Velvet Rabbit

It’s been awhile since I posted and I do apologize! Since the beginning of the year my house has been in a constant state of chaos in preparation for moving. This includes all sorts of fun home repair projects, packing up house, realtor visits, the works! I was also presented with an amazing opportunity that I’ll expand upon next post with a specifically inspired project! So stay tuned… Still though, with Easter around the corner, I did find time to make up this adorable velvet rabbit pattern and I wanted to share it with all of you!

I had in the past made up a bunny pattern from the thicker blanket yarn, but since seeing velvet yarns all around craft stores, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to make up a new pattern featuring this perfect yarn. Thoughts of the old childhood story Velveteen Rabbit came to mind while making her up and of course I just had to share it!

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Skelly Beanie

I am loving this fall weather! It’s the perfect time to crochet and with Halloween being around the corner, my absolute favorite time to create patterns! I love everything spooky and each year I try to come up with some new fun designs. This year my kids requested new Halloween hats. In my previous post I talked about my youngest daughter’s Frankenstein Hat. This time it was my oldest daughter’s turn to pick a hat and she chose a skeleton beanie! I thought long and hard about a way to design one wanting to skip the traditional Jack Skellington style and maybe take on a more comical variety of skeleton. And here’s what I came up with!

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Dish Scrubbie (New Version)

It’s that time of year when craft fairs are popping up left and right. As posted in the past, I’ve mentioned my dish scrubbies and even offered a free pattern found here: Dish Scrubbies These dish scrubbies always go fast at any farmers market or craft fair I participate it. So many people tie memories to these scrubbies from their own past, often times citing older family members having had made them and long since past. They’re always delighted to see them pop up and often times I’ll find repeat customers! So this year, as craft fair season is upon us, I find myself busy working up many more dish scrubbies to sell at my booths. While the old version using tulle is fantastic and something I still highly recommend, I couldn’t help but fall in love with Yarn Bee’s Scrub-Ology Scrub It! yarn (found here:Yarn Bee Scrub-Ology Scrub It! ) the first time I saw it at Hobby Lobby a few weeks back. I’ve admittedly been avoiding the scrubbie yarns, as I feel that nylon tulle is the best texture for dish scrubbers and most are made of cotton and thinner in appearance. This yarn was way different than most you’ll find, however. The moment I saw this new yarn I just had to give it a try! The texture was perfect and even better, it was made of nylon. So I rushed home with a couple of skeins and tried my hand at it. My findings were quite pleasant and so great that I decided to rework my dish scrubbie pattern entirely!
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Tiffany Turtle

This fun project is brought to you by my newest discovery of Bernat’s Velvet yarn line. Oh my goodness, I can’t resist a soft yarn (as you probably noted from prior posts!) and this yarn line is irresistible! I had bought some originally for velvet pumpkins (check out my real stem pumpkin post to try your hand at some: Real Stem Pumpkins ) and had a bit leftover. I immediately thought of a turtle shell due to the natural green color. I’m always a fan of something huggable, and while turtles themselves aren’t very huggable, this one sure is! Meet Tiffany the turtle. She’ll make the perfect best friend for anyone you know who loves turtles!

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Mermaid Doll

As a fellow crocheter I’m sure any one of you reading this can certainly relate to the dreaded yarn overflow problem. If you’re anything like me, you collect yarn compulsively. Currently I have at least five bins of yarn in my basement. I use yarn out of each bin, but always there’s that one dedicated bin for novelty yarns that I admittedly do not use as much as I should. I fall in love with a color/color combo of yarn, find endless amounts of clearance yarn, or am gifted yarn by someone else with good intentions. I swear to myself I’ll eventually get to using those beautiful yarns, but always they end up in the novelty yarn bin. As I was going through my yarn the other day I came across many types of yarns I oooohed and ahhhhhed over, swearing yet again that I would pick them up and find purpose for them. This project was meant to be exactly that. A purpose for at least one skein of the forgotten novelty yarn.

This beautiful rainbow yarn was meant to be mermaid hair. Am I wrong?

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Cactus Hat

For as long as I can remember I have always been terrible at plant upkeep. I love the idea of gardens and flowers blooming in my yard and I’m amazed at the beauty of houseplants, but such never came to be for my own home due to my lack of green thumb. Everything I touch seems to die despite countless research, advice, and plant enthusiasts in my corner. However, something finally changed this year. I’m not sure why this summer has been any different, but I’ve been able to keep cacti and succulents alive! Even in the past, despite being told how easy those two types of plants were to care for, I’d never get them past a season. Maybe there is a shade of green showing on this thumb of mine after all? Whatever the change may be, I’m just happy that I can finally have a little army of succulents and cacti on my window sill to happily greet me every day. So naturally, I’ve had cacti on my mind and to celebrate, why not make a hat? I couldn’t resist!

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Baxter The Squirrel

Back in the days of renting my husband and I found ourselves in an older home built in the late 1800s. It was a cozy little place with all of the cute little nooks and crannies that often times bring charm to older homes. As with many rental homes, however, came quirks as well. One of those quirks were hidden holes in our walls leading to outside, as our landlord had failed to repair portions of the house before we moved in. Much to our surprise, we quickly discovered that we were not the only tenants of the house, but rather, a wild squirrel had previously claimed ownership of the place! That squirrel was quite the character with a big attitude and seemingly large annoyance with us being his new roommates. The squirrel became so much a part of living at that house that we affectionately named him “Baxter”.  Every now and then we’d hear a scurrying sound in our attic or walls. We knew it was Baxter.  Occasionally he would pop up from the outside of our house and hit our windows as if to say, “Hey! Get out! I was here first!” and always came a big startle from such occurrence! It was crazy how much this squirrel really began to test our limits. If ever I put a plant outside, he’d quickly dig it up. Every single morning while my husband left for work there would be a chatter from the trees above. My husband would look up and there Baxter would be, angrily waiting and throwing nuts at him! Sometimes he even hit him!

Despite numerous calls and complaints to our landlord, no fix ever came to keep this squirrel out of our living space. The last straw came when we arrived home and found our loyal orange tabby cat staring a hole into our kitchen cabinets. No matter what we did, he refused to leave the strange stare down he was having. Soon we figured out why. There was a crash from inside one of the cabinets and in no time it was very apparent that Baxter had found another way into our house! Luckily, we moved out a week later and gave up the house to Baxter, opting to buy and thoroughly inspect a new home instead. While at the time it was a very stressful and frustrating situation, we can now look back and it all and laugh at how ridiculous it was. Because of this outlandish tale, the inspiration of a new creation came to be. So I present to you Baxter the Squirrel.  Continue reading Baxter The Squirrel

Kisses Buddy

With Valentine’s Day just a couple of days away I couldn’t resist making up a pattern for one of my favorite Valentine’s Day treats. Whenever February comes around I can’t help but think of Hershey’s chocolate Kisses. They’re everywhere on the candy shelves and just so sweet to pass around! If you’re like me this year though and can’t really enjoy the chocolately goodness this year due to diet restrictions, why not enjoy a Kisses Buddy instead? 🙂

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