Keeping warm in style

This hat was made for my Star Wars fanatic son's 4th birthday. It was inspired by a post on craftster.org. Using double strands of wool blend navy blue yarn from my grandmother's stash, I crocheted him a beanie. My mom's stash provided the gray yarn for the trim and TIE advanced X1 (Darth Vader's fighter).


I think this is the first wearable I've given a family member. It tickles me how decent it looks and how happy he is to pull it on every time we go outside.

What a piece of junk!

My daughter wanted her own "personal traveler" for doing exchanges at letterboxing gathers, so I carved her favorite ship for her. The template I used is in the upper left. The stamped images are in silver and blue. The orange piece is the actual stamp.

Unfortunately we didn't get to go to the December gather, but it's ready for the next one.

Halloween costumes!

It was a Star Wars Halloween at our house. My daughter was the beautiful Princess Leia. My son was a jawa - he was exactly the right height.

Inspiration for the costumes came from http://www.jedi-academy.com/costume_tips.html.

Princess Leia wore a white turtleneck shirt, a white graduation gown, and a belt made from white vinyl with mirrored stickers for detail. The pink hiking boots were necessary due to the pouring rain outside.

The Jawa wore a black hooded sweatshirt and sweat pants for a bottom layer. His cloak and hood were made out of brown polarfleece. There was a visor sewn inside the hood made from a strip of plastic canvas used by old ladies to make tissue box covers. The belt was military surplus found in his father's stash. Although it was far from authentic, the polyester fleece held up to the rain better than a cotton one would.

Here's a close-up of The Hair. The pattern for the cap came from here. The all-important buns were found here. She wore the hat around the house for days!!

Snuggly & warm, and the shrug is nice, too

My daughter is always chilly in church, so I offered to make a shrug for her. This was made with Lion brand Jiffy yarn, found on clearance at Michael's craft store. She really likes it, and I'm rather proud that I made something pretty and useful.



The pattern for the shrug came from a search of online patterns. The one I used can be found here.

Passing it along

Tonight I finished a shrug I made for my daughter. Pictures will coming after vacation.

After watching me work on it over the past few weeks, my daughter wanted to try crochet for herself. I found a small ball of red yarn and a rather fat hook (K, I believe). Together we worked on making a chain. By the end, I was holding the chain and yarn while she worked the hook. Since fine motor control is a challenge for her, I was so happy to watch her crochet and get excited about making something for herself. Yay her!!!

Housekeeping tip

If you spot dust and dirt on your ceiling fan, turn it on. It's much harder to notice on a moving object.

Dum dum dummm... dum dee dum, dum dee dum

Father's Day is Sunday.

The kids have caught our Star Wars obsession. When asked what they wanted to give their father, they replied Star Wars Legos. He has enough of those, thankyouverymuch. We compromised, combining that obsession with our newer one of letterboxing. It took me two tries to get this, but I'm happy with the results. I don't know if he'll plant this in a box or keep it for himself, but I hope he'll like it.

Top picture is the inspiration, from TheForce.net. Stamp is on the lower right, made out of PZ Cut. Stamped image is on the lower left (duh).

(psst... don't say anything about this to my husband!)

My first scarf!

I want to make myself a wrap. The pattern I found called for Lion Brand Homespun yarn. My coworkers cursed the yarn, saying it was tough to use, but kindly they gave me some of their leftovers to try it out. I scaled down the wrap design to make a scarf. It's soft and warm and earmarked for Made By Hand. I'm reluctant to give it up, but I have several scarves made by my mom and don't really need another.

What have I learned from crochet projects so far? I love patterns that don't require any thought. Double crochet, chain, double crochet, chain... hit the end, turn, and repeat. Some day I'll do patterns that require counting, but for now I like the mindless repetition.

A lime green Hershey kiss?

It's a crochet hat, made with super-chunky yarn and fun fur, to be donated to Made By Hand. I giggled all through this project, working with a hook thicker than my thumb. I have enough yarn for about 2 more hats.

Archiving the 'Inspiration of the Moment'

"I think all artists--whether they paint, write,
sing or play music, write for the theater or movies, make poetry or
sculpture--all of these are first of all pleasure-givers. People who
like to bring delight to other people, and hereby gain pleasure and
satisfaction for themselves.
"I am in no sense of the word a great artist. I have always had artists
working for me whose skills were greater than my own. Behind Disneyland
was this great organization...and we were doing it because we loved to
do it. Disneyland is a work of love." --Walt Disney

(Thanks to Mark Pearce on the Inside the Magic podcast for the quote.)

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Easter presents

This is more amazing work from my mom - a purse for me and a bag for Samantha, all knitted, felted, and lined.

A hat and its friend

Here's a simple hat for Samantha, made out of super-chunky yarn, and a little octopus friend.
I am having a lot of fun playing with yarn!

Crochet dishcloths

These were some of my first crochet projects, cotton dishcloths. They were fun, a good way to practice stitches over and over again. I'll be making more of these.

Where I attempt to create

Listmom challenged the members of the FGM group to post pictures of their sewing area. Some people seem ashamed to show pictures of their mess, so I am posting mine. Since my husband was supposed to go backpacking this weekend, it's actually messier now than when I took the pictures. I do try to clean it up, putting away a thing or two while waiting for the iron to heat up, but it's pure chaos in there.

First, a couple of things you should know about the room. Our house came with something called a "hobby room" tacked on the back. It's about 12 feet wide by 40 feet long. We partitioned it with boxes and trunks into the kids' area and the grownups' area. The second thing is that our house has no basement, so the grownups' area is both storage and dumping ground for crafts, camping gear, and anything else we don't want the kids to touch.

With those disclaimers in place, on to the mess!


My sewing machine is in there somewhere.
The dresser is stuffed with random bits of crafting material, used mostly with the kids.
The closet holds fabric and all sorts of other treasures.
In the back is a "Martha Washington" chest from my grandmother. I'm a bit ashamed that it's used to hold the ironing basket.


The ironing board is in the back along with a table full of projects.
I see charms being cut, fabric ready to be sewn into little pouches, a pair of my daughter's jeans waiting to be made into a tote bag...
Can you see that flat roll of paper draped around the middle of the table? *sigh* That's my untouched FGM quilt...

A positive - the natural light here is great during the day!



And one more view of the table from another angle, including the TV that entertains me as I work and a big plastic bin of broken toys, waiting to be repaired or thrown out under cover of darkness.

Starting to crochet

I don't know why, but I had the urge to learn to crochet. I finished stitching around one little cloth that my mom started with me. Then I moved on to a second.

I also picked up a little spool knitter and started making a little snake of yarn. What is it for? I don't know, but it's relaxing to sit and fiddle with it.

Penguin pouch

Another pouch, made from Marc's jeans and an elderly neighbor's discarded fabric. The embroidery is a penguin wizard, designed by my daughter.

I didn't make this awesome sweater. My mom did.

I forgot to take pictures of the crafts I made for Christmas, so I'm including this instead. I made another jeans purse for my goddaughter, with a dolphin embroidered on the pocket. I also carved a rubber stamp to match. For my daughter's dance teacher, I carved a sun stamp, similar to our letterboxing stamp. Since their class is dancing to "You Are My Sunshine", I thought it was appropriate.