Paper Plate Masks

Since Lucky was born, ChemKnits has evolved to include more than knitting, crochet, spinning and dyeing type projects.  I am doing so many other types of crafts as I plan out cute photoshoots or parties for my children.  At almost two, Lucky is finally able to start participating in some crafts.  I know that over the years to come his involvement will only increase, so I'll have to start planning these activities and letting go of some control to allow him to actively, and creatively, assist me.

We asked guests to come in costume to Lucky's 2nd Halloween Birthday Party, but I'm sure that some people may not have gotten the memo.  I thought it would be fun to have some paper plate masks around so others could participate in the costume atmosphere with minimal expense in acquiring additional costumes.  In this post I will share a bunch of different paper plate masks that both Lucky, and I, created.  Enjoy!

Materials used in most projects - There is some variation with the embellishments but the following items are super helpful for you to create a number of paper plate masks.

• Paper plates 
• scissors to cut the plates into shape
• Wood Craft Sticks (Jumbo Size, 6 x 3/4) to create hand held masks or Beading cord elastic to create wearable masks (not shown here since I didn't have any on hand.)  
• Construction paper in multiple colors
• Clothespins (to hold gluing parts together until they dry)

Lamb and Lion Mask Tutorial -
Materials needed: paper plate, scissors, cotton balls, construction paper, yarn, craft glue, wooden craft sticks

Before Lucky's nap, I glued some craft sticks onto the back of the paper plates (so the right side curved up).
I also cut and glued the ears onto the masks myself.  I wanted all of these parts to dry so I could give Lucky a chance to get creative adding cotton balls or yarn pieces to the masks.  I cut multiple 2" piece of yarn in brown, orange and yellow (left over from Lucky's and Indy's Lion costumes).  Now I just need Lucky to wake up to help me get crafting!

23 months old may still be a little young for gluing projects.  I ended up doing about 90% of the lamb myself.  Lucky didn't really realize what he was supposed to do, and kept trying to put the cotton balls back in the container.  The lamb was so heavy that I glued a second paper plate to the back to help keep it from collapsing under the weight of the cotton balls.

Lucky got a lot more into creating the lion.  I started sprinkling yarn over the plate and he quickly joined in.  He helped sprinkle the yarn around on the glue and was very sad to stop once all of the cut pieces were on the plate.  After it had dried surprisingly most of the yarn stayed on!  It was not securely attached, however, so I added some more glue on top and tried to secure things a bit more.

Are the masks how I would have done them if I were working on them by myself?  No.  But I am quite proud of the fact that I relinquished some creative control to let Lucky "help" make these.  I cannot wait until he is ready to be a more active participant in our crafts.  

It took a bit of effort to convince Lucky that he should play with the masks with the fun side OUT so other people could see them.  

Unfortunately he still likes to pull things off of the dry plates, but we had a blast playing with the masks.

Flower Mask Tutorial (My creation)
Materials needed: paper plate, scissors, 2 pieces of construction paper (shown in purple and pink), wooden craft stick or elastic cord depending on how you want to put the mask on.

After making a few other paper plate masks I started to get some ideas for masks of my own... including a cute little flower.  I cut the center out of the paper plate and glued the craft stick to the back of the plate such that the Right side would curve up.  I folded one piece of pink and one piece of purple construction paper in half lengthwise and cut a number of long skinny petals.

I glued the pink petals on first and then overlapped them with the purple petals.

To have a toddler assist with this mask, I might recommend doing petals in one color (using two sheets of construction paper), or even a bunch of colors.

I had hoped to follow a second Lion Mask Tutorial (with Construction Paper), but never got around to it.  Maybe next year!  We haven't tried gluing together for a few months so I'm ready to give it another try as Lucky has been doing many glue projects in preschool.  

Spinning Sentinel

I love starting a spinning project with an intention.  I have a newborn hat I want to design for my little boy.  I loved the bright colors of the June 2014 Superwash Bluefaced Leicester "Sentinel", the blues and oranges are bright and vibrant, perfect for a newborn photoshoot hat.  The colors are happy and the name is clairvoyant.  

 

I am hoping to get a really thick, possibly bulky, 2 or 3 ply yarn.  I am waffling over whether I should create a 2 ply from a center pull ball or if I should make a N-plyed yarn.  I think I'll wait and see how the singles come out before deciding how to ply this up.  

I'm going to spin Z singles (spinning the wheel clockwise as I spin)  I'm using the largest whorl setting (1:5 or 1:8, I can't remember).  I was having to treadle too fast to keep up with my drafting so I switched to the second largest ratio. My singles are thin enough (dk/worsted by look) that I think I will end up N-plying.

This yarn is pretty thick and thin.  I'm watching a republican presidential debate (I think the 4th one?) and it is streaming online so I can't use my TV in the living room, so I'm stuck in my knitting studio.  I can't sew since the machine is too loud for my puny laptop speakers.  Therefore I'm spinning. I've been meaning to do this project for ages anyway so having a chunk of time upstairs in the evening is perfect.  (I've been afraid to bring my wheel downstairs because it would be a prime toy for Lucky and I don't want a toddler to destroy my wheel!)

1 hr and 21 min into this debate and I'm done with my singles.  I'm ready to start N-plying... but I think I'll wait until the morning.  I'm pregnant and tired so I'm going to take this debate to a couch and lay down.

I started plying while watching Star Wars Episode 5.   The new movie is coming out and I am SUPER SUPER excited.  This is a perfect plying activity because N-plying doesn't take as much focus as the sweater I'm working on for Lucky right now.  I switched back to the slowest whorl to makes sure I didn't over ply and I'm getting a nice and thick yarn.  Maybe not super bulky, but certainly greater than worsted.

I finished the plying 20 minutes into the move, just as the imperial march was playing.   Pretty epic music to stop the end of plying!  I'm happy this project went so quickly, but wish that I had more to ply.  Now my hands are feeling really empty!

I transferred the yarn to my niddy noddy and washed with warm water to set the twist and then let the yarn dry.

41 wraps * 4 feet /wrap = 164 feet = 54 yards.

Apparently I didn't record the WPI of the singles or the finished yarn, but it is heavy worsted - bulky weight by eye.  I have an idea of something I can use this for the new baby but first I have to finish up a sweater for Lucky. Wish me luck!  

Spinning  begun and singles completed 11.10.2015
N-plying started 11.11.2015

Halloween Hooked on Napkins

Hooked on napkins is the second project in my learn to sew book, 1, 2, 3 Sew.  Initially I wasn't excited about this project (we don't need hanging napkins!), but once I decided to turn these early projects into Halloween decorations for Lucky's second birthday party I knew I could have fun practicing mitered corners with vibrant Halloween fabric.

I cut three 12"x12" squares of fabric.  The measuring and cutting is starting to go a bit faster.  I'm getting a little more confident.  It helped that once I had cut my first piece I could use it as a template to help line things up for the next two pieces.

Unfortunately I ran out of black thread when I was creating the ruffled streamers for the party.  I still need to go pick up some more black thread (maybe I should always have some backup spools on hand...) but I do have enough to start the mitered corners on three napkins even if I can't do the hemming quite yet.  I think I can get waway with white thread to hem all three fabrics, so maybe I'll just the black for the corners and the switch back to white.

I got some air soluble markers to mark where I needed to stitch the angle.  It took a week for the marks to dissappear but they did eventually go away without any washing.

For the loops, I have some orange 1/8" ribbon (Offray brand).  I cut three 5" pieces.  With my first attempt to sew on the ribbon I did it backwards. Thank goodness I had a seam ripper on hand and checked before clipping the corner.

The corners aren't perfect, but I"m really pleased with this first result.  Now onto the second napkins.  This is getting easier and easier.  I'm not sure my placement of the mitered corner is exact, but these are looking pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

For the hemming.  In the first (purple) napkin, I stitched 1/2 inch away from the hem with the wrong side up.  This left a gap between the edge of the hem and where my stitches were, so for subsequent napkins I stitched about 5/8" in.  Stitch close to the very edge of the fabric was very easy, although I did start stitch RS up on one napkin and then had to rip out the stitches.  It looked strange seeing the top side of a stitch for the outer border and the bottom side of the stitch on the inner border.

 Looking closely at the stitches, I'm realizing that maybe I should be stitching with the RS up because that is where the stitch "looks" better.  However, this blog post and this other blog post show people sewing with the WS up (so you can see the fold), so maybe I'm doing things right.  It is possible my tension is too low, but we'll see more about that once I use a different thread and bobbin sometime.

Over all, this was a simple project whose only real purpose was to give me a new skill.  These hooked on napkins are cute, but will add very little to the Halloween party decor I'm trying to create.

Project #2 is complete!  The next project is a table runner and THAT will be a central part of my decor.  Mitered corners and pockets, here I come!

Project started 9.14.2015

A Search for Mardi Gras Knitting Patterns

Knitting has a place in every celebration and holiday, and that includes Mardi Gras! In this postI will share with you free Mardi Gras knitting patterns that I found in my research. Unfortunately there aren't that many free Mardi Gras knitting patterns available. Designers, here's you chance to fill in a niche! Please let me know in the Guestbook if you find any other relevant patterns.

