My Tea Towel Weekend Project

I have become kind of obsessed with tea towels lately. I like the nostalgic feel of them, and the way they look hanging on a cute hook or over the oven bar. The weekend before last we had a spring storm blow in, it was one of those bummer snowy days because it is supposed to be warming up this time of year right??? Well not here, so in order to make myself feel better I decided to take the day and embroider a tea towel. A while ago I had made a pintrest board about my tea towel obsession so I looked to that for inspiration. http://pinterest.com/gettinghooked/hand-towel-obsessions/
So, I started with a drawing I found online and a few colored flosses.

I have this little coffee/tea station in my kitchen so I thought it would be super cute to have a coffee themed tea towel to hang near it. 

It took about 7 hours from start to finish. Not a quick project, but it sure was nice to bundle up on a cold spring day and create something beautiful.

Hope your spring is warmer than mine has been :)

Candy Hearts are my Favorite!! Turn them into a cute wreath!

I just love Valentines Day. I am not sure if it is all of the pastel colors, all of the sweet smelling candy, all of the gooshy feelings, or all of the sweet cards... it's most likely all of the above, I just love that day :) One of my favorite candies of all times in the yummy conversation candy hearts! They are just so good! So to commemorate  my love for these sweet candies I have made a simple, inexpensive, yet adorable wreath. 

Start with a styrofoam ring, I bought mine an Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon that you can get on their website. They have all of their Valentine's merchandise on sale too, so I purchased all of my supplies there.

I also bought a wooden conversation heart on a dowel and a package of hearts .

I removed all of the hooks and ribbon from the hearts.

I cut the dowel so that once poked into the ring it would stand in the middle. It is very simple to place it onto the ring, just poke it through the burlap and into the foam; it stays secure and stands straight up. I then made a little bow out of some ribbon I already had, I used yellow to match the heart in the center. I then hot glued all of the hearts around the ring. 

The last step is tying a ribbon at the top to hang the wreath on the door.

And that is it :) If you end up making one let me know, I would love to see how it turned out.

snow flakes outside, on my hand warmers, and on my nails

As I am writing this post I think our high outside is like 6 degrees.... brrrrrrr! We are having a few snow flurries as well but not just outside, they have manages to make it onto my nails and my hand warmers too! 
Snow flakes are very pretty so I decided to add a few onto my crochet in the form of these adorable buttons I found. Then, I used the nail stamps from Bundle Monster to create matching nails.... how fun is that!

For the fingerless mitts, I used a ridged pattern I created. Here again, if I can find the notes for the pattern I may make it available in the future 

A cute little hat and scarf

I was asked to make a little hat and scarf for a 4 year old girl and this is what I came up with.  I am loving the little hat :) I got the pattern here http://www.scribd.com/doc/36270498/Best-Little-Girl-Cloche-Crochet-Pattern-ALL-SIZES-www-aestheticnest
and I just added a little color in. I did not use a pattern for the scarf nor did I write down what I did (I really need to get better at that).  I have a bad habit of scribbling down a pattern as I go, forgetting where I put it, and have even accidentally threw great patterns I created away thinking they were just doodles... oops : /

My brimmed hat

I found this adorable hat pattern on Ravelry that I just had to buy. I pinned it on pintrest a while back and finally decided to spend the money and purchase the pattern. I have no regrets, it is a great pattern, the hat works up fast, and it is soooo cute!!

You can find the pattern here  http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ribbed-newsboy-hat

Here I am sporting my hat :)

 

I made this neck warmer over the summer and just have not had a chance to blog about it. I do not have a pattern to share with you because I made this one design up as I went and did not take notes :/

 

 

 

I made both of these projects with Sensations Lustrous Lamb yarn. It is a wool, acrylic blend. For the hat I held 3 strands together to make a Super Bulky yarn and it worked great :)

A little Christmas Hooking

Hi Ya'all! I know I have not posted in a long time, been so busy with life. But I have not stopped creating :) A homeschool support group I am a part of got together and made Christmas ornaments for some of the families who lost their homes and possessions during the summer fires here in Colorado. I made these cute little stockings and candy canes.
You can find the free pattern for the stockings here
http://www.beansproutcreations.com/2009/11/03/week-9-christmas-stocking-ornament/

I just made the candy cane by working in a tight round and running a pipe cleaner through the center for the shape.

Let me know if you give the stocking a try, I would love to see how yours turned out :)

Why I like White Dishcloths

As you can tell, I took a summer break from blogging....but not crocheting:) I have some really neat projects that I have made that I can't wait to share! They will show up on here as I have time to post. With summer over homeschool has started so that takes my time priority, but I will still make time to share:)


With all of the beautiful colors of cotton yarn available I always go for white when I make dishcloths for myself. The reason is simple, but it may freak some people out who are extremely environmentally friendly. I am a bleach freak in my kitchen, yes I admit it. I LOVE bleach :) Now don't get me wrong, I do recycle and have made smarter choices in relation to our environment, but I still hold on to my bleach. As far as I know there is just nothing else out there that kills germs as effectively as bleach and I am one who likes my kitchen bleach clean... maybe a little ocd about this but hey, my kids can eat off the counter (gasp, not that I would allow it) and I do not have to panic about what meat I cut up a few hours ago, or something like that :)
I found this really neat, easy to follow, fast work up granny square dishcloth pattern and am in the process of making, well, A LOT. My old cloths have had it. I could just go to Wal Mart and pick up some standard cloths but once you go crochet dishcloths there is no going back. Not only are they way pretty sitting on the side of the sink but they are durable, and did I mention pretty ;-)
So here is where you can find the pattern:
http://www.favecrafts.com/Kitchen-Crochet/Grannys-Square-Dishcloth/ct/1

These are a few of my pretty white dish cloths, that can handle lots of bleach and remain stain free because of it :)

This is a different granny square pattern that I can not find where I got the pattern from :( but... if I come across it I will share.