Candy Coated Popcorn

My daughter's preschool class is having a valentine's day party tomorrow. My plan was to send little marshmallow pops for her school friends, but those hopes were dashed last night when the only marshmallows I could find in the house were grotesquely misshapen. There was not a hope in hell that they would look at all good. I resigned myself to just providing little cards for her friends, until I remembered something I'd seen on a blog a few days earlier. This Blessed Nest posted lovely candy-coated popcorn-and-m&ms treat bags. I just so happened to have Wilton candy melts in my pantry in a rainbow of colours, so I adapted her idea a little bit for what I had in my pantry.

Super Easy Candy Coated Popcorn
(adapted from This Blessed Nest)

Popcorn
Candy Melts in desired colours, ~1 oz per generous cup of popped popcorn
Salt (optional)

Pop your popcorn. Place in a large bowl.

In a double boiler or a heatproof bowl over a pot of boiling water, melt candy melts. Drizzle candy melts over popcorn, and toss to coat. Sprinkle a little salt as you toss if you like your popcorn salty & sweet.

Spread popcorn on a parchment-covered baking pan, and let sit for half an hour or so, until candy coating has set. Break apart gently with your hands, since the pieces will have stuck together.

The tags are also homemade - now that my craft area has been reorganized, I was able to find exactly what I needed to make these cute little tags, the perfect size for ziploc sandwich baggies! I used all stuff from Stampin' Up - Whisper White & Real Red cardstock, Wild Wasabi, Real Red & Pink Pirouette ink, and stamps from Wild About You, and Goody Goody Gumdrops.

The Christmas Dress

I know, I know - Halloween comes before Christmas and I have yet to blog about her costume. I keep meaning to, but I want to toss a little dyeing tutorial on that post, and I haven't gotten around to deciphering my chicken-scratch notes on exactly how I created her wings, so it's going to have to wait for another day.

I have been on a real sewing kick as of late, as those of you who talk to me regularly will have noticed. For me, sewing is a source of great pride and satisfaction, and also one of great frustration. I have a wonderful habit of getting myself in over my head, and usually on something "big", like say, a halloween costume or a holiday party-dress for my daughter. The pajamas and little catnip mousies? A breeze!

My biggest source of frustration right now is my sewing machine. It's an oldie (read: older than me!), and it still runs well. It does a straight stitch and a zigzag stitch, it goes forward and back. It does not do anything else, and I have only the standard foot for it. For the most part, this is not a problem. I don't need all that fancy stuff. But for a holiday dress? Yeah, it's a problem. Without a zipper foot, it is impossible (for me) to install a zipper. And it doesn't do buttonholes, either. And of course, I had to do my usual over-estimating of my abilities, and pick a pattern that required a zipper. As a result, I redesigned the shoulders of the pattern so that it had a flap that came over and buttoned, so that I could actually squeeze my daughter into this dress without a zipper up the back. Let it be known, making major structural alterations to a pattern is generally NOT a good idea for the amateur sewer. It can often result in much hair-pulling, seam-ripping, and exclamations of many creative curses. And did I mention that failure was not an option? My husband was not about to let me brave the malls in search of an alternate outfit, and next weekend is the party that the dress was being made for. Good times, good times.

But, I have prevailed! And the dress is quite cute, if I do say so myself. I do think that it could use to be hemmed an inch or so, but my husband disagrees, and says that it is perfectly cute as-is. Because I am so sick of working on this dress right now, I am inclined to agree! Please ignore the grey long-sleeved tee that she is wearing underneath - we will be picking up either a red, burgundy or black turtleneck for her to wear with this dress, and a pair of white tights with little black mary-janes.

Couldn't you just DYE? (also, where have I been?!)

It's been a long, long time since I've looked at this crafty blog. Too long, in fact. Where have I been? I've been around, still crafting a little but not so much desiring to blog about it. To make a long story short, my maternity leave ran out in June, so I found a dayhome for my daughter and I am back to the Monday-to-Friday grind. I love my job, but it has left me with far less time to craft, much less take, process, and post pictures, then write up a little blurb to go with it. Now if only someone would actually pay me good money for this crafty crap I do...

My latest project was inspired by Eliza's halloween costume. She was a monarch butterfly, but Fabricland's pathetic choice of tulle colours (no orange? seriously?) left me with only one choice: dye my own. (Her costume is going to be the subject of a future blog post, I promise!) Custom dyeing was a challenge that I actually really enjoyed, so I decided to take on a bigger project.

These are playsilks. Some of you may be familiar with them, but for those who are not, they are little more than a square habotai silk scarf. They are meant to encourage creative pretend play in children - a playsilk can be a doll blanket, a cape, a tablecloth, a hammock, or just something to swing around like crazy. Eliza is just getting to the age where she'd really be into these kinds of things, too. I'd seen them all over etsy and various other stores for obscene prices and thought "I can do that!", and after the tulle incident, I really believed that I could! I found a supplier that shipped to Canada, ordered all I needed, and this was the result:


I used Jacquard acid dyes, which are pretty simple to use, but a little finicky. And let me tell you now - when the instructions say that vinegar is necessary, they mean it! I had to re-dye two of these batches because all the dye washed out in the post-dye-washing. Bah.

