Makin' Fabric

So you may remember that I got a loom... oh... 2 years ago, and I'm just now getting to it! Click HERE to see the original post.

Well, I took the plunge and decided to give this a try. Terrified at first, I just tried a small 2" section of cloth in a plain weave to see how the process of threading the loom worked.

Here are those results...


Now, many people would probably just try a slightly bigger section and then work their way up to a larger project. But that's not really how I like to play.

I found this really great weaving book at the local library and decided to try one of the patterns.

Find it on Amazon.com HERE!

I chose the pattern on page 204 at the bottom (it doesn't have a name)

I warped the loom with a 5 yard warp that is 25 inches wide!


Stats:
Number of ends (individual threads) - 400
Hours to thread the loom - 12
Total finished width - 23 inches
Total finished length - 4 yards (yes, there is a whole yard of waste :-( )

And here is the beautiful work in progress!


I'm in LOVE with weaving! I grabbed my mom and showed her the work. Her response was "well, you have wanted a loom since you were 8!" :-)

What do you think?

Santa's Workshop

(click image for larger)

Last year Santa started delivering his gifts early... wrapped in brown paper and stamped with the postage it took to get there!

This is a really fun site to see under the tree and each person looks forward to opening these special gifts!

It's a really easy thing to do too....

1. Wrap in brown craft paper
2. Tie with twine
3. Apply stamps to your hearts content!

I do this for all my handmade gifts, so each person knows that a special gift is waiting under that simple brown paper!

Have fun with this one!

Handmade Christmas Tree #2

Yo- Yo Ornaments!

This go together SUPER fast and they are adorable!

If you know how to make a yo-yo then this will be really easy for you... if you don't know how to make a yo-yo, then this will be really easy for you :-)

Here is a video on making yo-yo's if you don't... They talk quite a bit, but it was the best one that I could find.



Before gathering your yo-yo, insert a glass (or plastic I suppose) ornament into the center. Gather the yo-yo at the top of the ornament and you're done! Each one of these took less than 2 minutes to finish.

I used a 2 3/8 inch glass ornament and cut a 9 inch circle for the yo-yo. I did the finished edge mentioned in the video, but you could do a raw edge depending on what you're doing to the ornament once it's finished.

Like I said, quick and gorgeous! Good luck with these beauties and happy crafting!

Update: Thanksgiving Cookies!

So I finally got a chance to make these cute little cookies!

The original recipe is HERE, but I had to make a few changes.

I ended up making my own top pieces since my mom is allergic to peanuts and that ruled out the original toppers.

I made a caramel center from the recipe HERE, but I only boiled it to 230 degrees instead of the 244 listed. As a result it stayed more like a filling instead of a hard caramel, so it was perfect!

Grabbing from my stash of candy molds, I used the cherry cordial molds, coating the inside with dark chocolate. Let the chocolate harden completely before adding the caramel. I used a teaspoon to drop in the caramel and then covered is right away with more chocolate.

They turned out really well. A little note on these, when you're popping them out of the mold, DON'T SQUEEZE THE SIDES!!! Several of mine broke because I wasn't being careful!

Sadly I couldn't find any gluten-free cookies for the bottoms and I ran out of time to make them. So I used OREO Fudge Covered Cookies instead.

Here they are with both pieces together...


And now with a little finishing touch!


Too cute by half and even easier if you don't have to make your pieces from scratch!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Cookies

I know we're all gearing up for Christmas... but there is one more major holiday between now and then that we can't forget!

Thanksgiving!

So to celebrate, I'm making cookies... these cookies! Here's the link from Woman's Day.


I love them! I will have to make some changes though, since my family has so many allergies to food.

Instead of using Peanut Butter Cups, I'll be making mine from scratch with dark chocolate and homemade caramel centers.

I'm so looking forward to trying them and I'll update when I'm done!

Child's Harry Potter, Weasley Sweater!

First of all, I am IN LOVE with the way this turned out! It's an adorable little sweater and it only took about 8 hours total to make!

Great gift idea for Christmas! I've made several of these top-down raglans as gifts and they fit kids from 6 months all the way to 2 years if you make the arms long enough. Just roll 'em up while they're too long, then let them down as the child grows!

Anyway, on with the info on this sweater...

So, the first sweater that I posted as a Harry Potter Sweater HERE was crocheted. Way back when I didn't know how to knit yet!

This one is knitted. This pattern is fantastic! It is a top-down raglan sweater which means there are no seams to sew up and it's all knitted in the round, so no purling!!

HERE is the pattern that I followed, with a few changes.

Changes:

I only did 4 rows of ribbing for the neck, bottom, and cuffs. I didn't want a turtleneck, but I did want just a touch of ribbing and that worked out really well!

I did not add the additional 3 stitches indicated for the underarms, which gave me only 100 stitches when the sleeves were removed from the needles.

If you've never made a top-down raglan before, it can be a little confusing. Here are a few pictures of the process that will hopefully clear up some of your questions!

This is what the raglan sleeve looks like as you do the increases.

Here are the sleeves slipped onto holder string while the body is left on the needles to continue knitting.

This is the body finished with the sleeves waiting to be stitched. If you bind the sleeves off at the step where you normally place them on the holder, this makes a really cute girls cap-sleeve shirt!

No seams, finished sweater! Didn't the raglan increases turn out well!

After finishing the sweater I did a duplicate stitch for the initial. I found a great site HERE that has charts for all sorts of fonts for the initial!

If you don't know how to duplicate stitch, this is a great video!

Duplicate stitch all finished!

Weave in all the ends and you've got yourself a Weasley Sweater!

You could do the same thing with a top-down raglan pattern for an adult sweater too... Happy Crafting!

Fun with Antiquing!

One of the gifts I'm giving is fairly large and I wanted a box that the item could be stored in.

I tried to find a really vintage looking box to go with 3 other hat boxes that I had already decoupaged. I failed.

The only hat box that I could find that was big enough looked like a giant bright red and white peppermint!


Not very vintage at all. Thankfully, I'm crafty ;-)

I grabbed some brown paint and a big brush and set to work "antiquing" the box.



Sorry for the wiggly camera work... I didn't have a helper right then!

I'm very pleased with the way the box turned out.



It will go really well with the other boxes I made... You can kinda see them in the background there, but I'll share more on those soon :-)