Cowichan Pattern

One of my goals for 2017 is to knit myself a cowichan, but I wanted to keep it personalized to me. So, after a lot of scanning through Pinterest, and Google search engines, I've come up with the below pattern!

Front/Back pattern

Sleeve pattern

Progress to be posted to my Instagram account, finished product to be posted here eventually (before the end of the year!)

Mrs. Weasley's Christmas Sweater Ornaments

I was looking for a good scrap buster the other day, and decided to whip up some Christmas ornaments for my gift labels this year. And then I kept going, and made a bunch for a group of friends...

Pattern
Note: Sweater is worked in one piece, and then stitched up the sides

cast on 10 (leave a long tail to start)
row 1: k1, p1 to end
row 2: p1, k1 to end
row 3-10: work in letter pattern alternating k and p rows
row 11: cast on 8, k to end
row 12: cast on 8, p to end
row 13: knit
row 14: purl
row 15: knit 10, bind off 6, knit 10
row 16: purl 10, cast on 6, purl 10
row 17: knit
row 18: purl
row 19: bind off 8, knit to end
row 20: bind off 8, purl to end
row 21-28: alternate knit and purl rows
row 29: k1 p1 to end
row 30: p1 k1 to end
bind off leaving a long tail

And there you go!
 I had some spare wire that I bent around to make the hangers. When I have some free time I'll do up the patterns for the letters, but if you need it before then I made them all 6 stitches wide, and 8 stitches tall.
I made the pattern using 2mm needles, the finished product is roughly 2.5in wide at the bottom at 3in tall.

I'm putting up this pattern for free, so please don't use it to make and charge people for your product. If copying, give credit where credit is due.

Baby Shower Gifts

Pretty sad that I can't post this project on social media yet, but thankfully I can post it here!
Not knowing what to get a friend for her upcoming baby shower, I whipped up these cute little blocks

I'm so pleased with how they turned out, that I'm going to make another set for E for Christmas this year.
Luckily I still have a ton of paint left over from my Harry Potter Mural, that I was able to use for painting the majority of the blocks.
 While my friend is going with a woodland theme for her baby's room, I'm going to stick with a bird theme for E's blocks. Initially I wanted to leave them un-painted so you could see the wood grain, but the only thing we had laying around to make these with was some old fir 2x2's from when we re-did part of the basement, and being that I asked for the blocks to be made at 10 o'clock at night, I got what I got!

6 month catch up!

Even though I haven't posted much (anything!) in the past 6 months, I've done a pretty good job of keeping busy at my crafts!

 Here's a run down of some of my favorites, as well as something I'm currently working on!

Crochet Mermaid Costume.

 This I completely made up one day sitting on the couch watching tv / my baby nap. I measured general lengths (waist circumference, and waste to toe length) for the tail, and chest circumference for the top, and then just winged it! Of course, we then needed to have an impromptu photo shoot to justify making the outfit in April, rather than a costume for Halloween...

Weasley Christmas Sweater

This one I followed directions for. and I'm happy to say that I finally finished my first knitted sweater!

Link here

Reading Tipi

Here's another one that I winged. I bought 6ft lengths of dowel, measured how long I wanted the edges, and cut the fabric accordingly. To make sure that it didn't fall down when being grabbed / pulled on, I sewed pockets for each of the dowels to keep them secure. *Missing from this photo: lamb skin rug, big comfy pillows

Quiddich Robes

I was very excited to take little E this year to our hometown comic expo. Even more exciting, we lucked out and were able to get photos with Tom Felton (aka. Draco Malfoy), so naturally I had to dress her up! These quiddich robes were made by making a loose pattern for the top based off one of her sweaters, and then just adding on the desired length. Just for fun, I made up my own quiddich team, and painted on a crest. The smudges were from her trying to help me out.

Hogwarts Mural

Finally we're starting to get some color into little E's room! We also finally got her a bed, and some other room type things, but the stark white that we originally painted was starting to weigh on me. So! I convinced my husband that I needed to paint a full wall length mural to help break things up! The wall I'm painting it on is roughly 2.3 feet wide, and 8 feet high.
More to report on this as the weekend goes on, but so far I'm digging it!

Easter Photo and outfit

So, been a bit bored with my new change of pace.. so Baby E has been starring in my learning newborn photography.

 I also decided to make a super cute rabbit outfit for her first Easter photos.

 To make the ears I crocheted around a bent pipecleaner, and the attached them to a band that went most of the way around her head. I luckily had a pink ribbon laying around to use to secure the band around her head.

 For the diaper cover, I used one of her existing diapers as a template as to how big to make it, and where to put the leg holes. I made it using a double crochet, so was able to use buttons to secure through one of the natural holes that were created. The tail was just a basic pom pom that I secured to the back of the diaper cover.

