Show -N- Tell

  Michelle did a lovely job on her first crochet hat projects! I'm happy that she chose my pattern. She made these floppy sun hats for her daughters and plans to make one for herself. She said she completed one hat in one day and the pattern was "easy peasy!" Thank you for sending the pics, Michelle.

 I love seeing finished products from my patterns. If you want to be featured on my blog with your finished items, just shoot me an email. If you don't want to be featured but still want to send me pics, that's great too! Just let me know in the email if you want me to post your pics or not.

daperfectmix@gmail.com

New Rasta Hat

  I whipped up a new rasta hat. It was made with a size L hook and hdc stitches. It ties around the crown for a perfect fit. Just pull and tie. This will be going in my online store for sale.

  How do you like my new model? Her name is Marianna and I got her from the online Goodwill auction. There was only one other person who bid against me so I got her for a really good price. They have so many different items like yarn, jewelry, and antiques.

Retirement Gift

  My mom just retired from Hershey, the chocolate factory. She has been slaving over your chocolate for years and she is finally free! Just kidding, but she has been working there for a long time and is happy to be retired. I could not come up with a good retirement gift. A perfect one would have been a trip to Hawaii, but I don't have that kind of money so that's not an option. I was thinking of getting her a tablet, but my parents don't have WiFi in their house, so that would be worthless. I thought of a Kindle, but she doesn't do much reading. Some Zumba DVDs would have been good, but she beat me to it and bought it herself! She likes gardening, but she has everything she needs for that. So, I decided to make her a custom tee shirt.  I wanted to incorporate Hershey in there somehow, so I came up with this:

 KISS THIS, I'M RETIRED!

 

   Simple and to the point. I probably should have used a black shirt. I used iron-on letters, and for the picture of the "kiss" I used an iron-on transfer sheet. You just print a picture (or you can make your own art with markers or crayons) onto the sheet and iron it to the T-shirt, following the directions of course. I messed up a couple "kisses" by not following directions correctly. 

 
 Good thing I tested it out on another shirt first. I don't know if you can tell that they are messed up a little, but it doesn't look too bad. I used some of my leftover letters and you can guess who I'm giving this one to. My daughter will probably wear it tomorrow. Ha. I'm glad she likes my creations.

   Can you give me any other ideas for a retirement gift?

Show -N- Tell

  Here is Sari's Floppy Sun Hat all the way from Finland. Everyone seems to be using multicolored yarn. Maybe I should try that too! I love the pinks. Thanks for the pic, Sari, great job!

Sari's Floppy

  I love seeing finished products from my patterns. If you want to be featured on my blog with your finished items, just shoot me an email. If you don't want to be featured but still want to send me pics, that's great too! Just let me know in the email if you want me to post your pics or not.

daperfectmix@gmail.com

Crochet at Victoria Secret

  I was looking through this Victoria Secret catalog that I got in the mail today and guess what I found? Oh yes, it's crochet! So do they have people who actually crochet these designs or is there some kind of crochet machine that I don't know about? They are beautiful. My favorite is the brown maxi dress at the bottom. Just in case anyone wanted to get me an early birthday present, I wear size small. ;) just kidding.. I would love to find the patterns. You can get these dresses online at Victoria Secret's website.

Crochet Maxi Dress at Victoria Secret

The Crochet Sun Dress at Victoria Secret

Crochet Racerback Dress at Victoria Secret

Cotton Crochet Maxi Dress at Victoria Secret

Flower Hair Clip



Flower Power



  These flowers are too cute not to share. The free crochet pattern is called Ecliptic Crochet Flower by Teresa Richardson and is found here. If the written pattern is hard to follow, her video tutorial will clear things up. I found this pattern a long time ago and used it to applique a bag that I made as a gift. There has been countless times that I've found myself on Teresa's blog or YouTube channel. She is a great teacher and she knows a lot. I love that she shares all her knowledge for free. Thank you, Teresa!

  I made these flowers with colors that are not usually flower colors, like the green and black. I think they look funky. I'll have to dig in my stash and see what other combinations I can make. I really like the neon and brighter colors.

  
  My daughter chose the colors for this one and wanted it to be a hair clip. I added some bling with some small rhinestones that I had. I used a dab of fabric glue to keep them on the flower. Then I added the hair clip to the back of the flower with hot glue.

