Basket Cover

For Christmas my friend gave me a gift basket filled with all sorts of goodies.  The basket itself was really nice, and I had a use for it year-round.  However on the liner there were Christmas decorations that did not seem appropriate for year round. 

the original basket

So I went to the store and bought some off white felt (with some sparkles) to use as the new lining.  I didn't want to take the old one apart, as it will be perfect to use again next Christmas. I had no idea how I was going to make this work, so I just started to wing it.  I laid down the new felt and traced the old liner on top of it with pencil.

felt laid out with pencil marks

showing how I traced the "pattern"

When I was finished marking and cutting the felt I had 3 pieces.  The one main piece and the two little side pieces.  I started by sewing the  3 pieces together and placing it into the basket.  This took awhile as I had to keep trimming the sides a bit until I had a snug fit.

the 3 pieces sewn together.  

measuring the fit in the basket. some trimming is needed!

After I got the snug fit I was looking for I needed to cut the top so it was all even and then sew the seem over so it had a nice finish.

the basket with the snug fit, and the sides all trimmed to the same length.

the finished seam.

I think that this turned out great!  Now I will be able to have this out year round.

The finished product.

I know this maybe a confusing post but I don't know how to make it any clearer.  I basically just winged making the whole thing!

Star Wars Ornaments

Because I was sure the guys on my Christmas list would not be so thrilled with my Retro Christmas Ornaments, I made them some really cool Star Wars ones.  Again I was inspired by an etsy shop, Blackrose.  These were very time consuming, but the end product was amazing.  These were some of my favorite things to make this year. 

Darth Vader

A Storm Trooper

Boba Fett

And the last one, which I must admit my husband made for me as I was frantically running out of time to finish all my projects!

The Death Star

Homemade Retro Christmas Ornaments

Again for Christmas I wanted to make a homemade present for everyone. For the girls on my list I made some retro Christmas ornaments out of felt, sequins and buttons. I was inspired by rikrak's etsy shop. I think that they turned out really great, and look very cool on the tree.(Although I have no pictures of them on one! )

One set of 4

,

I loved how these one's turned out, with the one colour

I really liked the sequins in the middle

Love the simplicity of one button in the middle

I was unsure of this one, but it still turned out

Natural Winter Kit

For Christmas my husbands family has a sibling secret Santa instead of getting gifts for each person.  This does make it a lot easier as he has 2 sisters, 2 brothers, and 3 of them have partners.  We did it so the girls exchanged amongst themselves, as did the guys.  This is makes it easier as it can be hard to come up with ideas for guys that they will like.  So I needed to figure out what to make.  I of course went to one of my favorite sites, pickles.  I saw the Natural winter kit and just had to make it. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I had all the needles to make this so I didn't need to buy anymore.  I normally do, but I guess this means I am starting to get a decent collection of knitting needles.  Yea!!!!  For the yarn I used pattons classic wool.  I find that I am knitting really tight so in the future I should start using larger needles to get proper gauge.  I found for myself that this project was a bit on the small size.  But then again I have a big head! Both the hat and the scarf were super easy to make.  I almost want to make one for myself!

The hat and scarf.

Close up of scarf.  The pattern is fantastic.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Ok, so I haven't posted in forever.  But that's because I have been busy making things.  For Christmas I wanted to make a bunch of gifts for people as I thought it would be fun, and that I would have lots of time to do them.  Well by the time Christmas came around, I swore I will never do that again.  However I am fairly sure that by next year I will have forgotten how stressful it was and will try to do it again.  Oh well, live and don't learn.
I also wanted to make some homemade decorations for the house.  I only managed to do one of what I wanted to, but it was a big job doing them.  I was looking at one of my favorite blogs How About Orange  and found this tutorial and just had to make some.  They were quite a bit of work but turned out great.

We have the hanging lights from Ikea and they made the perfect place to hang them off of.  In the instructions it said to use double sided tape, but I found that they kept unsticking.  Eventually I just taped them together with regular tape. 

I am hoping that they will keep until next year.  I would love to put them up again.  I will have more posts about what I have been making!

Baby Stuff!

It seems like lately everyone is having babies!!  My mom's cousin's daughter just had a baby girl and I thought I would knit her a sweater.  I went to my favorite site ravelry to find some good patterns.  The pattern for the Garter Yoke Baby Cardi can be found here.  This pattern is super easy and looks great!  I did the booties next.  Again through ravelry I found this pattern for Mary Jane Booties.  Again super easy and only one seam to sew at the end.  For the hat I used the Fixation Newborn Hat on ravelry (no link).  I made a few adjustments, so that the garter stitch part was the same length as on the sweater.  They all turned out great, and look like they were all made to be together!

On the advice of a friend I add some yellow flowers.  I think it makes this really cute.  The pattern for the flowers is here.  I didn't add the buttons to the flowers but they still look great without them.  I also added yellow buttons. 

Waffel Hat

One thing I like to do is spend my time looking at other peoples blogs and seeing what they do.  Sometimes I think I should spend more time crafting myself, but this is a good way to find inspiration for doing my own crafts.  One day I came across this blog: Pickles  which is from Norway but has most of their stuff in English.  I fell in love with the waffle hat and had to make it.  I was a little intimidated, but it turned out to be super easy.  The whole hat is made in ribs.  So cool. I used St. Denis Nordique yarn in eggplant. 

It's a little big for Phoebe