 I also decided after taking this round of photos to make some prop carrots, so those will be incorporated when we re-do this shoot later this week!

2015 Christmas Cards

Got my Christmas cards done finally!

 Bet you can't even tell that I photoshopped on their hats (haha yes, you can.. but usually my cards are cheesy like that, so I don't even care!)

Lamp Re-vamp

Finally found some motivation to re-do a set of lamps that we inherited with the house. 

To be honest, I still have to do the lampshade for the second one.. But I think the one I did get done turned out pretty well!

Sorry for the Instagram photo.. I forgot to save the before and after photos on my phone....

Total cost of project:

$10 spray paint

$5 flat sheet (cut up to make lampshade)

I have a ton of paint left over, and a ton of fabric too, so actual cost is probably more around the $3.50 range if you buy the bare minimum to just do the project. 

Cowichan inspired Leg Warmers

Looking through Pinterest, I ran across some beautiful looking cowichan leg warmers.

Not able to find a pattern, I decided to make my own.

Pattern width to be done in multiples of 20.

Desired length to be 14", 

Desired width based off of circumference of leg (plus an extra 2" to make sure it'll fit over snug fitting pants... remember to make in multiple of 20 stitches!)

Depending on how many inches it takes to make this pattern, I may add another iteration of the wave below the owl, But I don't want the pattern to fall below mid-calf of me.

I'll probably stick to the traditional colors of  grey, cream and black.

Will post finished product once it's finished (hopefully soon!)

Christmas Ornaments, Part deux

 Finished!

Christmas Ornaments

Every year for Christmas I try my best to make a lot of my gifts (because I think I'm crafty, not necessarily because I'm cheap), but this year I was at a bit of a loss. So, I went onto my trusty Pinterest account to see what I though would be a neat project to make and I found this gem of an Etsy store. Feeling crafty, I decided that I would try and replicate the idea for my family.
Here's the mid-way stage:

Materials:

• Modelling Clay
• Wire
• Sealant
• Paint
• Varnish
• Ribbon
• Paper to sketch on

Total Cost: $4.25/ornament (Assuming no materials on hand. I had some stuff laying around, and was able to purchase everything else that I needed at Dollarama, my actual cost was $1.15/ornament)

Time Commitment: 3-4 hours, depending on how fancy you get with the painting and details.

Now that it's dried, tonight's goal is to paint it. Hopefully it turns out well... because I have 4 others to make after if it does!

Final Images

Here's a few of my final products.

There are a couple of ways that the images could be presented. 

• Print out individual pictures an place in a photo frame
• Place using an image manipulation program onto a background of your choice (this is the method that I went with for these examples)

Which option you choose is totally up to how you're looking to present your artwork. If your choice is to print out the images and frame them, remember to make sure when cropping your photos to have them fit into a 'normal' photo size (see the below chart). If you decide to place the images using an image manipulation software, you have the freedom to change the sizes of the image, depending on the effect you're looking for.

ABC Art - Miscellaneous Images to help enhance

So far I've been able to take some images that don't correspond necessarily to a particular letter, but I can foresee them becoming useful when actually producing consolidated images. Here's a sample of the one's I've found to date.

This last one is a bit nerdy, but you never know when you might need Pi!

 

ABC Art - Day 26

Not one of my easier letters to find, 'Z' didn't come to me until riding home from an ulti tournament. Sitting in the back sleep, I awoke from a nap to find 'z' starting me in the face.

ABC Art - Day 25

Why oh 'Y' were you so hard to find?
I'll keep looking, but in the mean time...

ABC Art - Day 24

'X' is another letter that I thought would be difficult... but in the end I had to weed down the number of images that I got!

ABC Art - Day 23

The 3 pillars 'W' is one of my favorites that I found during this challenge. All based off of perspective, it allows for a nicely artsy photo.

ABC Art - Day 22

Mountains made 'V' not as difficult as I thought it would be... but I didn't want to do just mountains... so I had to go hunting elsewhere!

ABC Art - Day 21

I honestly have nothing to say about 'U' photos... All I can think about is "I scream, U scream, well all scream for ice cream". So I'm going to take that as a hint, and go get some ice cream.

ABC Art - Day 20

'T' is one of my favorite letters (mostly because it's the beginning of my name). Originally the first image was to be used in the 'I' category. But after cropping down the photo, the yellow paint line made for a nice cross, and it stopped looking less like and 'I', and more like a 'T'

ABC Art - Day 19

Almost surprisingly, the easiest place for me to find 'S' was in the decorative hand railings that lead up to people's houses. 
I also super love the salt shaker that I found while out for supper one night. While people made fun of me for taking pictures of the 'S' and 'P' on the top, I think they make great additions to the photo compilations.