Crafting Through the Crud

Staying creative during stressful times is important and finding the right project for the situation is essential. I’m sharing my recent experiences, how crafting through the crud helped, and how you can do the same.

Boy howdy, September has been one cruddy month. Just so we are all on the same page here’s the technical and highly refined definition of this slang term…

CRUD

One of the most useful words used for ‘Crap’. Kids use it so the high-strung parents won’t throw a fit.
“CRUD! My gerbil just ate my term paper!” 
“What the crud is going on?” 
“This is just crudtacular.”

The Urban Dictionary

Crudtacular is now my favorite word ever.

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Knitting Toys 101: Decreases & Norwegian Colorwork

Continuing the Knitting Toys 101 series we are now learning about the common decreases you may encounter in knitted toy patterns. I’m also sharing my favorite two new knitting books. Finally I am comparing the first fox I made to my current one, proving that practice makes better (not perfect).

Apple Picking

I have a new weekend mantra around my house and it goes a little something like this:

Get stuff done. Have some fun

Me

I needed to enact this new policy because a certain man that I married has a tendency to forget to have a good time. For this weekend’s mandatory fun activity we went to the mountains and picked apples! I can hear my grandaddy’s voice in my head now! “Why in the world would you pay someone your hard earned money to pick THEIR apples?” He also loved using the word “behoove”, no one ever uses that word anymore.

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Knitting Toys 101: Increases & Autumn Acorns

There are two common types of knitting increases that you are likely to encounter when knitting toys, M1L and KLL. In this post I will show you how to do both of these and share my Autumn Acorns Dress colorwork chart. Finally I am announcing the new local maker group my friend and I have started!

Knitting Increases

Knitting increases used to scare me…a lot. I’m not really sure why. It sort of reminds me of when I was a kid and was totally convinced that something lived under my bed. The weird thing was, I was only scared of that invisible creature at night. During the day I was happy to coexist in mutual harmony, but by night I was sure the thing wanted to eat me alive.

Knitting had that effect on me. I was really and truly afraid of making mistakes. It felt like the world was going to end. Now I’m more comfortable with the process and even committing those dreaded errors.

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Favorite Fall Crochet & Knitting Projects

Fall is the perfect time for crochet and knitting projects. I have been scouring Pinterest in search of adorable autumn patterns and it did not disappoint, from plaid pumpkins to precious pigs and everything in between.

Fall Crochet and Knitting Projects

I am ALL about fall, y’all!! Unfortunately the weather and Starbucks aren’t quite in the same frame of mind. I tried to order a Pumpkin Spice Latte, iced of course, and felt incredibly disappointed when they informed me that they don’t have them yet. What???? Why???? Yes, I know it’s only August and that it’s 90 degrees with 50% humidity. But I’m ready for crisp windy days, colorful cascading leaves, and everything pumpkin spice.

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Knitting Toys 101: How to Knit & Purl

Knit and purl are the two foundational knitting stitches. You will need to learn them both to be able to knit adorable toys. But first we are going to make a pit stop for a little encouragement. Afterwards we will peek at my newly organized yarn. And finally I will share the teeny tiny vintage hangers I found at my local antique mall.

A Little Note of Encouragement

I hope you’re enjoying working on your cable cast on and that you’re finding it fairly simple to do. But this little note is for those of you who may be reading this and knitting is not coming so easily. Maybe you’re feeling frustrated and disappointed. Your hands aren’t cooperating. The videos don’t make sense. You just want to give up.

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Knitting Toys 101: Cable Cast On and Blocking

The cable cast on is a fundamental skill that you will need to master to hand knit toys. Today I’m going to show you how to do it and share a little about the importance of blocking!

Conversation with a Bunny

Bunny: So there’s a rumor going around that you want to learn how to make me.

You: Who told you that? Wait…you can talk?

Bunny: Of course I can talk! You think I’m just some dumb animal? I also heard that you think knitting toys is too hard.

You: Well that’s definitely true. It looks so complicated.

Bunny: It’s not complicated, but there are skills you need to learn. By the way, you got any carrots?

It is a well known fact that bunnies have very short attention spans so I think I’ll take over from here.

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How to Knit a Fuzzy Bunny

This week I will show you how to make a fuzzy bunny of your very own!

Have you ever experienced what you thought was a total disaster but it turned out to be an opportunity in disguise? Didn’t Bob Ross call those “happy little accidents”? It happened to me over the weekend and what a delight it has been!! But let’s start back at the very beginning of this delightful tale.

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Best Tip for Choosing Colors for Stranded Knitting

When knitting toys, choosing colors for stranded knitting can make or break a project. But I’ve got a trick to help you pick the best colors every time!

Stranded Knitting and Summer Camp

You may be asking yourself what in the world stranded knitting and summer camp have to do with one another. Unless I’m missing something, I don’t think they do. But last week I spent my days as a camp counselor at Wings of Eagles Ranch, a therapeutic horseback riding facility for children with special needs. By night I was a stranded knitting colorwork queen.

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Makers Weight Gain – Plan of Attack

There’s a little known syndrome in the crafting world that I dubbed MWG- aka – Makers Weight Gain. No one likes to talk about it. (Can’t we just talk about yarn???) It’s an insidious enemy that slowly creeps into its victim’s life. It is stubborn. It takes up residence and settles in for a long stay. Stubborn and tenacious, nothing but a full on assault will cure the problem.

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Christmas in July for Makers

In today’s post we will explore the notion of Christmas in July for Makers and what that means for us all.

Warning

If you continue reading this, you won’t be able to unread it.

You will be in full possession of this knowledge and will therefore have a responsibility to act on it.

There are only 174 days until Christmas. That’s 4,176 hours, or 250,560 minutes, or 15,033,600 seconds.

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