Category: Crochet

Wow, today’s post is like a triple whammy!!!! 1) Free crochet pattern 2) Experimenting with a new fabric glue 3) Pimping out 2 cool Etsy shops. Let’s go! So if you couldn’t tell from the blog title, today’s post is all inspired by LAVERNE & SHIRLEY. The younguns may not remember this, but us olduns do! It’s the funniest, goofiest, BFF  TV show! Joy from Lucky Cupcake Hair Clips sent me this amazing Laverne & Shirley hair bow, and I scrambled to think of what outfit I could put together to do it any amount of justice. I don’t have a lot of Laverne-y pieces in my closet (YET), so I sort of improvised … by making my own Laverne-inspired cardigan! To create the “L” for my Laverne cardigan, I used Norma Lynn’s “Love in Cursive” crochet pattern for inspiration. You should grab her pattern to spell out the whole word! Here’s what I busted out for the Laverne “L” : ch 71, sk 1st ch, 2 sc, (2 sc), 10 sc, (2 sc), 2 sc, (2 sc), 2 sc, (2 sc), 18 sc, sc3tog, 2 sc, sc3tog, 2 sc, sc3tog, 2 sc, sc3tog, 10 sc, (2 sc), 3 sc. Then, I experimented with Surebonder Fabric Stix: hot glue for fabric! That’s flexible! And washable! I can’t vouch yet for how it washes. Only time will tell. I was just excited to try this out. It kinda stinks that it’s white and not clear, but for this project, it was fine. It also, kind of literally stinks. It’s a bit smellier than regular hot glue, so you might want to pop open a window if you’re afraid of chemical smells. It’s no way near as bad as E6000, though. Ultimately, I think that hot fabric glue is an easy solution for some quick embellishments, but since it’s GLUE, it is kinda bulky and not as delicate as hand-sewing. Here’s an action-packed video I made while using the Fabric Stix for the first time! I would say that it is certainly a quick n convenient way to glue stuff to other stuff, but I felt like I was being too messy with it, and it was kinda stringy, and……..it’s WHITE. So, there are some definite down sounds to working with it. I’m interested in how it would hold up to gluing bows to jeans and stuff like that. More experimentation later!

I have a new pattern in available in my Etsy shop. It’s for a “Pancake Lovey!” I had no idea what a lovey was, until someone asked me to make one a year or two ago (I didn’t end up doing it). I guess it’s like a doll/security-blanket hybrid, usually characterized by some kind of head stuck to some kind of blanky. This Pancake Lovey has a happy, sleepy butter pat buddy sewn to a security pancake! I don’t really want to make/sell baby items, and I probably won’t write very many baby-related patterns, but I designed this particular morsel because my brother and sister-in-law’s first baby, Ender, was born on May 16! He came out really cute, and not at all wrinkly or alien-looking. Manda and I got to see him after he was just about a day old. Pretty crazy! You might be wondering why I made a PANCAKE for them.  Recall the baby shower and how I mentioned my brother loving pancakes. Also, my sister-in-law decorates a lot using beige/neutrals. So, I figured, even if the baby never ends up using the Pancake Lovey, it could still sort of maybe fit into the neutral color scheme of their home. Incidentally, I didn’t get a chance to bring them the lovey on the day we visited them in the hospital, because I washed it but didn’t have time to dry it because Hairy’s air-dry-only laundry was taking a million cycles! But the baby won’t be able to actually use it for a while anyway, so I guess it’s all good! Here’s a picture of Ender for you baby-lovin’ folk out there!  

Thanks to everyone who participated in my first “Free for 48 hrs” crochet pattern party! I may not always do 48 hrs, but I’ll try to always throw some kind of “party” with a window of time when you can grab a new pattern for free. Now, the crochet pattern for the Cupcake Coffee Cup Cozy is available in my Etsy shop. BONUS!!! At the back of the pattern PDF, I included the cup-shaped paper insert that I sometimes use to package my cozies. It’s really perfect for gift-giving because it explains what the gift is and also includes washing instructions. A new thing I noticed while adding the pattern to the shop: Etsy seems to now be offering the link to customers directly to download the pattern, so let me know how that goes! This is really cool for sellers, because before, we either had to manually email all the patterns, or pay for an app to do it for us. Etsy really stepped it up!

