Valentines and Hearts on a Snowy Saturday

Today we had written on our calendar “Make Valentines,” so my oldest daughter and I started working on the Valentine magnet bookmarks that she wants to give to her classmates. She had drawn a sketch of her plan for the bookmarks earlier. We went through my scrapbooking supplies and chose some red and pink cardstock. She used a ruler to draw the size she wanted the bookmarks to be so that I could figure out what size heart to cut from my Cricut Doodlecharms cartridge. We got as far as cutting all the pieces and then she took a break. A while later she managed to glue the hearts onto the bookmarks, but we will have to work on it again soon to finish it up. I will add a completed photo and some directions once we finish them, but you can find a similar tutorial for a magnet bookmark on my blog as well.

For lunch today my second grader also decided to help me. She did most of the work to make grilled sandwiches, other than the heating and flipping. To make the sandwiches special since she had helped, I decided to pull out a heart cookie cutter for the girls’ sandwiches. This is any easy way to make a simple lunch just a bit more special.

Assembly Line Work?

Generally I don’t make a whole bunch of something at once when I am crocheting, so I don’t usually make a bunch of step one, then do all of the next step, and so forth. However, occasionally I get a custom order for 5-10 of one of my tawashi and then I start the assembly line process.

This week I have been working on ladybug tawashi. I spent a long time cutting the six inch tulle in half to make it the correct width to get a good gauge for my project. I am not really good at estimating if I have cut enough tulle to do the number of ladybugs, flowers, or turtles, so I just cut until I get really tired of doing it and then stop cutting and start crocheting.

All of my tawashi start best with the tulle side being crocheted first, so I sat down and made five tulle circles one day. Well, really I made a couple here and a couple there — some while watching the news and some while waiting in the car for preschool to end. Then, I went on to the cotton side as well as crocheting the two sides together. That involved more television, more car time, and some time waiting at ballet. Last night I made all the heads and spots and today I hope to put the spots on and finish them all.

Do you make items in assembly line fashion, or do you prefer to make one item and get it finished before starting the next?

No Excuses, but some New Patterns

Capital I, version 2

Heart Tawashi Scrubbies

I really dislike reading excuses why bloggers have not posted anything new in so long, so I will just quickly mention that after two broken toes, Swine Flu, and Christmas craziness, life is finally getting back to somewhat normal and I will attempt to resume my blog.

On that note, I have managed to update the free pattern for the Capital I for those of you who want a top and bottom on it.

download now

In addition, I have a Valentine Special Limited Time Offer of a Heart Tawashi Scrubbie Pattern. You can purchase this pattern in either my ArtFire shop or my Etsy shop.

I also hope to have more letter patterns coming soon. Right now I have one being tested and hope to get a few more out to be tested this week. If you have a particular letter that you would like, please let me know and I will work on that one next. Also, I am in need of more pattern testers to help me finish my letter patterns in a more timely fashion. Comment on this post if you are interested and I will get back to you soon.

New Free Pattern for Lovely Little Letter

New free crochet pattern for Capital E

I have been thinking about which letters to make the free ones of my Lovely Little Letters. So far, I had made the Capital I free since it was simple and someone could get a good idea of the size of the letters by making it. I have finished up several more patterns recently and decided it was time to offer another pattern for free.

Suddenly, an idea occurred to me. This idea shows that I am the parent of young children. I had a children’s song pop into my head with the refrain, “E, I, e, i, O.” So, my plan is to offer these patterns for free. Right now I have the I and am now offering the E for free. Look for the e, i, and O coming soon.

The download for the Capital E can be found here:
download now

Other patterns can be found on my Crochet Patterns page.

Crafting Up A Storm and A New Spot To Find My Patterns

With letters as the decoration, of course

I have been a busy woman this month, with several letter pillows to create for customers as well as taking some time to start making some of my favorite Christmas paper crafts, as you see above. I am also currently crocheting a red letter Z, which I am very happy to do since it brings me closer to my goal of making all the letters of the alphabet.

I have also been busy getting Lovely Little Letter patterns ready for testing and sending them off to testers. I have been able to add three more letter patterns to my shops this week (K, v, D) and hope to add a lowercase m tomorrow.

One of my patterns available at YouCanMakeThis.com

Finally, I have spent the last month getting several of my crochet patterns ready for YouCanMakeThis.com, which has graciously accepted my patterns to sell on their site. I discovered YouCanMakeThis.com through a friend from church who sent me one of their newsletters. I registered and received my free patterns as well as signing up for their newsletters. Then I decided that I might try offering them my patterns. I am happy to say, after some work, they have started to offer some of my patterns on their site. You can find my patterns here.

Working on some labels

Label for a letter pillow

I am making labels for my letter pillows and have been experimenting with them this week. I went out and purchased Colorfast Sew-in Inkjet Fabric Sheets after reading about them on a few different blogs. I found mine at Joann’s but also discovered that ACMoore had them as well.

My first attempt was just black ink on the white tag and I just felt that really stuck out and was not pleased with it, so I decided to try to make the background of the tag a similar color to the pillow with white writing. I mostly like how they turned out, although seeing the tag so large in a photo makes me embarrassed of my sewing skills. Fortunately, in real life the tag is only about an inch by two inches, so my stitches are much less noticeable.

Working on Lovely Little Letter Patterns

I have been working hard on my Lovely Little Letter patterns lately. In the past several days I have been creating the patterns for a capital J, capital I, capital L, lowercase t, and lowercase o. Hopefully I will have the patterns available soon; I have a few great testers working on some patterns for me right now.

