SBS Block #19 - Orange Windows

This is the nineteenth block in the Skill Builder Sampler series.  I've not kept up very well but I LOVE applique and had to jump back on the wagon for this one.  It looks so fancy and was really easy.  I would love to see a whole quilt out of it or maybe in a different colorway.  Here's the link to Block #19.

Tiny Crochet Star

I have always loved the tiny crochet hooks and I wanted to try and make something with it. It took a little getting used to.  I had to unpick and start all over but in the end it was quite easy.  I just had to get over the fact that I was making something miniature and just crochet like I always do and it worked out a lot better.  I love the tiny star and I plan on making it into a hair pretty for my girls.  Here's the pattern link if you want to make your own.

Crochet Crazy!

I've been going through a lot of personal stuff lately and crocheting has helped me get through some of it and keep my mind off my problems doing things for other people.  It's kind of crazy what I've ended up making in the last few months.  Here's what I'm talking about...

This is all the stuff I crocheted for Christmas presents. In the end there were 4 48" diameter blankets, 4 washcloths, 4 11" dragons, 3 chicken shaped pot holders, and 2 regular pot holders. Also not pictured was another dragon and another fun pot holder that I mailed off early.

I use cotton yarn for all my wascloths and hot pads. I can get a large cone of it at Walmart for under eight dollars. One cone made all of this stuff. Two double sided hot pads, four washcloths, and a tiny baby blanket.

Momma and Baby Chickadee Potholders

 I was looking around for fun crochet patterns and found a pattern for a momma and baby chickadee potholders at lionbrand.com and I just fell in love!  They are two different patterns.  There is the momma pattern and the chickadee pattern.  They are pretty fast and really easy to make.  I used 100% cotton yarn.

I made the set for my step-father.  They keep chickens and have decorated their kitchen in chicken things and he just loved them.  The orange is a little intense but it's all they had in 100% cotton and I wanted them to actually be able to use it as a potholder.

I made just the momma for my mother-in-law.  She says it's too cute to use and hung it on her wall.

Square Washcloth

I went off a pattern for this one (Pattern Here) but I changed it a little bit.  First off, I hated the colors, they were just horrible, and I had variegated so I didn't change colors.  It started out as a circle  for the first couple of rows and finished off as a square.  When I first started working on it I really couldn't see how  circle would end up square but I kept with it and it worked out nicely.  In the end it's one of my favorite patterns.

This is the Ivy League colorway from Peaches and Cream.

Four Fierce Dragons

I made these for my brother's four little boys for Christmas.  I've been wanting to post them for so long but I wanted them to see their dragons first.  I love how fun they turned out!  Each boy got a dragon in his favorite color.  They have gold rimmed safety eyes which work really well with each of their colors.  I just love them!  Here is a picture from all angles of the first dragon I made.  You can see it better.

If you would like to make them too HERE IS THE PATTERN.

9 Patch Quilts

 These were the third and fourth quilts I ever made.  I don't currently have pictures of the first two so these are the first recorded quilts.  My best friend and I were seniors in high school preparing to go off to college.  The colleges we were applying to had extra long twin beds so I decided to make us quasi-matching quilts that were extra long to fit the beds.  I picked a nine patch patter for both of us tied with ribbons (it was something new I'd seen and wanted to try out).  We each picked out our own fabric but the pattern matched and that was fun.  I went for mostly pastels with fun flowery and very girly prints.  All of her prints were plaids and stars.  We used sheets for the backing so they'd match the sheets we were putting on our beds.

This is my version.  My daughter now uses it on her bed.  I left the ribbons long enough to tie bows with them but she likes them hanging loose and will untie them whenever she sees a tied one so they are just knotted and dangling right now.  Excuse the file boxes under her bed.  They are our food storage and were too full of canned food to move.

This is my friends version with her eldest son loving on it.  He liked to play with the ribbons while sucking his thumb, how cute!  I love that she picked all plaid and star patterns and I think it turned out great!  This is the only picture I have of it but you can see all the different colorways and there is a cute baby loving on it so I think it's just perfect.  Plus, you can see the overall look in my picture.

