Easy Single Stitch Beanies

(For whatever size head you're looking to make)

This pattern is not a crochet how-to post, just a pattern for those who already know the basics of crochet. Really all you need to know for this is how to do a single stitch, and how to work in rounds. The 9 rounds given here should be big enough for the average toddler's head.

Time for a math refresher! This pattern is all about multiplication by 6's. Until reaching the point of the beanie size desired, you'll be counting/multiplying by 2's- 9's (give or take beanie size) and keeping multiplying until reaching #6. Then you are done with that round.

Round 1; 6 single stitches in 1st loop (6)

Round 2; 2 stitches in each single stitch (12)

Round 3; 2 stitches in 1st, 1 stitch in next; repeat (18)
(Stitch pattern= 2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1 etc..)

Round 4; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 2, repeat (24)
(SP= 2,1,1,2,1,1,2,1,1...)

Round 5; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 3, repeat (30)
(SP= 2,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,2.....)

Round 6; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 4, repeat (36)

Round 7; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 5, repeat (42)

Round 8; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 6, repeat (48)

Round 9; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 7, repeat (54)

• When your beanie has a round "placemat" look and it's about the size of the crown of the head you are making it for. (It's the size of the crown when it looks like the small head covering Jewish men wear) Finish the Round you are on and then stop adding stitches and do only single stitches until the beanie is the length desired.
• When finished, tie off the yarn and cut it a generous distance from the knot. Then use a yarn needle to thread the remainder up through the weave of the beanie.
• The tightness of your yarn will play a huge roll in how many Rounds will be needed in your beanie. Example- tight stitches will equal more rounds.
• The goal is to gradually "grow" the beanie so there won't be bumps or lumps.
• For beanies to fit a larger sized head, continue adding a single stitch between the double stitches as you've done before. (example: Round 10; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 8, repeat (60) )

More Girlie Hair Clips

Since our girls seem to have a knack for losing their clips, we decided to extend our adventures in hair clips and try some new ideas, both for the clips themselves and their uses.

Bow Clips:

For these you will need some floral wire (or any very fine wire) and everything listed on the original girlie hairclips post.

• Cover your clip with ribbon
  
• For a traditional bow, fold your ribbon into a long rectangle, and pinch in the middle, forming little dimples on each side of your fingers.
• For a layered bow (like the red one pictured at right), fold your ribbon into a rectangle, pinch in the middle, and
  continue folding back and forth across the center until you have the desired number of layers. (for patterned ribbon you will have to twist the ribbon at the center each time you fold to keep the pattern face-up)
• Wrap pinched center with wire 2 or 3 times to hold shape
• Cover wire with a short strip of ribbon hotglued at the back of the bow
• Glue bow to clip

Other Tips and Ideas:

I made the large flower clip pictured at right entirely out of embellishments bought from the dollar store. Because it is spring, they had TONS of beautiful flowers for $1 a stem and about 8 flowers per stem. The jewel center was part of a cell-phone decorating kit I found (15 jewels per kit, also $1) and hot glued to my center. Beauty CAN be cheap!

On cold days, embellish a beanie with a big flower clip like the one pictured here. It can turn even the most boring beanie into a fashion statement! (These beanies are also very easy to make if you use the Knifty Knitter- you can easily make one for a little girl in about an hour)

For play-time, clip them into the waist of a dress-up tu-tu (tutorial on making the tu-tus coming soon...) as interchangeable accessories!

The possibilities are endless..... :)

Look, No hands!

Oh-so-fancy Baby Slings

What you will need:

• Fabric: You will need a total of 3-4 yards of fabric- Either 3-4 yards of one fabric, or 1.5-2 yards each of two coordinating fabrics.
  Sizing: Kelli is an XXS and her sling is 21" x 52". This will take about 1.5 yards of each fabric. You can adjust the amount of fabric you will need depending on your bust, shoulder width, hips, and height.
  Choose a heavier-weight woven fabric (one that doesn't stretch)


• Note: 3-4 yards of fabric will be enough to sew 2 complete slings -but you need to buy that much to get the length for two different prints.
  
• Pattern
• Sewing Machine
• Thread
• Cotton Piping: about 12 inches of 3/4 inch thick (this is about the thickness of a Crayola marker).

Pre-wash and dry fabric.

