Category: Crafts

Bathroom Caddies

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I have a lot of toiletries. Lotions, toners, toothpastes, etc. And I use something different at night than in the morning. Sharing a bathroom with a little one who still puts everything from the floor directly into his mouth, I can’t exactly leave these things in the cabinets because that would put them directly at his level and I’d find him drinking lotion at some point, I’m sure.

That lead me to the solution of keeping everything on a shelf in my closet out of reach of tiny hands. But, I needed an easier way to transport everything back and forth without dropping something in the hallway and waking little bear up right after he goes to sleep.

Tada! Bathroom caddies. Nesting bathroom caddies, in fact. See, I started with a nice little roll for my toothbrush, toothpaste, and flosser:

Created a slightly large holder with handle for my facewashing things for the morning:

Then made a rectangular box with handles at each side to hold everything together:

Now I just take out the parts I need and have a handy little way to carry it all back and forth. The morning one worked really well today. Plus, they hold all my stuff on the shelf very nicely, even when it refuses to stand up.

Souvenirs For The Feet

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Remember way back in June/July when I went to France? Well, in the small town we stayed in for our second week, there was a yarn shop, Au Fil et a Mesure, just a few blocks down from the house. Since I had much more down time there than in Paris (because there aren’t so many places you just HAVE to see in a small town), I decided to pick up some yarn and needles.

Sixteen balls of DMC Natura and a set of sock needles, to be exact. I decided my souvenirs would be socks made of French yarn on French needles. I had already picked up some wool to make Cassy’s Zooey hats for my mom and I while I was in Paris, but that project would have been a bit involved to pick up and put down whenever I had a few free moments.

So I set about making Cassy’s Earlybirds (btw, Cassy blogs atKnit the Hell Out and designs some amazing things that I just happen to be mildly obsessed with.) for four different people in four different colors. Not all at the same time of course.

I made mine in green:

Reddish-purplish for Mama:

Blue for Terry:

And purple for Gaga:

(Clicking on the pictures will take you to their respective project pages. Which should eventually be all updated with the specifics of each sock.)

It’s been a long time since I had made socks before I decided to do this. These were also the first time I had made socks in actual sock-weight yarn. Before they were out of some awful acrylic stuff like I was using to make everything at that point because ALL my yarn came from Wal-Mart. Not like there was much of anywhere else to get it where I started knitting anyway.

Even the heels are cute in this yarn. The only thing I did majorly different from the pattern is using a cable needle on the cables. I knit pretty tightly and was having a terrible time trying not to pull the stitch out while it was dropped. I still like making gloves better, because they seem to take less time, but I think I may be warming up to sock-making in general.

Minions Gone Purple

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I’ve written before about making minions. The yellow ones are easy. They have a smooth, jelly bean or pill body with overalls that take up about one-third of their bodies. But when they turn evil with the PX-41 in the second movie, it gets more difficult.


Comparison picture from Despicable Me Wiki

They get kind of fuzzy, with crazy hair and wonky teeth. Hmm, fuzzy. You can see where this is going, right?

That’s right, needle-felted Evil Minion. I started with some plain white wool to create the base of the body. Then I mixed two different colors of purple to get the color close and made a second layer around the body.

I made the overalls out of blue, and some teeth out of white. I made a flat piece for the bottom jaw and put the teeth on the inside of the mouth. The eye was a ball of white and a smaller ball of black in the center with a combo of black, white, and light blue for the goggles.

I added long tubes for the arms and legs, then lightly added the fluffy hair.

With those skinny legs, he doesn’t really stand up. But he sits pretty nicely leaned up against something else. Once they’ve been turned evil they aren’t exactly the helpful kind of minion anyway, so it doesn’t matter if he stands up at all. 🙂