Most of these patterns are fairly simple to follow, but I want to have a tester make sure I did not put any incorrect numbers while typing them up.

For the letters like the lowercase o, I needed to take photos of each step to make sure that my pattern was very clear.

I added my capital I as a free download on Ravelry for those who want to try out a Lovely Little Letter without a commitment of money. Once you see the general idea and size, then you can check out more letters. If there is a letter I have not gotten to yet and you are interested in being a tester, please let me know.

Here is the download link for the capital I:
download now
Be sure to check out my pattern page to see which letter patterns and other patterns are available now.

Magnetic Bookmark or Row Marker Tutorial

Magnetic Bookmark or Row Marker

I had been wanting something other than post-it notes to help me keep track of my rows while crocheting and had recently purchased some cute bookmarks that inspired me to create something for my crocheting. I also just found a new contest from Cricut and TodaysMama that pushed me over the edge to make these bookmarks. I made these bookmarks using a Cricut, but if you don’t have one yourself, you can cut out cardstock and scrapbooking paper in similar dimensions. The Cricut just makes it easier and faster.

Supplies Needed:
Cardstock
Scrapbook paper
Adhesive (used both Tombo and all purpose craft glue)
Grosgrain ribbon (mine is 5/8 inch)
Self adhesive magnets

Instructions:

Pieces cut from George and Basic Shapes

1. Using George and Basic Shapes, cut two rctngle4 in shadow at four inches with cardstock.
2. Using George and Basic Shapes, cut four rctngle4 at four inches with scrapbook paper.

Outside of bookmark

3. With Tombo or other scrapbooking adhesive, attach two scrapbooking pieces to the cardstock.

Glueing ribbon

4. Flip over the cardstock and attach ribbon to cardstock with crafting glue as shown. I chose to use ribbon because I was afraid that often used bookmarks would eventually tear if the cardstock was simply folded over.

Inside of bookmark after attaching paper

5. Place Tombo or other scrapbooking adhesive on the back side of the scrapbooking paper and then attach as shown to the cardstock.

Attaching magnets

6. Peel paper from magnet backs and attach to the inside of the bookmarks. I cut the magnets myself from a sheet of adhesive magnet purchased at a local craft store. These magnets are not especially strong since they are not necessarily meant to be attracted to themselves, but work fine for bookmarks or row markers. I am searching for a source for a stronger magnet for future use.

Putting my row marker to use

7. Put your bookmark or row marker to use. I keep mine busy with my crochet patterns.

I have also made bookmarks with Doodlecharms’ cards and the tiles from Going Places. These were used as teacher gifts at the end of the school year. I placed the decorative paper behind the cutouts of the Doodlecharm cards and Going Places. These were solely to be used as bookmarks, not row markers, since they were not long enough to mark the rows well.

ASL sign for the post:To sign book, pretend your hands are a closed book and open them.

A Triple Discovery In Our Neighbor’s Yard

On Memorial Day my husband and kids decided to try to go fishing in Bull Run. Unfortunately the mosquitoes were biting like crazy and they did not have much luck with fish. On the way back to our yard they made a great discovery that made the trip worth it. It was raining quite a bit and something caught their eyes as they headed for our back gate. They discovered three fawns in the back of the neighbor’s yard. One of them probably flicked its ear to get a bug to fly away, or they may never have even seen the babies.

The girls came rushing into the house, extremely excited to share with me. I went out and got to have a great view of the three fawns doing just what their mommy taught them—-to stay very still and hide until their mom comes back. Later in the day we happened to catch site of them following mom deer off into the woods. If I had not seen them earlier in the day I probably would not have realized what I was seeing.

To sign deer, put your open hands on your head, with thumbs touching your head, like they are deer antlers. Check out lifeprint for a photo of the sign.
Be sure to click on the photos if you would like a little better look at the deer.

Designing a New Tawashi Crochet Pattern

preliminary sketch ideas

Since I have been learning to design my own patterns I have found that I work in a few different ways.  In the case of my tawashi, I have been mostly working with the same circular base and then making new designs that incorporate that as the beginning.  I do this because the circular part is the useful part of the design, the portion that will do the real work of the tawashi.  Then I do the add ons that make it look like a cute shape that turns into some type of animal or bug.

I realized I had a fish and a seastar, so I wanted to add one more sea creature before moving on to another theme.  This way I can have a set of three patterns available at some point.  In addition, my mother in law likes seahorses, so she would probably like a set of seahorses for her kitchen.  She might just hang them for decoration, but hopefully she will use them.  (Maybe I should make a special set for her that have a center circle big enough to use as a coaster….)

some bits and pieces of my chicken scratch

As I create my idea I sit with a notepad and pen next to me, stopping every few stitches to write down what I have done.  Of course, this also results in lots of scratching things out as I frog ideas that are just not working.  In addition, I have my own little shorthand that would make very little sense if I handed it off to someone else to try to make something.

Seehorse in progress

Once I make one of the item I generally make it a second time following my chicken scratch, making notes as I go.  Then, I type it all up, add some photos to make it  more clear and prettier and have it tested again.  Usually I test it at least one more time based upon the typed version and then ask someone else to test it for me.  Since my testers work for free (and a free pattern) it sometimes takes a while for my patterns to make it into my shop.  I am trying to figure out a way to keep track of several patterns being out with testers at once, but have not gotten that organized as of yet.