Making the Sling:

• Fold fabric in half and place short end of pattern along fold. Pin pattern in place and cut fabric. (repeat for 2nd fabric if you have it)
• Place cut fabric right sides together and stitch around all sides, leaving a small hole open for turning.
• Turn and press.
• Optional Step: When carrying a toddler in the sling, the fabric can hurt the back of their knees where they sit. We added piping to one side of the sling as padding for their knees. To add padding, insert piping into open hole used for turning. Center piping along one of the long sides of the fabric and pin in place. Stitch a casing around piping to hold it in place.
• Close hole (tuck in edges of fabric and stitch through them as close to the edge as possible.)
• Top stitch 1/4" from edge around all sides.
• Fold fabric in half and line up curved edges. Pin along curved edge.
• Stitch along curved edge, following top-stitch line already sewn.
• Open up sling behind curved edge. Fold curved edge to the side so it lays flat with the rest of the fabric. Pin and stitch as close to the edge as possible. (this way your seam will lie flat with your fabric when you wear the sling, and adds strength to your seam.)
• Load up your baby and go!

Extra Tips

• Before you insert your piping, make sure and tape the ends to prevent fraying. Also, if you have to cut it, tape above where you will cut, and then cut. (It's easier!)
• Our sling pattern is about a size small. If you need to make a sling for a taller/bustier mom, just make it longer (not wider). The width fits the baby, length fits you.

Pee Pee Tee Pees

I saw these at the Baby Expo the other day and just had to make some of my own just because they were so funny! Apparently the Tee-Pees serve as a little shield to keep you from getting sprayed when you change your baby boy's diaper. :)

You Will Need:

• Fabric strips (I have seen flannel and terrycloth used) at least 7" wide and length depending on how many you plan on making.
• Thread
• Sewing Machine
• Paper and scissors for making pattern
• Cup or small bowl for making pattern (circle should probably be at least 4" across)

Making the Tee Pees

• On my pattern, I have the diameter as 4 1/2" across, but another blogger found that a 6" diameter worked better, so you might want to find a cup or bowl about that diameter.
• Use the cup or small bowl to draw a circle on your paper and cut it out.
• Fold circle in half and then in half again to make an "x" marking the center of your circle
• Draw a line from the center down the middle of one of the quarters of your circle.
• Now cut out half the circle plus the little half-quarter piece, and this is your pattern.



• Use your pattern to cut out two semi-circles.
• Sew the two pieces right-sides together leaving one straight edge open for turning.



• Turn right-side out, tuck in the open seam (so raw edges are inside) and press.



• Sew the two straight edges together, and you're done!

Felt Cookies

What you will need:

• Cream or Chocolate colored felt squares (5 for $1 at JoAnne's fabric) for the cookie, pink, purple or other pastel colored squares for the frosting.
• Ecru or Chocolate colored embroidery thread
• Polyfill batting
• Puff paints in colors that coordinate with the frosting colors chosen
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors
• Quilting needle

Making the Cookies

• Find a cup or small bowl that is the desired size of the cookie you want to make and trace circles onto the Cream or Chocolate felt squares, and cut out.
• Find another cup slightly smaller than the first, and trace circles onto the pastel squares.
• Staying within the lines of circle on the pastel squares, cut out a wiggly-lined circle for the frosting.
• Use the puff-paint to put "sprinkles" on the frosting and let dry.
• With the hot glue gun, glue the outer edges of two cream colored circles together (leaving the middle and a small edge section unglued for stuffing.
• Stuff cookie with batting to desired puffiness, then glue shut.
• Once dry, glue frosting to top of cookie.
• Use a blanket stitch to stitch the outside edge of the cookie all the way around.
• "Serve" and enjoy!

Photos courtesy of Primrose Design embroidary tutorials

ABC Quiet Books

We're always looking for great ways to keep our kids entertained and quiet during church. Hopefully this next project will do that while teaching them at the same time. The idea comes from The Idea Door. It is an ABC book with a page of pictures and words for every letter of the alphabet. All of the pictures are gospel based, so it's great for Sundays! They provided a pdf document with the graphics in 8 1/2 x 11 size. I imported them into a word document and made them smaller so they will fit in little photo protectors and make a perfect size book for little hands. The pages are about 4x5. The file can be emailed to anyone who would like to use it.

Here's what you need:

• Printout of pages-get from email. Print in color on white cardstock-there are 8 pages including title page.
• Paper cutter or scissors
• Adhesive (glue stick, rubber cement, photo squares, etc.)
• 27 Photo Savers-laminating pouches. Or plan to laminate book before binding. You can get these at Staples or any office supply store. If you have a hard time finding them, I think I could get some for you, but they might be kind of pricey :)
  
• 
• Pictures: I just printed these out with my printer onto cardstock, but you can use pictures that you have developed. See instructions below.
  
• A is for Angel (optional)- this page has its own pictures, but I had one of Lydia dressed up like an angel for our nativity program, so I used that.
  
• D is for Daddy- I printed 2 pictures of Daddy to cover the ones already on the page.
• E is for eternity- 1 or 2 pictures of you on your wedding day or the family at the temple.
• F is for family- 1 or 2 pictures of the family
• G is for grandparents- pictures of all grandparents
• I is for I am a child of God- 1 or 2 pictures of your kids, I put one in of cousins on this page.
• M is for Mommy- 1 or 2 pictures of Mommy
• P is for prophet- I changed this one because it had two pictures of President Hinckley. I put Joseph Smith and President Monson. I also changed the text. If you want it to be different than the way I did it, print out whatever you want :)
• W is for wisemen- (optional) 1 or 2 pictures of family members dressed like wise men (maybe from Christmas).
• Y is for you- 1 or 2 pictures of your baby/child or both.
• Graphics are provided on all of the pages.
  
• Plan to bind book at copy store, or
  
• Hole punch and multi-purpose rings

To print the right size pictures in WORD:

• Import the pictures into document(Insert, Picture, From File OR copy and paste)
  
• Crop them using the image tools.
• To make them the perfect size, double click on the picture, select the size tab. Type in the size that you want the picture to be. I measured the space I wanted to fill in the book and chose sizes accordingly.

Instructions:

1. Take page printouts and cut each page to 5 1/4 x 4 inches.
2. Crop pictures with scissors or paper cutter.
3. Glue pictures to pages with adhesive
4. Take laminating pouches and position page inside. ***Make sure you line it up so that the crease is on the RIGHT side of the page-this will keep your book together. The binding will be along the side of the laminating pouch that opens. *** Make sure it's right before doing next step.
   
5. Peel off grid liner and firmly seal around page.
6. Take to copy store to have spiral bound OR punch holes and use multi-purpose rings. It cost me 3.99 at Kinkos to get my book bound. I would recommend calling elsewhere to see if you can get a better deal.
   
7. You're Done! If you have a highly destructive child (like mine) don't leave her alone with it in the back seat, or your pages will be bent before you even get home from Kinkos.
   

Bag-A-Lopes

Next Project: Bag-A-Lopes
It's a gift bag made out of an envelope! These are inspired (aka copied) from my FAVORITE website: splitcoast stampers. Each week they have a new little tutorial that teaches you how to do something fun with stamps. This one is from a while ago. If you don't use stamps, you can modify just about any project on the webpage and just use printed paper or stickers or other embellishments.


This is what you need:

• 9x12 White Catalog Envelope (I think the envelopes I found are larger, just get the largest you can find)
  
• Paper Trimmer with Scoring Blade


• Bone Folder (it's okay if you don't have one, or if you don't even know what this is-I never use one)
  


• Extra-Strength Adhesive like Terrifically Tacky Tape (TTT)
  


• Ribbon


• Stamps & Embellishments to decorate


• Corner Rounder optional
• Optional:
• Patterned Paper
• Punches
• Colored Card stock

Step by Step instructions:

1. Step 1

   Trim 3” from envelope off of the open end.

   

2. Step 2

   Remove orange cutting blade from trimmer. With the opening of the envelope at the top, score in 2” from the right, left and bottom edges of the envelope.
   

   

3. Step 3

   You will have a 2” square in each bottom corner, score from inside corner to the outer point.
   

   

4. Step 4

   This is the point at which you decorate the front of your gift bag, staying inside the score lines.

   

5. Step 5 (Optional)

   If desired, use decorative scissor or corner rounder to scallop the top of your gift bag.

   

6. Step 6

   Crease the score lines and pop the envelope into a bag, carefully bringing the bottom corner squares into a point on each side.
   

   

7. Step 7

   Use bone folder to give points a crisp fold.

   

8. Step 8

   Apply extra-strength adhesive to flaps that will fold in to the bottom of the bag.
   

   

9. Step 9

   Fold flaps in to form bottom of the bag. Bottom will measure 5” x 4”.
   
   

   

10. Step 10

    Punch holes through all layers of top edge for ribbon closure.
    
    

11. Step 11

    Embellish the front of bag for gift giving.