Knit Poncho

 

 

I made this poncho for my daughter over a year ago and she still loves to wear it. She can also wear it as a skirt if she really wants to. It's adorable and doesn't take too long to make.

I also made matching fingerless gloves to match. Between the two projects I used less than one skein of yarn. I used Loops & Threads Impeccable worsted weight yarn. It's a pretty soft yarn to begin with but once it's washed, it's super soft.

Candy Corn Costume

Look at this adorable little boy!

I've seen a version of this on Pinterest and no matter how hard I tried I coudn't find a pattern for it. So I made one. Knitting this up only took a couple of days and since I used cotton yarn along with the eyelash it ended up being super warm.

I didn't take exact measurements of this but since it is like a coccoon you could make it a tad bigger or smaller and it could've fit on my almost 3 year old as a dress.

The body of the costume was actually very easy, and the hat I modified from this pattern on Ravelry. I used less decrease rounds and didn't have as severe a point, but if you want a really pointy hat, this pattern would do. I also cast on fewer stitches since it was for an infant.

Materials:
1 ball each of yellow, orange and white cotton yarn
1 ball each of yellow, orange and white eyelash yarn (white is fun fur, yellow and orange are lash max)
size 15 circular needles
tapestry needle.

Both pieces are worked with one strand of cotton worsted weight yarn and one strand of eyelash yarn.

Body:
Cast on 40 sts in yellow, join in round.
Knit for 25 rounds
Switch to orange
Knit for 20 rounds (if you don't want tank top sleeves, knit the extra 5 rows and bid off, if you want sleeves, continue)

Straps:
Cast off 13 sts, knit 4 sts, CO 5, knit 4 sts, CO rest of stitches.

P1, K1, P1, K1 on first strap
Place 2nd group of 4 sts on stitch holder.

go back to first strap and repeat P1, K1, P1, K1 for 15 more rows
Bind off

Pick up second group of stitches for straps and repeat
P1, K1, P1, K1 for 16 rows total.
Bind off

Sew straps to body, or secure with buttons

Optional:
Sew up bottom

Crochet Owl Hat

Thanks to Gail Anne Photography for the beautiful photo.

 

I made this hat for my friend's newborn daughter and I was lucky enough to have my work photographed on one of the cutest baby girls I've ever seen! After completing this hat I've decided to open an Etsy shop for my knitted/crocheted items.

I'll try not to plug my store too often but I will leave a link ^ up there for you to take a gander at anything I have for sale.
I'll also be doing giveaways and special coupon codes for my readers.
This hat can be done in many variations but I'm definitely partial to the sleepy eyes. For older babies/kids hell even adults the braids can be omitted.
I'm very excited to add more items to my store and hopefully use up that stash of yarn!

um, no one call Hoarders on me, ok?

shout out to my girl Jo-Ann!

Check out this clusterF*&K

I have a serious problem ya'll. It's the yarn, I can't resist it, I'm a crafter obsessed. I literally have a closet full of yarn and yet I can't go to a craft store without buying more of it. You know on Hoarders when they show you piles of crap with new crap still in the bag on top of the old crap. Yeah, that's starting to resemble my yarn stash.




 The thing is, I'm making projects, I'm getting things done but now I just have a bigger list of projects to make, so of course my supplies have to be in order. I'm expecting a shipment of some eyelash yarn for a very special project coming up that I can't wait to share with you.

I love closet organizers

In the mean time I'm going to be heading to Target for more closet organizers. Apparently my current set up can't contain my impressive stash. To help deplete some of it I decided I'm going to use my baby yarn and Homespun yarn to make hats for preemies/infants for my local hospital. I would like to make it a recurring donation so if anyone would like to help please let me know, I'd be happy to take donations of hats and send them along. I'm doing this for 2 reasons. #1 like I said, to put a dent in my stash of yarn that otherwise would just sit there and make room for the yarn i'll be using, and #2. I love the hospital where I gave birth at. It's a wonderful place and I would love to help them out. I know how important it is for these babies to have their hats, and I also know how much crafty moms like myself love to use those all symbolic hospital hats.
I've put my daughter's in a shadow box with her birth info. (I'd post a pic of it but I'm not taking the risk of waking her up)

So, please, if you have A&E on the line, hang up. I don't need an intervention just yet. But, I do have a lot of yarn. ;o)

Time out for a second to talk about Ebates

I don't know how many of you have seen the commercials for Ebates, but they're not kidding. I have actually gotten checks, in the mail for shopping on line. To date I've gotten over $200! Not only is ebates good for cash back, it's also great for coupons. Anytime I'm online shopping, which is quite a bit. I check there first. They have tons of stores to choose from. And what's almost the coolest part, their referral program. You earn $5.00 for each new person that signs up through you, and they always have some extra bonuses going on. For real, if you haven't checked it out yet, do so. Ebates Rocks.

Hulk Ear Flap Hat

This hat was made for my nephew, I couldn't find a pattern so I made one up. I think the hat came out pretty good

View PDF Patern Here

Linkage

Linking to my buddy Sarah's blog.

She's my hippy friend and she has a pretty kick ass blog full of useful tips and some great meal planning!

She also hosts a "Mostly Homemade Mondays" part of her blog where other bloggers can share/link up their pages.

Hop on over and take a look! Frugal by Choice, Cheap by Necessity

S'mores Cake Batter Fudge

Another pinterest inspired post.