Happy Mother’s Day! Happy Sunday! Happy Run Your Errands Day! EDIT May 14, 2013: Thank you so much for participating in my first “Free-for-48-hrs” crochet pattern party! I’ll do another one really soon! This pattern is now available in my Etsy shop. I’ve decided to try this thing. I was going to post a new pattern in my Etsy shop, but FIRST, I’m gonna post it here for free. For 48 hrs. Commence Crochet!!! (p.s. if you find any booboos or confusing spots, please let me know!) Small print time! This crochet pattern is intended for personal use. Please do not distribute or sell this pattern, or sell finished items made from this pattern without my permission. Thank you!  

Mother’s Day is only a few days away, but you still have time to DIY something special! When I needed some emergency help in proof-reading my Asparagus Pen Cozy pattern, Kim came to the rescue and then also suggested that the pattern could be used to create lavender flowers. I loved this idea, since my mom loves lavender, so I decided to make a crochet lavender bouquet for her… of pen cozies! (Dad, don’t tell Mom!) What You’ll Need: my Asparagus Pen Cozy crochet pattern that I wrote for Michaels.com that you can now find at this link on my blog. In the pattern, I refer to working a Leaf, but they left out the part where I explained how to work a leaf! Regardless, for my lavender flowers, I changed the leaf a tiny bit. To work a lavender leaf: Ch 3, sk 1st ch, 1 sc, 1 sl st. Done! I also worked a shorter green stem and a longer purple top than for the asparagus spear. H hook small amount of worsted weight yarn in Green small amount of worsted weight yarn in Purple regular ball point pens optional: small terra cotta flower pot (the green one I used is biodegradable) dried beans or pebbles to fill the flower pot The particular yarns I used were just from my stash. I picked 2 shades of Purple. KnitPicks Brava Worsted in Grass, Deborah Norville Everyday Worsted in Orchid, Plymouth Encore Worsted in 1606 Purple Bell. I dabbled in mixing 2 purples in one pen. One has 2 leaves in one color alternating with 2 leaves in another color. The other is mostly Orchid with a few leaves in Purple Bell here and there. Do you guys have any fun plans with your moms? We are going out for a family dinner on Saturday night!

Yay! Another new free crochet pattern is up now at Michaels.com: Chiffon Cake with Fruit Topping – A Tissue Box Cozy! Just in time for Mother’s Day! Edit, June 4, 2014: Please find the pattern here on my blog. Michaels.com is currently re-vamping their pattern/project section, and the above Michaels.com link is disabled for now. Here’s the intro I wrote for the pattern: When I crochet gifts for my mom, I like to make cute things that she can use around the house. One of the first projects I ever made for her was a cake-themed tissue box cozy. So, this month, I had my mom in mind when I designed this crocheted chiffon cake with colorful strawberry, blueberry and kiwi topping. I remember eating delicious cakes just like it when I was little. I hope you have fun creating this yummy piece of my childhood memories. Consider making one as a gift to sweeten a special someone’s Mother’s Day! You are gonna have so much fun making the frosting border for this!!! It’s a variation on the “piped frosting shells” stitch I include in my Sugar On Top mini booklet but much BIGGER and PUFFIER! I hope to see pictures of all of your cake projects soon! I have another fun Mother’s Day present idea for you using a pattern of mine that’s already available and also inspired by my own mom and what I would make for her. More on that soon!    

My new free pattern is up now at Michaels.com: Veggie Pen Cozies! You get the patterns for the asparagus, lettuce, and carrot! They work up super quick and are a fun stash-buster for all your veggie-colored yarns. We did some lettuce pens with green and purple that were really fun! Edit, June 4, 2014: Please find the pattern here on my blog. Michaels.com is currently re-vamping their pattern/project section, and the above Michaels.com link is disabled for now.      

  I added a ready-to-ship Jelly Bean Scarf to my Etsy shop! Remember also that the pattern is available for free at Michaels.com. There was a small booboo in the pattern at Michaels. Round 5 is as follows, with the correct change made in red font. Rnd 5: Ch 2 (counts as your 1st hdc) and hdc in same st. Work 9 hdc evenly across. [2 hdc in next st, 1 hdc in next 3 sts] 5 times. 2 hdc in next st, 1 hdc, 1 sc, 6 sl st, 1 sc each in next 3 sts, hdc, [2 hdc in next st, 1 hdc in next 3 sts] 2 times. 1 hdc in last st. (60) Break off leaving 18″ of yarn for sewing.

