The third and last tutorial in my rainbow giveaway series is my take on a short row crochet slipper sock. Personally, I don’t knit or crochet socks for daily wear (inside shoes), it seems like a lot of work for something no one is going to see and will probably not be as comfortable as a simple store bought socks… So, I make slipper socks for hanging around the house instead.

But first, drum roll please:

And the winners are…

Maayanf gets the yarn.

Lilyrose gets the hat.

Sarit gets the scarf.

Last, but not least – Susan gets the socks.

[If you want to see how the winners were chosen, click here. Sarit got two results from the random number generator, so I chose the next result as the 4th winner. The winners will be contacted by email soon to get their mailing address. If for some reason, they do not respond within a week, their prize will go to the next in the sequence.]

Now, back to the sock making business. read more →

The second tutorial in my rainbow giveaway series is my version of the granny rainbow hat.

I was originally inspired by this rainbow beany by revving it up (I do my best to give credit where it’s due), but when I made one for my daughter, it came out a little bit lumpy. I guess it’s a gauge thing. She wears it anyway.

I was set on having a rainbow hat in the series, so I decided to put some work in and figure out instructions that worked for me. There was some undo-redo, but in the end I came up with a very simple pattern that starts round and stays round, which makes me sooooo happy. I guess it’s an OCD thing.

By the way, if you haven’t entered the giveaway yet – there’s still time! For details click here. It’s open until February 28th, and you can win this hat or enough yarn to make it (and more).

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The first tutorial in my rainbow giveaway series is this colorful and warm scarf. This project is easy to make, and requires only one type of stitch and a lot of weaving in. But the result is entirely worth it. At least, that’s how I feel.

By the way, if you haven’t entered the giveaway yet – there’s still time! For details click here. It’s open until February 28th, and you can win this item or enough yarn to make it (and more).

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I don’t think this post needs much of an introduction. I wanted a new skirt, I had this great fabric (from budulina), I was inspired one evening – I sat down and made it.

I made an attempt to make a skirt a few months back, and it was great until I had to install the zipper. I made a crucial mistake somewhere along the road and the zipper wouldn’t close! It wasn’t my first zipper, so I’m not sure exactly what went wrong, but I was not about to make the same mistake on this skirt, and I must say I’m very proud of the result. I don’t have a serger, so I decided to go with french seams for a perfect finish.

This skirt is relatively easy to make, and apart from the zipper (which can be intimidating) and the button hole (which can be annoying) it’s all sewing in straight lines – no fuss no bother. The design is classic and sweet and can be used for little girls as well as grown ups. Choose fun and unique fabrics to get that wow effect!

If you follow my tutorials you may have seen this before – where possible I make my instructions to your size. Simply enter your waist measurement and the desired length (top of the waist band to the edge of the skirt) and I will calculate the fabric pieces you need. Go ahead, try it yourself!

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Nowadays everybody has an work island in their kitchen, or if you’re a carefree bachelor – a bar. With these pieces comes a great responsibility: bar stools. If you’re anything like me, by the time you’ve got to picking out bar stools you’re at the stage where your budget has run out and you’re looking for the cheapest option available. For me that means IKEA. Unfortunately, the simple stools are boring, and not easy on my aching tail bone either. So if IKEA it is, IKEA hack is coming up (in fact, even the fabric I used was from IKEA)!

We’ve had these bar stools for a while, and I’ve already posted their upholstered pictures when I posted about my home makeover. However, they’re so easy, cheap and fast to make – I decided that I must share.

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I’m never sure when we can officially declare “summer is here”. Even though I’ve been carelessly sunburned twice already (I should really be more careful), there have been many days when it was quite cloudy, or even worse – sand stormy (yuck!). Given that the weather hasn’t stabilized yet on “hot, humid and unbearable”, I have to check what the weather will be every day, so I can decide if it’s long pants or shorts for the kids. And there it was that inspiration struck me and I HAD to make a partly cloudy set of pillows.

As usual, I started with no specific recipient in mind, and my children took them over as soon as they possibly could. So I guess we’ll have another set of pillows to fill the kids’ beds (as if we don’t have enough junk dolls in there already).

In order to make the partly cloudy set you will need basic crochet-in-a-circle skills, so while making all the pieces might take a while, it shouldn’t be very difficult.

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I’m finally done. And it’s not even May yet, I might still have a chance to use it this year on a cold evening! Sunburst Granny Blanket – previous posts So, in conclusion: read more →

Those are all 96 circles for my granny blanket, in their final arrangement.

I made 16 groups of 6, each group included all 6 variations of 3 colors. I arranged the first two rows to include one representative of each group, in an eye pleasing manner (making sure that adjacent circles didn’t have too many colors in common). Then, for the next two rows I chose circles where the outer color was the same as the second color in the first two rows, and for the third set of two rows I chose circles where the outer color was the same as the center color in the first two rows, while keeping the same order of groups. This made the color matching much easier (I only had to do it once for the first set of rows), while still keeping a lot of variation. For the last 6 rows, I simply copied the first 6 rows. I was afraid of how long this process might take, but I was done in no time, and am quite happy with the result.

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After last time, I started to realize that this project was going to cost me a lot of money and time. I thought how I could save some of both, so I decided to revise the pattern slightly.

One square doesn’t really photograph well, but all in all, much better than the brown experiment, don’t you think?

Here’s my modified pattern:

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This may not look very exciting, but that’s because it’s just the first step in an enormous project to make a crochet granny square blanket. I used some left over (from various crochet teddy bears and dogs) brown yarn to make a test square. First, to get an idea of the size (this is a giant 15cm X 15cm square) and second, to estimate how much yarn I will need.

I was originally inspired by this hex-bag project from future girl. I even made my own version last year. But – it’s a cold winter, and unfortunately, I can’t cuddle inside the bag…

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