weeks ago. After eating a bag of mini stuffed Reeses and a bag of Hugs, I decided that the dark chocolate mini Reeses were going to become cookies. Well, be baked into cookies.
Using this recipe, the tiny chef (“I’m gonna help, because I’m a good chef!”) and I made 35 out of the predicted 40 cookies. We had a bag of 37 cups, one was lost to the tiny chef in the unwrapping process and another was crushed so I ate it, and somehow we lost the appropriate amount of dough as well…
These are super simple. You just mix up the batter, roll it into balls, cook those in mini muffin tins, and then you press the cups in right when you take it out of the oven. We unwrapped all the cups and put them in a bowl in the freezer to make that part a little easier, so they wouldn’t melt immediately on impact.
I’ve made these before with regular peanut butter cups, but the dark chocolate are way better. Maybe next time we will have to try the stuffed ones.
I came across this bright neon striped yarn randomly in Walmart one day and had to see how it would turn out when worked up. Turns out, it’s really cool. And really bright.
I made two of each, that are currently listed on my Etsy store, and have started way more. I bought five more skeins of the striped yarn, which I like more than the gradient. With each skein making about 2.5 hats, there’s a lot more in my near future. I’m already two in…
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Technically doesn’t start until a week from Friday, but that means you’ve still got just enough time to make an advent calendar. This one only took me parts of two days last week. And then waiting for the numbers to be delivered.
I started by figuring out the placement of the pockets, which are 4 inches by 4 inches, and then I created strips for each line. I folded the top edge down half an inch and stitched it with a zig-zag stitch. Next I centered the strips on the green felt and stitched along the bottom of each row before flipping the whole thing over and drawing the Christmas tree outline with a Sharpie. Then I cut the tree out to make it easier to fit through the sewing machine to sew the side of the pockets.
I sewed the lines in between and on the ends of the strips that ended inside the tree outline. I left the ones that go over the edge free until after attaching the tree to the background fabric.
Next I sewed the trunk of the tree to the background, so it would be behind the bottom of the tree.
After pinning the outside pockets out of the way, I sewed the entire outline of the tree down. Everything is sewed with a zig-zag stitch to flatten the edges.
I sewed the remaining pocket edges down and added a star for the top.
I finished the whole project off with a backing (of purple muslin because it was the only plain woven fabric I had that was large enough to cover the whole back) and a wooden dowel for hanging that was slightly too short.
I added a screw to each side, which worked out well anyway for attaching the string to hang it. I had ordered stick-on felt numbers, so all that was left was to stick them on when they arrived. Now we just have to figure out a way to hang it for December 1.