Now, can I really hold off 'til Christmas to give these to her?

All Warm & Fuzzy

Hi, my name is Samantha and I am addicted to making cute things for my kid. And my friends' kids. Really, anyone under the age of 12. This is another freebie pattern that I picked up somewhere in my travels, and absolutely count not resist trying. It's super-duper easy, and crochets up in a flash. The only problem I found was that you switch colours every single round, so that's a lot of yarn hanging around on the couch with you that is at eye-level for curious children and cats. Several times I had to fend off sticky fingers and poking paws whilst finishing this up!

So, the details of the pattern. It's a freebie from Bernat, the Cute Kids' Earflap Hat (registration required to view the pattern). This one was done in Bernat Softee Chunky in Hot Pink and Hot Lime. I did it pretty much word-for-word, with the exception of changing up the colours, and doing a two-colour tassel instead of one. The one I made is a size 2/4, and it's not too terribly large on my 10-month-old, but definitely stretchy enough to fit an older child.

One thing I did do was change my single crochet stitch to make it more ribbed/stretchy than a regular plain single crochet stitch. For those of you now wondering "WTF is this crazy lady talking about?!", let me explain. Normally when you crochet, you pass the hook under both strands of the previous single crochet stitch (under the V). To make a ribbed surface, you only pass it under the back strand (into the V). Clear as mud? Great. I found that doing it this way made it a little stretchier, which is great for growing heads. Plus, ribbing just looks cool.

And now, the pictures. First, the finished hat:


Second, the hat being modeled by my darling daughter, Eliza:


The perfect hat to keep little noggins warm!

Fit for a Princess

Ahhh, felting. Beautiful, yet nerve-wracking. How hard it can be to spend hours upon hours knitting up a project, just to throw it in the wash and shrink it intentionally. It can be so hard to let go, to put your hard work into that washing machine, close the lid and start the hot wash cycle, and wait for the agonizing 20 minutes to see if your project survived.

Now that I've done it though, I am hooked. Felting is the neatest process. I started pretty easy, with this felted crown, a freebie from Lion Brand Yarn (you will have to register or log in to access the pattern). I used Lion Wool Yarn (perfect for felting!) in Goldenrod.

Here is the project before felting:


After felting:


And finished:


I had to wash mine on hot twice to get the desired amount of felting. Once wasn't quite enough. I opted not to run it through the dryer though, it shrunk enough! While it was damp I was sure to pull it into the shape I wanted, and then I let it dry. The pattern suggests using a hook and loop closure on the crown (think velcro). I figured velcro + felt = disaster if it ever came undone, so I opted for a pair of 7mm snaps that I just hand-sewed on with a sharp needle and a golden thread. Voila, a crown fit for my little princess.

Two Cute!

No one in my family knits anymore. Way back in the day, my grandmother used to make the itchiest damn sweaters for us kids to wear. They were hot, thick, and if we wore them much beyond Christmas Day, it was probably only because it was -40 outside and we needed the layer. When I decided recently to take up knitting, I swore I would never make one of those dry, itchy, heavy sweaters for my kid.

I came across this pattern in a cute book I picked up somewhere along the way (probably Michaels?) called Hip Knits. Truth be told, it's not an amazing book full of super-awesome patterns, but there are some gems in there, and this is one of them. This pattern is the Cotton Candy Jacket on p.58. This was a fantastically easy sweater to make - if you can knit (or purl), you can make this sweater. It's all garter stitch, and knitted up on big needles too. I don't remember how long the large one took, but the small one I was able to knit up in less than 2 days. I would have finished it completely in those two days if I hadn't needed to make a trip to the dreaded Wal-Mart for buttons.

I did make a few small changes to the original pattern, which I will summarize:

• The pattern called specifically for Lion Boucle in Sprinkles. I opted for something a little darker, and used Hard Candies (large) and Popsicle (small)
• I used three smaller buttons instead of one large. I found that a big button required significant force to fit between the stitches (as there are no buttonholes), so smaller ones were required. And one just looked weird, so I used three!
• I decided to forgo the hood altogether. Where the pattern instructs you to pick up the necessary stitches and knit the hood, I did two rows of knitting straight across. That served to pull the shoulders and neck together, and create a teeny bit of a collar. As a result of skipping the hood, both sweaters required one skein less yarn than the pattern calls for.
  

And now, the pictures. First, the large one (size ~12 months):


Second, the small one (size ~newborn to 3 months):


And lastly, the larger one in action, on my little girl at the park: