Creativity

Cold Little Fingers

Categories Creativity, How Tos, Humor, Sewing1 Comment on Cold Little Fingers

Another week, another snow storm.  If your household is anything like mine many of the hats, mittens and gloves from the previous cold season have either been outgrown or have fallen into that black-hole that all laundry rooms seem to have.

I had a mad search for warm hand gear for my boys after our most recent snow storm. I found some good ski-gloves that still fit my oldest, but all I could find for my youngest was a pair of polar fleece mittens.  He loves to play in the snow, but is not terribly fond of how cold his little fingers get when his mittens get wet. 

I decided that he needed some wool mittens, which stay warmer when wet than polar fleece. I knew I wanted the fabric to be felted to allow for a bit better water-proofing, but I didn’t want to crochet the mittens and then felt them.

I grabbed my box of left-over felt pieces from when I was playing around with felting thrift-shop sweaters.  I remembered I had a couple of felted sleeves that I thought would be ideal. What I really loved about these sleeves was the rolled detail at the end of the sleeves.

Of course for this sewing task I needed a pattern. I drew around my little guy’s hand, then sketched some shaping.  I wanted to utilize the fold in the side of the sleeve to minimize the length of the final seam, so I did some manipulating to create a straight edge along the side opposite the thumb.

Then I turned the sleeves inside out and traced my pattern piece on the felt with a marker. Once that was done I cut out each mitten.

I used some sharp-pointed scissors to trim out a 1/4 inch of the cording in the cuff trim so the edges could be finished cleanly.

I dug out some matching thread and using a tight whip-stitch sewed an 1/8″ seam around the cut edges starting at the folded side of the mitten.  To be sure no gaps would develop along the seam, I overlapped my stitching whenever I had to re-thread my needle.

I used a simple mattress stitch to enclose the raw edges of the corded trim on the cuff to create a smooth join.

Voila’ a wonderful pair of mittens to keep some cold little fingers warm.

It’s the Great Pumpkin!

Categories Creativity, Crochet, Kid ProjectsLeave a Comment on It’s the Great Pumpkin!

Okay, we all know Charlie Brown never really saw the Great Pumpkin, but I always loved Linus’s faith in the idea.

And I love Halloween, Jack-O-Lanterns, Pumpkin Pie and all things pumpkin related. So of course there has to be some pumpkin crochet in my life.

First let’s take a look at some of the wonderful fun crochet pumpkin patterns out there. If you are a Ravelry member, use their pattern search to find loads of marvelous pumpkin patterns, clearly I’m not the only pumpkin fan. You can narrow your results by using “Pumpkin” “crochet” and checking the “toys and hobbies” category in the advanced search function.

One of my faves is this lovely little pumpkin from Planet June created by the talented June Gilbrank. Which can also be made into an adorable little Jack-o-lantern.

Or the Pumpkin Time Garland by Karen Wiederhold (note: she is from the UK but it looks like her pattern instructions are in US crochet terms). I think adding some face pieces to these pumpkins could create a fun garland for a Halloween party, but left plain they would be great for a decorative garland at your Thanksgiving feast.

Of course with the busy Fall we have been having here I didn’t have time to crochet up any pumpkins.  Instead I stuck with our tradition of carving real pumpkins on the day before Halloween.

Yesterday I got out the box of carving tools and my boys and I started working on our pumpkin art.

The boys were a little grossed out by the slimy “guts”.

So Mom got the job of cleaning out the gooey stuff and separating out the seeds.  The seeds will be cooked up tomorrow for a tasty snack.

Once the pumpkins were ready to carve things got too crazy to photograph the process, but we ended up with 2 gorgeous pumpkins.

They will look very nice with our window display tonight.  Being the temperatures here on Halloween tend to dip below freezing we put our pumpkins in the front window with lights in them.

Happy Halloween Everyone.

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Super Bean!

Categories Creativity, Humor2 Comments on It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Super Bean!

What do you do when it there are only 10 minutes before you have to leave to take your children to a birthday/costume party and the super-hero cloak has gone missing? If you are me, you get creative. 

I knew there was not time to get the sewing machine fired up, and crocheting something was out of the question as well (I mean, I have a very fast hook but even I can’t crochet a cape in 10 minutes).

Super Bean insisted that the cloak had to be blue. Fortunately I had a couple different blue micro-fleece pieces of yardage on hand.  Micro-fleece would be ideal as it doesn’t fray and all I would need to do is cut out the appropriate shape. He picked out the blue he liked and I was off.

Quick mental calculations ensued. How could I shape this so that it would have some good flowing cape properties? And so it would not strangle my beloved “Super Bean”.  There wasn’t time to sketch or measure…this was going to be true seat-of-the-pants engineering.

