Crafting idea for the Holidays from favecrafts.com

Sunday: Christmas Ornaments and More

1. Little Angel Crochet Ornament (shown)
2. Nature's Quick and Easy Ornament
   
3. Stackable Holiday Trays
   
4. Peppermint Bead Bracelet
5. Festive Advent Calendar

Tuesday: Free Knitting Patterns and Halloween

1. Crochet Pumpkin Beanie (shown)
2. Pumpkin Hat Knitting Pattern
   
3. Spider Coasters
   
4. Cable Cardigan with Hood
   
5. Fashion Leg Warmers
   

Thursday: Homemade Halloween Accessories

1. Candy Corn Halloween Bracelet (shown)
   
2. Pumpkin Bead Bracelet
   
3. Eye-full Halloween Purse
   
4. Spider and Webs Bracelet
   
5. Ruby's Slippers

Friday: Halloween Party Crafts

1. Halloween Invite and Favor Set (shown)
2. Playful Pumpkin Patch
3. Spooky Halloween Party Servers
4. Ghostly Decoration
5. Bright and Bold Halloween Table
   

Happy Crafting,

FaveCrafts.com Editor
P.S. If you love to crochet, you may be interested in our new launch of Hooked on Crochet newsletter. Subscribe now. 

I love the designs that Kim Guzman has come up with.

Sweetheart Ripple Afghan from Crochet World Magazine February 2009.

 

 

 

 

 

Some people on Ravelry have come up with sime ingenious ways to use this pattern.

      A Camera Bag

 

A Tote Bag   

 

 

 

 

 

What about the St. Petersburg Coat? Isn't it gorgeous?

You can find Kim at Ravelry, Facebook, http://www.kimanedesigns.net/, http://www.kimanedesigns.net/, http://kimguzman.wordpress.com/, and on twitter. She is one busy lady, check out her designs she is phenomenal!

Cora

 

 

 

From the Crochet Me Blog...

Choosing a Variegated Yarn

Posted: 22 Oct 2009 11:43 AM PDT

Choosing a Variegated Yarn

They create color variation and patterns spontaneously without the need to physically change skeins of yarn. As I began playing with different variegated yarns for this week’s newsletter, I began exploring a few of the different ways these variegations are created within a skein of yarn. These different methods can create a different look in your overall project.

Some yarns ply, or twist, together strands of different colors. They may use one yellow strand, one light blue strand, and one dark blue strand as in this example. This creates a variegated yarn that will have a consistent variegation throughout the entire project. A yarn like this will not create sections of color, but instead will have a regular “variegation.

The most common type of variegated yarn is one in which the entire strand of yarn morphs from one color to the next. You can really see the transformation from one color to the next in this pink, white, and brown yarn. When finding a yarn of this type for crochet, you want to make certain that there is a long stretch of each color. This will make the colors pool and create unique patterning. If the color stretches are too short the stitches will just look mottled with color changes occurring too frequently.

A yarn such as this yellow one uses more subtle colors, working with colors from a pale yellow to a deep yellow. A yarn such as this can create great depth in a project without noticeable pooling of colors. For this reason the length of each color is not as important, though good size stretches of each color might still be beneficiary.

This yarn changes colors too quickly as you can see. Some of the colors, such as the dark blue, are no more than 2 inches long. If you are working a tall stitch, a single stitch may use more than one color. While that is fine occasionally, if this consistently happens the colors become confusing to the eye.

A few yarns use both the first and second methods mentioned here. This yarn plies two variegated strand of yarn with a single strand of white. The single consistently colored strand will tie all of the different colored sections together. However, it is still important to find a yarn with adequate sections of each color. This particular yarn was a sample I chose specifically to show that the color sections need to be long. They are too short in this sample.
The best way to learn which variegated yarns create the affect you are looking for is to play. What are some yarns that you have found work well?
Best wishes,
Toni

Hate Crimes Legislation Heads to President Obama’s Desk

Hate Crimes Legislation Heads to President Obama’s Desk

Today, the United States Senate took an historic step toward ensuring justice for the victims of hate crimes targeted for violence due to their sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability.

By voting overwhelmingly to extend to these often-targeted Americans our nation’s decades-old bias crime legislation, senators sent the message that hate crimes will not go unpunished, and local governments and law enforcement agencies will not run out of financial resources to provide justice to these victims and their loved ones.

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act was attached earlier this year to the annual Defense Department spending bill, and Thursday’s 68-29 Senate vote to approve the final House-Senate compromise on the defense bill now sends this important law enforcement provision to President Obama, who has vowed to sign it.

Under the legislation, federal prosecutors could step in to try violent hate-crime cases if local authorities cannot or will not secure an appropriate conviction. It also opens up federal funding for law enforcement to handle the typically high cost of investigation and judicial proceedings in such cases, and would make grants available for training and prevention programs at the local level.

