Show & Tell Floppy Sun Hat

Check out this lovely Floppy Sun Hat created by Priscilla! Thanks so much for sending the picture!

Get the free pattern here.

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

Refashioned Beach Dress

  Do you ever go to the beach and end up buying stuff you'll never use? ..or is that just me? Well, if you haven't guessed, I bought this dress on a beach trip. I don't even remember which beach. Everything seems to look better at the beach. Maybe if you live on a beach you wouldn't think so, but I don't and in fact, it is snowing here, right now.

  I love the fabric, but I didn't really like the top part of this dress. I'm not so busty and can't pull it off, so I decided to turn it into a maxi skirt.

  First, I held the dress against me to the length I wanted it. I folded the top and cut at that point.  It came out to be 3 inches shy of what I would cut a maxi skirt for myself at, but I'm going to use part of the top as a waistband.

  After cutting, I had to make my lines a little straighter and cut one seam so I can make it smaller.

  I made it to be 4 inches smaller than my waist because the material is really stretchy. Then I sewed the band closed again to make a circle and folded in half lengthwise with right side out. I tried to hand baste a loose straight stitch, but ended up taking it out because it didn't allow the material to stretch enough to pin it to the skirt.

  I think this is the hardest part for me - putting these two pieces together. I placed the band on the outside of the skirt and evenly pinned the two together. Sewing was a pain because I had to stretch the band as I went to match up with the skirt. I guess I need more practice with that because I had a couple holes. I had to go back over to get it right.

   I think I got it right, and I'm diggin' my new skirt! I don't know what I'm gonna do with the top part. I'm past the days when I would wear it like that! Maybe I'll make some type of headpiece.

Crochet Baby Photo Props

   I may have lost my mojo for a little while. I haven't been crocheting or crafting much lately. Maybe because it's summer time. I usually slow down during the summer, but not this much. I think this was more like a writer's block or crochet block, if you will. So I picked up a hook the other day and decided to get stitchin'. I'm in the process of making some photo props for a friend. I don't have any baby models, so you won't really get the full effect with my pictures. The first thing I made was a baby nest. I found the pattern on Ravelry and you can find it at this link. Hopefully it's a good size for her models.

   The next one is a Mermaid tail. I got the pattern for the tail at this link. The pattern is written in UK terms, so I had to frog it a few times before I figured that out. DC = SC, TR = DC. The shell increasing and decreasing was a little confusing, but once I got it, it wasn't so bad. I did something different for the fin. I felt like the fin in the pattern is a bit too small. I would think you need a rather large fin to swim around as a mermaid, but who knows for sure?  I made my own fin pattern, which I will post later. I got the idea for the fin at this link. The shell and starfish patterns can be found here. All of the linked crochet patterns are free! If you decide to try them and run into problems or get stuck, I will be happy to help you out. Just leave a comment or email me.