Crochet star stitches... love!

Hello everyone and hello March!  Today is sunny and warm around here in Southern California and I feel the spring is in the air...

Yet I'm still crocheting things with wintery wool yarns :D 

I crocheted a simple neck warmer or a cowl with my favorite *star stitches*.  The pattern is from this book.   As you may recall, I made a crochet seat cushion recently from the same book.

Can you see the four buttons placed on the side of the scarf?

These buttons connect the both ends of the scarf to make a loop.  I love this neck warmer/cowl!

And here are more seat cushions that I made for our kitchen chairs and stool, with the *star stitches* again.

These cushions are warm and puffy that keep our bottoms comfy :)

 

BTW today, March 3rd, is Girls day in Japan.

We decorated a corner of our house like this.  We're planning to celebrate Girls day with special homemade sushi and sweet cakes today...

Happy Girls day to you beautiful crafty girls out there!!   Hope you continue to enjoy your weekend :)

My iPad 2 sleeve

I got myself an Apple iPad 2 a couple of weeks ago, and I've been enjoying it ever since.  Well, actually, it seems like our girls are spending a lot more time with this new "toy" than I do, playing games, watching videos, and listening to the music...

For protection purposes, this is the sleeve that I made for our iPad.   I basically followed this awesome tutorial from One Shabby Chick to make this one.

 The sleeve is machine quilted throughout with two linings sandwiched in between - fleece batting and medium interfacing., which makes it very sturdy.

I used my favorite Melody Miller fabric line from Kokka to make the sleeve.  This fabric has a heavy "canvas" feel, which is great for making tablet covers, I think.

I'm very happy with how this cover turned out, as much as I like my iPad! 

 Although I was surprised to hear on the news today that Apple is launching a new iPad 3 next week, only few weeks after I got my iPad 2!!  OMG!

 Oh well, but that's okay, as I'm an old fashioned "low tech" type of gal, who doesn't require the latest gadgets anyway :P

Thanks for visiting and hope you have a happy "leap" day tomorrow :)

Crocheting hair scrunchies

As much as I enjoy sewing, I enjoy crocheting.  For a quick crocheting project, I made these hair scrunchies for my girls this week. 

To make these scrunchies, I simply crocheted the pom pom yarn around the hair elastic by repeating this process: single crochet (sc) on to elastic →　then crochet one chain stitch　→ then sc on to the elastic again, until the entire elastic is covered with stitches.

Our 10 year old likes the puffy look of this hair scrunchie. 

Oops, I gotta go pick up the girls now...  Hope you continue to enjoy your weekend!

Patchwork lavender sachets

Last night, I whipped up these simple gifts for our family friend.  These are patchwork lavender sachets, made from this wonderful tutorial from Charise Creates.

Pieces of organza are used for the back sides of the sachets, which enhances the heavenly fragrance of dried lavenders.... awww!  I love the aroma of dried lavender! 

Although for some reason, our girls doesn't like dried lavender scents...  They think that the lavender scents are for old people :P

Anyways, I placed small button in the center, for both the front and back sides. The sachet is just the right size to sit on my palm.

 Unlike our girls, hope our friends like the lavender scents...!

Log cabin with DS fabrics

Using my favorite DS quilts fabric line from our local Joann store, I made a simple log cabin patch.   The size of the center square is 4 inches x 4 inches, and the surrounding strips are 2 inches wide.   I haven't decided what to make out of this patch yet... maybe a tote bag?

Actually, I was inspired by this beautiful book that I borrowed from our local library when making this log cabin patchwork. 

Book title:  Modern Log Cabin Quilting

Author: Susan Beal

ISBN-10: 030758657X

ISBN-13: 978-0307586575

There are 25 projects included in this book, and they are all so eye-catchingly gorgeous!

 Here are the other books that I've borrowed from our local library.  This time, they're all craft books (and I love craft books!)

 When I was a kid, I loved going to the library to check out books, and that favorite pastime hasn't changed at all even after I'd grown up.  I used to stay there for hours, just wandering around and trying to choose which books to read.

 The only exception now is that I can't stay in the library for too long, as I take my girls along and it only take few minutes for them to pick out books...

Have you been to your local library lately?

Happy Valentine's Day

Handmade heart hanging at our front door

Hope you are spending a wonderful day with your loved ones...