Because time was limited I didn’t take pictures of the process.  But the negative space in the photo above gives you an idea of how the cape was cut out. 5 minutes later, a bit of face painting and Super Bean was off to his party ready to leap tall buildings and demolish birthday goodies.

When he returned from the party I was allowed to spread out the cape and take a photo.  It clearly stood up well to all the rigors of the party. It is now a beloved new addition to the costume box.

And Mommy is the real super hero of the day.

Snow Day!

Categories Creativity, Humor1 Comment on Snow Day!

One of the joys of living on a mountain in Colorado is that one never knows when winter weather will arrive.  Oh sure, on the calendar it says that the first day of winter is officially December 21st or 22nd. 

I’m here to bear witness that on my mountain it is definitely a few months earlier.  As proof I offer the these photographs taken yesterday afternoon on my deck and in my front yard.

To give you an idea of how deep the snow was on my deck railing I included an orphan 14″ knitting needle in this shot. That knitting needle hasn’t been knit with as it is destined to be turned into a Tunisian crochet hook someday in the near future.

This is a favorite tree of mine in our front yard, so I had to go out and attempt a rescue before the snow load bent it to the ground.

It blooms with lovely sweet-scented white flowers in the spring that later turn into orange-colored berries. I always know when we have had our first significant freeze because the berries turn bright red.  It is also one of the few trees on our property that puts on a proper color show in the Fall.

My rescue efforts did help, though there were a lot of leaves on the snow once I was finished. I also got a face full of snow during the rescue operation, next time I use a longer broom.

A little artistic appreciation, even with frozen fingers.

Now, don’t you feel like curling up under a comfy crocheted afghan to stitch away on some snuggly slippers or mittens? 

I think I need to hunt down that lovely alpaca/wool blend yarn I was planning on using for some mittens for me. 20F temperatures while I was digging a path and rescuing trees made me really wish I had made them already.

Packing for Chain Link

Categories Creativity, Crochet, Humor1 Comment on Packing for Chain Link

Packing for my annual trip to the CGOA Chain Link conference is always an interesting experience.

First I need to choose a minimal amount of clothing.  I want to have plenty of room when heading back to fit all the wonderful yarn I won’t be able to resist.

Then choose crochet items to go with clothing.  Why haven’t I made more stuff for myself lately?!  Ugh!

Look desperately thru sketch pad and stash for quick projects and yarn to make up a few nice items.   Get lost and distracted by the stash, the sketch pad and the stitch dictionaries.

Completely cover guest bed with the various items I want to include.

Re-discover pieces I forgot about, check to see if any will work for this trip.  Realize that I’ve got 10 more ideas I want to create proposals for to bring with me.  Realize there are only 5 days left until I leave for Greensboro.  Run around in circles screaming with waving arms, frightening the cat and amusing the children.

After finished with above exercise resume packing in a calm and orderly manner.  Make sure not to forget the chocolate.

In the Beginning

Categories Celebrating, Creativity, Crochet4 Comments on In the Beginning

I love teaching others about crochet and how to crochet.  I love it because teaching new crocheters (or mostly new crocheters) brings me back to my own beginnings playing with yarn and hook, as well as giving me the opportunity to look at crochet with fresh eyes.

During this summer’s school break I have been teaching crochet weekly to one of my son’s school friends and her grandmother (who knew quite a bit already).  My young student had been taught some of the basics from her grandmother, like chaining and single crochet stitch.  We have been playing with shaping in crochet and working in the round. 

It has been so exciting seeing this young lady take-off in her creativity with crochet.  She even sallied forth and made a hat without any pattern.  I was so happy to see the results of her experiments.

This fall the 3 of us will be organizing a Crochet Club as a weekly afterschool group for other students and community members to play with hooks and yarn. 

I hope for those of you that crochet and knit that you give yourself the gift of sharing your hobby with others every chance you find.  It is a fabulous confidence builder for everyone to be able to create something with their own hands as well as being a skill that they can pick up again at any time.

Then you too can delight in returning to your own stitching beginnings and gain new excitement and understanding of your craft.

If You can See It

Categories Art Projects, Creativity, Crochet7 Comments on If You can See It

One of my creative passions is sculpture.  I love to make 3 dimensional shapes. Doesn’t matter if it is yarn, clay, wood, wire, paper mache’, polymer clay, or some random combination of all/some of those.  Visual inspiration for my sculptures can come from anywhere.

Like this lovely little blue glass bird that I inherited from my maternal grandmother’s estate. I had always adored it as a little girl.  

My grandmother was a formidable woman, tiny, but intense.  She owned an antique shop that was housed in 3 buildings on her farm.  The buildings were large and primarily filled with furniture. 

Staying at her house was always interesting. The interior of her house was filled with lovely glass, crystal, artwork and antique furniture. It was a bit like being in a museum.  A museum where you are not allowed to touch anything.

