Washer Necklaces

Another Aviator Hat

"J" hook. Double crochet in brown with a single crochet cream trim.

More Hats

Brain Waves Beanie

Outdoor Chandelier

Mini Baguettes

I'm no baker, but I tried these for the first time on Thanksgiving, and made them again last week. If you make allowances for dough-rising time, this is an easy and tasty bread.

Hat With Pom Pom

Make a magic circle, double crochet into the circle 8 times. Join with slip stitch. Ch 2. Make 2 double crochets in each stitch, for a total of 16 stitches. Join.
Ch 2. Make 2 double crochets in first stitch then 1 double crochet in next stitch. Repeat all the way around. Join.
Ch. 2. Make 2 double crochets in first stitch, then 1 double crochet in next TWO stitches. Repeat all the way around. Join.
Continue, using this pattern (2 double crochets in first stitch, then 1 double in next THREE stitches, etc.), until hat is the circumference you want.
Continue around until hat is the length you want.

Since it's a preemie hat, the pom pom is a lot smaller. I wrapped yarn around my index finger over 150 times. Trimming with scissors is how to get the ball smaller and tighter.

Preemie Christmas Hat

Christmas Beanie

Double crocheted with red yarn. Single crochet edging. White yarn pom pom; wrapped the yarn around a piece of cardboard 150 times to get that fluffiness, then trimmed it with scissors.

Limoncello

Back in April, I peeled about 15 lemons and put the peel (the yellow part only, no white) into a glass container with 15 cups of vodka. I've sometimes used Everclear, but I didn't have any this year.



After Thanksgiving, the lemon peels were all white, leaving the vodka a nice yellow color. I removed the peels, then mixed up a batch of simple syrup and added it to the vodka mixture. Since I had 15 cups of vodka, I made half that amount of simple syrup: 8 cups water boiled briefly with 4 cups sugar.




I was able to fill 8 17-ounce flasks with the limoncello, with a little left over for me, which I'm keeping icy cold in the refrigerator.

Someone at Ikea should've spotted this...

...but, appparently, it's been there for months.

Hammerhead

I took a trip to the thrift store for this costume, and bought two large grey sweatshirts, one with a hood, and a plain white t-shirt. At a craft store, I bought a rectangle of styrofoam, poly fill, and a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of white foam. Any other bits and pieces that wound up on the costume are things I had around the house.

For the head part of the costume I cut out the top part of the hoodless grey sweatshirt. I hot glued it, stuffed it, and added the eyes, then hot glued the head onto the hood part of the other sweatshirt. I drew it out to give a better (I hope!) visual.

I cut out foam teeth and attached them around the opening of the hood. I wasn't going to add the red mouth opening, but my costume wearer got a case of shyness at the last minute, so I cut an oval out of some red fabric I already had, hot glued it around the hood opening, and cut holes in for the eyes.

I cut a fin shape out of the styrofoam. I then covered it with the grey fabric from the cut up sweatshirt, hot glued it together, and then hot glued it onto the back of the costume. I cut out long strips of white t-shirt and glued them along the side to look like the gills, and cut a big oval white piece to be the bottom part of the shark's body.

Who You Gonna Call?

For this Ghostbusters costume, I bought a light tan sweatshirt from the thrift store. Then, using iron-on transfers, I applied the Ghostbusters logo onto the right sleeve and "Venkman" on the upper left chest.

The power pack is a giant cardboard box that I spray painted black. I cut an opening around one side and slid a backpack into it, creating the straps for the pack. I found a bunch of Ghostbusters decals online and printed them onto labels which I cut out and placed on the pack. Any bits and pieces sticking out of the pack are things I had around the house: old toy car tires, plastic containers, etc., that I spray painted black and glued onto the cardboard box.
The utility belt was a toy plastic construction worker belt that I found at the dollar store. I spray painted it, then attached various ghosthunting "tools" onto the belt with clips. The ghost-catcher box is from the dollar store; painted black, with yellow electrical tape on one side and a warning label that I found from a Ghostbuster site online.

The goggles are just regular safety goggles. I found this pair in the garage.

