The Knitted Purse

I've been on a hat kick lately. Ever since I took the knitted hat class at Yarning for You in San Marcos, I've been making hats like crazy. This is one I started and about two-thirds of the way through, it became a purse. Why? Well look at that sucker! How many people do you know who have a melon big enough to fit in this hat?! It was a huge calculation error on my part. I cast on 99 stitches (!) for a size large hat. Well, let me tell you something sister, that is one LARGE hat! So as I'm about to frog it, (rip it out - RIBBIT), Cindy says I should make a purse out of it. So instead of wasting all that time and effort that I had already put into it, I made a purse.

When it is closed up, you can definitely tell it used to be a hat. It's just shaped that way. Instead of going through the rest of the decreasing rows to make the top of the hat, I continued knitting even and added the second color for the top of the purse. The darker color yarn is what was left over from making Tony's beanie that I didn't take pictures of, darn it.

I made the I-cord with the same yarn as the hat. There are two I-cords that I wove opposite in the gusset. The gusset was made by doing a pattern my niece, Danielle, showed me. You knit the row, but you do a yarn over with each stitch. That means there are double the amount of stitches on the needles. Then the next row, as you knit it, you drop off the yarned over stitch. That makes a big opening in the row. That is what I used to thread the I-cord through. I'm sure there are better ways, but I am a beginning knitter and that is what I thought to do. Here is what the purse looks like all opened up. You can see that I threaded the I-cords opposite in this picture. I didn't really know what I wanted to do with the ends of the I-cords, so instead of just tying them together, I stacked some buttons and tied it off. It gives it a little weight and interest, I think.

I do have to line the purse. Since it didn't start out as a purse pattern, the bottom of the purse here is a ribbed pattern meant for the bottom of hats/beanies and is stretchy. I'll sew a nice fabric liner and put it inside so the purse doesn't stretch out.

I'm going to be making baby hats and booties for my next projects. Two people I know are having babies, so I'm thrilled to be able to knit something for them.

PGP blog hop today!!

Take a stroll through the blogs of all the Paper Gardeners and enjoy some wonderful Holiday inspiration. While you visit, subscribe to each Gardener's blog and take note of each designer's name and their special treat listed in their blog post. once you finish your garden tour, send an email to custserv@papergardenprojects.com with the list of designers and their special Holiday treat. Everyone who sends the correct list of designers and treats will be entered in a random drawing to win one of 3 prizes. You need to send an email to the address above; please don't leave your list as a comment. You have until midnight (EST) on Nov. 24th to make your list and check it twice... The first prize is a festive collection of Holiday paper crafting goodies. The prize includes:

• The Classic Christmas Prism Cardstock Collection
• A Penny Black Jolly Follies clear stamp set
• Green self-adhesive rhinestones
• May Arts red grosgrain ribbon
• May Arts tan twill ribbon
• May Arts white rickrack ribbon
• A collection of coordinating dew droplets and buttons

The second prize is a $7 gift certificate to the Paper Garden Projects store.

The third prize is a $5 gift certificate to the Paper Garden Projects store.

So put on your walking shoes and go for a garden tour (or just stay in your jammies - we won't tell). Here is the garden tour guide list:

Mellissa (Mel)

Tracy

Debbie (you are here)

Amber

Lorelie

Tangii

Tricia

Cathy

So here is my project. I love House Mouse and I love making cards with those cute little mousies. I decided to make a Christmas card and the thought of a window card just popped into my head.

I stamped the image onto a laser transparency sheet with black StazOn ink. I believe StazOn is the only ink that stamps clearly on transparencies. You can use Versafine but you will have to emboss it because it will take FOREVER to dry, if it dries at all. Water-based inks don't give me a clear enough image, so I use StazOn.

Since I was going to use my Copics to color this image, I had to color on the back of the stamped image. If I colored on the front where I stamped the image, the alcohol from the image and the alcohol from the Copics would've just blurred and combined and made a mess of my pens. Besides, if you color on the back of a stamped image, you can color without worrying about covering up any of the fine lines of the image. Nice!

I used my Nestabilities to cut out the green scallop for the front. Then I adhered the front cardstock and then temporarily adhered a piece of cardstock for the back of the front of the card. Using the next size down of the Nesties, I cut a hole in the front of the card. Remove the center hole and use it for another project. Remove the inside cardstock that has been temporarily adhered to the inside front of the card. Adhere the transparency to the card front, centering the image in the window. Now completely adhere the inside front of the card. This makes a transparency "sandwich" and makes the inside of the card clean. Then I adhered my green scallop to the front around the opening window.

I then stamped the sentiment to the front using some rickrack and some pearls. I also used some Copic Spica pens to the sentiment to make it a little sparkly. I think every card needs a little sparkle, don't you? Oh, I almost forgot - I also stamped the little candies and the other sentiment from the stamp set on the right front inside of the card.

I hope you liked my project and I'll leave you with my "Name" and "Treat" for the blog hop prize:

Debbie - Shiny Ornaments

Collect all the participants info and email it to Cathy, the owner of Paper Garden Projects - custserv@papergardenprojects.com . She'll enter you into the drawings. :)

Supplies: Stamps - House Mouse Christmas clear stamp set Paper - Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses Pearls - Lush Green Velvet Ribbon - Sage Green Copic Spica Glitter pens - Red, Green, Black (from the A set) Copic Markers - R14, R29, E21, E33, E47 and Colorless Blender (for fixing mistakes)

Thanks for stopping by. I hope your enjoy your Walk through the Paper Gardeners' websites. See you later!

Brick Wall Technique

I decided to try this Brick Wall technique after I saw Nicole's gorgeous card. She used the technique from SplitCoastStampers. It looked easy enough so I thought I'd give it a go.

Sure thing, the technique was easy enough, I just had to find an image I was happy with. Whenever I need a tall-ish image, I go for this one. It's about 5" tall and works well to fill up the front of a card. The stamp is from Ink Blocks. I don't even know if they are in business anymore. The finished size of this card is 5x7.

The image was stamped on printed paper and then colored with prismacolor pencils. I drew the brick pattern on the back of the image, cut it out, ran it through the Xyron and then mounted it on the brown cardstock and finished it off.

That makes it sound so simple and fast, but it really took me a couple of hours to make this card. It's hard to make a fast card. At least it is for me.

Thanks for stopping by today!

CPS Sketch #141

Whenever I lose my crafting mojo, I head over to a sketch site and do a sketch challenge. Today, I headed over to the Card Positioning Systems Blog to participate in their current sketch. I'm so happy it was a simple one! I just needed to get a card done, not have angst over how I'm going to interpret a sketch.

I used two of the images from the House Mouse clear set: cute little mousie and the candy stamp. I stamped the mouse first, then masked it and placed the candy along side the mouse on the right and left. Simple. I need simple.

Then I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils and when I finished I added some glitter to the candy. I wanted the hat to have some dimension, so I used some liquid applique with glitter on top. I heat set it so it would puff up. I used my QuicKutz Revolution to cut out some flourishes out of sparkly white cardstock. I ran the flourishes through my Xyron sticker maker. Simple! I added a few ribbons and was done. Whew! Oh, the paper I used was from the Basic Grey "Eskimo Kisses" 6x6 pad.

Thanks for stopping by today.