I  must admit: I kinda love these! They are removable and washable vegetable cozies for ball point pens!! They make the cutest desk display. Just fill up a small flower pot or a mason jar full of beans or pebbles and throw in some veggie pens! Now available in my Etsy shop!  

So, this happened. Friends or enemies? Who’s to say?

In anticipation of St. Patty’s Day, I put a few marshmallow charm headbands in the shop! Grab ’em quick! There aren’t very many! 🙂 Sorry again that things have been quiet around here. I haven’t quite found my groove yet after getting sick last week, and I have two gigantic deadlines this week. One is top secret, and the other is PREPPING MY TAXES. YUCK! I also need to make my house look less hurricane-disaster-y. I’m getting video-interviewed here on Sunday for something fun, and my craft room is still bursting at the seams. I’ll letcha know more about that video soon! It’s pretty cool!

  Yep, now you can make your own ice cream scoop hair clips. Available as a PDF for purchase on Etsy!

Surprise! My Michaels.com March pattern is up a little early! A super colorful Jelly Bean Scarf! Edit, June 4, 2014: Please find the pattern here on my blog. Michaels.com is currently re-vamping their pattern/project section, and the above Michaels.com link is disabled for now. This month’s theme is Easter! As you’ll see from the project description, I was rolling some ideas around in my head, but I also asked my Twitter followers what they would like to see. Someone suggested a project involving jelly beans, and I really loved it! Once you get the pattern down, this project works up super quickly, and it’s fun to play with different color combos! I have some colors already picked out for more jelly bean scarves. I was hoping to finish them so I could post more pictures along with this pattern, but I didn’t want to make you guys wait!

On Sunday, Marissa and I checked out the Stitches West market at the Santa Clara Convention Center. When we first walked in, I was like, “This is smaller than I had imagined.” But as we got deeper into it, I realized HOW. MUCH.FREAKING.YARN was in there! I am prepping a yarn de-stash sale soon to make some space in my craft room, so I told myself I would only buy yarn if it were REALLY weird and funky and unusual. And even though Marissa wanted to buy the whole convention center, she was really good and only bought 4 skeins! Overall, it was definitely fun to see lots and lots of yarn, but I wish there had been some more crazy-funky-art yarn companies with bits of things and doodads sticking out. I wanted to make a point to stop buy the Lion Brand booth to visit a gal who (a) reminded me to come to Stitches and (b) was super helpful and friendly and was the person who contacted me about contributing a Bonbons pattern (what ended up becoming the gummy bear). I made her a present out of Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice yarn and the pattern I wrote for my Michaels.com APRIL pattern. I will give you guys more deets and photos of that soon! (photo stolen from @LionBrandYarn) Sorry I didn’t get better photos, or even photos of the convention.  I never remember to bring a camera to these things. It’s kinda like how you’d imagine it: a giant hall filled with booths and booths of yarn and yarn-related gizmos. The coolest gizmo we saw was an electric needle-felter with a needle that poked in and out a million times a minute for all your needle-felting needs. Way cool! Allison from ImagiKnit told me that Sunday was a pretty slow day compared to Saturday, and that we had chosen wisely. However, I think it would also be fun to experience a crowded day. Maybe next year! Here’s a cute story, though: A gal named Lynne wrote to me and told me she was demo’ing at a machine-knitting booth. She also mentioned that she had made the Chocolate Truffle scarf and that she might be wearing it at Stitches. I asked her to please take and send me a photo! She did, and also sent me this cute email! Love it! I got a lot of compliments for the scarf.  Usually I’d hear something off in a direction I wasn’t even looking.  I’d turn to see if they were talking to me and give them a thank you if they were.  At one point as the Stitches market was closing up I turned to acknowledge a compliment and it was someone wearing a carrot scarf!!  She was walking quickly by and I pointed and yelled, “Twinkie Chan?!”  She yelled back, “Yes, I tried.”  I yelled back, “It looks fantastic.”  I wish it wasn’t at the point where we were all leaving and heading home.  If it were the more mosey through the […]

