Crafty links

I know I have a couple sets of links on the sidebar, but lately I've come across some random fun stuff that I thought I'd share for the other crafty types out there.

First off is Shana Logic, which is a cool little shop with lots of really funky stuff. Some of it is kinda pricey, but it's good for some inspiration if you can't afford the price tags.

For all you sci-fi nerds out there, I found this crazy contest to make your own Cylon on Make Magazine's website.

Another magazine site I like is Craft Magazine. If it weren't so darn expensive, I'd love to get a subscription ($35 for 4 quarterly issues!), but I'll settle for the scraps I can glean from their website. I'll confess that part of the appeal is their nice clean design. And just ago, through Craft, I found my way to Etsy Labs, where, among other things, I found a great tutorial on fusing plastic bags! [Sidetrack: despite my efforts to use cloth shopping bags more often, we are constantly overrun with plastic bags which pile up and up under our sink and in the garage until either T or I get so fed up we make a special trip to the store just to recycle them. Bleg.]

I kind of randomly found Whip Up, I'm not sure how. But they have a lot of cute stuff, including interesting takes on what I would otherwise have written off as boring patterns.

Through the local moms board I'm on, I found Craftster and Instructables. Craftster is another message board, but there are lots and lots of great ideas and tutorials on all different sorts of crafts, from knitting to sewing to jewelry-making, scrapbooking...you get the idea. And you don't have to sign up to view stuff, so you can just poke around if you want.

Instructables is a bit more random in the type of stuff on there, but most of it is pretty entertaining, even if it's something you'll never make in your entire life, like say, a duct tape shoe, or a Bratz doll knife block. A lot of the stuff on there involves using power tools, so I kind of put it more towards handy rather than just crafty.

And I can't post a set of links without including one of my favorite knitting sites, Knitty.

quickie

The beanie visor ended up fitting perfectly! I couldn't help but show off a little bit with this picture. I'm thinking about making a few more hats like this for some of my friends with older kids.

Old & new

I've kind of been slacking on the knitting lately, but I went to a little knitting gathering last weekend with some other moms. It was nice to have a night out, even though only a minimal amount of knitting was done, and it did kind of "recharge" me to start some new stuff. I decided to try to make a felted bag using a pattern similar to the 'squares' hat the I recently made for a friend. Pictured at left is what I've got so far. It's turning out to be a bit narrower than I thought it was going to be, so now I'm debating whether to really felt it or not. Also, it loses so much length in the felting process that it may take me a hundred years to make it long enough pre-felt. I originally was shooting for a tote bag, but I may just leave it as is, sew a lining, and slap some wood handles on it and call it a purse.

Oh, I also finally got my second dishcloth done. It looks pretty much the same as the first one, just different colors. I like the variegated yarn a bit more though. It's a little more interesting. I really like this pattern as it's really easy and mindless to knit, so it's good for doing in front of the tv. The bag I'm working on...not so much.

I'm still working on finishing up the needle roll from the knit along. I don't know what my problem is, I just have to do the cables. I think I've just lost interest in it as a project.

I've got the sewing bug lately and have a lot of things that I want to get started. I bought a bunch more flannel to make bibs. They had some really really cute prints at Joann the other day, and I couldn't resist. I'm hoping to get some sewing done this weekend.

Animal Crackers

Today I hosted a sort of birthday party for a bunch of kids that are all right around E's age. As per my normal obsessive compulsive self, I decided that I had to make something crazy. So I decided to make some fancypants animal cookies. I will say though that unlike my usual, I did do a little bit of forethought and planning this time around. I took advantage of the fact that my in-laws were here all last week, which gave me time to bake the cookies over the weekend and at least get started on the decorating.

One thing that a lot of people don't realize is that the icing on these types of cookies takes forever to dry. So you usually have to do one part, like say, the outline, and then give that time to dry. Then you fill in the middle part and that has to dry (usually overnight), and then any little embellishments have to be done last and allowed to dry as well. So on average, between baking and decorating, they take about 3-4 days to make.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how these turned out. I think that they could've been neater, but I always think that. The colors could've been brighter too, but I was trying to save time by just adding to pre-mixed colors. There were actually 10 animals in the set, but I skipped the monkey, polar bear and camel. The monkey just seemed like an odd shape, the polar bear seemed boring, and the camel just didn't seem to fit in with the others. In retrospect, I probably would've made more lions (I somehow only made one) and skipped the gorillas and rhinos. They were kind of blah. I think the giraffes turned out the best.

