handmade for Christmas

we're mostly packed up here waiting to move into our new house, so my crochet stuff is really the only craft stuff I have access to anymore... not that I've been doing much else in the way of crafts for a while now!  I'm looking forward to having a room again that I can keep my sewing machine set up in, and maybe a table to work on my jewelry.  until then I'm just crocheting when I get a chance.  here are some gifts I made and sent to my brother in Shreveport for Christmas.

I made a square hat for Abbie with a zig-zag puff stitch.  I had to make the construction of this hat up as I went, but it's pretty forgiving since it doesn't have any shaping to it.  joining the puff stitches in each round was the hard part, but I made it work.  this could totally be done as a flat piece and then seamed together, though.  I put tassels on the top corners to look like pig tails, and I made some boots with puff stitch flowers on them to match the hat.

Ava got a striped slouchy hat (another pattern I made up as I went) and I added a puff stitch flower to the bottom band.  I used Red Heart Soft for all of these hats, which gets even softer when you steam or wash it.  I steamed the slouchy part of this hat which made it lay really nice, but I made sure to leave the band at the bottom alone in case it relaxed too much.

Ashton's hat is an earflap beanie that I decided to find an actual pattern for.  I used Micah Makes free pattern, but I added an extra row of single crochet to the edge and put a line of fringe on top for a mohawk.

boot extensions

I found these boots at Payless and got them in brown and black during BOGO. they can be worn "up or down", but I wanted them to also be taller, so I whipped up some extensions that go over the top of the boot.

I measured the boot where the bottom of the extension will wrap around, how tall I wanted them to go up my calf, then measured how big around my calf was at the point I measured up to on my leg.

I made a pie wedge looking pattern and rounded the top and bottom a bit and tweaked it to fit around my leg.

I added an inch on each side the eyelets went on, and half an inch to the top and bottom for seam allowances. I used the measurements sans the seam allowances for the lining and spray glued them to the insides of the vinyl. folded the seam allowances over the lining and straight stitched down. vinyl doesn't fray so the edges don't need to be finished, and the lining is sandwiched on the inside of the seam allowances so that's taken care of.

nifty tip for top sewing vinyl or other "sticky" fabrics if you don't have a walking foot - put scotch tape on the bottom side of the presser foot. helps it glide better and not get stuck. I used to use baby powder... which is probably really bad for the machine if it collects inside and dries up the oil :\
also, pounding the vinyl with a hammer in the corners helps flatten the thickness of the fabric down so it's not so bulky to sew over when you have multiple layers.

once all the stitching was done, I just measured for the eyelets (the extra inch seam allowance and the lining doubled as a stabilizer), pounded those in place, and then laced them up with some black t-shirt yarn. I think I'd like to find some good stretchy elastic instead so they're easier to get off and on, but the shirt was all I had that I could make work at the time.

skinny jeans

I saw these knitted boot cuffs on Etsy - how cute are they? I'm glad it's getting warmer out, but sorta sad that the season to wear these is almost over.

growing up in boot cut has made it hard for me to get used to the idea of skinny's, but out of curiosity I took some stretchy jeans I already had and skinnified them using this tutorial:

try getting that song out of your head now... you're welcome.

they came out alright, I guess - still getting used to them. if the style lasts until it's cold again maybe I'll get to try some boots cuffs, but for now I've been using them to fit into my taller boots :)