How is my little Lucky 3 years old? Lucky had a great birthday party last month, even if our playground party got rained out and we had to move it indoors. We did a number of fun birthday pictures with our newly minted 3 year old (is he still a toddler?) and I realized that there was something silly we could try.
For Lucky's first birthday cake smash, I made him a turtle butt diaper cover and a party hat with a crochet whale and pompom. We have the party hats I made sitting on a floating shelf in Lucky's bedroom. I have been going through the clothing I knit for Lucky so Rowdy can have a chance to wear it (he'll probably wear the same turtle butt at his birthday party). I realized that Lucky might still fit in this diaper cover!
2016
2014
Most kids clothes change in length, not width. The turtle butt cover is a little short, but Lucky had a blast trying on his First Birthday Suit. (I realized later that I chose the wrong hat for him. Whoops!)
Before I decided to make the turtle butt for Lucky's smash cake, I made a wool turtle butt before he was even born. (The smash cake outfit is acrylic so it is machine washable. Most diaper soakers are 100% wool so they can soak up any diaper leaks.) I never really needed a diaper soaker for either boy. They never leaked in the daytime. However, since I had a small and a large turtle butt in the house this means that BOTH Lucky and Rowdy could wear them!
A certain big boy loves his baby brother so much!
I think that Indy was glad that I didn't have a turtle butt for him, too.
It is only the beginning of November but I'm already thinking a lot about Rowdy's first birthday party and smash cake. I don't think I'll be able to have as much DIY at Rowdy's first birthday party, Lucky's first birthday was sure a whale of a party!
With two kids under 3, washable crayons are a mom's best friend. Lucky rarely uses coloring implements unattended, but he has "accidentally" drawn on the wall and the floor a few times. With washable crayons, I can wipe it right up and be on my merry way.
We have a lot of other random crayons in the house. Crayons from when I was younger, crayons from restaurants or on-the-go activity kits. Some crayons (washable and non) that are too "broken" for Lucky to use. When he is older than 3 I might be able to reason with him to still use the old crayons, but there is no reasoning with a threenager. Plus, this is going to let me do a craft project I've been itching to try... make my own rainbow crayons!
For a while I saved the broken washable crayons in their own container so I could melt just the washable versions. I gave up on that since I don't want to guarantee to the people I give these crayons that they are washable when that might not be true.
It is a lot harder to remove dozens of wrappers than I expected! Especially with 9 month old Rowdy trying to help.
I had a silicone candy tray (link is equivalent product) that is safe up to 450 degrees. This would be perfect for making some party favors for Rowdy's Dinosaur Birthday party in January. I can put these little dino crayons into Easter eggs for the perfect favor.
I couldn't fit as many crayons into each compartment as I had expected. Some crayons are also much easier to break than others. I filled the tray as best I could and popped it into the oven at 200 degrees F. I placed the silicone tray on top of some folded foil in case I over-filled any of the molds. I'd hate to end up with crayon all over my cookie sheet!
After 5 minutes not much melting had happened, but the crayons are starting to look "wet". I'm sure that my results would be different if all crayons started out the same brand or even a similar age.
It took a lot of self control to not keep opening the oven. I knew that if I kept letting all of the heat escape that it would take longer and longer. A watched crayon never melts?
15 minutes after they're in the oven they crayons are getting super melty. Woo Hoo! They're only spilling over the edge in a couple of places where the crayons were sticking out. I wonder if I should try to push this in with a chop stick. I tried, but it didn't push that easily. I expected the wax to still be a little solid but it was like trying to push water with a fork. At least this means it should break off easily once cooled.
I let the crayons sit in the oven a total of 30 minutes and then let them completely cool on top of the stove. Before trying to pop them out, I stuck the cooled (solid crayons) tray in the freezer for 10 minutes. The crayons popped out easily and none broke!
Did you even make one of those melted crayons over a candle bottle growing up? I LOVED melting wax! This wasn't quite as satisfying as watching crayons melt in my hands, but I bet that my toddler would LOVE to color with these when he wouldn't touch many of the crayons I used to create them.
When breaking apart the crayons, I got some little chips of wax. On my second batch of crayons i put these chips into one mold so they would be speckled on the top. I wonder how this crayon will turn out!
Can you tell which of the above crayons was the chippy triceratops? It is in the upper-mid-right of the above photo. If I had enough chips to fill the whole mold maybe there would be more of a significant difference, but it doesn't stand out too much from many of the other dinosaurs.
