When I started KCWC my kids were much smaller and their clothes did only take an hour to make. Now it’s pockets and more pockets and buttonhole elastic and nice, sturdy seam finishes (i.e. lots more time for one stupid pair of pants). I made some baby clothes for a new(ish) baby and wow! you can just crank those teeny things out! The pants came from the sleeves of a felted cashmere sweater and they came together so quickly I did a bias bound seam finish along the crotch seam, because I felt like they couldn’t be done already.

I still had more of the hour left, so I made a hat to match. The pattern is from Martha Stewart. Originally, the hat is made from felt and the seams are zigzagged together so they lie flat. I made two hats with normal seams and then sewed them together: cashmere on one side, jersey on the other. I’ve made this hat many, many times. I like how the orange tag on this one make the hat look like a skate punk blue bird.

I finished both things in about 45 minutes, so I thought what they hell, I’ll make a ball with the scraps. Well, the ball took longer than both. The pattern is for a paper pieced, hand stitched pentagon ball. Hand stitching isn’t really my favorite thing, but when you do it with your best friends on a beautiful fall day and a hot cup of coffee it’s not all that bad.

The flickr group is really starting to fill up. One day and you guys are already on a roll! I already mentioned this on twitter, but one of my sponsors, Too Sweets, is offering my readers a 15% discount on her patterns (they are in pdf form, so you could use them today!) just enter KCWC15 when you check out. And while you are at it, check out my other lovely sponsors–many of whom sell very stylish children’s clothes patterns.

1. button fly skirt
2. fake fly pants
3. baby leg warmers
4. tunic or vest from scarf

Happy KCWC!

It’s been so fun to read these wintry posts.  I like winter for many of the same reasons as my fellow guest bloggers but  I think mostly  I like it out of necessity…otherwise I’d be crabby straight through from October to May.  Getting outside even just for a bit is a high priority for our family but there are some days (like today) up here in Minnesota where it’s just too cold to have much fun outside.  On these days crafts and art projects are in order, so here is a fun sewing project for grown-ups and young sewers alike:

A Stocking Cap for a Small Friend (my first tutorial!)

Cut off the cuff and a couple of inches of sleeve from an old sweater.  A sock would work very well too.

Turn the piece inside-out and do a running stitch about 1/4″ from the cut edge with strong thread all the way around the top.  Pull tight and secure with a knot.

Turn it right side out and fold up the cuff a bit…hey look, it’s already so hat-like!

Now make a little pom pom.  There are lots of places to lean how if you have never made one before…like here.

I like to felt my pom poms a bit by rubbing them between my hands in warm soapy water.  This step is not necessary but I think it looks super cute and helps scale down your pom pom.  The yarn must be wool in order to do this step.

Now stitch the pom pom to the top of the hat.

finis

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I’m Erika from Fox and Owl.  I make dolls and animals and drawings and have a little blog where I talk about art and craft and show lots of gratuitous pictures of my adorable children.  Come visit me there sometime!

Thank you Meg for letting me be a guest on your excellent blog!

I know christmas is long gone, but I never got to show you all that I made, so just deal with it. It was indeed a very crochet christmas this year. I made earrings for all my crafty bitches (sorry, it’s just too tempting) I mean my friends from craft night. The first earring I made turned out waaaay too big, so I turned it into a necklace instead and liked it so much I made another. The other earrings worked up super quick and I think they are very pretty (and so did they, thankfully).  While I was in the jewelry making mood I crocheted a bow tie choker with some leftover alpaca I had. I thought it’d be a sassy accessory for new year’s eve, but they weren’t buying it, so I think some little boy has a new sunday tie. The alpaca was from another christmas gift I crocheted–that slouchy hat up there–for my brother in law. I think I did every single stitch wrong in the hat, but they are all wrong in the same way so it turned out. The used chunky alpaca for the black cowl (the pattern is called the the black hole cowl) and it’s so awesomely soft. If you don’t knit or crochet you should learn just because of alpaca. The last two scarves up there were for my mother-in-law and father-in-law–I’m sure you can tell which is which. The fancy one is made with the broomstick stitch, which is a super cool stitch that you actually use a broomstick for, or in my case a wrapping paper tube, and it’s made out of 100 percent cashmere (on sale) so it’s crazy soft. The one I’m peeking out from is just a quick, easy, man scarf, one I’m sure I will make again.  All the specs for all these project are on my ravelry page (you need an account to see them) and hey while you are there be my friend! I’m lonely over there on ravelry all by myself. There were two more crocheted presents and I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of either: I made 2 moustache hats for my brother in law and his girlfriend. The moustaches were a little droopy, but otherwise they were well recieved–and worn!  So yeah, I crocheted a lot for christmas. How about you? what did you make?

I think it’s pretty easy to go crochet crazy. I had a great aunt who crocheted anything and everything: toilet paper cozies, sombreros for the tabasco sauce, ear cozies–not ear muffs, just two circles that fit around your ears! And now I see how you can go down that road. It’s just so easy to make up shapes as you go with crochet, increasing and decreasing wherever you choose and if you need to rip it out, it’s no big deal because it comes together so fast anyway. Which is why after only a few weeks after learning, I can crochet on the fly. This super ridiculous santa hat is a mash up of two other crocheted hats: the pointy hat I made for my daughter and the mustache hat on instructables. I can write up a pattern if there is enough interest, but really, if you can crochet you can probably just wing it.  Ho! Ho! Ho!

I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted to make every project in the Kid’s Crochet book. And here are 2 more. This little pointy number is pretty fantastic. The super cuteness doesn’t really come across in the photos, not that I didn’t try–my children will. not. be. still! As with all the projects in the book, this hat went very fast and I didn’t have one bit of trouble with it (here are the specs). My daughter picked out the variegated yarn (she called it rainbow yarn) from Joann’s and I wanted to try to get another hat out of it, so I added some stripes.

To mark the back of the hat, I embroidered her name on some wool felt and stitched it in. She picked out the orange thread and damn if that child doesn’t just have some amazing, if sometimes crazy, color sense. What four year old picks out taupe yarn anyway? But she did and it’s beautiful. While we were at the store we got some yarn for a cardigan I want to crochet for her. Stupidly I didn’t bring the pattern and we ended up buying the wrong size yarn, but she chose three gorgeous colors: a purpley raspberry, a magenta and a taupe-y brown. I never would have thought that’s what she would pick.

The skull cap (a variation of the same pattern) went even faster than the first hat. I did run out of yarn, so I added larger stripes of the yarn leftover from his scarf, but the wool at the bottom is curling. I haven’t blocked it, but how do you block a hat? On your head?