Free Mardi Gras Themed Knitting Patterns

• Knit a Beaded Necklace for Mardi Gras
  Knit a large tube and fill it with some styrofoam balls to create a knit beaded necklace!
• Knit Mardi Gras Mask
  You will need to create a free Ravelry account to access this pattern
• Mardi Gras Mask Dishcloth
  Click on the "Mardi Gras" link to get the pattern for this Mask Dishcloth
• Wee Tiny Mardi Gras Sock Knitting Pattern
  This adorable little sock is rocking the purple, green and yellow!
• Loopy Mardi Gras Hat 
  You will need to create a free Ravelry account to access this pattern

Surprisingly, there weren't too many patterns to knit for Mardi Gras.  Do you know of any patterns?  

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When the platform Squidoo existed, ChemKnits did multiple focused free knitting and crochet pattern searches.  These "lenses" were migrated to Hubpages at the end of 2014, but the Hubpages platform does not like Hubs that contain multiple links, especially if these links go to the same site (such as Ravelry.)  I am reposting the search here on ChemKnits.  I did all of the searching to find this list myself, and the descriptions are of my own writing unless otherwise noted.  Please let me know if any of the links are broken, I am working to migrate many pattern searches at once and may have missed one.  

Pumpkin Chevron Birthday Banner - FREE PRINTABLE!

Another birthday, another banner right?  Well this time the banner is BOTH a Happy Birthday and a Happy Halloween Banner!  The free pdf that you can download (via Google Drive) will say both of these celebratory phrases plus have some blank pages so you can add a name of your own.

I really liked the chevron fish birthday banner I created for Lucky's under the sea birthday party, so I wanted to use that theme but make it more appropriate for a Halloween/Birthday/Housewarming Party.  I modified the black chevron background and pumpkin silhouette and then started looking for some fun Halloween Fonts.  

 From top to bottom: Jackie O’Lantern, JI Pumpkins, Zombie Holocaust, Serpents, Punkinhead, LT White Fang, LCR Pumpkin Face, Ghoul, Alpha Shapes Pumpkins.  All fonts downloaded for free from www.fontspace.com.

This Halloween party I planned was supposed to have the joy of Halloween, but not necessarily be spooky and scary.  I didn't want the fonts to look like blood or something that belonged on the cover of a Stephan King novel.  I started looking for Halloween fonts in August, but when I searched again on October 1 there were suddenly more available.  In looking through the 400+ fonts available I pulled 15 before narrowing them down the ones above.  In the end, I thought that LCR Pumpkin Face would be super cute on top of a pumpkin background, but wanted to do a test to make sure it would still be readable.  

I printed out a few pages at font size 225.  I also wanted to get the orange of the pumpkin just right, so Keith drew me the pumpkin silhouette in three different colors so we could pick our favorite based on the way they come out of the printer.  I like the color of the "P" pumpkin the best so that's the one that will become the focus of the sign.  

I wanted to use these banners for multiple events:  Lucky's birthday party and his birthday photoshoot outside.  Whatever we use on his actual birth day can double up for his birthday party, too.  

To help these many words fit in a smaller space, I printed the letters two to a sheet of paper, but you could make a much larger banner by printing one page per piece of paper.  

We took the Happy Birthday portion to use the banner for Lucky's 2 year birthday photoshoot outside.  I was a little worried that the letters would be hard to read but you have no trouble seeing the Happy Birthday of the signage!  The photoshoot itself would be really easy to recreate - find a location in the late afternoon light and add a stool and a pumpkin.  Technically I did "make" the stool.  When I was 10 years old or so my grandfather and I made it was a project while I was staying with him for a week, but I think I mostly did a tiny bit of hammering.  I've held onto it all of these years and it is really fun to have Lucky use it on his birthday.  

For Lucky's birthday party on Halloween we used the entire banner - Happy Birthday AND Happy Halloween.  What a fun way to celebrate!  I'll share more details about his Halloween Birthday Party in the next few months.

This banner is perfect for your kids or friends who have October birthdays, or to use for just a Halloween Party.  You can download the Pumpkin Halloween Chevron Birthday Banner through Google Docs to use at your own party.   Enjoy!

The contents of the Pumpkin Halloween Chevron Birthday Banner PDF

I loved the birthday photoshoot so much that I set up a little photobooth for the Halloween party.  Here is Lucky in his costume with a generic banner made with a blank chevron pumpkin and more of the LCR Pumpkin Face font pumpkins.