I made this afghan for my baby girl while I was pregnant. It was inspired by an afghan I saw  in Maggie Gylenhaal's fabulous apartment in the film Stranger than Fiction. I just tracked down an image of it: It's great, right? I just remembered that I really need that couch too. Oh. And maybe the lamp. The baby afghan is made up of solid color hexagons, flower hexagons, and a few half hexagons, and then finished off with a contrasting picot edge. I really love the way it turned out, and I am contemplating a larger version for my couch. I started crocheting hexagons after stumbling upon Attic 24's beautiful and incredibly helpful hexagon tutorial. She also includes some great information and images on how to join hexagons as you go. I would definitely recommend checking it Continue Reading
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Felt Lattice Pillow
I'm back with yet another felt pillow. This one was inspired by this pillow from West Elm: After I started working on this, I realized that my plan of attack for the knots was not going to work, and I went in a different direction. I will probably play around with the knot idea a bit more, but for this pillow, I ended up more of a woven lattice look. Even though it is really far from perfectly constructed, I like the way it turned out. I started out with 2 17"x17" squares and 26 half inch wide strips of felt 23" long (this ended up being a bit longer than I needed, so you could probably cut your strips to be only 21 or 22 inches long). I sewed all of the strips up along one edge of one of my squares. I found it easier to add the strips as I went along rather than Continue Reading
Felt Eyelet Pillow
Who's ready for another pillow?!? I know I am! I am LOVING my sofa these days. Here she is: Isn't she sweet? Gee, I really like her. So this whole thing started with me thinking I should make an envelope pillow because, you know, those are pretty simple. And then I thought about how I like felt because you don't have to finish the edges. And THEN I thought what if I harnessed the powers of felt and the powers of envelope pillows to make a super awesome lace-edged envelope pillow? Which is totally what I did. Here's how it went down: One of the things that's pretty cool about envelope pillows it that you only need one piece of fabric. To figure out what size piece of fabric you need, first determine the size of your pillow form. The short side of your piece of fabric will be one Continue Reading
Felt Ruffle Pillow Tutorial
So. Here's the second installment of my pillow fight campaign. I just love this little lady, and she was so easy to put together. I love a quick, easy project with big impact. Don't you? Here's what you'll need: Wool felt cut into four pieces [two 18'x18' squares, one 5.5'x 26.5' rectangle, and one 8.5'x 26.5' rectangle - If you want your pillow to be more rufflely (that's a technical term), then make your rectangle pieces longer, maybe 30 inches long.] A pillow form [17 inches square] Thread in a matching color That's it! Start by stacking the two rectangles on top of each other so that the center line of the rectangles matches up. You could fold the rectangles in half and mark the center line to get it exactly, but I just eyeballed it. Next, sew along this center Continue Reading
Felt Circles Pillow Tutorial
Here is my first advance in the great pillow fight. As I mentioned previously, I am redoing the pillows on my couch mostly using wool felt. This pillow was inspired by the Layla pillow at Crate and Barrel: I recovered an old pillow I already had and used about a yard of 30% wool felt that I bought with a coupon at Joann. My total cost: about five bucks. Crate and Barrel version: $60. I'm pretty happy with the results. Here's how I did it: I cut two 18" x 18" squares of felt. My pillow form was 17" square. If your pillow form is larger or smaller, you will want a square that is one inch larger. This gives a half inch seam allowance. Next, you will need to cut out your circles. Dig around your kitchen or junk drawer for a few round objects of various sizes. Here is what I Continue Reading
Antique Pattern Library
There are so many great crochet resources on the internet, but one of my favorites is the Antique Pattern Library, a collection of scanned needlework books that are now in the public domain. I love perusing the patterns from the early Twentieth Century. So many beautiful things! The yoke of my daughter's blessing dress was an adaptation of a yoke from "How to Crochet Cluny Laces" By Marie Antoinette, 1915. The trick with using these old patterns is that they often use old-fashioned terms and materials, which can be a bit confusing. However, I have found that with a bit of experimenting, I can usually come up with something that resembles the original. Recently, I came across some fun, textural stitch patterns in a 1915 booklet called "Woolcraft, A Practical Guide Continue Reading