Crocheted Spiral Scarf

I saw this scarf on Ravelry one day and thought it would make a fantastic gift for a cousin on my Christmas list.   I picked up some cheap yarn to try it out (Patons Lacette), thinking that if I liked it, I would do it in something prettier.... but the cheap yarn actually worked out really well so it might be good to go as is.   

Anyone have any thoughts?  What are your feelings on receiving a handmade scarf made of acrylic yarn?   I usually prefer to use natural fibres but I don't want to be a total yarn snob.

Details: the pattern is a free one you can find on A Little Slice of Life, it's very easy to follow and doesn't require much concentration to work up.   I think the end product is very pretty and romantic.    

And, I just noticed that she has another free pattern up for another pretty lacey crochet scarf!   (That is going into my queue on Ravelry!)

New Product

Now we are doing button necklaces!

They use sterling silver wire to hang on the same fabulous neckwires as the delica pendants. They are lightweight, colourful and good for work or play. I'll have more designs ready by the end of the week. If you're interested in buying one of these let us know and we'll get it up on etsy asap, otherwise we may hold on to them for the holiday craft fairs!

Knitting Season

Well the weather is turning again. It's getting cold enough that I"m starting to consider bothering to blow-dry my hair in the mornings and my ears need a little extra help staying not frozen. The blow-drying thing requires waking up earlier, so we'll see how that goes. But the ears, well that requires warming/wind protecting garment/accessory things, and hey, I know something that can handle that. Oh I've been hit with a knitting craze hard.

Now I have quite a few pairs of hats. Not just any hats, but hats that I made myself and think are quite cute. But honestly, regular hats are not the perfect solution for me. To start, most hats are just too warm. And although I love wool, my skin is sensitive (especially my face skin) and it doesn't take long for hats of all fiber contents to start irritating my forehead. And finally, hat-head. But this season I have finally embraced the answer to all of these issues (I have no idea why it took me so long.) Enter...the slouch hat.

Partly I've avoided them because they're annoyingly trendy. Partly it's because I feel really silly trying on hats in stores and so never got around to seeing what all the fuss was about. But I sucked it up the other day, tried one out, and I am in love. My ravelry cue is now full of slouchers.

Wanna join in on the bandwagon? Yeah you do.

Maybe you like a knitting recipe. Here's one. Make it with any yarn, any gauge, any amount of slouch... You're unstoppable.
Crocheter? Here's a cute one. Oh, did I say cute? I meant super cute.


Like them poofy but not super long and overly slouchy? That's how phoeknits feels.
Love a good mock cable?


Always have a place in your heart for garter stitch, lace and all things Elizabeth Zimmerman? Sockpixie is on it.


But remember, slouchers are just regular hats that get wide. So for my first I am going to steal QuadMoms's idea and slouch up a normal hat pattern.

I never warmed to foliage in it's original state, but baby, get ready to slouch.

Tutorial Linkfest

There are TONS of awesome, free tutorials online.   I love the internet.  I've got bookmarks coming out of my ears for more projects than I will ever have time for (and that doesn't even begin to take into account ravelry).   This is the beauty and the curse of the internet.  Sometimes I find I've wiled away an entire afternoon that I could have spent crafting, surfing and looking at other people's crafts instead!

Here are a few of the projects I really really want to do, so that you can add them to your to do list and we can all dream about doing them:

From CraftyPod: A great way to repurpose playing cards into a cute notebook.

From Evie S.:  a super simple Christmas tree decoration.

From Skinny laMinx : putting your drawings/graphics onto ceramic - easy!

From Folding Trees: awesome paper beads.

Snow?

It occurred to me the other day, as I donned my winter coat for the first time this season, that it was time to list the Let it Snow card I've been holding back on!   

Megan (the 4th member of Maked who has been out of town for a year and a half, but returns soon!) made this adorable card with white snow puffs sewn on.  I love its simplicity.   

It's now listed in our etsy shop - we'll see if people are doing their holiday shopping yet!

Birthdays research

My boyfriends birthday is coming up and luckily he doesn't read the blog so I can post about my plans.

He's new to Canada, so I wanted to get him something "Canadian" without being obnoxious. My first thought was a t-shirt from Identify Apparel. The line can be found in a few shops in the city (and Canada) but my housemate is also friend with the designer. I haven't settled on the actual shirt yet. We joke a lot about curling so I like that one, but I think the blue might be too bright for him. She might have new designs for this winter though, so I will have to ask about those before I make a final decision.

I was a bit stuck on what else to get. I was browsing etsy last night for pants and shoes for my blythe doll. I was sitting in his living room and remembered he needs art. He's furnished his place, but it's full of blank white walls and brown and black furniture.

Next on my etsy search was wall decals. I did notice there aren't too many that are masculine. Lots of birds and swirls and a ton of stuff *I* loved but not so much for him. I did find Circle Line Studios who had some more man friendly ones, such as bikes and pine trees. I also found Fame which is located in Vancouver and have an awesome Tetris decal pack.

I'm still not settled on either gift but I'm feeling like I have some ideas and am on track. It's like a warm up to Christmas and I'm devoted to buying all local or handmade this is. 100%.

Oh and here's the shoes I found for Georgie:

Winning Streak!

I'm having fantastic luck lately!

This time I won a set of super cute lampwork polka dot beads from May Beadz who has a whole shop full of lovely glass beads.

I'm going to have to think up a project worthy of these babies!

Eek, Holidays!

The Christmas season is fast approaching! Eek! So much to do, not just for Maked and getting ready for our winter craft fairs, but also the personal crafting that I aspire to each year to try and inject as much handmade love into the season as possible.



I was looking through some pictures of my older beadwork projects and came across some of my beaded ornaments.

I have mixed feelings about these - sometimes I love them, sometimes I'm not a huge fan (too fussy for my taste sometimes), but I do love making them. I always make it up as I go, so the end result is a surprise to me.


I did about a dozen of these as wedding favours for my sisters wedding a few years ago. They were a big hit but I really burned out while making them and haven't done any since. It's been a few years though, so maybe this year I'll do another....

Soap? Maybe!

In non-Maked crafting related news (i.e. personal crafting) - my boyfriend and I did our first batch of cold-process soap making over the weekend! I lured him into the world of crafting by explaining the dangers of working with sodium hydroxide (lye). ;) I also sold him on the idea with this little factoid: "Commercial soap manufacturing takes out the glycerin (moisturizer) from the soap and sells it to cosmetics manufacturers for more profit." That's pretty uncool.  

So - we gathered together the ingredients. It was really tough tracking down the lye but we found a place in Richmond, BC that carried it. Finally, last weekend we had everything we needed and enough time to get into it. It was super easy. 

We popped the soap out of the mold the other night and sliced it up... it looks okay so far but it has to cure for another 4 weeks before we know if we've been successful or not.

Really, it's already been a success because the boyfriend wants to do another batch, something fancier this time with scents and additives. =)

For anyone who is interested, there are lots of instructions out there - we followed this set at Orthogonal Thought.

We're crafting for winter!

Yesterday we had a super productive crafting day, and I hope to have another once I get some breakfast into me.

Here's a small slideshow (View slideshow) I sent to Lisa after a day of supply shopping. The sweaters were felted yesterday and I'm hoping to get around to cutting them today. We'll see though - crocheting and more blocking is going to take priority.