~*~ It's Snowing! ~*~

So this Christmas I decided it would be super cute to make a whole ton of crochet snowflake ornaments. And it was fun, and as usual I might have gone a little overboard and made too many... no such thing right? lol. I found a simple little pattern from here http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/crochet-snowflake.html. Now I followed their advice with regards to using spray starch and using pins to pull it out and I must say it didn't work very well. First off I found the spray starch kinda stained some of my snowflakes, and even if I ironed the snowflakes they fell back into their original shape, observe.

But even with them not staying stretched out I still think they look pretty cool! I had so much fun making them. And since I have so many extra I'm just going to use them as appliqués for my hats and scarves! Here is an up close of the big snowflake.

And the coolest part about this pattern is that you can stop pretty much anywhere you like. After any row and it will look neat. Here is one stopped after two rows.

And here is one stopped after just one row. Which makes a really neat star pattern, perfect for putting on hats and what not!

Obviously weave the ends in, or use them to make a string to hang the ornaments. But I generally don't weave things in until I have to. I find that to be one of the most annoying parts of a crochet project. Finishing it off. If you look at my own hats that I made for myself you will find that none of the ends are weaved in, couldn't be bothered lol.

Free Jayne Hat Pattern

Well I finally broke down and I'm going to post my pattern for free. Well here it is.

Jayne Cobb Hat for Crochet

Materials List

Vanna’s Choice

Rust
Article: #860-135   UPC: 023032861357
Deep burnt orange

Mustard
Article: #860-158   UPC: 023032861586
Golden yellow

Brick
Article: #860-133   UPC: 023032861333
Burnt red-orange

Finished Size

Finished size will fit an adult

Gauge

6 stitches in 2”. Use whatever size hook to get that.

Pattern

Hat

Rnd 1: With yellow do a magic circle with 9 DC into ring.

Rnd 2: 2 DC in each stitch around.

Rnd 3: 1 DC in first stitch; 2 DC in next stitch *repeat until end*

Rnd 4: 1 DC in first two stitches; 2 DC in next stitch *repeat until end*

Rnd 5: 1 DC in first three stitches; 2 DC in next stitch *repeat until end*

Rnd 6: 1 DC in first four stitches; 2 DC in next stitch *repeat until end*

Rnd 7: 1 DC in first ten stitches; 2 DC in next stitch *repeat until end*

Rnd 8-18: 1 DC in every stitch around. Fasten off at the end.

Rnd 19: Switch to orange and do 1 DC in every stitch around.

Rnd 20-29: 1 DC in every stitch around. Fasten off at the end.

Ear Flaps

Count from where you fastened off the orange and count ten stitches to the left, mark that stitch. Now back to where you fastened of the orange and count ten stitches to the right, mark that stitch.

Rnd 1: Take the red and pick the left stitch that you marked off and do 10 DC onto the hat. Ch 2 and turn.

Rnd 2-5: 1 DC in each stitch, ch 2, turn.

Rnd 6: sc2tog; 1 DC in next 6 stitches; sc2tog; ch 2, turn

Rnd 7-8: 1 DC in each stitch, ch 2, turn

Rnd 9: sc2tog; 1 DC in next 4 stitches; sc2tog, ch 2, turn

Rnd 10-14: 1 DC in each stitch, ch 2, turn

Repeat this pattern on the right side where you marked the stitch.

At the bottom of each ear flap take 6” of red wool, you will need four of these. Each corner of the ear flap add one fringe.

Pom Pom

Take all three colours of wool and wrap them around four of your fingers until you have a fair amount, cut all three ends. Then take about a 4” long piece of wool (any colour is fine) and tie the bundle of wool between your middle and ring fingers, make it really tight and knot if a few times. Take the wool off your fingers and snip all the ends so they are not folded in half. Take the finished pom pom and attach to the top of your hands.

At this point weave in any loose ends and finish off.

Wreath of Tea

Now I know this isn't crochet, or even a cake design. But it was soo cool that I had to share it. Also, I think this blog will showcase some of my other crafty things too. I've just gone completely crafty recently. (thanks in large part to Pinterest lol!)

So I made lots of crafty things for Christmas and couldn't post them until after the season is over in case my family reads my blog and sees their gift lol! So I found this amazing tea wreath design (thanks to Pinterest) from http://kojo-designs.com/2010/03/kojotutorial-tea-tea-tea-kitchen-wreath-2/ and well of course I had to make a whole bunch. (in fact the tea bags that are wrapped in wrapping paper I actually made the tea too!)

So this one is an example of a painted clothespin design with homemade and store boughten tea. This one has around 24 teabags.

This one here is the smaller version with only 12 teabags. And in this one I took strips of scrapbook paper and glued them onto the clothespin. It's really hard for me to say which way I like it better, they both have their merits. But I will say it's a lot faster if you glue paper on then paint the clothespins lol!

