Crafty Pants!

The boy works for a commercial real estate company that reps a few well known chocolate stores. As a result, I get more chocolate than any girl could ever dream of! Inspired by the Craftster Crochet Challenge I made myself a calorie-free alternative to truffles:

We’ve got a cherry cordial, coconut covered rum ball, chocolate noir,
dark chocolate covered strawberry nougat, mocha latte, mint chocolate
and dark chocolate covered vanilla. Yum!

Whoops, looks like someone already half of the dark chocolate strawberry truffle!

Challenge Entry

#8 of 50!

My brother and his wife off-handedly commented that they are “thinking of trying for kids soon.” So of course I got excited, and began planning the baby blanket! I have a multitude of very small balls of yarn all in the pastel-ish range of colors. Many are from my sister-in-law herself, and others are thrifted. Some are acrylic, some are cotton and some are ‘who knows’ (just not wool). I was inspired by the wonderful granny-along movement but I just couldn’t bear to make a granny square. They bring back memories of horrid orange-brown blankets that I just don’t want to delve into.

Instead, I’m using this as an excuse to play with texture. Each square will be a different solid color, and using a very wide range of patterns. I can’t imagine doing 50 of the same square, so I think this will help reduce the tedium. Below are my first three squares, un-blocked:

They are very wonky but hopefully blocking will help straighten that out! I have learned that I need to go down a hook size for the slightly thicker yarn, but hopefully the size difference will be fixed when they are sewn together.

I’m on a no-buy kick for the entire year of 2007 (It really works! My stash is dwindling!) but once all the squares are finished I plan on edging each in a soft cream/white color, to prevent any clashing. We’ll see when I get there.

I feel that this will be a long, but rewarding project, and will use of all my small balls of yarn quite nicely. As I see it, I couldn’t possibly finish this in 9 months, so I might as well get a head start!

This bear has quite a story to tell! His head, body and arms were made during the ridiculously long drive from Washington to New Mexico during December. I then became car sick and had to put him away. I made one leg in Albuquerque during the only 10 minutes of downtime I had. The other leg was made during January near Seattle, WA. Finally, I assembled him in April, on the east side of Washington state! He had a beret, but it’s lost somewhere in my yarn pile…

I made him using this pattern.

While this only took about two months, it too felt like the never-ending project. I started it in late January, and crocheted a few rounds per week, whenever I found any time to watch TV. I used the small-head size from the pattern Cranium. Well, either I have a very large head (actually, I’m kind of pin headed) or my gauge was pretty far off. I checked it a few times but I guess I measured wrong! It was about two inches shorter than I wanted.

So, I added a few more rounds of blo single crochet, but the hat was growing too slowly for me. My patience near the end was wearing thin. I did two rounds of regular sc, and then the round of slip stitches. I didn’t like how the slip stitch made it slightly tighter, so I ripped that row out and called it good.

Here it is on me:

My stitches are a bit wonky, and you can see the weeks where I was really stressed, and my tension was tight. I want to try the technique of “killing” acrylic to even things out, but I think I’d need a hat block for that. Instead, I think I will just throw it in the washer and dryer with some fabric softener.

Last spring I found a wonderful pattern on Craftster, and crocheted it slowly over the course of three months. It’s quite quick to crochet, but I only had time to do about one row at a time. Once finished, I realized that it needed a lining, so it promptly went into the ‘To-Do’ pile where it stayed until Christmas. What is it about ‘To-Do’ piles? They seems to be a black hole for projects…

It took me a good three days to put in the lining, because I was too lazy to sew it in, and could only glue small sections at a time. Now, it has been hanging in my room, just waiting for a picture for three months! I’m done with finals AND I finally have my camera back, so without further ado, here is my never-ending purse, ended!:

I used two shells as buttons for the closure, and a bright teal fabric for the lining.

It feels very ‘beachy’ to me, so in another two years, maybe I’ll make another in a raffia or twine;)

As usual, I am avoiding what I should be doing, and instead doing what I want. Now that I can create my own themes, I have been daydreaming about what I might want to do. To start, I want to create a beautiful hand crafted header (like this or this). I’m not very skilled with the needle but I can crochet, so inspired by these I’ve begun crocheting “Crafty Pants.” It’s quite nice to pick up the hook after a few weeks, and it turns out letters are quite simple!

As usual, I don’t have my camera (’extended’ loan) but I attempted to get a decent shot with my camera phone. Mind you, the letters are meant to be sewn down, so they are a bit out of shape. Now for the ‘pants!’

While cleaning out my room, I found one of my little gift boxes, and couldn’t remember how I had made them. However, I did remember that way back when I had created a tutorial for them and posted them online. I searched my computer and found it! I wrote this tutorial way back in 2002. The pictures are a bit sloppy, but they get the point across.

