Free Pattern: Beanie with Crossed Texture Detail Row - 3 Months

An adorable live model for this one.  Introducing baby #3!  She is about 14 pounds.  For the picture of her, I added a small open no-sew rose.

Premie size here.
Newborn size here.
6-month size here.

Christmas Makes

"...The angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, 

who is Christ the Lord.'" Luke 2:10-11

Merry Christmas!  I hope you're having a great holiday celebration with your family.  Here are some of the things I made for mine this year.

A tiny rocket for a tiny nephew

 An infinity scarf for a friend
(thick and thin yarn, winged it in half double crochet)

A set of baskets and a star ornament for my aunt
(for the bigger basket I did another round on the bottom of 2 dc, dc,
then added an extra row on the side)

A washcloth for my Gran
(Up and down stitch, cotton sport yarn, 36 or so stitches by 32 rows)

©2012 Alli Hyer, all rights reserved.

Makes: Busy Bags - Toothpick Punching and Clothesline Fun

This week I made a bunch of these activities for a busy bag exchange with some friends.  For my two girls I took two slots in the 10-slot exchange, so I sent 8 of each away.  I'm looking forward to all the loot that comes back!

Toothpick Punching

For my first bag I chose an activity that #1 girl has really enjoyed.  I can't remember where I saw this first, but it's definitely floating around in the busy bag world.  I cut construction paper down to 8.5/11 and printed a document I made with shapes, groups of shapes, a solid capital alphabet, a dashed capital alphabet and 3 sets of numbers.  (In hindsight I probably should have done caps and small letters on the alphabet squares.  Whenever I print it off again I will probably change it.)  If you want the doc, email me and I will email you back a pdf.

I put each pile into a baggie, and also included a baggie of toothpicks, a washcloth and these instructions:

Instructions:

Place washcloth on table

Set a few cards on cloth

Have child punch on black lines with toothpick

When done, hold it up to a light to see the shape or letter

Ideas for Variations:

With groups of shapes, child can punch the center of each shape

On numbers, you can add corresponding number of dots in marker

You can set out groups of shapes and the corresponding shape, and have the child match them after they are all punched

Clothesline Fun

For my second bag, I chose something I want #1 girl to learn how to do - pin felt "clothes" onto a clothesline.  There is a great tutorial with printable clothes pattern for this activity here.  I made my own pattern by folding a piece of paper in half and drew a half of a pair of pants, shirt, and skirt.  I cut them out and used them as the pattern on the felt.  (It was even easier to use a felt cutout as a pattern, since felt sticks to felt.) 

Be sure to make the clothes a good size - at least the size of your palm.  Otherwise it will be too hard for the kid to hold and pin. I chose to do three colors with three pieces of clothing each, to give flexibility for making patterns and matching.

I included pieces of nylon string, with hot-glued tips so they wouldn't ravel, (I was going to use cotton yarn, but while testing it, #1 hung on it and snapped it.  So we went with the nylon.) and 6 clothespins.  I would have liked to give more clothespins, but I needed to keep the cost down and I did have to mail these bags.  Also included was a card with these instructions: 

Instructions:

Tie string between two chairs

Have child pin clothes to the line with clothespins

Ideas for Variations:

Have child pin all of one color

Have child pin all of one type of clothing (shirts, pants, skirts)

Make a simple pattern of 3 for child to copy

(Felt is machine washable, cold water, delicate dry cycle)

 ©2012 Alli Hyer, all rights reserved.  You may publish or post a link, but you may not publish or post in whole or in part.

Makes: Merry Christmas!

I've taken the week off to celebrate the birth of the Christ child!  I hope His coming brings light and life into your heart today.

I made these precious babies for Christmas presents.  Thanks Owlishly for Sleepy Sarah!  They are soooo sweet. 

What were your favorite Christmas makes?

Makes: I Love Pinterest!

The girls and I have been doing crafts lately, for Christmas ornaments and for fun.  All these projects were ideas I found on Pinterest, on which can be found all manner of amazing things!

A wedding invitation ornament, for my recently married good friend.  The leaf embellishment is from the wedding favor.  It turned out so pretty!

