Gray Beret.

This was actually the first hat I ever made. I found it in one of my drawers of winter accessories. I figure I may as well post pictures of it because I love the lace pattern up the sides of the hat. Unfortunately, I don't look that great in berets. I simply made this hat because I liked it. So I suppose the lesson to be learned is only make something if you will actually wear it!

Easy One Piece Slippers

I made a bunch of these easy slippers as Christmas gifts this past year. I started knitting Christmas presents in August! I made this pattern up because I wanted something that was easy and only needed minimal seaming. This was the perfect solution.

This pattern can also easily be changed to adjust how high it comes up the ankle. You can fold down the top to make them shorter as well. I also am going to try not seaming the whole front of the leg part so that they will be more like ankle length but with the flaps that fold down, like this:

Now onto the pattern!

Easy One Piece Slippers

Sz 11 needles

Bulky weight yarn

Cast on 50 stitches.

Knit for 5 inches.

Cast off 13 stitches for the next 2 rows

Cast off 2 stitches for the next 2 rows

Knit for 3-4 more inches (depending on sz of foot)

Next row k2tog

Knit to end

Sew end shut with tapestry needle. (like you would to the top of a hat)

Seam up back and front of slippers.

Twist Scarf

I love the twist design on this beautiful scarf! This is knit with a khaki colored cotton blend yarn that is perfect for summer. Although it is not quite finished, I plan on finishing it soon. This was originally going to be what I made my sister for her birthday. I ended up making her this wildly popular headband. Maybe I can save this for the next holiday where I need a quick gift.

Anyways, onto the pattern!

Twist Scarf

Cast on 28 stitches onto sz 9 needles.

Row 1: Knit to end

Row 2: K1, *Twist2, P1* repeat from * to * till end of row

Row 3: K1, P2, K1 till end of row

Continue to repeat rows 2 and 3 until scarf is desired length. Cast off.

Twis2 stitch: insert needle into 2 stitches as you would with a knit 2 together. Pull yarn through but do not take stitches off left needle. Stick left needle back into first(top) stitch wrap yarn over needle as you would a regular knit stitch and pull both stitches off left needle.

I know this stitch sounds slightly confusing. If you have any questions, comment!

Lace Scarf

Here is a scarf I am in the process of finishing. Well to be honest I started it a long time ago and in my new quest to finish the basket full of whips I pulled this out. Unfortunately I started this so long ago I no longer have the pattern. I also do not remember from where I got it. After examining it, I believe I can finish the scarf without too many problems. I will make sure to take pictures of the finished project!

Problem Solved

Now I realize this doesn't look perfect, although it does look pretty darn good in the picture. It is probably the best I can do at this point. I cut through a lot of rows so it was quite a bit of work to get this to all come back together in a way that would be wearable. You can still tell that I cut through the piece because there are a few knots in the back. Luckily, no one can see the back when I am wearing it.

It was definitely a good idea to put this down for a bit. I was quite mad at myself when I did this and probably wouldn't have done anything else productive with it. So lesson learned, when you mess something up and are really upset, put it down and pick it up when your in a better mood! You will get better results.

Big Sweater Mistake

As you can see, there is definitely something wrong with the sweater here. Unfortunately, due to somewhat unclear finishing instructions, I sewed one of the panels on wrong. In my frustration, I took a seam ripper and was pulling the panels apart. One slip of the hand and a few aggressive tugs on the pieces later, I have that mistake. I am putting this down for a few days so I can regroup and try and fix this. I have put a lot of time into doing this sweater so there has got to be a way to fix it.

C3PO Golf Club Cover

Here is another addition to the Star Wars Golf Club Covers I have been doing. I did three villains and now I felt it appropriate to do some good guys. Chewbacca was the first one that I did and C3PO was the second. R2D2 will be following up shortly.

First take the standard golf club cover pattern of mine here. Then use the double stitch pattern below to give some life to the character.

The other Star Wars Golf Club Covers I have done:

Chewbacca

Stormtrooper

Boba Fett

Darth Vader

Crochet Market Bag

I started this market bag quite some time ago. I put it in one of the forbidden baskets of half finished projects. I really have been focusing on finishing all of the projects that I start so I have been trying to pick up some half finished projects. I picked this project up because the idea of a market bag is always nice because they can be used for so many things, including a beach bag :) It made me feel like I may need a beach bag soon so I should get to finishing this. I also love the diamond shaped pattern in this bag. It so far looks beautiful!