With some warm water and a sponge the rest of the wax came off of the candy mold really easily. However once the mold came out of the dishwasher there was a bunch of white wax residue that was previously invisible. Cleaning the excess wax off of the silicone tray took a little trial and error, but by letting the tray soak in some cooking oil overnight the rest of the wax residue came off.
Not only did this project help me create fun party favors for Rowdy's first birthday party, it added some new life to some old crayons. Now I just have to wait until we have a new collection of broken crayons (or raid the stash I'm sure my mom still has from when I was a little girl) to make some more. What kind of shape crayons would you like to make?
I wanted to make a chunky handspun hat for my baby for a long time. I considered making one for when Rowdy was a newborn, but knew he would outgrow it fast so hoped to have one that would last more than a week or two. I am thrilled to present you with the Chunky "Cloudy Rainbow" hat! This is a simple design that would work well with many different chunky but lends itself especially well to hand dyed yarns.
Materials
34 yards Super Bulky Yarn (The sample used 22 yards 4.5 WPI Super Bulky handspun, 12 yards of KnitPicks White Tuff Puff. One 100g ball of Tuff Puff would be enough to create this hat.)
22 yards worsted weight yarn (The sample is handspun 11 WPI worsted weight yarn. This yardage includes yarn used in the pompoms.)
Size 15 (10 mm) double pointed knitting needles or circular needles with a cable long enough for the magic loop.
Knit 24 rows or until the hat measures 7.5" from the cast on edge.
Divide stitches onto two needles (The first 14 stitches on one needle and the second 14 stitches on a second) and graft closed with the Kitchener stitch.
Weave in any loose ends
Create two pompoms out of the remaining worsted weight yarn (or whatever yarn desired) and sew them to the corners of the square shaped hat.
The Cloudy Rainbow Hat Pattern - As shown in the sample (Size 9 months)
Knit 17 rounds in handspun chunky rainbow yarn (Or really until you run out of your handspun yarn.)
Next round: Holding the worsted handpun yarn together with the white Chunky Yarn, knit 7 rounds.
The hat before grafting
Divide stitches onto two needles (The first 14 stitches on one needle and the second 14 stitches on a second) and graft closed with the Kitchener stitch.
The stitches are divided in half before I grafted the top edge together.
Weave in any loose ends
Create two pompoms out of the remaining worsted weight yarn and sew them to the corners of the square shaped hat.
Modify this pattern for other head sizes - Cloudy rainbow is a really simple design. You knit a tube and then graft the top together with the kitchener stitch. Here are some tips on how you can resize the pattern to make one for any age.
Measure your head (ex - 20") or determine the desired circumfrence measurement of your hat (Find a knit hat size chart here.)
Check your gauge. (ex - 7 sts/4")
Multiply your head size by your gauge (ex - 20" * 7 sts/4" = 35 sts). This is the number of stitches you should cast on. For easy grafting at the end, add a stitch to cast on an even number.
Knit until the hat is long enough and graft closed as written in the directions. How do you know the hat is long enough? You should be able to divide the stitches onto two needles and hold them closed while the hat is on your head. This length ends up being at least the length from the crown of a head to the base of the ear as measured on many size charts.
I really like designs that make people smile, and I cannot help but grin whenever I see Rowdy rocking this hat. I hope that you enjoy it, too!
You guys really liked my first spinning video, so I thought that I would give it another shot!
I started with the rainbow speckled roving I dyed with dry KoolAid. I want to spin this yarn for a particular design, something I haven't really done before. I've designed with yarn I've spun and I've spun yarn for a particular pattern, but I've never developed the yarn AND the pattern together.
I want to do a big N-ply gradient for most of the yarn... but I also want to have some shorter striped section for a separate piece of my design. I started out dividing a bit of the fiber into three thin sections to spin.
For the stripy section, I spun the singles pretty thin. This is going to be a single ply yarn and I like to have an S twist at the end to be consistent with the rest of the yarn. Therefore, I spun the wheel counter clockwise for an S twist.
Of course after I started doing this I began to regret my decision and wonder if I should make this N-ply too. Nonono, let's not change midstream... Although it could be fun to compare Z and S n-ply out of the same fiber but I did the singles completely differently.
I had enough yardage when I finished these singles that I did end up N-plying them. I wanted the color repeats to be even shorter so plying the yarn helped with that.
When I was filming this video, I realized (once again) how hard it is to spin and talk. Since it is a vlog I didn't want there to be too much time where I wasn't sharing my thought process but this resulted in me making mistakes sometimes.
