Tea Wallet for Mom

My mom saw the little felt heart ornaments I made and she asked if I could make one for her. Of course I would! She asked me last Thursday so after work I went home and while I was rooting through my fabrics I realized that I should make her a tea wallet too. I mean, she's the whole reason I love tea!! I wanted everything to get to her before Valentine's Day though so I had some planning to do...how the hell could I make the heart ornament AND the tea wallet in time to get them to the post office the next day?

Do any of you do this? Make ridiculously unattainable goals for yourself?!?

Anyway, I decided that I would send her one of the ornaments that I had already made to keep for myself and make the tea wallet. It wouldn't take too long and I had a few hours Thursday night after work and a couple hours before work Friday. If you look at the tutorial, I sent her the red heart with the white and pink gingham fabric.

Here's a lil' look at the tea wallet. I like this color combo together, light blue and white flowers with navy blue and white stripes. They both remind me of my mom and look good together so it was win, win. She didn't know I was mailing them to her though. I seriously love randomly mailing things to people when they don't expect it. There is nothing quite like getting a package in the mail!



She received the package on Monday and said it made her day!
I hope you have a great weekend!

Jamie

A Hat and a Whale

Liz told me that she had wanted a hat for Christmas but her mom got her a pair of earmuffs instead. When I posted something on facebook about not having any crafts to work on now that Christmas was over she jokingly said I could make her a hat. I told her I would and asked what kind she wanted. She searched around a bit and posted two things for me to look at. One was a hat with cat ears and the other was the Rheatheylia Divine Hat. I asked her what color she wanted and she said either a dark purple, black or grey. I have made so much stuff with black and grey lately that I decided I wanted to work with a nice purple instead. I also decided on the Divine Hat, it's just so pretty!

This is Red Heart Soft in Grape, it is such a pretty yarn and very nice to work with. Now that I see pictures of it outside it's not AS dark as it could be but I think it's very pretty! I read a bunch of the reviews on Ravelry and people said that the hat came out really big and that they had to use a smaller hook. I started with a smaller hook but after the 15th round I realized that the thing was just waaay too small. I guess those people must crochet pretty loosely. So I frogged the damn thing and started it again with the hook the pattern actually calls for (what a concept?!) I ended up adding two more rounds of the shell pattern as well as two more rounds of the ribbed band. This way it comes down over the ears, I mean the whole point of a hat is to keep your head and ears warm, isn't it? It fits me perfectly so I hope it fits her too.




While at the store looking for this yarn I also had to get some fabric for a Tea Wallet I made my swap partner for a Tea Swap I participated in (more to come on that later). I had picked up 3 different fat quarters but ended up only using two in the end. The one fabric I had left was totally asking to be made into a whale stuffie! Liz loves whales so I decided to whip this little guy up and mail him away with the hat as an extra surprise for her. I drew the pattern up, cut out the fabric, sewed him, glued on some felt eyes and a little heart for some added cuteness. After he was done I realized I forgot the freaking spout of water!! Luckily I had some blue felt left from my Mom's flowers that worked perfectly. Normally I would have sewn the spout in but since it was after the fact I was able to finnagle it with the glue gun. He doesn't stand as well on his own as I would have liked but you can mess with him a bit and he will or just prop him again something.



I also figured that Liz would think I'd just give her the hat next time I saw her. I thought it'd be more fun to mail it because seriously...who doesn't love getting mail?!

Stay crafty kids!

Jamie