I am a little unsure of the large increases right at the beginning. It doesn't seem like the bag will lay out the way I thought it would at the bottom. I suppose it will look differently once everything is finished and as you can see, I haven't gotten all that far.

Sweater Update- Blocking

I have never blocked anything before. So I guess that means another first in this sweater project! I set the pieces out on Wednesday and left them till yesterday to make sure that they were totally dry and ready to go before I unpinned them.

Overall I would say that it turned out well. I still had a little bit of curling at the bottom of one of the pieces, but that was most likely an error on my part. Still I will definitely block other pieces in the future. I have now seen how it can transform pieces and cover some mistakes.

Next Step: Seaming.

Craft Room Necessities

I currently do not have a craft room at my house. I do however have what I call my crafting corner. I have decided to start getting together ideas of items that will be included in my craft room. I have read multiple articles about what people want and need in their rooms but everyone has their own preferences. While browsing the internet, I ran across this article about building a lightbox. This combines my love for cheap diy projects and anything that will benefit my photography skills, in turn, benefitting the blog.

So check out this article and hopefully soon I will have pictures of one that I built!

Chewbacca Golf Club Cover

Here is another installment of my Star Wars themed golf club covers. This one is styled after the lovable Chewbacca.

I used fun fur as well as the acrylic yarn to get the furry look. Then I simply used blue and black yarn to double stitch in a mouth and eyes.

This club cover is special to me because it was made with vintage yarn from my grandmother. My mom gave me some of her old crochet hooks and knitting needles as well as a few skeins of yarn. I really liked this color brown and I was glad to use some of it for this project. I am keeping this set for myself or for one of my brothers in case they ever decide to start golfing.

Here's the pattern to make this club cover. The only difference is you need to add in the fun fur for the top section where you do knit only rounds. I used blue yarn for his eyes and black for his mouth. Here is the double stitch pattern. It is quite simple but I figured I would include it to make it easier.

Simple Crochet Flower

Here is one of the crochet flowers I previous posted the pattern for here. I just love how these flowers look even by themselves! You could add them to almost any knit item. Including purses headband or even scarves.

I put this flower up on etsy as well, here.

Arthritis and Knitting

I am sure many of you knitting girls (or guys) out there have been told that you are going to get arthritis from all of the knitting you do. I myself have been told this a few times. Although there have been times where I have had wrist pain and have had my fingers cramp up.

There are many people that focus on the damage knitting can potentially do to you, but what many people don't take the time to notice is how knitting can benefit you. There have been multiple people who have said that knitting has helped their arthritis. This is because knitting is used as exersize. Some people have also claimed that "warming up" as you would in sports helps ease the pain at any age. Stretching the muscles in your hands and wrists and soaking in warm water to ease the tension are two things that people do to help them prepare to knit.

So while some people suffer from arthritis and cannot knit, it may help others! The article I linked below has a few more ideas for people who knit and crochet but are having a hard time.

http://www.arthritistoday.org/daily-living/do-it-easier/around-the-house/arthritis-needlework.php

Let me know if you guys have any other tips or stories about knitting and arthritis.

Stash Basket

I found this really quick pattern for a stash basket and decided Sunday night I needed to find a quick project to break up some of my bigger projects. I decided on this. I loved the idea of this little basket. There is also a medium sized one. It's very easy to customize different shapes and sizes to get the look you want. Only took me a few short hours while watching a movie to finish this.

I posted this on etsy if anyone is interested. I posted it with different pictures so check it out here.

I anyone wants the pattern click here.

Enjoy

Loop n' Lace Tutorial

Now it's time to put everything together! I got the idea off a technique not commonly used called loop n' lace. I took the basic idea from that technique but I needed to figure out a way to connect the corners. That was a little tricky.

I started in the top right corner and laid out all of my squares according to my above pictures chart. Go up to the square in the top right and begin to loop n' lace in between squares 3 and 4 going down. In order to do the loop n' lace technique you take the ch 10 loops and the ch 15 loops and keep them separate. It is important to remember that the ch 15 connect to the square across from it and the ch 10 stay on the square to which they are attached.

Start at a corner and I always begin with the ch 10. Take the top chain and loop then ch 10 below it through the first ch. Then you take the third ch 10 and loop it up through the second ch. Continue to the bottom of the square and repeat of the other square.