But for some reason I was allowed to carry this little bird around. There was something about the weight and fit of it in my hand that gave me, and still gives me great happiness.

For my recent bird house art project I decided I would use it as inspiration for a bird to live in my bird house. I didn’t have a pattern for making the bird and knew I needed to work quickly because the deadline for the bird house to be delivered was coming up quickly.

It was time to brush up on my sculpting skills. Back in my first highschool ceramic sculpture class my teacher said, “If you can see the object you want to sculpt, you can sculpt it.”  At the time I thought she was a bit nuts, but I soon understood what she meant.

You have to see the shapes that make up the overall shape of the object you want to replicate.

For this bird the overall shape is that of a sphere with a smaller half sphere on top and a flattened cone for the tail, there are also small bumps on either side of the bird that hint at wings.

Circles, balls and tubes are some of my favorite shapes to play with in crochet. Crochet also lends itself to modifications on the fly, so I could change shapes easily as needed.

I knew that making my little bird would start with a simple circle using increases and decreases to create the main body and head. I also knew I would be embroidering eyes and beak as separate elements and crocheting the wings to be sewn on after the body was finished.

I crocheted my bird from fingering weight wool yarn to keep him small and have more shaping options. I started at the top of his head. After I had worked a few rounds to shape the head, I embroidered the eyes and beak. The beak was a combination of crochet and embroidery using #3 crochet thread.  Once the details for the face were embroidered I continued with the body of  the bird. 

I stuffed the bird as I worked to check the shaping, and would pull out enough stuffing to continue working.  After completing the last round for the body I closed the seam on the bottom with a whipstitch.

I decided to create the tail shaping by crocheting into the finished body using a couple of cluster stitches.

The finished bird is quite a bit different from my original inspiration, but the feel and shaping is close enough that I was quite happy.

So your turn dear readers, find something in your environs to inspire you and create. Remember, if you can see it….

A Journey of a Thousand Miles

Categories Celebrating, Creativity, Crochet1 Comment on A Journey of a Thousand Miles

There is an old proverb I’ve been thinking about lately – “A Journey of a Thousand Miles begins with One Step.” I’m probably mis-quoting it, but that is how I remember it at the moment.

I’ve been organizing old photos recently and just amazed at the distance I have traveled in my life the past 25 years.

I’ve been to the UK and France, something I had dreamed of since I was a little girl in Kansas.

Anniversary Flowers

I’m married to my very dearest friend and, even after being together for nearly 15 years, he still manages to surprise me and make me laugh at life.

I am mother to 2 beautiful little boys, though I do question my sanity at times about entering the parenting adventure a bit late in the game.

I live in the mountains in a simple and comfortable home, surrounded by pine trees and wildlife.

I’ve said good-bye to friends that have left this lifetime and said hello to the arrival of infants to other friends.

I’ve watched some of those children grow up and even graduate from high school and college.

I’ve worked in numerous careers and am now making a living thru work that draws from that lifetime of diversity.

Best of all, I’ve come to a place in my life where I appreciate the joys and grieve the sorrows when necessary.  I know that this journey is not over and life will continue to unfold in ways that I have yet to imagine.

Maybe this calm moment is the product of being tired from working many hours, both as a mother and designer.  Maybe it is my habit of overlaying the rhythm of my crocheting over my daily life.  Either way, my hope is for all of you to have a similar moment.

Who’s a Dummy?

Categories Creativity, Crochet Design, Humor7 Comments on Who’s a Dummy?

One of the challenges of crocheting or sewing garments for myself is getting a good feel for how the garments will hang on my body.  A handy aid for this is a dress-makers dummy (also called a dress-form).

A few years back a neighbor was getting rid of her dress-maker’s dummy. I was happy to adopt it, but found that the dummy wasn’t a good match for my body measurements.  Still I’ve become fond of her over the years and named her “Betsy”. 

Betsy has been very handy for photographing finished designs or helping me to visualize how design elements can be combined for sketches of potential designs.  Unfortunately, Betsy is far more generously endowed in the chest area than I am.  Genetics being the luck of the draw I seem to have taken after my Mom’s side of the family instead of my Dad’s when it came to chest dimensions.

So I’ve been haunting the JoAnn’s website and drooling over the variety of dress forms they have available.  Then one happy Sunday evening I discovered the one I really loved was on sale!

A week later this box arrived.  Inside was my wonderfully adjustable new dress dummy (she doesn’t have a name yet).  I happy took her out and started measuring and adjusting the various dials to create my twin.

Of course the ego-deflating aspect, of having a dress dummy you can adjust to your exact measurements, is you get a very realistic view of what you body shape really is. 

Oh well, at least I’ll get a good fit for my garments and it will encourage me to get more exercise.