 Combination of the wedding invitation idea and a mod-podge project I saw, I curled up strips of sheet music and filled the plastic ball.  Love how these turned out!

  These toddler discovery bottles were based on a pin from Disney Family Fun.  I used empty plastic spice bottles.  I hot glued them to within an inch of their life, but they still leaked, so I resorted to the butterfly duct tape.  These are so fun!

I saw the jingle bell wreath on Pinterest, with a ribbon bow.  I didn't read the post before I made ours, so I didn't know that they used copper wire to get it really round.  Mine slumps a little with a pipe cleaner.  I do like how they came out, though!

 I crocheted this scrunchie to make an Elmo for my camera, like I saw on this pin.
(sc around a hairtie, join, ch 3, 3dc in each sc around, join, finish off)
I cut out eyes, pupils and a nose from felt and tacky glued them to the scrunchie.
I really hope this will help me to get my girls to smile for the camera!

Hope you are listening to Christmas music and making lots of Christmasy things too.  This is such a wonderful, crafty season.  :)

©2011 Alli Hyer, all rights reserved.

Makes: Operation Christmas Child

 
This week I made a Boutique Granny Stripe Bag (Tangled Happy) for our Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child shoebox gift.

I've been doing a shoebox gift almost every year since high school; it's a great way to keep perspective going in to the Christmas season.  These kids won't get any Christmas presents besides through the Operation Christmas Child program.  And Samaritan's Purse gives more than just the gifts, they follow up with the kids and teach them the true meaning of Christmas.

If you want to give a shoebox gift, it's super easy, and it's always a lot of fun!

I usually go to the dollar store, to keep the bill down.  I got a reusable "shoe" box, and, as it suggests on the site,  some school supplies (a notebook, mechanical pencils, solar calculator), some hygiene items (toothbrush, toothpaste, soap), and lots of fun stuff (flip-flops, hair ties, hair bands, glow sticks, a flashlight with extra batteries, a solar moving flower toy, a klick-klack wooden toy, a jump rope, stickers, hard candies, and, of course, the awesome crochet bag!).  All of that cost about $18, so with the $7 donation for shipping, my total came to only about $25!

I love to imagine what a fun gift this will be for a girl, and this year my #1 can understand it, too.  We really enjoyed picking things, thinking about the girl who gets our shoebox.

And because we made the shipping donation online, we can track our gift.  We printed out our tag with a barcode on it which will be scanned and the destination country will be emailed to us.  It will be so interesting to find out where our gift is headed!  With the tag and a rubber band around the box, we are ready to take it to the drop-off location this week, Nov. 14-21.

What a great gift God gave to us when he sent his son as a baby to earth.  Giving a gift to someone in need is a little expression of our thanks to him.

Recent Makes

In the last couple of months, I've made some things from others' patterns that I wanted to show off.  :)

I made two scallop scarves from a Lion Brand pattern, which I looooove. I used the recommended Vanna's Choice.  The scarves turned out so cushy and pretty, and it's a really simple pattern that's easy to follow and pretty fast.  I am definitely going to make more of these.

For myself, I made a hat, since we spent Christmas in the cold Northeast.  I used the Deeply Textured Hat pattern from The Laughing Willow.  I used Full O' Sheep wool, which is kinda itchy, but I love the clean look of the texture.  And it's very warm.  :)  I also made one for my sister, not pictured, but on hers I crab-stitched around the last row, which was a nice finishing touch!

Most recently, I made these Mitten Time mittens from Crochet Soiree for my sister.  (Crochet Soiree link was broken (they took the pattern off the site) so I removed it.  I can't host the pattern on my site, but I can share it with you directly.  If you want it, email me and I will send the PDF to you. allicraftsblog AT gmail DOT com)  My favorite parts of this pattern - though it is worked in rounds, you turn on every round, which creates a more detailed texture than a pattern worked continuously in rounds.  And, of course, the bobbles!  It's hard to find cute crocheted mittens, but I think these hit the mark.  I used an alpaca wool from a LYS near where my parents live.  (They turned out far from perfect!  Not too bad for my first pair, though, and I have no doubt that, if my sister notices, she won't mind!)