Hey, yarn lovers, weekend is Stitches West! It’s at the Santa Clara Convention Center. I’ve never been before, so I don’t exactly know what it’s like, but I’m going with Marissa on Sunday before the Oscars! It looks like there are lots of classes and workshops, and even a fashion show on Friday night. I mostly just wanna check out the “Market,” which I imagine is just rows and rows of yarn and tools, but who knows! I’ll report back! I never remember that thing exists until it passes, but this year, my buddy Brandyce at Lion Brand  reminded me! Yay! I am going to make her a quick prezzie for when I visit the booth! Tonight is about tea, Girlscout cookies, and yummy yarn!

  My buddy Cassie Wanda has started a crafty blog called Glimmerwood to keep track of her crafty adventures and to interview other crafters and inspire others. Check out her interview with me here! We talk about past, present, and future stuff!

I keep seeing a necklace I want all over the internet. It’s a cute, acrylic, heart-shaped cherry lollipop. I figured I would try to crochet something similar! It’s not quite the same, but still cute, and FREE! 🙂 I re-used the 3D heart pattern from my Happy Heart and Rib Cage T-shirt post last Halloween. I noticed there was a little booboo in the pattern while I was reading it this afternoon, so I’ll repost it with the booboo fixed! Mine turned out kinda big because I double-stranded two yarns, so you can experiment with your yarn stash and see what you come up with!   p.s. The sweatshirt I’m wearing is from ModCloth. I tried it on today and then never wanted to take it off!

  I made a series of “Push Pop Pets” for an art show opening tonight at Big Umbrella Studios, 7pm-11pm, at 906 1/2 Divisadero. I was inspired by the push-pop cakes I’ve been seeing around the internet. I was at Michaels a few weeks ago and saw the push pop containers. I didn’t have plans for them yet at that point, but I grabbed some anyway. Now they are cute homes for my cake-like creatures: Funfetti Mouse, Black Forest Cake Bear, Birthday Cake Kitty, Rainbow Cake Unicorn, Red Velveteen Rabbit, and Strawberry Short Pup. There is a magnet at the bottoms of the plushes and a magnet on the push pop stand so that when you push up your push pop, the plush doesn’t go flying all over the place, but you can still also remove the plush if you wish. Each one took way longer than I’d planned to complete, and I had sort of a debacle with the magnets (I had to order super strong ones online at the very last minute…. I learned a lot about magnets!), but I love how they turned out! If I have time, I’ll make more for Etsy, and I’ll definitely  post whatever is left over after the show ends. I think they would make fun birthday presents, espesh with a real candle on top! Here’s a weird animated gif I made. It doesn’t have a point or a story. It just … is!  

Happy February! I have two new crochet patterns for you at Michaels.com. The diagrams are kind of messed up (either missing or out of place), but I’ll see if anything can be done about that! The first pattern will look familiar: it’s the heart-shaped sugar cookie brooch we do for Valentine’s Day, but it’s the first time I’ve shared the pattern. Go here! The second pattern is brand new (to me, too!) It’s a Chocolate Truffle Scarf and is inspired by me wanting you to feel like a yummy box of chocolates! Pattern here! I hope you guys have fun making you and your sweethearts some Valentine’s goodies! I know I said I would re-open my shop with V-Day stuff on Feb 1, but I found myself caught up in some surprise deadlines! But I will work on finishing up cute stuff this weekend and try to post on Monday. I want to work on a new pattern for a fun new brooch/hair clip, so cross your fingers that the project won’t give me a hard time!!! 😛 Remember, if you guys end up making stuff from my Michaels patterns, let me know! I’d love to see!    

I have a fun tidbit of news for you guys! For all of 2013, I will be writing one (and sometimes two) free crochet pattern for the Yarn and Needle Crafts project section of Michaels.com. The first two are already up! A Birthday Candle scarf for all new beginnings and celebrations, and a super cute Strawberry Cake binder cozy for any of you back-to-school-ers or binder-lovers (I know you’re out there, binder-lovers, cuz Manda is one of you). Here are some photos I took of the projects here at home: I’m actually right now in the middle of working on the next two patterns for February!

