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!) 

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Handmade Holiday Gift Recap

We all do it.  Sometime in the summer we declare:  “I am going to make all my Christmas gifts this year!”

I think we all know how this sad story usually turns out.  However, Brandy and I did pull it together in the very end, and I am proud to present to you…

The Festival of Handmade and Somewhat Appreciated Gifts!  

I can tell you that the first item, a fantastic crocheted Hello Kitty scarf for my sister, wins, hands down.  Theresa, my sister, loves Hello Kitty.  She is also a FANATICAL University of Washington sports fan (hence the purple and gold).  I really thought she was going to cry when she opened this up.  Made by Brandy, with her mad crochet skillz, of course.  Hello Kitty diagram can be found here.

(She’s sporting some toasty fingerless gloves I made as well…)

Continuing on the University of Washington theme, I made my sis a striped phone cozy, and a warm and a toasty basket weave border hat.  I wrote the pattern down somewhere for the hat, if you are interested let me know.  I held two strands together for both the cuff and the body of the hat.

I slaved over this slouchy beanie concoction from Caron for Brandy.  I used Lion Brand Amazing yarn in Pink Sands.  This was a nail biter, down to the wire.  But it turned out really cute and she loves it! (at least she says she does!)

Brandy came up with a great idea for two of her male friends who are from Viking heritage.  She found this awesome pattern and knocked out these two crocheted Viking Hats.

Brandy made me the most beautiful ripple patterned crochet cowl!  I have worn it pretty much every day.  I have asked her to make me another one immediately!  🙂  I forgot to take a photo of it – my bad!

We also made a slew of other items – see the photo montage below – crocheted cowls, knit beanies, bow headbands, and more.

Now that the holidays are over, it’s back to knitting and crocheting for ourselves – Brandy is working on a bobble bunny hat.  She is now talking about bobbles non-stop.   I finally finished my Twinkle Printmaker’s Pullover, which I had mentioned awhile back.   It looks great on my dress form, but I haven’t gotten around to wearing it yet.  And I just started designing a dress/tunic inspired by the shape of this Pinterest find.  I am doing a top down, circular construction.

So for all you gift knitters and crocheters, our hats (no pun intented) are off to you!  Did you finish in time?  What is your next craft adventure?

Until next time!

M and B

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