Show & Tell Crochet Tie

  This picture was sent to me this week. She made it her own with slight width variations. I love the colors she used and how they blend together. Check it out! Get the pattern here.

Have you made a project using one of my free patterns? I would love to see it. Email me! 

Tee Shirt Surgery

  A friend of mine brought me a cute tee shirt fom Aruba recently. Unfortunately, it was way too small. It sat in my closet for a while until I figured out what to do with it. I didn't want to just give it away to the thrift store, especially since it travelled all the way from Aruba! I finally decided to add some panels to the sides and see if that would help it fit better. I'll show you how I did it. Here is the before picture.

  The picture doesn't do it justice. It is a really bright, almost neon coral color. The first thing I did was crochet a panel to go in the sides. I used worsted weight yarn and a size J crochet hook. I made a sort of triangle shape using a half double crochet stitch that came out to be about 16.5 inches long and about 5 inches at the widest part. You can use a piece of lace or another kind of fabric if you like. Just cut your panel to be the length of the shirt.

  Then cut the side of the tee shirt, staying as close as possible to the seam. As you can see in the picture, I've already done one side.

  Fold the sides of the tee shirt in so you have the raw part hidden on the inside. Press the fold. This will make it easier to sew.

  Place the panel inside the shirt where you want it then match up one corner of the cut tee to a corner of the panel. It's ok if your tee shirt doesn't match the exact shape of your panel. You can't see the overlap on the inside anyway. If you plan to do your final sewing with a machine, loosely hand sew the tee shirt to the panel using a contrasting thread. (This is also called basting if you didn't know the sewing term.) If you plan to hand sew, then use a thread that matches your tee shirt.

  Here are my basted panels on the shirt. It already looks like I'll be able to breath in it! I love the color contrast too. If you're happy with it, sew it up with your machine if you haven't done that yet and remove your baste stitches.

Do you want to build a Snowman?

   One day I was thinking about crocheting a snowman. We don't have any snow right now, but it would be perfect for this time of year. I was looking online for some inspiration and I came across a free pattern for Disney's Olaf from the movie Frozen. Click here to go to the pattern. I love how it came out (after a few boo boos that I had to fix).

   When I put the eyes on, I started my count from the wrong side and ended up with an upside down head. Whoops! I probably would've put it together like that had it not been for my daughter who pointed it out. I almost gave up on it at that point because you can't remove safety eyes without cutting the plastic piece off and the head was already stuffed and closed off. There was no way to get to it. Luckily, the felt piece for the mouth was big enough to cover it. So I glued it on with some fabric glue and you can't even tell where I messed up. (Unless you feel for it.) I opted out of making the crochet arms. They just hung there, and I didn't like that. I had some leftover brown pipe cleaners from my Baby Groot project and stuck it through his body. It took a minute to figure out his fingers. In all the pictures I saw of Olaf, he has 4 fingers, so I cut another piece of pipe cleaner for each hand and twisted them together. Overall he is very top heavy and floppy, but I actually got him to stand up for his photo shoot. I was thinking next time instead of sewing his head on, maybe I'll use velcro so it can be detachable.

   Looking at the bottom half of his body gives me ideas for Baymax from Big Hero 6. Stay tuned.