DIY Halloween October 31, 2012

Yes I am that mom.  I do the fancy birthday cakes for my kids, not to show up every other mom out there, but because I’m too cheap to buy one from the store.

I also make my kids Halloween costumes.  Yes, I do use patterns when necessary, but sometimes the kids have requests that don’t have easy to follow patterns, and then I get really creative.  These are the challenges I like.

This year presented two challenges.

Challenge #1: Rapunzel’s braid

So the pattern I used for the dress also came with instructions for the hair.  But those instructions were written for a kid with a normal sized head.  My daughter, well, at 9 months she measured 50% by length, 60% by mass, and 98% by head size.  At 7 years old she is more proportionate than she was as an infant, but her head is still larger than average, which meant the pattern’s instructions were not going to work.  So I read them over, got the gist of what they were going for, and threw them out the proverbial window.  Then I did my own thing and here is the result.

Rapunzel’s braid

I used a skein of Lion Brand Yarn Pound of Love in the Honey Bee colorway.  I then cut 90 strands of yarn that were about 3 yards each.    I measured by holding one end of the yarn in my hand and stretching to my far shoulder, then repeating 2 more times.  After all the yarn is cut, hold all the strands together and loosely tie a knot at one end.  Then carefully remove all the tangles and loosely knot the other end.  Cut two lengths of yarn about 5 or 6 inches long: these are used to make the bun loop at the top of the braid.  Double up the long strands and tie one of the shorter lengths in the middle, then tie the other to make the loop.

Bun loop

Next take a 9 foot spool of ribbon and unroll it.  Thread one end through the yarn tied at the base of the bun loop.  Pull the ribbon through until the ends are even.  Carefully untie the knots at the ends of the yarn.  Count out the strands so that you have 3 groups of 60 strands of yarn.  Include the ribbon in two of the groups.  Braid the yarn until there are only about 5 inches left.  Cut one final length of yarn, again 5 – 6 inches long, to wrap around the end of the braid and tie it off.

End of the braid is tied off with more yarn

Trim the ends of the yarn so that they are all even.  Through out the braid, weave in silk flowers.  To attach the braid, I pulled my daughter’s hair into a high ponytail and secured it with an elastic band.  Then I loosely twisted her hair into a bun and secured it with 4 or 5 hairpins.  Then I slipped the bun loop (there’s a reason I called it that) over her bun and secured it with another 4 or 5 hairpins.  And voila, one Rapunzel ready for trick or treating.

Bun loop around the bun and pinned in place

Next post:  How I made Lightning McQueen.

My First Pattern August 17, 2012

Just last night I finished a baby blanket for my niece, June, and for the first time ever, I created the pattern that I used.  I’ve made a lot of baby blankets over the years.  Some quilted, some flannel, some knit and some crochet (at least 18 that I can remember, probably more).  Until now, not a single one was completely my own creation.  Oh, yes, I’ve made subtle changes to patterns over the years so that something I saw would work better for what I was doing.  But it was still someone else’s pattern.  But not this time.

It took many hours in Excel to chart it out to know what I was doing.  And I still haven’t gotten the directions written to my satisfaction (darn seed stitch).  Here is the final result.

I knitted it on the diagonal using a combination of knit, purl, and seed stitches.  Eventually I hope to have some easy to follow instructions written up for someone else to try making it.

Crochet Eggs April 11, 2012

Lion Brand Yarn has some wonderful free patterns for knit and crochet on their website.  I love looking through the website for project ideas and the amigurumi patterns are great for using up yarn leftovers.  I made these little eggs for my 6 month old niece for Easter.  Each egg took about 30 minutes to make, or 45 minutes if my kids were distracting me. The best part is that I was able to make some of them out of yarn leftover from when I made my niece a baby blanket.

I’m now working on an assortment of eggs for my sister-in-law to decorate the dorm she manages next year.  So far I have found that Caron Simply Soft with a size F hook and Naturally Caron Spa Yarn with a size E hook make the best eggs.  Normally I prefer to work with Peaches ‘n’ Creme yarn but it came out too stiff for my liking.  However it does make a very nice basket (but I’ll save that for another post).