Cake Batter Fudge

looks delicious, doesn't it? and for something that uses the MICROWAVE for dessert, I had to try it, and it came out pretty good! (although next time I will omit the frosting, it's very sweet!)

So  I decided to use chocolate cake instead and add fluff and grahm cracker crumbs to the top and this is what resulted. Came out pretty darn good and seriously, try it. your ass won't thank you but your taste buds will!

 

sorry for the ugly shadow in all of these pics, i'd make a lousy Papa-razza

Hello Kitty Hat

I made this hat for a friend of mine's little girl, she just turned 4 and had a Hello Kitty birthday party. I know it's August, but I couldn't resist practicing my new crocheting skills.

I used bulky yarn and the 6.00mm (J) hook
Base of pattern: Earflap Hat (unfortunately i can't share it because it was purchased)
Additions: ears, whiskers, pink trim and bow accent, button eyes and nose

There is a free pattern here. but I did not use this pattern, it's just what I based my final product off of. The one I did use was similar but I made some changes. I hate that I can't get more specific but due to copyright laws I can't.

I'll need to start writing my own patterns.

Cabled Dog Sweater

Before I had my daughter I was obsessed with dressing up my dog, yes I'm one of those people. Although, can you blame me she is adorable.

Yes, she had her own play gym too. ::sigh::

So naturally, i have a whole wardrobe for her, but with everything i've bought her every sweater has been too short. She's very long and lean unlike myself. so i decided to try making a dog sweater. once i figured it out it was pretty easy. she's tiny 4lbs 3oz so i used the small 24 peg loom, and some bulky yarn.

Materials:

• yarn, either use bulky or do two strands of medium/worsted weight yarn.
• cable needle (if you're doing cables, if not no biggie)
• size loom for your doggie, like i said, my dog is tiny, and this sweater probably wouldn't fit a dog much bigger than her but the pattern can be adjusted to fit any size loom!
• loom tool
• tapestry needle
• stitch markers

 This pattern is for a small/teacup dog, so everything is little!

Before you cast on look at your loom. Put the starting peg in front of you, now counting the two middle pegs go out an additional 4 pegs on each side. These 4 pegs on either side of the starting peg will be your leg holes.

Please forgive my horrible diagram, but hopefully it explains it well enough.

Click it to make it bigger!

Cast on normally and knit (all in e-wrap if no cable) if you are doing a cable down the back you need to add a purl stitch before and after your cable stitches. so on the diagram above, the stitch marker would go on the 1st and 4th peg of the cable, and make your purl stitch before and after these.

so, you've cast on and have about 4 inches done. now it's time to make the leg holes.

to do this knit your first two stitches as normal, then once you get to the first stitch that you want to cast off, follow this method.

i'm going to name the pegs A and B, A being the peg on the left and B on the right. take B, put it on peg A, so now you have two loops, knit off stitch, place back on peg B. it sounds complicated but it's really easy. then continue for the next 3 pegs until you have 4 empty pegs. after you have your 4 empty pegs, wrap your working yarn around them as a foundation for the next row and continue on knitting around the loom again until you have 6 pegs to go, repeat cast off of 4 stitches, knit last two pegs.

The round after the leg holes, knit all stitches!

keep knitting until you feel the sweater is long enough.

But wait, you mentioned cables right??

--ah yes, cables.

If you are doing cables i suggest doing them about every 6 rows. and the method i use to cable is pretty simple.

It starts with the row before, when you get to your stitch markers make your wraps for the cable stitches pretty loose, finish out the row.

Once you reach your cable stiches in the cable row (i do a 4 stitch right cross cable, you can do left if you want or add more stitches, but it does get VERY tight to work with, so i found that 4 stitches is plenty and it looks nice).

take your cable needle and pick off the two right stitches starting with the most right, place in back of the pegs.

 move over the two left stitches onto the two right pegs, placing the more right of the pegs on the far right peg, followed by the left peg.

now take your stitches on the cable needle and put them on the empty pegs, knit all 4 stitches and keep going to finish the round.

hopefully i explained that well, i feel like i was speaking another language. i'm going to try and put a video tutorial together for these methods as my diagram drawing leaves something to be desired.

Almost as important as everything else is the bind off. you may be tempted to use the bind off method i described above to finish your project but don't i tell you! it has almost no stretch and your dog will hate you more than he/she will for putting it on them in the first place.



The method i used is called the super stretchy bind off, and it is exactly as it sounds, super stretchy, it's wonderful and i'm actually not scared of most loomed projects now because of finding it.

in a nutshell the super stretchy bind off is very easy. measure your working yarn to about 3 times the length of your loom, add a little extra and cut it off, thread it through your tapestry needle.

skipping peg one, put your needle up through peg 2 and keeping the yarn infront of peg 1 so now there are 2 strands of yarn on peg 1, pull the yarn taught, now, go back and put your needle down through the top of peg 1 behind both strands of yarn. skip peg 3, go up peg 4, and back down through peg 3, all the way across until you've reached the last peg, and work back over peg 1 to make sure you have a good closure. now, be brave and pull all of the work off your loom. i'll wait...

see! isn't it pretty? and stretchy?!? good. now weave in your ends and you're done!



The final product on my beautiful model Layla

She was too ashamed to show her face

she seriously wouldn't look at me, i took at least 20 pictures

that about sums it up, no?