Posts tagged ‘how-to’

Have you ever heard about the curse of the Boyfriend Sweater? It’s a curse/urban knitting legend that states that if you knit (or crochet) your boyfriend a sweater, by the time the sweater is complete, he will no longer be your boyfriend. I personally have never made a boyfriend a sweater and, now that I’m married, don’t plan on knitting anything for my husband (he doesn’t get as excited about handmade gifts as I would like).
I did, however, crochet him an afghan the first year we were dating. Since this was made specifically with him in mind, it was extra long (he is 6’4″!) and I used colors he liked (greens and gray). I spent about two weeks while he was out of town working on this afghan. In the last seven years, he has consistently used this afghan every winter. He wraps himself up in it while laying on the couch and walks around the house with it draped over his shoulders. Every year that we take the blanket out he comments on how he can’t believe how warm it is.

This year when I pulled the blanket out, I noticed something frightful. The center of one of the squares had come undone! I didn’t feel like fixing it so I ignored the problem only to find my husband sticking his toe through the hole when he used the blanket. I finally decided that it needed to be fixed. And what a simple fix it was.  I found the tail of the original ring that the square had been crocheted around and pulled it out. I used a smaller crochet hook to pick up the loops that had fallen off the tail yarn. I pulled the tail yarn through the loops and then through the original know (that I had found and loosened). I tightened the know and there you have it. This blanket will live to see another winter.

Read more about guest blogger Andrea Sanchez.

I’ve been craving this navy and white combo ever since I read this post on Darling Dexter, so I used some scraps from men’s dress shirt overhauls to make some flower hair accessories. They are so quick and adorable, I’d love to share the tutorial with you. Now we can all wear some springy and sporty nautical bliss.

If you don’t want to wear this as a hair pin, swap out a pin back and make a broach, or attach a jump ring through the fabric, and make a necklace pendant.  But I will showing how to attach this clip to a bobby pin, my favorite way to attach pretties to my hair.

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Bad lighting, picture taken at night, sorry!

Remember how at the end of each school year, Mom would grab the scissors and cut the legs off all your jeans, and that would be the summer’s shorts. Well, my kids don’t really wear jeans, so we don’t get cut-offs in our family.

Vively Online has a post up today about some of her summer clothing remakes for her kids. The first project, a pair of shorts from a t-shirt style dress, inspired me to dig through our play clothes for some unwearables to turn into shorts.

These two t-shirts will make great shorts for the baby, using the Vively method (which happens to be a great illustration of the way I already make kid pants). I also plan to go through my adult t-shirts to make some shorts for the older girls. Finished projects to be posted soon. It’s going to be warm this week, so shorts will be needed.

Vintage is in and has been for a long time now and my guess is that it is here to stay. Whether it’s clothing, jewelry, dishes or furniture, there is something truly lovely about beautiful vintage goods. The whiff of memory and nostalgia, the authenticity and uniqueness, the refreshing quality of something old made new again through use in a different age. Sustainability is also a factor – there are so many talented artists and designers recycling vintage into gorgeous new things and rescuing heaps of fabric, metal, woods and plastics from overflowing landfills in the process.

My personal style is quite simple and minimalist but within that I have a collection of elegant vintage jewelry, china and silverware, much of it gifts from my dear grandmothers. Jewelry is a popular topic here on Clever Nesting so I thought I would share a couple of ideas about how to wear vintage brooches.

The easiest way, of course, is to just pin them on. I love the look of a sparkly brooch on a coat or jacket and they are lovely on sweaters, especially as a substitute for buttons or clasps. Lately I’ve also been wearing several of my brooches as necklaces. This is such an easy thing to do: string a chain or ribbon through the closed clasp of the brooch, swing it over your neck and voila, a unique and creative accessory that will leave you smiling all day long.