Then move onto the ch 15. Take the ch 15 on the left side and slide the ch 15 on the right side through the ch on the left. Then loop the second ch 15 on the left through the first ch on the right. Continue all the way to the bottom of the square.

The corners are the hardest part of this process. Mostly because I didn't use an exact science to connect the corners. There however are a few things that are important to remember. First of all, make sure you are lining up the squares. They can shift during the process. Second, you will need to use some of the loops twice in order to create the effect through the corners.

The technique I used was to keep the ch 10 on the top and continue to ch 15 underneath the ch 10. I also made sure That I started in the top corner and worked from top to bottom and right to left.

Loop' N Lace Blanket Pattern

I have previously posted pictures of the baby blanket for Baby Carter. It was the Michigan color themed blanket but can be made in any colors. I have even thought of doing some double stitching for logos on the squares. At any rate, here is now I did the original blanket.

First I made the 16 squares.

Size 8 needles. I used circular but that's simply a preference.

Cast on 30 stitches.

Row 1: K to end

Continue in row 1 till you have a perfect square. What I did instead of counting rows was simply pull the corner of the cast on edge up to the opposite corner. If everything lined up correctly then I would cast off.

This square is obviously not a complete square. But that's the very technical way I used to tell if it was a square haha.

Easy so far right?? Here comes the fun part!

Now you have to take all 16 squares (or however many you choose to do this pattern allows for a lot of customization) and crochet around the squares.

I started by making a simple chart of where the squares where going to go on the blanket because depending on what square depends on how you crochet. Also a very technical way to do this. Sharpie and a scrap piece of paper gets the job done!

Squares 6, 7, 10, 11. Start with a slip stitch in one of the corners. Chain 15. Slip stitch back into square. Chain 10. Slip stitch back into square. Continue all the way around the squares and tie off at the end.

You want all of your squares to line up with the rows and columns facing the same way so after doing the middle squares I did the corners.

Squares 1: Only ch 10 across the top and the left side of the square. Alternate between ch 15 and ch 10 on the other two sides (just like you alternate in the middle squares).

Square 4: Only ch 10 across the top and the right side of the square. Alternate between ch 15 and ch 10 on the other two sides

Square 13: Only ch 10 across the bottom and the left side of the square. Alternate between ch 15 and ch 10 on the other two sides

Square 16:Only ch 10 across the bottom and the right side of the square. Alternate between ch 15 and ch 10 on the other two sides

Square 2, 3: Only ch 10 across the top. Alternate between ch 15 and ch 10 on the other three sides

Square 5, 9: Only ch 10 across the left side. Alternate between ch 15 and ch 10 on the other three sides

Square 8, 12: Only ch 10 across the right side. Alternate between ch 15 and ch 10 on the other three sides

Square 14, 15: Only ch 10 across the bottom. Alternate between ch 15 and ch 10 on the other three sides

Now you need to loop n' lace everything together! I will have a tutorial about how to do the loop n' lace in an upcoming post!

Patterns on Google Docs

I have decided it might be a lot easier for some people to download my patterns through google docs. I am getting to a place where all my free patterns will have a link where you can easily print the patterns without the pictures. Hopefully this will help some people out a little.

Right now, some of the more popular patterns are up on my google docs. Simply go to that post and either click on the header of the post or on the enclosed link.

Today's Letdown...

Which can however, be remedied. I finally finished baby Carter's baby blanket. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the finished project. So I happily gave them the blanket Easter Sunday at church and on my way home realize my little mistake. Hopefully, I will remember to bring my camera next time I see them. That way I could even get a picture of the little guy and the blanket!!

Crochet Flower

I have a few people ask for the crochet flower that I used with my headband. It is a very easy crochet flower I whipped together very quickly. Doing the multiple DC in the same ch 1 creates your standard shell stitch. Basically all I did for this pattern take a basic crochet stitch and use a tapestry needle in order to sew it together.

Flower

I used a sz J hook

Chain: 17

Row 1: DC in 5th ch from hook *ch 1, skip next ch, in next ch following skipped ch DC, ch, DC* Repeat till end of row

Row 2: Ch 3, turn. DC 5 in ch 1 space *SC in the ch 1 sp, 6 DC in next ch 1 space* Repeat till end of row.

Leave a long tail at the end in order to have enough yarn to attach the flower properly.

If you click on the header it will take you to the google docs page where you can easily print!

Hope you enjoy this! Let me know if there are any questions.