Update: she sent me a picture of it on a bed.  I just love the fabric choices!

I Love My Cricut!

 My birthday was this week and my super amazing husband bought me a Cricut!  I'm so excited to play with it.  He did his research and picked out the Expression 2.  It has a fancy touch screen and two preloaded cartridges.  I have a few projects that I really need to get done right now but I keep finding myself going back to it and making quick fun little things.

I was so excited to get it open!  I suspected this was going to be my present but it was more fancy than the one I asked for so it was still a fun surprise.

My baby wanted to help me with the first Cricut cut. He was so excited when it was moving itself and I was loving seeing what it could do.

Here are my first Cricut creations. I love them. It was so fun and easy with no scissors involved! I'm so slow at cutting and even with the drama of learning a new machine and trying to figure out something I've never done before it was so much faster than I could have done on my own.

Owl Peter/Paul Quilt

 I finished the owl quilt that I'd been planning for months the night of the 10th but it was too dark to get a decent picture and the flash was totally distorting everything so I had to take them the next morning before I shipped it off to my sister.  It's a rob Peter to pay Paul design cut very very quickly with my Accuquilt. The curves took a little getting used to but by about the 12th square of 48 I was doing really well.  The owl fabric is directional and I painstakingly made sure every piece was facing the proper direction.  It was worth the effort looking at it now and seeing how beautiful it is.

Here's the full view shot of the owl quilt. I love it! I was worried that the pink would be too overpowering but I think it works.

Here's a close up of the fabric and the pattern that I used for the quilt.

Bricks and Mortar Quilt

This is a little something I've been working on lately.  I've been obsessed with Moda fabrics and I really want to make something that would show them off but still be a fun quilt.  I plotted and planned and drew all over several pieces of paper and this is the end result.  A brick and mortar like quilt with a wide boarder.  Picture this in fun Moda fabric on a twin bed.  Convinced yet?

Self-folding Hot Pad with Pattern

 When I was at my friend's house last week she showed me her favorite crochet hot pad.  It was a self-folding one that had been made years ago.  I studied it for a few minutes and I decided to go home and give it a try.  It was so super easy!

I took a ton of pictures to help guide you step by step making this. With this pattern size you can get one hot pad out of a Peaches and Cream cotton 120 yard skein.

Note: The solid colors have 120 yds per skein but the variegated only have 95 yds.  For the solid chain 35 but for the variegated only chain 33 (and it's tight if you tend toward loose crochet better stick to 32).

Supplies:
1 ball of Cotton yarn - 2 or 2.5 ounces
H size crochet hook
Yarn needle

Pattern:

Chain 33 (or 35 for solids)

Turn skip one chain space.

Make 3 single crochet (sc) in the second from the hook.

Make a single crochet in each chain across stopping one from the end.

Make three SC in the last chain. This will help you start to work the other side of the chain.

This is what it looks like when you've done the three single crochets in the last chain. You are now oriented to work on the wrong side of the chain or the braided looking side.

Simply put one single crochet in each chain space across.

You'll notice a bump at the end. You work right up until you get to the bump with your single crochet.

Once you get to the bump you've reached the three single crochets you did at the start of the last row. Do not join or turn your work.

Put a single crochet in the first of the group of three and then continue around putting one single crochet in each stitch. You will do this until it is hot pad sized.

More pictures just adding a single crochet to each stitch.

At this point my kids said it looked like bacon.

As you keep going the ends will start to curl over. This is normal and should happen to help your hot pad be self-folding.

As you keep working the side folds will get larger.

At this point I have made enough rounds of single crochet. The centers naturally come together and I'm ready to whip stitch in place. Cut a tail 24" long and fasten off.

Now get your yarn needle and sew the ends together. Just whip stitch them by putting the needle down through a stitch on one side and then back up another stitch on the other side.

Here's a close up of what it looks like sewing the ends together.

Tie a knot in the end and weave in the remaining yarn.

