Bag with a Wooden Handle

I made this bag to hold my folder and papers in it like a briefcase. I had seen a photo of a similar bag and even free instructions to make the bag, but the instructions were not very good and were incomplete. So I only used the cutting size and rewrote the instructions myself, adding an inside pocket and sewing the whole thing differently. Glad I have the knowledge to do that or I would have been so disappointed. I am very pleased with how this bag turned out and I love this fabric that I bought years and years ago.

I stained the handle first because it was nearly white and I like the look much better now. I just love this fabric! I love the colors and the flowers. Wish I had more of it, but only a scrap remains.

The lining fabric is a purple print. You can't see the pocket very well in this photo.

I sewed a pen pocket in the center, which created 2 pockets on the sides of the pen pocket.

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Knit Hats for Hubby

My husband wanted me to knit him a hat with a fingering weight yarn in a natural color. He doesn't like a lot of colors and is very particular in his likes and dislikes. I found a hat pattern on Ravelry called "Ribbed for His Pleasure". So after I knit the hat he asks for another hat in a natural color in a thicker yarn. I didn't have a thicker yarn in a natural color so I knit with the leftover fingering weight yarn, tripled and knit him his favorite hat (I had knit him 2 of these hats with yarn I had on hand a few years ago). Now he has his favorite hat in his favorite color as well as a lighter weight hat too. Both are free knit hat patterns.

Top of "ribbed for his pleasure hat" knit in fingering weight yarn.

"Ribbed for his pleasure"hat knit in fingering weight yarn.

Top of Marsan Watchcap hat knit with fingering weight yarn, tripled. 

The Marsan Watchcap.

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Gifts For My Sister

This is what I made and gave to my sister:

I gave my sister a little wallet that I made and a Kumihimo necklace that I braided with a glass pendant.

I bought some of these pretty glass pieces a few year ago. Silly me I thought they were beads (didn't have on my reading glasses and couldn't see well enough!). But they didn't have holes in them when I looked closer with my glasses on. So they sat for years. Then after learning how to make braid with the Kumihimo disk, I thought I would like to put something pretty on the necklaces that I was making and got some wire to twist around the glass pieces in order to make a pendant to hang from a necklace. The glass really sparkles in the sunshine.

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Fleece Navidad

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season. Hope you all have a fabulous New Year too!

I couldn't resist making a few of these sheep that I saw on Pinterest. 

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Catalina Sling Bag

I made this bag called the Catalina Sling from Pink Sand Beach Designs. I made it as a gift to a friend for her birthday.  All  done in black & white fabrics and a peach colored lining.

I added a swivel hook on the right side below the strap so she can hook her keys. You can't see it that well in this photo. I really like this bag and I have made several of these using just one fabric and I have one I made in batiks too like this one with several batik fabrics.

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Close Cables Knit Hat

I knit a cabled hat from a free pattern at Pickles. It was fun and easy to knit. Fits snug to the head.

I love how knit cables look.

Top of the hat.

Knit with bulky yarn.

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Tip of the Morning Tuesday~Easy DIY Yarn Scarf

This is a great last minute gift to make and give to the women in your life. One of the knitters at my knitting group was wearing a great looking scarf with all kinds of colorful novelty yarns in it. I asked her about it and she took it off to show our group and wow this is the easiest scarf in the world to make! You do not even have to know how to knit, crochet, weave or sew. All you need is to tie a knot in the middle! That's it, super duper easy peasy.

Yarn scarf with a variety of yarns.

To make a scarf you will need to gather a variety of yarns together. Think colors and textures to give this scarf it's pizzazz. I used ribbon yarns, eyelash yarns, chenille yarn, mohair yarn, ladder yarn (called train track too), yarn with glitter or metallic strands in it and just some plain worsted-type yarn.

Measure each yarn length about 80-inches and cut. (This measurement is a starting point, you can cut your lengths of yarn shorter or longer as you desire) Stack the yarn on top of the next one. Use as many strands of yarn as desired and as many colors as you want to. Once you have a good amount of yarn knot the bunch of yarn in the middle and that's it! You can trim the ends to even them up a bit if you want to. 

To wear the scarf you fold it in half, the knot and loop will be at one end, wrap around your neck pulling the fringe ends through the loop. Adjust on your neck as desired. 