Plarn Floppy

  When I first started crocheting as an adult, my choice of materials were whatever was the cheapest or my favorite: free. I wasn't very good, and wasn't sure how long I would stay interested in this craft. I liked using plarn because it was free and I liked the idea of making something useful out of "trash". If you don't know what plarn is, it is made from plastic bags that you would get from the store. You cut them up and make them into yarn, hence the name plarn, plastic-yarn. There are lots of tutorials on how to make plarn all over YouTube.

  I was mostly making cute bags that in turn were more sturdy than just a regular plastic bag. I actually sold a few of the bags. I don't have pictures because that was way before this blog started. I graduated from plarn and now I have a huge yarn stash. It's mostly acrylic and cotton, but one day I will move on to the fancier yarns. Maybe I can say I'm an expert by then. Hmm, I'm still learning, and I'll probably still be learning then too. I like to keep an open mind. Yarn is definitely easier to work with than the plastic.

  Here is a floppy made from plarn. I used brown grocery bags from Giant. I like the specks of purple scattered throughout. It's a little small and would probably be hot, but at least it's cute. I guess I still need to work on the prototype.

Have you ever used plarn?

Bright Floppies

   I love how these pictures turned out. I spent some time trying to get the all white background going on, but the room was dark and my spot light is broken. This is the best I could do for now. I'm still working on my photography skills.

   Three brightly colored floppy sun hats for the summer.

I just added these for sale in my online store: PerfectMix Creations

Fishing with the boys

  I took a break from crafting and crocheting this past weekend. We went to visit my parents. Normally I would bring a bag with my current project or something small that I can work on while I'm there or on the way. It's about a three hour drive. This time I didn't bring anything.

  On Monday, my husband found a place to go fishing and relax in nature, so I went with him and our two youngest. I played photographer while they tried to fish. This was their first time fishing. They had fun. They liked playing with the worms and just holding the fishing poles. My three year old actually caught a fish on his hook, but he threw the pole down because he said someone kept pulling him! It was hilarious.

Embedded Pattern

  I got a comment with a request to have a printable form of my Floppy Sun Hat pattern so that all the comments won't waste so much paper. I wasn't sure how to incorporate a pdf file on blogger, but with the help of Google, I figured it out. I went to scribd.com. I was a little surprised that they already had my information and that I had followers already. Apparently, they are linked to my Facebook account. I uploaded my file to the site and then got a code that I can input as html to embed the file into blogger. You should now be able to print the pdf below. You may have to click the link to read it on Scribd then download it from there. Hey, I'm still learning this stuff.

Thanks for the challenge Patsy, and I can't wait to see your creations!


Floppy

Show -n- Tell

  This is Christa's Floppy Sun Hat. She used sport weight yarn and followed the pattern as written. She says it will fit a 3 to 7 year old. A few of you asked how to tweak the pattern to make a smaller hat. I had suggested a smaller hook, or to start with fewer puff stitches in the first round. I didn't think of using a lighter weight yarn. Brilliant! Thank you for the picture, Christa! Your little girl looks adorable!


Christa's Floppy

   I love seeing finished products from my patterns. If you want to be featured on my blog with your finished items, just shoot me an email. If you don't want to be featured but still want to send me pics, that's great too! Just let me know in the email if you want me to post your pics or not.

daperfectmix@gmail.com

Butterfly Lace

  As you can see, I'm still testing out some lace patterns. This one was a little intimidating at first, but once I got the hang of it, it was a breeze. The stitches were actually very similar to the pine cone doily. The shell stitches had slight differences, for example, the butterfly pattern used dc and the pine cone pattern used tr. The free crochet pattern can be found here.

  By the way, my husband picked up this crochet thread on sale at Walmart. I'm not sure how much he paid, but he got about 5 of them. It is Red Heart Fashion Crochet Thread. The color is Scarlet, and I used a 2.25mm size hook.

Show -n- Tell

  Here is Hnin's picture of the Floppy Sun Hat that she made. This is her very first crocheted hat, and I'm so happy that she chose my pattern. She did a great job! The pastel colors remind me of coloring Easter eggs. Thanks for the pic, Hnin!


Hnin's Floppy


  I love seeing finished products from my patterns. If you want to be featured on my blog with your finished items, just shoot me an email. If you don't want to be featured but still want to send me pics, that's great too! Just let me know in the email if you want me to post your pics or not.

daperfectmix@gmail.com



Crochet Lace

  I've been looking for some crochet lace patterns lately. I want to make one of those shirts that has the lace in the back, but I didn't want to just buy a lace fabric. I want to crochet it myself. I found this pattern on Ravelry. It is for a triangle shawl, but I adjusted the pattern so I would only get four "pine cones" in a diamond shape. I'm thinking a lacy butterfly applique would work too. I'll keep you posted on the shirt as I get to it.

