Crystal Madrilejos

Welcome to the first installment of “Christmas Gifts 2009,” where you’ll finally get to see what we’ve been up to the past couple months!

In the past, I’ve really gone all out on the wrapping but this year I kept it simple: store bought paper and ribbon. One thing that I did do was design gift tags. They turned out better than I expected! I really think it’s the way to go if you want to do something fun but not spend a million hours wrapping gifts all fancy.

And what are in those little boxes? You’re probably wondering… Acorn necklaces for my nieces Monica and Abigail!

I found this tutorial on how to crochet acorn necklaces from one of my favorite blogs, Resurrection Fern (a blog I briefly posted about a little awhile ago.) A few months ago Andrew and I gathered acorns in the woods behind my parents house. I’ve actually made quite a few of these necklaces, experimented with different yarns, strings, and embroidery flosses; and I’ve decided that crochet thread worked best for me. It comes in different thicknesses but I prefer it on the heavier side. It gives the necklace a nice weight.

One thing about acorns! If they’ve been on the ground for a little while, you might want to bake them before you put them in the necklace. Otherwise, you might find little ants crawling all over you! Better yet, just don’t use any acorns that have little holes in them. I learned the hard way.

–c.

[Image via Condé Nast]

The past few weeks have been full of Christmas present making, birthday gift buying, baby stuff planning and baby shower invite designing!

We’ve been making the majority of our presents for a couple of years now; which is fun, budget-friendly, as well as, time consuming. In my family, we mainly do presents for the kids and just a gift exchange for the adults since there are so many of us. Andrew’s immediate family is smaller so we buy gifts, but we’ve also made gifts for them in the past.

This year we got an early start and many presents have already been completed. I’m really excited about them and want to post them but I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise for some people!

So instead I will post about a few of the gifts that we’ve made in the past years. You can read past posts about Christmas gifts here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Apron and cookbook for Monica: Designed and sewn by Andrew. Made from thrifted fabric.

Bag O’ Shapes for Arwen: Designed, sewn and screenprinted by myself and Andrew. Made from canvas, thrifted fabric, and polyfill. This is something that we eventually hope to make more and sell in our etsy shop.

Doll for Abigail: Based on this design from a Japanese craft book. Crocheted scarf and a skirt made from a doily.

Leg Warmers for Abigail: I designed and crocheted these, but it was difficult because I’ve never made a pair before and I didn’t have Abigail to try them on as I was making them.

Crocheted Bag for Mariela: I crocheted this from a free pattern that I found at JoAnn Fabrics. Made with Bernat Handicrafter Cotton Naturals (you can find the pattern online here at the Bernat site, but you need to sign up for a free account.)

–c.

Surprise! Another crocheted toy for the baby!

This one though is not from the same pattern book as the others I’ve made recently. I found the pattern online here. But I only followed the pattern for the body/head part because I didn’t read the whole pattern before I started. I didn’t realize that the legs are knit and not crocheted and I don’t know how to knit! (Though I sorely want to learn.) So for the legs I just winged it and surprisingly they turned out better, in my opinion, than the ones in the original pattern.

How, you ask, do I have all this time to crochet? The answer is: It’s basketball season. The CAVS have been playing every other night it seems and after last season, and in my heightened state of emotions, I can’t seem to take the anxiety. So instead of actually watching the game, I crochet during the game so I don’t get so worked up. It’s been working out quite nicely. I finished two Christmas presents during the last two games!

–c.

This baby is going to have one million crocheted toys before it’s even born! Here are the newest additions: Mushrooms! These are also from the same craft book (Ana Paula Rimoli’s Amiguri Two!) as the Peas in the Pod and the Turtle Mama that I posted about before.

These ones are a little different than the ones in the book though. The pattern called for white felt circles to be sewn onto the mushroom cap, but I didn’t really like the look of it so I just used white yarn to embroider circles onto the cap. I wasn’t so sure about how the circles turned out since they aren’t filled in completely like you’d normally see on a mushroom but I think they are growing on me.

I have plans to make a super-huge one but I’ll have to add that to the end of my list of things. I still have a quilt to get cracking on!

–c.

Here is the second crocheting project for baby that I mentioned a couple posts ago. A turtle mama with some surprises!

There is an opening in the back end of the large turtle, out of which comes all the rest of the pieces. All in all the whole project is eight pieces including, the mama turtle, two babies, four eggs and one cracked egg. I was so ready for it to be done and those babies were hard to make! Small things are always harder to make. I’m surprised I’m not cross-eyed by now.

It’s from the same craft book as the Peas in a Pod (Ana Paula Rimoli’s Amiguri Two!). I’ve already been asked about the eyes and their baby-safeness. They are safety eyes and though I’ve tried my hardest to get them out (never with any success) I would recommend supervising baby when playing with any dolls with hard plastic eyes.

–c.

Another reason why I have a million craft projects going is because I have this tendency to do something so much until I get sick of it and have to do something else. Maybe it’s ADD passed down from my parents. After sitting in front of the sewing machine for so long working on the quilt, after a few squares I already felt burnt out.

Luckily, I had been itching to start crocheting again. 2 projects later and I’m burnt out and back to the quilt, but I got a couple cute things out of this burst of crochet energy. Both patterns were from Ana Paula Rimoli’s Amiguri Two! I got this book at Barnes & Noble on a whim and have been pretty happy with it thus far.

I’m realizing that the majority of craft books that I own are in Japanese, I mean, literally written in Japanese. I’ve been able to figure out the patterns relatively easily but I have to fill in the blanks most of the time. This book is in English and I have to say that was a bit easier on the brain. Though mine didn’t turn out exactly like the ones in the book, they were fun to make nontheless. Here is one of them: Peas in a Pod!

The one in the book only has 3 peas in the pod, but for some reason my pod turned out extra large and I was able to squeeze in 4. Go figure. I know everyone’s crocheting styles and stitches are a little different but I have never really paid attention to how many stitches per inch, etc. This might come back and bite me in the ass when I’m crocheting some type of clothing, but until then I’ll just do what I do.

One thing I have yet to perfect is the invisible decrease (which I’ve never heard mention of in any of the craft books I’ve read). I always wondered why the bottoms of all my spheres were lumpy and just not attractive in general. I finally googled this problem and discovered the invisible decrease which improved the look of my pieces greatly, but they still aren’t as smooth as I would like. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to advise!

I’ll post the other crochet project as soon as I take pictures of it. It’s been so cloudy here I haven’t been able to get any good light!

–c.

I crocheted this dog from a pattern in a Japanese crafting book. If you haven’t looked through a Japanese crafting book, you should. And be ready for cuteness overload! I became obsessed with these craft books years ago and my collection has grown steadily. I’ve made more than a few items from these books but the one downside is they are almost all in in Japanese. I don’t happen to read Japanese but luckily for me crochet patterns are universal and I can usually follow those without much problem. It is a little taxing on the brain, trying to decipher which pattern is for which part of the doll but in the end it works out.

I’ve gotten my books from a variety of places, mostly Japanese bookstores. Andrew used to live in Chicago and, during one of my visits, I stocked up at Mitsuwa. In NYC, my favorite Japanese bookstore is Kinokuniya, which is not only great for books but movies as well.

A few online sources that I’ve found useful are Crafting Japanese, YesAsia, and Amazon: Japan.

Here is the book that I got this dog pattern from: ISBN-10: 9784774750712

–c.