Love, Amy xoxo

Gift to my one year old nephew

My youngest nephew, who lives in Japan with his mommy and daddy, just turned one.  To celebrate his milestone and well being, I whipped up few handmade gifts for him, including this patchworked bib.

The reversible side of bib is soft gauze in polka dots.  Waffle cotton is sandwiched in between the front and the back sides of the bib for extra softness.

I also whipped up this fleece pants for the little guy.   This pair of fleece pants matches with this bear hoodie jacket that I made for him a while ago.

 Bear hoodie jacket made earlier for him

Reversible side of the jacket

Along with the handmade gifts, I also wrapped these baby/toddler items to Mr. Handsome little guy.  They are wood ABC puzzle, waterproof bib, and a set of training plate and utencils.

Happy first Birthday to my sweet nephew!  This is just a first of many joyful birthdays to come :D

Gift to a nine year old girl (hair accessory set)

I handmade a birthday gift set to a very pretty girl who just turned nine.  She has a long beautiful hair so I decided to put together a pack of hair accessories for her to wear.

This is a set of two large ribbons with pony tail holders attached to the back.  Poly fill is filled inside to add softness to these ribbons, and I'll tell you.  These ribbons are really LARGE in size! (About a size of my palm).

Another set of ponytail holders made of covered buttons with Rilakkuma fabric.

These are crocheted flower ponytail holders.  Wood beads are placed in the center of these flowers.

Hair scrunchie made of fabric scraps in pastel colors.

The entire hair accessories were placed in this Rilakkuma drawstring bag that I handmade for her.     The tutorial of this usable bag can be found here.

The recipient girl seemed to like my gift, and I was told by the girl's mother that she wore the red big ribbon ponytail holder to her school on the next day :D

For me, one of the joyful moments of crafting is making handmade gifts... Especially making gifts for the little and the young people!

As long as I can craft and continue to make things for the special people around me... I'm a happy camper (I mean a crafter) :D

Crochet star stitches seat cushion

Recently, I crocheted this *star* stitches seat cushion.

In case you are not familiar with star stitches, they are decorative crochet stitches that add texture to the projects.  As you can see, the individual stitches really look like *stars*!  I also learned that these stitches are called "daisies" or "marguerite" stitches.

Here's the close up of the star stitches... I really like the lumpy *stars* on my new seat cushion! 

First I was a bit intimidated to master these stitches on my own, but after playing around with yarns and hook for a while, I learned that these stars  are made simply by the combination of chains and several half double crochets (中長編み）。

I followed instructions from this Japanese crochet book to make this seat cushion.  Although I made the cushion size a bit bigger to accommodate my big b*** (lol)!

Book title: Winter Projects with Crochet Star Stitches

ISBN-10: 4579113683

ISBN-13: 978-4579113682

Publisher: Bunka Shuppan-Kyoku

There are also many helpful online resources out there to learn how to crochet "star" stitches.

http://crochet.about.com/library/blstar_stitch.htm

youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Voo3D3l_mpE

 I used these "Thick & Quick" chunky yarns from Lion Brand...

The chunky yarns, crocheted into the puffy stitches, really add thickness to the cushion.

Back side of the cushion looks like this.

 Crocheting star stitches is really addicting that I can't stop making more stuff with them :)   

I plan to crochet another seat cushion (possibly in a larger size) for my mom in Japan.  

Happy crocheting and happy star stitches ;)   

Handmade door mat

We had guests from Taiwan staying with us for a while, and before welcoming the guests, the first thing I did was to whip up this door mat!  Our old door mat was getting so dirty from heavy use, so I definitely had to replace it with a new one.

To save time for quilting, I used pre-quilted fabric for the reverse side.  For additional softness, I sandwiched fleece batting in between the outer fabric (gray floral) and the pre-quilted fabric used for the reverse side.  Also to prevent the mat from slipping, a non-slip mat is placed underneath the mat, as you can see.

The reverse side of the mat looks like this.

Mitered corners...

As for the fabrics, I used my favorite DS quilt collection line from our local Joann store.  

 I don't even think that our guests will even notice my handmade door mat (lol) and despite the fact that I was in a big rush to make this one, I'm happy with how it turned out!

Thanks for visiting and hope all is well for my fellow crafty friends out there :)

***Love, Amy***