Hints and other tips:

• Use a variety of colors and textures
• Try using just one color family such as blue and gather a variety of textures and shades in the blue family
• You can make more knots, as desired, throughout the scarf besides just the middle knot. If you decide to make more knots, then be sure to cut your yarn longer
• Don't knit or crochet? Don't have a yarn stash that you can pull several yarns from? Why not get together with family or friends and each of you can buy a skein or 2 of yarn to share and then make the scarves together as a group
• Ask some of your knitting or crocheting friends for some leftover yarn if you don't have any yarn 
• Buy all the various yarns that you want to use and make several yarn scarves until you run out of yarn

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Knitting in Flat Circles

I checked out a book from a library recently entitled, Knitting in Circles, by Nicky Epstein. I wanted to give one of the circular motifs a try and using some small bits of mohair yarn that my friend Tara gave to me, I made this knitted circle. I enjoyed knitting this soft mohair circle.

Here is the center of the knitting. I love the swirl look.

I used 3 mohair yarns to knit this. I knit until I was out of the pinkish/purple yarn and then added the teal color and I knit garter stitch in the variegated blue yarn so it wouldn't curl. The last blue yarn was a bit thicker than the first two yarns.

You can see the swirl created here, like the top of a hat, only it's flat.

I am using this a table topper to sit my lamp on top of. I love how soft the mohair feels and looks too.

While I enjoyed knitting this circle and I will definitely be knitting more circular designs, I am not sure I would make any of the projects in Nicky Epstein's book, Knitting in Circles. The projects are lovely to look at, but not my style to knit. I can see knitting coasters, round mug rugs, place mats, table toppers or appliqueing a circle to a bag or clothing, but not knitting an entire outfit made of knit circles. The book has dozens of different flat circular motif knits to choose from and the majority of the book is comprised of instructions for making individual circles; so if you are like me and just want to knit the circles but not necessarily the projects, then this is an excellent book that you might want to own or see if your local library has it.
{I have no affiliation to KnitPicks or Nicky Epstein either, I just thought I would pass along my 2 cents on this book}.





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Christmas Tree Skirt is Finished!

I wanted to make my daughter and grandson a new Christmas Tree Skirt and while I started making this before Thanksgiving, I didn't finish it until December 6th. I used a variety of appliques on this skirt (most I got from Homespun Magazine) and added a ruffle all around the skirt. Since the tree is artificial I didn't need to add a slit, just a hole in the center. This could double for a table topper on a round table too with a candle and some pine cones in the center.

Tree skirt all appliqued with machine blanket stitch and hand embroidered details.

There was still snow on the ground, when I took the photos.

Santa and Rudolph. I used the En Francais stamp for Santa's List (I didn't even notice that I put it upside down until just now! Lol!!! Oh well perhaps the list is over flowing and that's why it's upside down?)

Soldier.

Snowmen sledding in an upside down umbrella.

More snowmen. I love snowmen.

All bundled up.

Penguin and trees. I added some sequins to the trees for a bit of bling.

Little angel.

Wheelbarrow full of snowmen.

Tree skirt in the snow.

Linking to this blog hop

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Pink Knit Potato Chip Scarf

If you are not a knitter you might wonder why this is called a Potato Chip Scarf? They say that they are very addictive and once you make one of these scarves it's like eating potato chips because you can't stop at making only one. Well I did only make one scarf and don't know if I will make any more or not. It's fun and easy to make, but one is all I want to make for now. There are several free instructions online for making a potato chip scarf and some are a little different than others. I used the Rustic Potato Chip Scarf that is a free pattern on Ravelry.

I knit a Potato Chip Scarf out of the pink variegated yarn I bought a couple of years ago from a fiber artist. It's cotton and I think bamboo(?). It's soft and feels nice. 

As you knit this scarf if makes a ruffle. This is done by knitting short rows. Those of you who knit will understand what short rows are. 

I couldn't resist tossing the scarf on the garden Buddha in the snow!

Had to toss it over the Pagoda too, lol.

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Tip of the Morning Tuesday~Double Pointed Needle Holders

If you are a knitter you might find these useful. I saw a few double pointed needle (dpn) holders on Pinterest recently and thought I could make those and so I did. It's just a piece of elastic with fabric pieces stitched on the 2 ends which holds your dpn's all together. Well I went one step further and added labels to my dpn holders and stitched them in place using a machine blanket stitch. These are simple and easy to make and use up scraps of fabric too.

Here are a few dpn holders I made. I made 14 sets in all.

I wanted to label my dpn holders so I used a pigma pen to write the needle sizes on a piece of fabric and blanket stitched the label onto the fabric.

It only takes a bit of elastic and fabric to make these dpn holders.

You can see for these larger dpn's I used a wider elastic. Some dpn's come in sets of 4, 5 or even 6 needles.

You place the dpn's into the fabric pocket at one end and then...

...stretch the elastic and insert the tips of the other dpn's into the remaining pocket. That's it, easy peasy. 

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