The act is named to honor Matthew Shepard as well as James Byrd, an African-American resident of Texas brutally dragged to death in 1998 in a notorious hate crime. Matthew’s parents Dennis and Judy Shepard have campaigned for the legislation’s passage for more than a decade since their son’s murder in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998 in an anti-gay hate crime.

The Matthew Shepard Foundation applauds Congress and President Obama for their steady and successful efforts throughout 2009 to bring the legislation to this point. We eagerly anticipate its final enactment and wish to thank the countless organizations and individuals who have worked tirelessly for its passage.

Yahoo, about time is all I can say!

Cora

I had a nice suprise in my Ravelry inbox yesterday...

Almost 2 years ago (February 12, 2008) a young man Lawrence (Larry) King had been shot in the head by a classmate of his. Larry happened to be gay who was out a young age. Larry died two days later in hospital at the age of 13. I found out about this remarkable young man about a week later, through a post on a Ravelry thread. It turned out that Larry was a crocheter, along with his mom. 

The circumstances aren't so cut and dried though. He was adopted, with his birth mother being a drug addict.  So Larry was dealing with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome which has its own problems. Among these are socialization and impulsive issues. At the time of his death he was in the custody of Children Services. There had been documented behavior issues.

Larry was often bullied by the other boys, although we may never know the full extent of the bullying. Larry was often seen as the "instigator" in the situations, however I believe that had more to do with his socialization and impulse issues than Larry "planning on ticking thes boys off".  In today's society we are seeing sexual exploration at a much earlier age. If you don't fit in you are screwed.

So I searched out more information and came across a website called In Memory of Lawrence King. I posted a comment in the Guestbook, which is the third to last comment. I also started a Ravelry group and a blog as a way to remember this extraordinary young man.

Now to go to what happened yesterday...I heard from Larry's mom, Dawn King. Dawn thanked me for my kind thoughts and prayers.  Dawn also explained to me about the scarves.

This is Dawn's explanation in her own words..."Yes Larry and I started doing the scarves for the troops here because of the 3 military bases all within a 1/4 mile from our home.. and he found out a lot of them don’t ever receive mail or packages from home and he didn’t want them to feel forgotten.. so we crocheted and collected goodies to send care packages the the CB base to be sent the troops over seas.. 1st yr they went to Iraq 2nd yr sent Afghanistan , 3 yr Romania.

This yr, I am doing it in his memory.. Its hard with him not by my side helping but I know he is here in spirit and it keeps me going."

So if you are interested go to Ravelry group or blog to find out more information on what you can do to support the troops, whether in the US or Canada.

Cora

Some really cool ideas from When Creativity Knocks...

Ironing Board Sofa Table




Knitted Cuff Bracelets



Here is the website for the videos. You should really take a look.

Autistic boy saves his teacher’s life

Autistic boy saves his teacher’s life

Please read! What a great article.

Cora

Bearghan

There was a request to change this to a knit pattern. I think it would look awesome knitted up. There are so many squares available in knitting. Also I xould try some wonderful stitch patterns as well.

Here are some pictures of the crocheted version. This could be a lot of fun!












Cora

Adorable Halloween Amigurumi from Lion Brand Yarns

Fiendish Friends: Adorable Halloween Amigurumi

Crochet Cody the Count Crochet Patrick the Pumpkin Boy Crochet Wanda the Witch

How to use Excel to Design your Basic Picture Dishcloth

How to use Excel to Design your Basic Picture Dishcloth

Cora Shaw-October 2009 copyright©

Step 1: Choose you Sample Picture (In my case I choose a simple picture-The Triangle with a circle)

Then enlarge the picture:

Step 2: You will need to open up a Microsoft Excel Workbook, then you will need to adjust the Columns.

Adjust Columns to 2.00 (19 Pixels)

Continue adjusting the columns so that it is bigger than your intended picture.

Step 4: Now you will choose the background so you can fill in the cells with color.

Now put your picture in that you want to use as a chart.

Step 5: Now you will start to fill in with the highlight color in the cell. Click on the paint pot in the tool bar

Continue Filling in the colors.

Step 7: You will want to check to see how the design is coming along.

I found the line at the bottom of the triangle to be too thick once I removed the background picture.

So I removed the second line and continued to fill in the rest of the color.

Step 10: This is how the chart will look with the background still on.

Step 11: This is what it looks like without the background picture.

Step12: You will need to adjust the amount of color to get the final chart.

Final Chart:

Now you are ready to put the Chart into a Document. IF you have any question please feel free to contact me at Cora.Shaw@shaw.ca.

Calendar of Hope 2010

The Calendar is up! The Calendar is up!












You can find it at Knit Pink by clicking here. The cost is $15.00 per download. Please purchase a calendar.

Cora