I've been crocheting a little lately, when it gets cold, I enjoy working with yarn.  This pattern I found free on the net flower burst handbag you can go to her site and get a free pattern if you like.

 Here is a hat I made for a friend who just had a baby boy. Owl hat she has kindly posted patterns for different size.  I made the eyes with crochet thread instead of buttons, buttons makes me nervous with babies.

here is a hat I made for my friend's teenage son since my almost 8 year old will not wear hats.
go to ravelry.com  sign up for free and you can search for free patterns.  there are lots of free patterns on there!

keep warm!

Southwest storage basket by joannas collections

Every month she has a free basket pattern for you to try and she also sells kits and patterns as well.  I make sure to visit once a month and print out patterns even if I don't plan on making it right away because I know one day I'm going to want to make it!

this pattern is no longer available for free  but you can still purchase it or you can get a kit !

click here to purchase the pattern

I'm back!!!

Where has the time gone?
I didn't mean to take the whole summer off!!
Its not that we went on a long trip or exotic vacation time just  kept on ticking and next thing you know it was September!!  I'm hoping to get back to swing of things and make more baskets, crafts and sweets!

Today I will share with you some of the things that I have made over the summer.

strawberry tartlet

Bacon wrapped Jalapeno Poppers

Ham and cheese Rolls
Bacon and Cheese Rolls
Custard Rolls

fresh strawberry roll cake

chocolate roll cake

more rolls

 

I drew a picture of my cat Tora to show my friends the kitty poop incident, he  is our old fat cat that had a little poop on his butt and jumped on our bed, sat down and well we ended up washing our bedding in the middle  of the night.

following night he was sleeping between my legs and decided to you know what, we ended up washing our bedding again.

earlier this summer my youngest son went to Ohio for hockey camp

Fourth of July dessert

blue berry muffin

Mont Blanc cake

its a cake with custard cream, whip cream and chestnut cream paste.  very popular cake in Japan

I started tatting, I'm still learning so there is lots of improvement to be made!

Blueberry double cream cheese cake
its baked cheesecake on the bottom, then blueberry compote topped with cream cheese mousse then covered with whipped cream.  decorated with fresh blueberry and pistachio

Mont Blanc cake version

Blueberry short cake

Amigurumi I made for my friend's birthday, its a creature with Shishidog head and snake body, I've been told it looks like Maggie from Simpson but its not.

more tatting, I made a bracelet but it ended up too long so and its perfect for my ankle.

white peach mousse cake

chocolate cupcake with chocolate cream cheese frosting

Piada opened here last month and the first 100 customer got a free Piada for a year (53 cards) I was number 27!!

helping make owl baby blanket for a friend

 Hard to see but more tatting bracelet its Os and Xs too cute!

 My oldest son wrecked my car!! Its been fixed and back home now

 My youngest getting his cavity filled, he tries to be tough but he gets a bit too nervous for the dentist

 newest amigurumi I made for a friend's birthday

its a pug!!
















I've been busy this summer, I have cut down on some of my extra activity so I should be able to keep up with baskets and blogging!   Thanks for visiting!!

Flower Girl Basket

With or without a ribbon, I'm not sure which looks better but this is the newest basket I finished on Thursday.  My arm hurt so bad I wanted to cry but I got it done.  That night I realized why my arm hurt so bad.  It wasn't because this basket was so hard to make or because I used my arm excessively.  I think it was because my arm was feeling pretty good, I forgot to take my medicine for several days!   so I'm back on my celebrex to keep my arm calm.

This basket is again by Willowe's but for some reason I can't find a link to her pattern order page. If I find it later I will post it later.  But the shape is just like this ode to spring except this one is smaller.

when you look from the top its oval because of the handle you insert, it shapes it this way.  I think its very pretty and I plan on making the bigger basket, wondering if I could use a notched swing handle to get a similar effect.








Happy Weaving!

Elbow welcome basket with wrapped swing handles

 I just finished this elbow basket, not hard to make but due to my "craft" elbow I have my left arm in a sling which makes it really hard to do anything.  I'm hoping taking medication and resting will help heal my arm so I can get back to crafting and typing normally. This typing with 1 hand is really getting old.

You can get stone buckles and charms but I use the wood shapes from my local craft store and paint them.  much cheaper! they are like .79cents !  I used light blue gray acrylic paint as a base and added speckles with dark blue, added a little shade to the heart then painted the country heart and the word Welcome.    I print out the word in your choice of font and size, trace it onto tracing paper then transfer it onto the painted heart, use a transfer carbon paper, transfer then paint.  I know  It sounds like lots of step, if you rather freehand it please do.  I'm just telling you how I did it.  I also varnished a clear coat after the paint dried to protect my hard work!  I had a incident last week with someone's child drawing on my painted heart, luckily it was done in crayola markers and not a sharpie, it washed right off. 

This pattern I purchased from Willowes basketry and yarn haus and apparently you can get it downloadable pattern, I have not purchased it that way so I don't know how that works but give it a try!

Since I cant give you the pattern, I thought there are people out there who wondered how you wrap a swing handle you make your self.  When I first tried years ago, the instructions was so vague I ended up using glue to keep it in place.  Now I look back on it and wonder why I couldn't figure it out and it is also very possible I'm still doing it wrong but, my basket handles are staying in place, swinging without glue so its OK in my book.

If you want to see how I do it here is a quick tutorial:

 Here is what the handle looks when its done.

 figure out how long you want your handle to be and make sure its soaked well.

Depending on what kind of swing handle you are doing, you will either poke the end through the space below the rim (same space you lash) or if you are using ears, you will inset in  the ears.




 here is a pic of swing handle using ears.

 give your self about 3-4 inches and bend the ends or if you prefer a rounder even handle make sure it over laps and make the ends meet someplace before bending the handle.

Not sure if you can see it but my handle ends meets on the inside, I like the rounder even handles so I overlapped them.




 
Then take a long flat or flat oval reed you are using to wrap soaked well, place it between the handle smooth side or round side down.










 bend the wrapper reed












use clothes pins to hold the overlapped handles and start wrapping! just like you do with any handles! you can add designs if you like or keep it plain.   I kept mine plain since this basket is going on my door.








once you reach the other side where you want to end, bend the reed upward.

make sure you don't unravel but just loosen it and tuck the end into the loose part.

pull it tight, using your finger to tighten one row at a time until its tight and the bent part is under the last row, pull and cut.  No glue is needed if you made sure it was tight!!









If you cut the reed while you pull, you should not see it!  I can't stress enough don't forget to wrap it tight all the way to keep it from loosing up in the future!!









Happy weaving!