I hope you all had a wonderful and yummy Christmas! As is tradition, I went out to dinner with my family on Christmas Eve, and then our family friends came over to my parents’ house on Christmas day for a big dinner and white elephant gift exchange. I crocheted a painting for my mom because she’d mentioned that she really liked them. One of her favorite sweets are madeleine cookies. I’ve tried to crochet madeleines in the past, but I kept frittering over the right color combo and stitch texture. I finally just decided to heck with it and committed to a project! You might recognize the doily and the cup from my Macaronimal paintings. They just seemed really fitting for cookies! I shot these with my iPhone in my car right before our Christmas day festivities. I didn’t have time to shoot them at my house, since I was furiously still putting the painting together before we left. I need to learn how to find a better balance between making my family presents and making your family presents :).  

Last night, we went to Tiffany and Daniel’s house for their holiday party and white elephant gift exchange. She made dericious cookies by crushing up Candy Cane Joe Joe’s…YUM! I wasn’t quite sure what to bring for the white elephant. I almost brought a jar of Baconaise, but Hairy made a face like it was the worst idea ever, so I made something instead: a crocheted octopus coffee cup cozy. I wanted to make something somewhat unisex, even though most of the stuff I design tends to be really girlie! So if you follow me on Twitter and wondered why I asked what color you think octopi are, now you know! I might post this as a free pattern later, but right now, I still have to crochet some Christmas presents!

I made myself my first stocking last year. I stayed up all night on Christmas Eve to make it. I actually wanted to make two, but I ran out of time, and I never ended up making that second one. A few weeks ago, Tess‘ bf Nathanael asked if I might help handmake Tess her very first Xmas stocking, now that they are settled in Brooklyn. He told me that he has had the same personalized stocking since he was a kid, and he wanted Tess to have the same, since I guess her family never really went all-out for the holiday. He wrote, “I’m excited to show her the joys of Christmas. ” So cute! How could I say no? He requested that it be pink and that it have some things on it that Tess likes, like stars and bows. Also that the lettering should say “TE$$.” My personal aesthetic leans toward the overly sweet and cute.  And I tend to go overboard with a “more is more” philosophy. Tess is really styley and has an edgier aesthetic than I do, so I made an attempt to get her sense of “cool” in there, even if it ended up toward the slightly humorous with my fake pyramid studs. Personally, I love pink and gold together. It rides that perfect line between tacky and cute. At first I really wasn’t sure about the studs, but I emailed some pics to Nathanael, and he also thought they were funny and that Tess would get a kick out of them. Instead of putting a bunch of smaller bows all over the stocking, I decided to go with one statement bow right on top. This was the first time I crocheted a stocking with someone’s specific personality in mind. It was really super fun! It was not exactly traditional, but, I guess you don’t come to me for traditional! 😛 The stocking crocheted up pretty quickly, and the longest part was really figuring out the sizing of the lettering and making sure it all fit. I kind of made a million S’s because I knew that was the most difficult to alter, and then I just made sure the T and the E matched in size. I based my stocking off of this pattern from Red Heart, and I based my lettering off this webpage for crocheting the letters of the alphabet. There aren’t any photos working on the alphabet page, but…. you know what the letter A looks like, so I think you can take it from there! I still have some things for my family that I need to crochet, and I also still need to wrap all my presents!!! It’s been a really busy holiday season for me. Just a heads-up: I’ll be closing my Etsy shop  for a couple weeks really soon. I have a TON of Yummy You deadlines coming up, and I felt SO overwhelmed for the past month or so. I knew something had to give, […]

Thank you so much to everybody who came to visit my booth at Renegade Craft Fair! I super appreciate all the support, and it was the first time in a long time that I actually sold out of certain items. Woo hoo! Here are some photos and one (crappy, as usual!) video, so you guys can check it out. I had a lot of fun building a gingerbread house-themed booth with my mom. I designed and built the PVC structure, my mom sewed the felt covers, she and I both painted and glittered the styrofoam candies, and Hairy drilled holes into the tables to mount my canopies, and he also wrapped the PVC in candy cane ribbon. You can click on most of the photos to see them bigger if you like!