If you already have a few prized hand-me-down brooches try looping them around your neck the next time you’re thinking of it. And if there’s nothing sitting in your jewelry box yet, ask around at the next family gathering to see what the generations before you may have stuffed away in their dresser drawers or start scouting antique shops, garage sales, consignment stores and other treasure troves. I highly recommend the latter as a fun, indulgent and inexpensive way to spend a day and spark your creativity and the former is a great way to share in stories from the past.

Read more about guest blogger Erica of Nest and Sparkle.

I recently overheard a mother and daughter talking while looking at some crochet pattern books at a local craft store. The mother told the daughter that she used to crochet. The daughter expressed interest at this but the mother told her that “all crochet looks handmade by a grandma”. I was slightly offended by this considering for a long time I only knew how to crochet. I personally enjoy (and appreciate) handmade items and I love crochet.

So I decided to dig through my projects and find something that was fun, current, and still functional. I found this: a crocheted bowl. This bowl is crocheted using cotton fingering weight yarn. It is then stiffened using a warmed, one part water/one part sugar mixture. Surprisingly, it stiffens very well but needs several days to dry. This could be done with any doily pattern you can find. I think it’s a great way to make a doily a little more current. It makes a wonderful house-warming gift, is firm enough to hold goodies in, and even better? There are so many wonderful colors of cotton out there now so you don’t have to settle for the classic white. I’ve also done doilies using worsted weight cotton to increase the overall size. Imagine the possibilities!

Read more about guest blogger Andrea Sanchez.

I know. I know. What is a bunny car? Everyone keeps asking me this. But I made it, and it is so cute, so I’m sharing. We have a wooden bunny-shaped push toy that I got at the thrift store which inspired my version, gifted to Cressida in her Easter basket.

It’s made with Anna Maria Folksy Flannels, and rolls on tinker toys. It is SO easy to make so in lieu of a photo tutorial, I’m going to do a quick how-to in the post with a pdf download of the pattern so you can make your own bunny car. This pattern is for a single eared bunny, which more implies bunny, though the one I pictured I fiddled with to make two eared. In the end I like the one eared wooden one better so that’s the pattern I’m offering. If anyone is interested I will make the two eared version available too. Read more »

I love gardening. I often say to friends and family that if the lottery ever found it’s way over to my bank account I’d pack up my life and move out to the country to devote myself to puttering around in the garden all day.

Alas, until that day, I continue to look for things that are easy to grow. Cool climates, short growing seasons and all the demands of a busy life makes it a waste to spend time growing slow, finicky plants. In terms of finding success in the garden I can’t think of anything more satisfying and foolproof that growing your own salad greens. Salad mix is so easy to grow and so fast to grow! Plant seeds now and you’ll be eating tender, delicious homegrown greens in only a few weeks. Spring is the perfect time to sow a single variety of lettuce or to be more creative and plant a mixture of your favorite greens. On my list for planting this year are:

• Butter lettuce: This is your regular lettuce – leafy, green, tender and tasty.
• Red leaf lettuce: I love red leaf lettuce for the colour and contrast it adds to your garden plot and to the salad plate. It’s just as easy to grow as regular lettuce and has a bit more punch taste-wise.
• Beet greens: Beets themselves are wonderful to grow, but I enjoy baby beet greens just as much. Plant beet seeds in containers or the salad section of your garden the same as you would any leafy green and harvest the tender leaves in the first month or two of the plant’s life. After that you may want to thin them out a bit or just have the odd beet growing among your salad plants.
• Spinach: so healthy, so tasty, so versatile. In addition to clipping baby greens for salads, I also harvest spinach from the garden and freeze it in baggies for use during the winter (much better for you and your grocery bill than store bought!).
• Nasturtium: along with violets these are my favorite plants to grow if you want to add colorful edible flowers to your salad. They have a lovely peppery taste and the flowers are bright yellow, orange and red.