My First Slippers

   I found another free crochet pattern to try thanks to Ravelry.com. This one is a pair of Mary Jane style slippers by Andrea Plotts. I have never made socks or slippers before. I think they came out pretty cute and it was an easy pattern to follow. I had to make a few adjustments for my small feet. They are a little loose, but not too bad. Crocheting some socks are on my list of things to do, so now I think I'm a step closer at least. I made one with the strap and one without. I haven't added a button yet. I still have to decide which one i like better and then make them match each other.

Loom Knitting

image from http://www.provocraft.com/

   Has anyone tried knitting with a loom? Is it considered cheating? Well, if it is I guess I'm guilty. I borrowed my mom's Knifty Knitter looms a long time ago. I didn't make much. It seemed to take forever to make something! I borrowed them to see if I'd like them enough to buy my own, but I think by borrowing them I didn't feel motivated enough to really work with them. So, then I bought my own. (I make sense in my own world, really.)

   Walmart didn't have the round looms, like my mom's so I just bought the kit with different lengths of the rectangular ones like this:


image from http://www.provocraft.com/

    I tested them out and made a matching hat and scarf. I had this yarn that was difficult to crochet with because of it's fuzziness. I couldn't see my stitches so I gave up on crocheting with it at the time. It's perfect for loom knitting though. I think I finally have a way to make use of my boucle yarns as well. I still have tons more to learn about the different stitches and ways to cast on and off. I just kind of winged it with this set so it shouldn't be surprising that the hat probably won't fit anyone over the age of 3! Whoops. I guess I used the wrong size. Oh well, some baby will have a snuggly warm head.

Show -n- Tell

  Here is another floppy made from my pattern. Here is a link for the pattern: Floppy Sun Hat. This one is made by Kathie and she used Hobby Lobby's "I Love This Cotton!"  I really like the different shades of blue in there. Thanks for sending me the pic, Kathie, it looks great!



Kathie's Floppy

   I love seeing finished products from my patterns. If you want to be featured on my blog with your finished items, just shoot me an email. If you don't want to be featured but still want to send me pics, that's great too! Just let me know in the email if you want me to post your pics or not.

daperfectmix@gmail.com

Handmade Mother's Day Cards

  What mother doesn't like a handmade card? I know I love them. I found this cute spinning greeting card craft on Martha Stewart's website, and had my children make some for Grandma. I made Zeke's since he's dangerous with scissors. He will cut anything in sight. I made his card a little different than what the instructions said. I used two different papers instead of folding one in thirds. His picture was bigger than the other two, so I had to compensate. I think it's the hair. He drew a picture on the inside, but he was rushing because he didn't want to miss whatever was on TV at the time. They will be in the mail tomorrow. So, they might be late but it's the thought that counts, right?

Learning to Sew



image from www.clker.com


   I've been trying to work on my sewing skills. Right now they are practically non-existent. I did mend some things that are now in better shape than they were. Isabel's gym bag was ripped, so that is now as good as new (in a thrift store kind of way). Isaiah's bookbag's bottom was shredded to bits. No wonder he kept losing his pencils, they kept falling out of the holes! I sewed in a vinyl insert so he won't lose anything else. I should have taken some before and after pics. I'll remember to do that next time. I'm currently working on re-fashioning my husband's unwanted dress shirts. I'll do another post on that once I finish, and possibly a tutorial, if I can manage to do it again.

Jute Projects

  I made my trip to Hobby Lobby and bought some more jute to finish my hanging planters. I bought the same kind, but it was a little thinner than the one I had. It still worked out fine. Now I have to make a trip to the nursery. Someone suggested some succulent plants, so I will be looking for some that my non-green thumb can handle.

 

  Here's what I did with some of the leftover jute.  This was an easy project. I just used an old glass vase, and hot glued the jute around and around. I kept seeing it in different places so I decided to try it myself. 

  I made a simple doily for my poinsettia to sit on. Those are salt and pepper shakers inside the vases. We had them on small plates before because they leave a mess underneath them. I like them better like this.  I still have some jute left. Maybe I'll come up with some other project to make with it.