Valentine's Day Wreath

I was put in charge of making a Valentine's Day wreath for our office door. I

ended up with this yo-yo wreath that used all supplies I had at home.

For the base I used a sheet of bristol board. I cut a 10" circle. I made the base 1 1/4". I made a bunch of pink, red and heart printed yo-yos and glued them on with tacky glue. I then added buttons and trims that I had lying around. Easy, quick and a great way to use up some fabric scraps and odds and ends trims.

After finishing and hanging it up I wish I had made it heart shaped. But it was simple and easy and brightens up the door.

Side note: I treated myself to a few skeins of Debbie Stoller's Full O' Sheep yarn and it is lovely. It's great to knit with and is working up really soft. And the colors are fab.

Heart Ornaments

So, first off, I'm going to admit that my apartment has been fully decorated for Valentine's Day for at least a week (or two). I will also admit that half the crafts I did for the blog last year stayed up all year round. I am a full fledged lover of hearts and am always on the hunt for heart related crafts, no matter what time of year it is. I came across this picture in my scouring of the Internet for heart crafts. It was just a photo for inspiration and most of the other links don't work so I decided to just get to work.

I figured Heat and Bond would be the neatest and easiest way to make these. It keeps the fabric from fraying and if you want, there could be no sewing involved. I cut two squares of fabric and a square of Heat and Bond a little smaller (you don't want this stuff stuck to your iron!). I ironed the fusible to one piece of fabric, peeled off the paper, and ironed it to my other square. I then pinned my heart template down and cut it out.

I then stitched around my heart, glued on some ribbon and a button and hung with care. I made one without sewing around the heart and it worked fine but did curl a little at the round parts of the heart. So here are the finished products:

christmas quilt

As soon as I saw the alphabet quilt in Stitch Magazine, I knew I had to make it for one of my favorite babies. The goal was to make it as her Christmas gift, which was slightly ambitious seeing as I was pregnant (read: tired) and had never actually made a quilt before. But it looked simple enough (usually the kiss of death for my craft projects) and used a lot of felt, which I feel relatively comfortable with.

The boxes and letters are cut out of wool felt--it's softer than regular felt that I have seen at craft stores. I was also able to buy it online in portions of yards so I was able to cut out some of the bigger letters and squares. First I sewed the letters onto the squares and then I used iron-on fusible web to stick the squares to the quilt top.

Here's the quilt all laid out and pinned up in front of the Christmas tree. I probably checked the order of the letters 25 times just to be sure.

I worked on the quilt slowly over the past couple of months and finished it on Christmas Eve--just in time! It's definitely not perfect, but for my first actual quilt, I feel like it came out pretty well. I can't wait to give it to h!

Here's the finished quilt with a peek at the comfy flannel backing...just don't look too closely at that mitered corner:


Wrapped and ready to go!

Me Plus You Designs

Kristen and I decided to try our hand at Etsy... and I think we did pretty well. Granted 3/5ths of our sales were to friends and family we still sold 5 of our 7 wreaths (the wreath pictured sold this week). Our shop is pretty bare now but stay tuned for new stuff to come... hopefully this weekend! Keep checking the shop for updates.

Potholders

Every year I decide to make way too many of my Christmas gifts and this year was no different. After failing at a few sewing projects, I came across this awesome tutorial for potholders. These are the quickest cutest gifts that whip up super fast. It's a great stash buster craft too... But since I spend tons of time wandering the aisles of Joann Fabrics on my lunch break, I took advantage of the chance to buy all the great prints I've been coveting.

I followed this tutorial pretty faithfully. The batting is called Insul Brite and I found it at my local Joanns. I cut my squares 9" x 9" and used 1/2" seam allowance and then cut off the excess/squared them up with my rotary cutter. I also only quilted 4 or 5 rows as I found my fabric was shifting during topstitching and I was nervous about the fabric bunching up if I topstitched all the way. (Time to invest in a walking foot!). These sew up so quick... I think I made 3 pairs in an hour.

mini craftaganza

From time to time, members of the former knitting circle (when the triangle had more members) would get together at someone's house for a day of crafting (and wine and food, of course). We'd try to pick projects that could be completed during that one day. So a few weeks ago, S and I decided that instead of a normal knitting evening, we'd make Christmas stockings. S opted for Denise Schmidt's quilted stocking and I went for a felted sweater stocking, using the pattern from the book Warm Fuzzies. I like working with felted sweaters, although my husband hates having all the old sweaters and sweater pieces around the house. I need a craft storage plan, but that's another story entirely. But I have made a few baby blankets with felted sweaters in the past--the sweaters are easy to work with and projects go pretty quickly. I saw some really cool puppets made out of felted sweaters at Abodeon in Cambridge the other day and they definitely sparked my curiosity--I think I might have to try a puppet or two!

We each made one stocking that night, and I made a couple more before Christmas for the boy and the baby. Because we don't have a fireplace, here they are hanging on the stairway with care:

baby booties

After starting over more times than I care to admit, I finally finished e's baby booties. As always, the first one went really smoothly and the second one was AWFUL. This is exactly why I have never been able to complete a pair of socks...

The pattern is called Bitty Booties and I bought it on Ravelry.com. They weren't necessarily difficult to knit, but I think they just got confusing when I left them for too long and then came back to them and would then have no idea where I had left off.

The pattern for the hat is from the blog Lost the Thread. I used Malabrigo yarn, which I love. The hat doesn't fit the little one yet, but hopefully it will soon!