So you wanna make a paper box, huh?

You can create this box with just about any paper, but I prefer old greeting cards. The thick cardboard makes a sturdy box that (usually) doesn’t require any tape or glue to keep it together.

First, rip or cut the card down the fold. Be sure to keep the back, since it makes the bottom of the box. You can make the box as big or small as you want, but I usually use the width of the card as the dimensions of the card. Using this measurement, cut the card into a square. The center of the square will be the top, so try to center it around something you like on the card. (For this example, I centered it around Santa’s bag; there’s a small chipmunk in it)

Turn the card over and draw lines from corner to corner.

Fold each corner to the center. Carefully crease each edge.

Take the top and bottom edges and fold them to the center, carefully creasing. Once the top and bottom edges have been folded, open it up, and repeat on the other sides.

Cut along four of the creases you just made. Only cut far enough to snip both layers of paper, no farther)

Open the two corners that you just snipped.

Grab the two points to the side of one of the open corners. Bring them together as shown in the picture. Take the corner with your other hand and wrap it over the two points.

Crease the edges of the box. The four corners should meet in the center. To make the bottom of the box, follow the same exact steps as above, except make sure the square is around a quarter of an inch smaller. The thicker cardboard, the smaller the bottom square needs to be.

Once finished, you have a cute, unique box that carries a special meaning. Unfold it, and you still have the message from a loved one, written inside.

This winter got cold. Really cold. So cold, it felt like my ears would freeze right off my head! So to prevent that, I crocheted myself this ear-flap hat, as I posted about before.

I used two strands or yarn together, one soft and one sparkly. I’m not sure if the yarns were too thin, but the hat turned out far too large and airy the first try. I then went down one hook size to a N hook, but it was still too big for me. To make it warmer, I lined it with some white sweatshirt material from an old sweatshirt. That seemed to help make it fit better too. Next time, I’d go down even smaller, to an M hook.

Sorry for the poor quality pictures, my camera is out of commission for a while.

Overall, not a bad pattern. I think I need to trim my pom-poms down, they are huge!

OK, I’m not going to go into excuses about why I’ve been gone for so long. Well, maybe I am. I am a full-time student in the throes of my Senior Project. I barely have time to sleep, let alone use the computer for recreation!

All this stress has given me a bad cold, and the symptoms are making me grumpy. I’m always chilly, and my taste-buds are on vacation. I decided I needed something hot and spicy to kick some life into me. I looked though my cupboards and came up with this super easy, college-life recipe:

Spicy ‘Chai’ Recipe:

• 4 tsp. Loose tea (I used 3 parts oolong, 1 part vanilla roobios cause that’s what I had on hand)
• 1/2 tsp. Pumpkin Pie spice (this contains cinnamon, nutmeg and all spice, but mostly cinnamon)
• 1/8 tsp. Cayenne pepper (this is pretty spicy, so use less or more depending on taste)
• 4 whole peppercorns or a dash of ground pepper (optional)
• 1/4-1/2 cap-full Vanilla extract
• 1 tsp. Brown Sugar or Honey

Stir together. The tea will be sticky or wet. Use 1 heaping teaspoon to brew one cup, adding milk if desired. Store in an air tight container. Serves 4.

I just whipped this together 15 minutes ago, so the proportions might need to be changed. I just needed something hot and spicy and this seemed to do the trick with what I had on hand.It is not extremely potent in flavor, because I prefer my tea to be pretty mellow. If it is too weak, double the spices.

If you do make this, I’d love to hear how you liked it!

Is that I have been busy crafting for my local craft fair. I had been working my fingers to the bone trying to make enough stuff to sell! I did it to help out a school club I’m in, called Roteract. Roteract is a community service club on campus, and does many wonderful things to help out the community. The leftover items are being posted (slowly but surely) to my new store, Chali.etsy.com.

‘Chali’ is the combination of our two pet’s names, Chewie and Ali. After a while, we got lazy and just started combining them! Since my brother, sister-in-law and I all created items for the booth, we felt that Chali was a fitting name. It sure sounded better than “Jaronate” or “Arojesate!”

Our main item are these wonderful handcrafted wooden rings. We spent over four months just perfecting the technique for creating these. They are very durable, and really a joy to wear. They are finished with beeswax, which makes them water resistant and gives them a soft, natural sheen. We are working on finding the perfect lacquer also, but since it will be resting against your skin all day, we don’t want anything unnatural or with irritating additives.

I will also be adding the remaining scarves, jewelry and handmade greeting cards. A portion of the profits will go to continue to support Roteract!