The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

The Same And Different

I’m finally getting around to making window quilts for the two windows in Bill’s and my room. 

Last year I made them for the two bathrooms and the kids’ rooms, but I ran out of steam, motivation, time, cold weather and didn’t get to ours.

I’m still kind of late.  It might have been better if I’d done these in the fall, so as to be better prepared for the actual winter temperatures, but…well, you do what you can do.

Anyway, last year I wanted to create these pretty stained glass window sort of quilts, and I had sketched them out and everything.

This year, I don’t have the same enthusiasm for them.  I needed something simpler.  Something I could get done.

So I chose plaids and stripes.  I dug through all my fabric and pulled out pieces from lots of Bill’s old shirts, things the kids have worn, miscellaneous scraps from who knows where.  And I threw in a fabric that doesn’t have stripes or plaid at all, just to be wild and crazy.

And then, to be even more wild and crazy, I decided that each quilt would have exactly the same fabrics – same number of pieces of each fabric, in fact – but they would be designed differently. 

So here they are.  Well, not finished yet, but the tops are put together and all I need to do is attach filling and backing and bind them off. 

 

 

 

I showed them both to Bill, and he likes the first one better, while I prefer the second one.  Mostly, though, I like the fact that they’ve got all the same pieces, but they’re so different.

I hope to have them completely put together and hanging on our windows by the end of the week.  I’ll post final pictures then.

So, just curious.  Do you prefer one over the other (if you like them at all, and if you have a preference)?  Which one?  Why?

Another Quick Crochet Project

Last spring or summer I made strips of “yarn” from old tee shirts, and finger-crocheted them into long strands, and then started stitching them together in a spiral to make a rug for Julia’s room. I had another bunch of yarn ready for a rug for Alex’s room too.  My problem – which happened again and again, after ripping out stitches and starting over…and over – was that the rug kept bumping up in the middle.  I know I was pulling the stitches too tight, and no matter how loosely I thought I was stitching, it happened again and again.

So the other day I thought – hey!  I know how to crochet now!  I could just…crochet a rug!

And with the accompanying enthusiasm, plus a couple days off from work, I unraveled alllllllllllllll the yarn in the rug and the rug-to-be, and got my biggest crochet hook and started crocheting in the round.

Well, I still ended up with problems…bumping up…buckling…and so I kind of stopped trying to be consistent in my stitches.  I would do some double crochet, then if I thought the situation warranted it, I’d do a chain and then a single crochet…I abandoned a pattern and just free-formed it.

And the above picture is Julia’s rug.  I think it sort of looks like a flower.  Or a really colorful lily pad.

Anyway, I also did one for Alex, his began as more of an oval shape but still ended up freeform.  But it’s finished, which was my goal.

I’m trying to ignore some of my perfectionist tendencies.  I think they cripple my productivity.

Last thing I had to do – make them non-skid.  I’d heard you can use caulk on the underside, and then I read that you can use a hot glue gun.  I didn’t have caulk, but I’ve got the glue gun, so just moments ago I ran strips of hot glue on the backs of the rugs.

And, minutes later, the glue had dried and the rugs were finished!

Here’s Alex’s from the top.

So that’s that!  Rugs are in bedrooms now, and I can cross that little project off my to-do list.

On to the next one….

From December

I haven’t been crocheting for very long, but I’ve practiced some stitches and I’ve successfully made a few things.

My first great success was a hat:

 

I learned to make a flower and a granny square:

 

And then I made a hat and a scarf for Julia.  The hat was double and single crochet stitches, and for the scarf I learned a shell stitch.  You can’t tell from this picture, but the yarn is sparkly, like newly fallen snow…:

So with all that expertise, I was ready to create something on my own.

But I have to back up a bit first.  My fabulous niece, Natalie, has a wonderful and quirky sense of humor.  And she likes cats.  Both of these attributes are evident in a hideous sweatshirt she owns – it’s gray and is covered with…cat heads.  Yes.  Disembodied cat heads.  It’s…well, it’s weird.  A bit disturbing.  And funny.

Oh, and also, she likes boots.  She has something like twelve thousand pairs of boots.  Okay, maybe not quite that many.  But lots of them.

So I thought I’d make boot cuffs.  You know, they look like the tops of really tall socks sticking out of the tops of boots…but they don’t cover your feet, and are therefore less bulky inside the boot. 

Or you could think of them as smallish leg warmers.

Anyway, when I do Pinterest searches for crocheted things, boot cuffs frequently appear.

And…because I have my own quirky sense of humor…I decided the boot cuffs should include disembodied cat heads.

So I made boot cuffs – beautiful brick red cuffs – they weren’t terribly difficult, and I used this pattern but without buttons.

And then I looked around online some more and figured out a way to make some cat heads…

 

 

If I were to do them again, I might make a change or two, but overall I was pretty happy with them.

So next, I attached them to the boot cuffs.

Oh – and I decided there should also be tails…

I had plenty of red yarn leftover, too, so I made a scarf to go along with the cuffs…

 

I had a lot of fun making the cat cuffs.  They were silly and a good learning experience and they made me laugh at a time when I needed to find things to laugh about.

And best of all, my awesome niece, Natalie, liked them.

 

 

(That’s Julia in her own boots, posing next to Natalie.)

~~~

I’d had another crocheting project I wanted to make for Christmas, but I just couldn’t get to it.  Them, actually.  But I finally made them both and delivered them yesterday.

For my nephew’s son.  (I know…that would make the child my great nephew.  And I am, therefore, his great-aunt.  And while I like the “great” description, it makes me feel old.  So I prefer “Awesome Aunt.”)

Anyway, my nephew and his wife have an adorable little boy. 

In November, I think, or maybe early December, I went to their house to take pictures of their adorable son to use for their Christmas card.  While I was there, I noticed several owls in the nursery. 

So that put the idea in my head.

And after looking around online, and finding a couple of patterns, here’s what I made:

An owl hat:

 

And a matching little owl:

 

So technically these owls weren’t from December, but they were supposed to be, so I’ve included them.

And currently I’m working on window quilts for the two windows in our bedroom.  As you may or may not know, I made four window quilts last year, for the two bathrooms and for my kids’ rooms.  Finally getting around to ours.  I’ll show you when they’re finished.  Or at least when the tops are both put together. 

That’s about it for the moment.

It looks like I’ll be back.