C is for Cookie

I really miss doing pastry-related stuff. Lately, I've been dying to get back into cookie decorating. So I was happy when I got a chance to make these palm tree cookies for a mom-friend for her daughter's first birthday.

I'm in the process of finally using my set of Williams-Sonoma animal cookie cutters to make some cookies for a playdate I'm hosting next week too. I've got them baked but not decorated yet, so I'll post those when I'm done. Oh, and my mother-in-law and I are dying & decorating Easter eggs today too (also from a WS kit), which I've actually only ever done once in my whole life. I know it sounds nutty to have never dyed eggs, but my family never really celebrated Easter when I was growing up. The one time I did it was when I convinced my mom to buy one of those Paas kits from the grocery store and my brother and I did it on our own. Let's just say that most of the eggs turned out gray or brown.

I have to confess, it's kind of fun to have an excuse to do stuff like this, even though I'm not religious and E is really still too small to enjoy any of it just yet.

Sewing Project #3

I finally got to work on something new! After pretty much burning out on babylegs, I decided to try my hand at making some bibs for E. All of the ones we had were either way too dinky to do more than catch drool, or they were too plastic-y and distracting. She'd spend the whole time messing with her bib, trying to pull it off. Not to mention that you can't throw the plastic ones in the dryer. I did recently find this cute toddler bib, which is nice and big and not all vinyl-y, but at $10 a pop, I wasn't willing to buy more than one.

For a while, I toyed with the idea of making my own giant bibs by cutting up some old towels and just slapping on some bias tape and velcro, but well, let's be honest. I wanted E to have something cute. So the other day, I was at Hancock Fabrics and they had all their cotton flannel on sale. And I remembered seeing some cute little custom bibs on Etsy that were made out of flannel, so I thought, why not? It doesn't have to be super absorbent or stain proof. I mean, they're bibs, right? They're meant to get dirty and go into the wash. I figured what the heck, I'll buy a yard and give it a shot. Worse comes to worse, I wasted $5. (You gotta love that about baby stuff. It's all small, so you don't feel like you're investing as much money.) Besides, how cute is this fabric?

At first, I was going to double it up, so it was reversible. Then I thought about putting a layer of something in the middle, to make it more absorbent, either terry or jersey. After I made a little pattern (out of a paper grocery bag) and cut it though, I actually found this pattern for a bib almost exactly like the Bumkins one. I decided to stick with what I had already cut though and give that one a whirl next time around.

A few amendments to my original plan: I realized that the reversible thing was probably a waste of time since it's not like I'm going to dirty one side and then turn it over and put the dirty side against E's clean clothes! So instead, I decided to just do one layer of the flannel, and then back it with an old cut-up t-shirt. This also has the added bonus of doubling the number of bibs I can make. I also put the bias tape on (my first time ever using the stuff) and then added the velcro after. I hadn't intended to do it that way because it looks messier, but I realized after putting the velcro on first that the bias tape would cover up about half the velcro, making it easier for E to pull off.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It's not as even or symmetrical as I'd like, but I can live with it. I'm going to make a few tweaks and make another one before I tackle that other pattern. I had no idea though that this one bib would use up all my bias tape! So I'll probably have to make another run to the store for more this weekend. Or I might just use the yellow tape I already have, even if it doesn't exactly match.

Here's an "action shot" of the bib:

Red, White & Blue Beanie

I've been holding off on posting this hat because I didn't want to ruin the surprise, but I think I should be safe now, as I dropped it in the mail yesterday. I made this little visor beanie as a thank you gift for a photographer friend who took photos of us last week for E's first birthday. The pictures turned out amazing. I'm not normally the sappy type, but I think I actually teared up when I first saw them.

In any case, her daughter is really into all things Americana, so when I saw this yarn at the store, I couldn't resist buying it to make something for her. It's self striping, which was nice because it meant almost no loose ends to weave in, although it did make for some wonky "stair-step" effects in the striping. But I think I'm the only one really anal retentive enough to notice. I also struggled with the sizing because I have no idea how big kids' heads are, other than my own, and that's only because I can take a tape measure to her.

This week, my in-laws are here visiting, so I'm hoping to get some extra craftiness in since I'll have lots of help with the baby. Oh, and just as a bonus, here's one of my favorite pictures from our photo shoot last week.