Bulky Rainbow Gradient
I took a break in the middle of the spinning project. The summer was hot and dry and snuggling up with fiber wasn't that appealing. Once the weather started to cool I picked the project back up and quickly finished the rainbow gradient bulky Z singles (spinning the wheel clockwise).
I think these bulkier singles are about as thick as the thinner, N-ply yarn. Time to start plying!
After N-plying the thicker yarn (with difficulty as I didn't switch to my bulky yarn orifice and the yarn keep getting stuck during uptake on the wheel), I wound both yarns at the same time around my niddy noddy. I didn't do the propper niddy noddy twist but instead made the center shaft 2 feet long so I could still have two 4 foot skeins.
I can't get over how stunning the rainbow gradient came out!
Here is a rundown of the final yarns: Chunky Rainbow Gradient - Z singles, S N-ply yarn. 17 wraps ~ 22 yards. 9 wraps/2" - Super bulky weight Thinner Small repeats of color - S singles, Z N-ply yarn. 16 wraps ~22 yards. 22 wraps/2" = worsted weight.
I can't believe that the two yarns have approximately the same yardage! There is always a +/- when I count wraps because there can be partial wraps in there, which is why I approximated both yarns to be ~22 yards.
It is easy to say that you can get many completely different yarns out of the same fiber, but it was really fun to show you how you can get drastic differences. I can't wait to show you what I knit with these yarns. (Stay tuned for a brand new free knitting pattern by ChemKnits!)
I had so much content that I split this story into two videos. In Part 1, I spin the singles and N-ply the thinner yarn with shorter color repeats. In Part 2, I spin the chunky singles for the long rainbow gradient and N-ply this yarn. Finally, while I was backing up some of the videos, I quickly created an "Auto Awesome" from the files to give my followers a little sneak peek. It has been a while since I've been able to finish a new video so hopefully this will make people happy. Enjoy!
Remember when I could finish a woobie in a week? (Maybe not, but if you pay really close attention to my Ravelry projects then you might!) When I look back to my knitting projects of 2012 and 2013 I get a little jealous because I just had so much time with my yarn and needles. I've been good about not adding too much yarn to my stash except for a very specific project, but my queue of specific projects is growing and I just haven't had time to finish everything.
For example, I finished the Puppy Woobie after the baby had been born when I started it with PLENTY of lead time. The problem is that I cast on after Rowdy was born and it is hard to knit with a 4 month old in my lap who is interested in "helping" by poking himself with my needles. I had almost finished the Puppy woobie within a week of Buddy Once's birth. Instead of finishing it straight up I decided to cast on for Baby R2's woobie. I figure it is a bit of a win if I can cast on before he/she is born sometime in May. (Who knows, maybe he/she is being born RIGHT NOW! It is baby watch time, after all!)
The Duck Woobie pattern is part of the Woobie Pattern Collection - Series 2. Thus far I've only completed the Woobie Unicorn from this set so I'm excited to add another finished object to my project archive.
From the Puppy Woobie I made note to save at least 3.5 arm spans to have enough of a long tail for the 300 stitches cast on.
Welcome to the world, Baby E! You were born within 36 hours of my starting this project and I found out you had entered the outside world when I was knitting on your blankie. Welcome to the world happy baby!
Lucky has gotten really into playing with his Zebra Woobie lately, and giving Rowdy his unicorn to "play" with, too. The picot edge of these woobies take the longest amount of time but it is so snugly and gives the edges such weight that it is absolutely worth it.
Like the other woobies I've knit in these collections, I slipped the first stitch of decrease rounds and did a center double decrease (CDD) with the last two stitches and the slipped stitch. When I hit the round to add extra decreases, I followed what I did with the unicorn woobie - S1, K 15, CDD, K14, CDD around.
I was wrong when I said that there were no fiddly bits. Turns out the beak is knit separately. However it is an easy small piece to knit and not super fiddly so I'm not too upset about this discovery. I should have read the pattern closer before jumping to conclusions!
For all of the fiddly bits I've done on these woobies, the beak is my favorite. It was super easy to attach and looks great.
The embroidered eyes were more complex than most of the other embroidery. I'm going to start with just white eyes and then see what I think from that.
I finished this project just in time for baby E's christening. Wahoo!
The duckie had one evening to snuggle with Lucky's zebra and Rowdy's unicorn before heading off to his new home.