The planting method is very easy. Start with a clear patch of dirt in the garden or a container filled with potting soil. The size of the plot or vessel is up to you – even a small pot will work, so don’t let the lack of garden stop you. Sprinkle seeds over the dirt and then place a thin layer of dirt on top. The general rule of thumb is that the layer of dirt on top of seeds should be about the same height as the seeds themselves. If you do plant nasturtiums their seeds are bigger than the others so poke them in about an inch.

I mix all my seeds together and wait for the beautiful mishmash of color that comes up; you might also prefer a more orderly planting style like rows or patches of specific varieties. Another thing I don’t worry about is spacing. While you don’t want to be wasteful and use too many seeds, it is also really easy to thin out your salad patch if it’s getting too dense by just eating more salad!

The best way to ensure a steady supply of fresh greens all summer long is to keep harvesting the leaves as they’re ready. It’s easy for salad greens to get parched and dry in the hot sun, so definitely don’t wait for a grocery-store style head of lettuce to emerge. Baby greens and micro-greens are all the rage in fancy restaurants and for good reason: they’re delicious! Eat and enjoy!

Read more about guest blogger Erica of Nest and Sparkle.

My boss’s birthday was coming up and bless her heart, she appreciates a handmade gift. I had a gorgeous skein of purple (her favorite color) yarn in my stash. But what to make with only 220 yards? A crocheted scarf. The wonderful thing about this scarf pattern is (a) it’s free on Ravelry (just sign up for a free account to access it), (b) it’s open, lacy, and perfect for spring, and (c) it’s crochet so you know you can whip it up quickly.

After winding the yarn into a ball and finding my I hook, I got to it. Two days later (with only minimal time spent working on it) I had a scarf. The secret to making this scarf a WOW is blocking. I let it soak for about 20 minutes in my sink with some wool wash. After gently squeezing all the water out I pinned out the points on the scarf, making sure to stretch it as much as possible. That one skein of yarn ended up about 58” long and 10” wide. A quick and easy gift for a spring birthday.  Crochargosy Scarf

Read more about guest blogger Andrea Sanchez.

When a crafter sets forth on a mission, there is not much that can stop them as long as there are scissors around. The mission I have set upon is to run a “barefoot” half marathon in May. To run “barefoot” I am running in Vibram Five Fingers shoes to protect my soles on the roads from debris and other things. But this is Northeast Ohio, and it’s still essentially winter, so I need socks. This creates a problem when there are toe pockets. Even toe socks get bunched up in there. So I hacked a pair of wool athletic socks to be toeless, but still stay on my foot. I used a small stitch between my big toe and second toe to keep the sock from slipping. It works amazingly well, and once I’m running I have no idea they are there. My feet are warm, which is important. Sorry that my socks are a little dirty in the picture, I just came back from a run, I wanted to make sure that it worked before I posted it!

The other problem I have is wanting to use the Nike + iPod gizmo to track and share my runs. But since I am not using the Nike + shoes, how I needed a hack to keep my sensor on my shoe. I took some commercial vinyl fabric I got from Zero Landfill that matches my shoes and made a pouch for the sensor. There is an overlap for the in the opening flap so I don’t lose the sensor on a run, and there is a strap to loop over the velcro shoe closure on my shoe.  This sensor pouch could also slide over shoelaces if you plan to run with the Nike + thing but have a pair of trainers you really love, so it’s not just for us crazy Barefooters.

In this class, I’ll help you fix your broken jewelry & get it wearable again.  I’m teaching Thursday at Craft Akron.  Here are the details:

Fix your Broken Jewelry Class

$15 plus supplies fee of $5

Bring your broken jewelry stash to class & learn how to restring or resize beaded necklaces and bracelets, reattach missing clasps, or even reconfigure earrings that have lost pieces. Basic supplies included (such as beading wire, thread, ear wires, eye & head pins), but if you have a special clasp you want to use or must have sterling silver ear wires, bring them with you.

Also, if you have a jewelry project you’re stumped on, you’re welcome to bring it to class as well.

Please preregister by at least 24 hours before class at 330-865-1100 or info@craftakron.com.