Crochet elephant

After crocheting booties for my best friends baby, and a blanket that I forgot to take photos of, I was still on the crochet buzz and had been seeing heaps of cute crochet animals. After trawling through pinterest for inspiration I decided to crochet a cute little elephant.

I freestyled it, adjusting it as I went, and at one point taking it all apart and starting again when I felt it was not the right shape. I started at the trunk with about five stitches in the round, and simply increased and decreased as I went, over the head, the body and right through to the tail. As the tail was closing it off, I had to stuff him as I went as well. I just stuffed him with the innards of an old pillow I no longer needed.

The legs and ears were made separately and sewn on. And as a final touch I embroidered on some eyes using black and white yarn, and pulled some of the gray yarn through the trunk firmly to give it a cute little tilt and bend.

Baby booties

My best friend is having a baby! So I thought I'd put my crafting skills to use for her baby shower.

I've recently (over the past year) learned to crochet, so I thought I would try my hand at some crochet booties. Being the over ambitious person I am I thought I would just work off a couple of inspiration pictures from my pinterest and a basic sole chart that you can see here.

Using the sole chart and this page for inspiration I tried my hand at some baby crochet Nikes. That link has a tutorial on it, but I found it did not match the pictures. Nevertheless, with lots of practice and redoing after mistakes, I think they turned out quite well:

 I crocheted the tick separately and sewed it on to the bootie. After crocheting the white sole, I crocheted up in two pieces, one on the side and round the back, and the other for the tongue. Afterwards I sewed them together to keep the shape, but this method gives a great looking tongue to the shoe to make it look much more like a sneaker.

The second pair of booties I made are more like little boots, based very closely on this blog post. There is actually a tutorial there, so I would recommend checking it out. But I don't really know how to read crochet patterns so I freestyled it.

These were great fun and gave me the crocheting bug. Looking forward to my next baby shower!

Macrame hanging planters

After a few long months studying, then a couple more painting the house of a friend, I'm finally free for a while. Yesterday was my first day off and today I was ready to get a project done.

I had bought these tea light candle holders a few years ago thinking I would do something to them to make them more interesting. But I looked at them today and started thinking how cute they would look with succulents in them and how I had seen stacked macrame pot holders on Pinterest a while back. I couldn't find the pin I remembered but found some simple tutorials and came up with a design I thought would look good with such small containers.

     

So, here's what I did. The string was just something I had picked up cheap and was sitting on my craft table. I think there's nothing more satisfying than working with what you've got; taking what may seem to be totally unconnected, unspectacular resources, and making something worthwhile out of them. This project took me around 3 hours.

Now of course you can put anything you want in your containers - paper, plastic, or real flowers; plants; even pens/knick-knacks.

But I wanted to put succulents in. They are so easy to grow from cuttings, simply break off a piece from an already growing plant, chuck it in some soil, and water it little and not too often. This also means they are low maintenance, which is good for someone like me who tends to kill plants.

I can't wait until my cute succulents are more established! 

Happy crafting :) 

Bath mat with sheet yarn

I used my sheet yarn (see here for the tutorial) and used three colours of sheets create a striped bathmat. 

I used a simple knit stitch so that one side is plain stripes:

And the other side has cross over small stripes.

I intend to make a round the toilet mat, and a door mat using sheet yarn.

No sew sheet yarn

Sheets that are ripped or have a localised stain become unusable on beds but are ideal for making sturdy yarn.

Firstly, the hems need to be unpicked or ripped off so that all the edges look like this:

Next, cut slits into one edge, about an inch apart (or whatever size suits your project).

Pull on a tab will create a rip that can be continued for the entire length. By ripping rather than cutting it the strips will be an even width.

Each strip will look like this:

There will be some loose threads that must be separated from the strip so that it looks clean, like this:

And you'll end up with leftover thread like this:

To join the strips first make a hole in each end, about 2cm in length:

Thread one end through the other:

Fold the end that had been threaded through back onto itself:

And thread the strip through the hole on its end:

Pull it all the way through:

And pull it tight:

Repeat over and over, adding all the strips and then roll them into a ball:

Using inch thick strips I knitted it together with 6mm needles, this was a bit tricky but made a nice thick knit:

Happy knitting!  :)

Another Yarn Winding Project - Cactus

I bought this cute little cactus a while ago, but the pot it was in was nothing special, and I'd been meaning to wind some yarn around it to make it look pretty. There are so many possibilities for this crafty idea. It's just a matter of gluing as you go. I imagine I'll be doing a lot more of it. Anyway, here are the results.

See my other yarn winding project here

Saving $$ On Yarn

I love knitting but all the yarns I crave are mightily expensive. So generally I buy cheap cute colours and pretend they're just as good. But recently, a very special Aunty (Mandy, if you read this, thanks!) of mine made a suggestion that I thought was blimmin' brilliant.

The idea is to scour the charity shops (like you would for old clothes still bursting with awesomeness) and look for good quality knitwear. Most knitwear is made in pieces and then sewn together so you only need unpick it and it should unravel beautifully. I did this with a big jumper recently that cost me $15 and now I've got three big balls of luxurious glossy cream yarn.

One thing I would advise (although I haven't tried) is that I don't think this would work on mohair or the like, I know I've always struggled to undo anything I've knitted out of that sort of yarn, all the fluffy hairs get all tangled.

I was also recommended that this is a good way to get your hands on some quality buttons.

Happy hunting!

Yarn Made From Old Jeans

So I had some old jeans that had served me well but were getting holes in the crotch. I was about to throw them in the bin but couldn't help feeling it was such a waste of jeany goodness. So I thought I could attempt turning them into yarn. I'd seen tutorials for similar things to be done with old t-shirts (T-shirt yarn tutorial) so I figured why not? (My jeans were stretchy and quite thin though, I'm not sure how well this would work on a tougher jean)

The first step was to lay out a leg of the jeans. I did it so I would be cutting towards the seam. You need to cut even strips toward the seam, stopping about 1cm from the end. Do this all the way down the leg.

Opening it out along the seam it will ook like this, and the next step is to cut diagonally from the outer edge to the the beginning of the cut on one side, as I've done in the photo.

Then cut diagonally from the end of the cut you've just cut into on the previous step, to the beginning of the next cut. Keep cutting diagonally from one cut to the next, and your jeans fabric should be falling beside you in one long stream. Repeat on the other leg, then sew the ends of the two streams together.

The jean fabric didn't curl up like t-shirt fabric does so I twisted it as i rolled it into a ball, I think this will make anything I knit look tidier. I'm thinking the strong fabric might lend itself to a knitted handbag. I've got some worries about knitting with the chunky seams, I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy crafting!  :)

Paint Brush Holders

I've finally gotten around to sorting out our spare room, turning into my craft/sewing/painting room. I needed a place to put all my paint brushes so I decided to dress up some old glasses with yarn. I used a wine flute and a beer glass, so they would hold different lengths of brushes nicely. It's pretty easy and I think it looks great. All you have to do is wind the yarn around the glass, gluing as you go.