Bee and Sunflower Mobile

As the days dwindle down in my pregnancy I’m putting together the last pieces to our baby’s nursery. All must be in its rightful place, organized, and completely ready for baby. I’ve been reflecting back to the whole process of putting together this living space. So much work went into it and I’m very excited to start using it with our baby. Everything came together relatively fast once our theme was chosen and one could argue that was the most difficult part about assembling said nursery! My husband and I figured it out quite quickly when we discovered we were having another baby girl a couple months back. An August baby certainly called for sunflowers and bees. Then came the idea to make her a mobile inspired by the decor of her nursery. If anyone else is expecting a summer baby like me, or just loves everything to do with sunflowers and bees, this might be the pattern for you!

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Pumpkin Applique

September is one of my favorite months, not only because it’s my birthday month, but also because it’s the month we begin to see pumpkins everywhere! If you’re a crazy fall fanatic like myself, you cannot wait to dive into Halloween and fall decorating. A big part of that is pumpkins, of course. Over the years I’ve designed various crocheted pumpkins. Velvet pumpkins, a pumpkin doll, pumpkin hats, but this year I thought I’d keep it simple and straight to the point. A pumpkin applique. Perfect for clothing pieces, hats, scarves, you name it! And right in time for fall.

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Fall Leaf Appliqués

Ah… Fall is in the air. As I sit beside my open window during this cooler September evening, I smell the crispness of the season entering my home. Leaves. It’s the smell of the season. They’ll be dropping soon and while many loathe the idea of cleaning gutters and raking up leaf piles, I simply cannot wait! Our last home never really had enough tall trees to necessitate raking. It’ll be the first fall where our whole family can have fun and fill those silly pumpkin shaped plastic bags and line our yard. I used to love those as a kid and find it so endearing that my own kids now become excited by the idea of using them for our own yard. We moved to an area with an abundance of giant oaks and maples and I look forward to all the Autumn colors that will soon surround us. Oh so many happy memories involve falling leaves. Memories of the crunching sound under my tiny feet as I trick or treated at a much younger age. Memories of the giant maple leaf piles I fell asleep in at my grandpa’s so long ago. Memories of the sun shining through the trees onto my new babies as we visited our beloved pumpkin farms and again, that same golden sunlight shining through onto them as they grew and climbed pumpkins in later years at those same farms. I’m a fall fanatic and oh how I wish the season could last all year! For now though, I’ll leave you with a couple of fall leaf appliques that can last a little bit longer than the actual season.

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Mermaid and Lightsaber Ice Pop Holders

Ah… Summer. A time of sunshine, swimming, relaxation, and vacation. It was my absolute favorite time as a kid and as I watch my kids grow I can see it’s a time that they look forward to each year as well. One thing that always stands out about summer are those extra hot days. The 90+ degree days. The eternal heatwave stretch of summer. I’ve found that the best solution for those days is the classic ice pop. Not just any popsicle, but the ice pop aka freeze pop aka otter pop style. I can still recall those moments of coming into the house after a long day of running and playing in my grandpa’s backyard feeling as though I’d never cool down. Not even the coldest a/c could put a dent in summertime overheating! But always my grandpa would find the solution with that glorious ice pop and within seconds I’d feel better than ever. There’s just something about overly sugary flavored ice. It just hits the spot (especially the red and green ones, my favorite!).

As I mentioned in the previous posts, I’ve recently gone through a move. Currently I’m setting up my office and trying to get my work space in order and throughout all of my organizing I’ve come across many old photos and patterns. I happened upon a couple of ice pop holder patterns from when my kids were a lot smaller and it just warmed my heart looking back at the photos. Back in the days when their little hands became too cold holding their ice pops. They loved them so much, but it always sent such a chill to their tiny little bodies! I knew then I needed to come up with a solution for them to have a better, more comfortable grip of the popsicles because I wanted them to be able to enjoy them as much as I did when I was little! My solution was a popsicle holder. Of course, my girls being entirely opposite of one another, I had to make them in a way to appeal to each child. My oldest was huge into Star Wars at the time so I treated her to a lightsaber holder style. My youngest was into everything princess and mermaids so we settled on a mermaid fin style. It was great fun coming up with the designs and they were well loved that whole entire summer! So loved, in fact, that I ended up selling more of them at my local farmers market for all the other kids in town to enjoy as well. They were a hit!

And so, let me share with you, my two ice pop holder patterns.

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Rudy Reindeer

It’s Christmastime and I’m absolutely feeling the holiday upon us this year! Maybe it’s from the baked cookie scent in my house or the presents already wrapped under my tree… Or the fact that I just got done creating and sending out over 200 crocheted holiday orders from my Etsy . The holiday craft fairs, the holiday train rides, Christmas stockings, Christmas music… It’s all in the season and each year I fall in love with the holiday all over again.

Speaking of holiday craft fairs, I participated in a great big one in town a couple weeks ago and displayed quite a few of my finished products including this sweet little Rudy Reindeer, which was quite the hit! He ended up going home with a happy mom and child receiving hugs the entire time they walked around the fair. It definitely warmed my heart! And as I always say, the blanket yarn is always the best for hugging, as it makes each toy so soft and squishy! Since it’s Christmastime, enjoy making your own Rudy Reindeer with this totally free pattern!  Continue reading Rudy Reindeer

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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Face Scrubbies/Pads

Need a quick gift idea and want to keep it handmade? Face scrubbies are perfect! These work up so fast and are a great addition to any gift bag or basket. All it takes is a few minutes and 100% cotton yarn!

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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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