I probably spent less than $15 on the entire costume, and I think it looked pretty good when it was done.

Dorothy

Crocheted Minnie Bag for Minnie

I bookmarked this link to a cute little purse a while ago. The link isn't active anymore, so I attempted to re-create the look. The body is done in the round with single crochet. The white ruffles are clusters of six double crochets. The bag closes at the top with a drawstring.

Freezer Paper Stenciling

The camel shirt I made last week was a big hit, so I decided to make some more and improve upon my sketchy explanation of how it was done. Here goes:


After you find an image that you like, trace it onto the non-shiny side of the freezer paper. Cut the stencil out using an X-acto knife. I cut carefully, so that I would have one solid camel that I could use for other shirts.

After your stencil is cut out, position it onto a shirt, shiny side down. With the iron on its hottest dry setting, iron the stencil onto the shirt. Make sure that all edges are securely adhered to the fabric. You can't see it, but I have a piece of freezer paper inside the shirt, kind of making a freezer paper "sandwich", with the camel outline as the "filling". This prevents the fabric from pulling out of shape when you apply the paint, and it keeps any paint from soaking through to the fabric at the back of the shirt.
Once the stencil cools a bit, apply your fabric paint. Be sure to pounce in an up-and-down motion, not in a side-to-side sweeping way. This ensures that you don't accidentally shove any paint under the freezer paper. It's on securely, but I'm sure that if you pushed at an angle, you could get some paint under the stencil. If you noticed, yes, it is a different shirt. I made five of them, so I took the best pictures from each step.

Allow the paint to dry. Depending on the thickness of the paint, this could take several hours.


Once the paint is dry, carefully peel off the freezer paper from the stencil and from the inside of the shirt. If you notice that the paint wants to pull up with the paper, it isn't dry enough. Be patient and wait a little longer. The black fabric paint covered this shirt thoroughly, with no shirt color showing through, so it dried quickly.

Trying to cover a blue shirt with a solid yellow color wasn't as successful. I put on a lot of yellow paint, so it took a lot longer to dry. I had to peel the paper off very slowly on this one, because the paint wanted to stretch and pull off with the paper.

The almost-finished product.

When your stencil is completely dry, it needs to be heat set to help the paint to stay on the shirt after it's washed. You can do this several ways: you can turn the shirt inside out, put a hand towel inside the shirt to protect any bits of ink from transferring onto the back of the shirt, then iron the back side of the image. Or, you can put a handkerchief or napkin over the image and iron it that way. The iron should be on its hottest setting. Iron the image for 3-5 minutes, taking care not to scorch the fabric. I've read that some people heat set their stencils by putting them in the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, or by sticking them in the dryer at the highest setting for an hour. I've only done the ironing method, so I can't say how the other ways would work out.

Here are the stencils I made using the camels I had carefully cut out.

And here are the finished products. I waited at least 72 hours before washing, and I turned the shirts inside out and ran them in a cold wash cycle after they'd been worn. There hasn't been any fading so far.

Magnets

Camel T Shirt

I made the camel stencil for this t shirt out of freezer paper. I found a camel silhouette on the internet that I liked, which I printed and traced onto the non-waxy side of a piece of freezer paper. Once traced, I cut the camel out with an X-acto. I then ironed (with the waxy side down) the stencil onto the shirt, then pounced blue fabric paint onto the camel "negative". After allowing to dry for a couple of hours, I turned the shirt inside out and set the paint with a hot iron for 3-5 minutes.

Noah's Ark

Here's the entire completed ark. You can't see the sheep that are down at the bottom. It was a bit repetitive crocheting after awhile...that's a lot of legs to make. That's why I stuck the pandas' heads coming out of the portholes. I just couldn't take the thought of making more legs!

Noah's Ark Giraffes

Sweet little giraffes to take my mind off of the jury selection process today that included a 28 page questionnaire.

Turtles

These are a pair of turtles that I made for a Noah's ark set a few years ago.

Aviator Hats

This is a kid sized hat, done all in double crochet with a single crochet white trim.

This one is preemie sized.