First up, this totally awesome hat I made for Randy. It’s my first project using two-color stranding. I’m very very pleased with how it turned out, and I think he likes it, too. The pattern is Xs and Os by Elinor Brown. The yarns are Alpaca With A Twist’s Baby Twist in Charcoal, and Camel yarn by Nomad Yarns. Camel is remarkably soft - much softer than I would have ever dreamed.

So after I finished the hat, Randy asked if I could make him a pair of matching fingerless mitts. Ha. Well, I’ll have to get more yarn…

And next, the first of three pairs of socks for an Etsy customer. This woman asked me to knit her three pairs of socks using yarn she had dyed, to check to see how it looks when knit up into socks. The yarn on the skeins looks completely yummy. I’m not entirely sure I like how this first pair turned out - the colors just aren’t me, I guess. The pattern’s a bit strange, too - the sock foot looks completely monster. But - I tried them on, and they fit just fine. The pattern is Africa’s Socks. More about the yarn in a wee bit.

This was easy and fun to make. And now I have a super fun camera strap!

Doesn’t this spider look cute? Yeah. The idea came from Family Circle. Simple idea. Make brownies in mini cupcake tins, add frosting eyes and mouth and teeth. Make legs with tootsie rolls and pretzels. Stick them in. Voila. Right?

Not quite.

What they don’t mention in Family Circle is that the little brownie guy will fall completely apart once you stick in all those legs. Really, four legs was about all the thing could handle, but I managed six on this one. It was the ONLY ONE we completed. The others, we just gave up and ate without legs. LOL.

All of my nieces are in dance classes, so this year for Christmas, I decided to make them things that might be useful for their classes. I decided to start with knit legwarmers for two of the girls. Quick, easy, and useful. Each of these projects were about 4 days, all told. And woot!! That’s at least a start on the Christmas crafting!!

The top pair (the brown ones) were knit with Lion Brand Wool-Ease. It’s washable, and it’s at least part wool. The pattern is “Flared Legwarmers” by Desiree Pelletier. The bottom pair (the purple ones) were knit with Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Superwash. The pattern is Winter Legs by Rebecca Velasquez.

How easy were these butterfly wings? Super easy.

Cut an old cardboard box into butterfly shape. Paint. Cut little slits. Thread elastic through. Elastic goes around the arms. Voila.

The bat was not hard, either. A sweatshirt plus an umbrella. Tutorial here.

This craft project was REALLY easy, and gives us actually nice-looking decorations for our dinner table

Want to make your own? It’s super easy.

Fold 2 pipe cleaners in half and twist to make the trunk. Fold the upper portion out into branches. Cut a third pipe cleaner into smaller pieces and wrap those around the branches to make smaller branches. Grab a wad of play dough (homemade or commercial) and plant the trunk of your tree into it as a base. Cut scrap construction paper into small pieces and glue onto the branches for leaves.  VOILA.

This can’t get much easier, really.

You’ll need:

Yarn. Any weight. Less than 1 ball, typically.
Needles, double-points, appropriately sized to your yarn.

1. Swatch your yarn with your chosen needles. Make a 2 inch square.

2. Count how many stitches you have in one inch.

3. Measure around your baby or child’s thigh. Subtract 1/2 or 1 inch.

4. Do some math. (stitches per inch) x (inches around thigh - 1/2-1 inch for ease)
Example: My yarn gets 10 stitches per inch, and my baby’s thigh is 9 inches around. After I subtract 1/2 inch, I have 8.5 inches times 10. I get 85.)

5. Cast on the number of stitches you got in step #4. Join in the round. Of course, don’t twist your stitches.

6. Make ribbing for an inch. You can do whatever ribbing you want. k1p1, k2p1, k2p2, k3p1, whatever.

7. After that inch, you have a decision to make. You can make the body of the legwarmers in stockinette (knit every round), or you can make the body of the legwarmers in the ribbing pattern you started with.

8. If you opted to knit the body of the legwarmers in stockinette, keep knitting until your legwarmers are one inch shorter than you want them to be. Then knit another inch of ribbing.

If you opted to knit the body of the legwarmers in ribbing, keep knitting until your legwarmers are the length you want them to be.

9. Cast off. Choose one of the stretchy cast-offs here. I prefer Elizabeth Zimmerman’s sewn cast-off.

10. Make another one.

Do you crochet? Adapt this pattern to crochet by swatching in whatever crochet stitch you think would work best for your legwarmers. I don’t crochet, and I have no idea what would work, but if you DO crochet, you ought to be able to figure something out, I would think.

Again this year, I have taken the Handmade Pledge, and I encourage each of you to do so as well. Why?

•  Handmade goods are (usually) unique. There aren’t 100 of them on the shelf at each of 200 stores around the nation.
•  Handmade goods are (usually) really high quality.
•  Most makers of handmade goods do so in their homes, as a way to help support their families. Many are work at home moms who want to contribute to the family income while also raising their children themselves.
•  Handmade goods are (usually) safer than their mass-produced counterparts. (Consider who’s been busted for lead paint in toys… the small mom-and-pop makers of toys? Nope. Mattell and the like.)

And from the Handmade Pledge website:

The ascendancy of chain store culture and global manufacturing has left people all dressing, furnishing, and decorating alike. The connection between producer and consumer has been lost. Buying handmade helps them reconnect. We created the pledge as a call to action for consumers to be conscious of how they spend their money this holiday season. We want people, whenever possible, to support independent creators and shop outside the big boxes.

This was fun. I had to run to JoAnn’s to buy something quick, and they had their Halloween candy kits on sale, so we bought one. Wally needed help with the details, but he was able to do large parts of this all by himself. We just basically had to melt the candy and put it in the mold, but if we wanted to color certain things different colors, we had to paint it in there. It was harder than you’d think, lol.

But it’s quite yummy, and we’ve been sharing them with friends and family, because we so clearly do not need this much candy!

Hat to match her mittens