Easy Valentine’s Day Gifts

We love when a specific holiday gets closer, our inboxes become full of emails boasting free patterns! This Valentine’s Day is no exception. With the romantic holiday about a week away, you have more than enough time to complete one of these little goodies. Perfect for gifting to that special someone, friends, family OR better yet yourself.

Crochet tote from Lion Brand Yarns : you have to sign up but once you do you have access to a treasure trove of free pattern goodness! This tote could be customized with a bit of monogram color work or applique. Fun!

The clothing company ModCloth has a great blog featuring all kinds of indy inspired crafts including these “upcycled” sweater mittens!

Sweet crochet heart garland from Skip To My Lou, so perfect for decorating or gift wrap accents.

Knit up this Valentine measuring tape from Spud and Chloe for all your crafty friends. This pattern can easily be customized with duplicate stitch embroidery with your own candy heart message!

Another great “upcycle” idea from Thimbleanna, adding a delicate crochet edge to any vintage or funny postcard.

Heart lace work scarf from Knit Culture is definitely on my crafting to-do list!

Nothing warms the heart (we love our puns!) like this knit mug cosy. By Kristen TenDyke, this pattern features color work and a sweet little cable detail. Make it a complete gift by giving it with a coffee mug and either coffee or tea!

Lastly this oversized candy box filled with yarn would make any crafter or fiber artist squeal with delight. Leave it up to the folks at Craft: Zine to take a simple Martha Stewart paper craft and make it even more awesome!!

What ever you end up making, make it with love and you simply can’t go wrong. (okay you can but that’s content for another post!) 

Read Full Post »

3 New Patterns… and… It’s Here! Crocheted Version of the Center Row Lace Headband / Neck Warmer! AKA PATTERN-PALOOZA!!

After many requests, we have finally perfected and patterned up a crochet version of our most popular pattern, the Center Row Lace Headband / Neck Warmer.  The dimensions of the finished product are very close to the knit version, and the look is almost identical.  I hope that you crocheters out there are happy with the results.  This pattern comes out just in time to stylishly fight off that winter weather!

We’ve also been hard at work creating the patterns featured in our last post!

Read Full Post »

Share the Warmth : Lands’ End & Warm Up America! Partner Up

We love when we see partnerships between home grown efforts and big retailers; being able encourage charitable handcrafters at a larger scale. Just like the “Share the Warmth” campaign by Lands’ End. For the second year they have partnered up with Warm Up America! to provide needy families with knit or crochet afghans for the upcoming fall and winter months. It’s one thing to partner up to help promote / contribute to the cause for a short time (and in turn boost product sales — you know who they are), it’s quite another to embrace the cause and promote it with a devoted web page, free patterns and awesome video tutorials by the very talented Knit & Crochet Now! PBS Series host Brett Bara. The tutorials and patterns focus on beginners, getting newbies excited about the art of knit or crochet and giving back!

Read Full Post »

We’re Back!

Greetings fellow crafters.  Oh boy, Brandy and I fell off the blogging and crafting bandwagon, hard.  Well we still crafted some but the blogging bit the dust, and for that, our deepest apologies.  I managed to fracture my tibia, tear my acl, quit my job, family health issues, have knee surgery, and the list goes on.  Brandy didn’t fare much better, she’s was falling apart at the seams, a few trips to the ER, solving some major health challenges, changing up her job situation, and of course trying to keep an eye on me so I wouldn’t injure myself anymore.  Whew!  But we have pulled it together and are back to our awesome little blog.

For your viewing pleasure, here are some of the things we have been up to.

Cheers,

Mary and Brandy

Read Full Post »

February: A Night on the Town

Color Group: Geo

When thinking about this month’s color story and where we would draw inspiration we knew we wanted it to be around the Valentine’s Day holiday. That is where the “date night” or “night on the town” concepts emerged. When looking for that perfect image to capture the palette we had in mind it was a bit of a challenge, that was until we found the classically vintage vinyl cover of Rod Stewart’s A Night on the Town album. One of Rod Stewart’s most iconic and seductive songs came from this 1976 album, you know which one. The styling of the album cover with its heather violets, sage greens and deep blacks, summed up the decade. The patterns this month are designed to be the perfect accessory to pair with your little black dress, because remember “tonight’s the night”.

The featured yarns are from KnitPicks Palette Yarn Collection. This fingering weight yarn is perfect for color work and comes in a wide range of colors; we love it for just that reason. It’s hard not to want to buy up every color.
1) Black
2) Marble Heather
3) Clematis Heather
4) Aster
5) Mist

Have an addiction to vinyl? Who doesn’t! That is why we love SLEEVEFACE, a clever twist on album art. Beware, you will lose an hour when clicking into this site. There is just so much to see.

Read Full Post »