I can totally see myself making more of these for different seasons. Mother's day gifts, birthday's etc. And it's such a neat gift!

Man Hats

Oy, I'm not very good at posting on a regular basis, I really do try...

Okay so this blog post is about manly hats! I crochet my cousin a beard hat for his birthday in December. I had seen the hats all over the Internet and thought it would be perfect for Aaron. Especially seeing as he can't grow facial hair! lol.

So for this hat I did a generic beanie and then I followed the suggestions from this blogger http://sunmoonearthandstars.blogspot.com/2011/05/pet-peeve-rant-and-free-crochet-pattern.html to make the actual beard part. I do suggest using a nice thick wool to make it look more authentic. It's actually pretty easy to do and a lot of fun!!

Okay the next "manly" hat that I made ended up going to a lady. I'll explain, every year my parents have a Superbowl party. Well my dad asked me to make a crochet football helmet as part of the prize. So I looked online for a pattern; and the only one I could find was for a baby :p. So yay for making stuff up as I go along. I had to redo this hat twice as the first time it was to wide and didn't cover enough of the head. But overall it turned out really well and I like the old fashioned flair of it.

And then the side view.

And for the final throw in. (it's not a hat but it is manly!) My Superbowl cake!

Course Two Final Cake

So I realized I never showed off my course two cake! Crazy! I made this cake for my sister-in-law Yumiko's mom. She came down for a visit from Japan and I wanted to send her off with a homemade cake :).

For once I used white icing haha. Sadly it was warm out so it started falling a bit :p. But doing the basketweave is really easy and it looks pretty amazing! I made pink primroes and blue violets. (yes I get that I made BLUE violets, I just had the colour on hand and didn't want to make any more).  It is topped with a shell border on the top and bottom. And finally light green leaves and vines. I was told it was very tasty (I didn't actually eat any lol). I really liked this cake :).

Mohawk Hat

I know, I know. It's been a long time since a post. :p But life gets busy, and even more so, I keep crocheting things and forgetting to take pictures of them. But this time I made sure I got pictures. My friend Kerri commissioned TWO mohawk hats (oy, they are time consuming to make), two matching scarves to go with the mohawk hats and another scarf to go with the kitty cat hat I made her before. So the mohawk hat was fun to figure out how to make it. I did a basic earflap hat, and then I took my rug hooker and essentially rug hooked a mane all over it. I think they look super cool.

Here is a picture of the side of that hat. Oh and in case your wondering the adorable children in the picture are my neice and nephew :).

And finally one more picture cuz it was so adorable!!!

Cake Montage

So here is a list an pictures of all the cakes I've made up to date. All kinds of different stuff. Enjoy!

This is the cake that I made for Grant and I for our 3 year anniversary. It was a white cake and I filled with with chocolate buttercream icing and also iced it with chocolate butercream icing. Now the pink icing has a hint of strawberry flavor :).



Another rice krispie cake. This time I had learned to use gum paste and fondant. So the pansies are made from the combonation of both. For the hearts I used a 50/50 gum paste and fondant mixture and rolled it out thin and used my cookie cutter. It looked great. Sadly it tasted horrible cuz I made the rice krisipie squares wrong lol. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea (actually I wasn't thinking at all) to put the rice krispies in the microwave while I was melting the marshmallows. haha.

So technically my sister-in-law Yumiko made the brownies but we both made the fondant/gum paste butterflies. I have this tin of tiny butterfly cookie cutters. And after we cut them out we stuck them in the small flower former and it looked like they were flying! They took like two to three days to dry completely but I thought they looked amazing!!! And super easy!

Ah, bridal shower cupcakes. Love decorating cupcakes with the big tip and the swirl. They look so professional haha. Anyways, I used chocolate buttercream icing. (kinda my favourite I think). I usually add rum flavour to my chocolate icing. The flowers are a fondant/gum paste mixture. And I used the flower press that came with my kit. I really like how they turned out! And they look so good!

Made this cake for a client at work. Once again chocolate buttercream icing (lol I'm noticing a pattern...) Now I kinda punked the idea to put cupcakes on top of the cake from Cake Boss. I just thought it was a neat idea to do a cake for a male. Cuz I mean flowers and basketweave just aren't really a guy thing. For the stars I use the 50/50 mixture like usual. I also used my star cookie cutter. I think it turned out really well. It was a chocolate cake, filled with chocolate pudding and covered in chocolate icing. My fellow workers told me it was amazing lol. (how could it not be with so much chocolate!!

Well I hope you enjoyed my "montage" of cakes. I will be posting more individual cakes as I make them. Oh yeah and crochet items every once in a while... lol