Monday, December 29, 2014

Finger Knit Headband-the next generation!

This past Saturday, we celebrated Christmas with my husbands side of the family. In the midst of the family celebration there sat my daughter and niece working on knitting and crocheting projects. My 13 year old niece is an avid knitter/crocheter and even sells some of her creations to family and friends. My 13 year old daughter, while enjoying crafting in general, never mastered the skill of knitting and was getting pointers from my niece. It was exciting to see "the next generation" pick up needles and enjoy the satisfaction of handmade.

Never being one to pass up an opportunity to make something, I grabbed a couple of skeins of yarn they were not using and proceeded to create my "Fast Finger Knit Head Band" in between helping with dinner dishes and opening presents. My niece was fascinated with the technique and actually put down her piece to learn how to finger knit.

This project is a favorite because from start to finish it takes less than an hour and turns out cute, so perfect for a young teen to create while waiting patiently for the adults to finally say "it's present time" ;)  I typically use one skein of heavier weight yarn to create this project, but since that wasn't available, we used two skeins simultaneously to get the bulk/weight for the headband. I loved the way it turned out.

It did need a little something though. I wanted to create a flower for it, but didn't have my trusty Crochet Dude Flower Loom with me. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and so I got creative. Grabbing a corner of a gift box, I cut a square about 3" x 3". Then I notched the sides and cut a hole out of the middle, in essence creating my own loom. The notches were for making the petals, the hole in the center was for tying off the flower.


Starting at one corner I wrapped diagonally across the form, moving over one notch with each wrap. When I got back to my starting point, I started tying off the center through the hole I created in the cardboard. When I was finished tying off, I had to figure out how to get the flower off the loom. Since folding down the tabs and releasing the petals didn't work, I ended up having to cut/tear the cardboard away but I was quite pleased with the results.



I ended up giving the headband to my niece, we decided it needed a button in the center, and so she was going to take it home to finish it up.  Her headband turned out fabulous as well!



If you would like my pattern for the Fast Finger Knit Headband, you can find it in a free ebook published by "Fave Crafts" Best Blogger Crafts




Monday, December 15, 2014

When Home Depot Comes to Visit!

We are a part of a fabulous homeschooling cooperative called Potter's Hand. In addition to regular activity days, field trips, and spelling bees, one of the events our family looks forward to every year is our Christmas Activity Day.

This year instead of the parents teaching individual project classes for the day, Potter's Hand invited the wonderful gals from the Home Depot Kid's Workshop to come in and do a woodworking project with the kids. They were awesome! Not only did they instruct the children on creating their projects, they brought in all tools and supplies as well.



The kids worked diligently, gluing, hammering, and then painting and decorating, and had fun doing it.  The projects ranged from painted holiday yard stakes, to tool boxes and coasters.  Even our "hard to please" pre/teenage boys group got into the projects enjoying the fact it wasn't your typical "cut and glue" Christmas craft.





Due to the "sensitive nature" of the projects created, my children would not let their "finished projects" be photographed. But I did manage to get a picture of some of the projects from an earlier class while they were drying! (They turned out adorable!) A huge thank-you to the ladies from the Frankfort, IL Home Depot!



Monday, December 8, 2014

Cookies!

Volunteering at the local teen center is a lot of fun, especially when you get to take 15 teenage girls to a nearby church to bake some Christmas cookies! We tried to contain the mess but with 15 enthusiastic bakers it can be somewhat difficult especially when a flour fight occurs. Mess aside, the girls had a ton of fun baking and decorating their cookies. It was agreed though the best part was EATING them!


(And we didn't save ANY for the guys!)