Here are some samples in a few other colors...

In payment for making washcloths for my friend I got this fabulous yarn! I was so excited to have Christmas hot pads on my table this year. It's funny because they are both the same yarn but I made one slightly smaller than the other and the variegation worked out in such a way to produce blobs of color. It was so weird!  The larger one I chained 35 and used the leftover yarn from this small one which I chained 30 on the first step.

These are two more I made in a different color way.  The purple, blue, and green worked really well together.

Fierce Little Dragon

 After crocheting the seal and elephant I was hooked on amigurumi.  I have my brother's family in our Christmas rotation and I wanted something cool for his boys.  I wanted them to be mostly the same with a little variation so they could tell whose was whose.  I landed on this fierce little dragon (pattern here) and I knew this was the one I wanted to do.  I decided to make a practice one first just in case I messed up.  I really want them to all be the same.  This is what came out of my practice run.  I messed up a little on the wings and I couldn't figure out how to sew on the claws on the feet.  Also I had a little struggle finding safety eyes so I had to make due with buttons.  Now I know that if you want safety eyes they cannot be found at Walmart, Michael's, Joann's, Hobby Lobby (in anything but huge black), and Hancock.  Ebay is totally the place to go.  They have so many colors and sizes to choose from it's crazy!

Top View

Side View

Front View

My little girl just loves him.  I think I'll have to make another one for us!

Spoil Me Spa Cloth

I found the pattern for this washcloth here.  It looked simple enough so I gave it a go.  The center which totally looked complex was the easy part.  In the end I was supposed to go around single crochet and when I finished that I was supposed to do a reverse single crochet in each of those.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do a reverse single crochet.  I saw many pictures and watched a few videos and tried and tried again but I couldn't manage it.  Thus it just has one row of boarder not too.  Oh well, it still looks pretty nice.  I don't like that I found something I can't do though so I may just have to practice, practice, practice.  Now I know how my friend feels that can't figure out how to crochet at all.

I like the yellow and white colorway.  In the pattern they suggested using a solid color in the middle but I like the variegated.

This colorway is so beautiful!  It's called Ivy League and it is made by Peaches and Cream.  You can find it at Walmart in a large cone for less than $8.  The green edge was a fun touch and makes it look more finished than I think the yellow turned out.

Log Cabin Crochet Dishcloths

I just love this dishcloth pattern found here.  It's so fast, so easy, and it looks fabulous.  Not only that but it also skews quilt which is one of my favorite hobbies.  Once again I used some cotton variegated yarn from Walmart.

I love the fun colors with this one too, it just looks like a happy little dishcloth.

Here's another colorway of the same washcloth.  I love how it totally changes the look even though it's the same pattern.

Here's yet another colorway of the same dishcloth.  I made this one extra-large so it matched the other two in a set of three I made for my mother.  It was easy to figure out how to add more rows once I was working on the pattern.  I think it would make a fun baby blanket either just get growing the pattern or stitch a bunch of little ones together.

Woven Hot Pad

I was looking around for hot pad patterns because I hate the store bought ones that I own and I came across this fabulous pattern.  It looked so easy yet so complex at the same time and I loved it.  My husbands sister in very into all things Celtic and I thought this would be perfect for her for Christmas.  Here's the link to the Ravelry download.  Unfortunately the author named it "Weaved Hotpad" which drives me crazy because the word is woven and hot pad is two words.

Crochet Dishcloth

 When I was trying to show my friend how to make a washcloth I figured the simpler the better since she was new at it.  I found this pattern in the back of my book called "I Can't Believe I"m Crocheting!"  It's an awesome book with really detailed picture that I often refer to even though I've been crocheting for nearly seven years now.

Here's the dishcloth with blue variegated cotton yarn.  It took the whole skein but they're tiny and cheap.  You can get them at Walmart for $1.77, I think.

This is the cover of the book I have.  I think they may have updated the cover because when I googled it I had a hard time finding this one.  I can totally see how they'd do that since this one was printed in '95.