Mother's Day gift ideas in thread crochet, modified clones knot tutorial

I was asked to make my columbine barrettes available at AndersonsCreations on Etsy into a bookmark for a Mother's Day gift.  Of course, I thought that is a pattern that would work up quickly and other people who crochet with thread would love to make for themselves and their mothers.  My pattern testers said that it only took them about 4 or 5 hours to crochet.  This pattern is set for a skill level of intermediate to advanced.

This is mainly because of the modified clones knot I used for the stamen.  I called it 3hdcCL stitch and I thought I would do a tutorial on how the make this stitch.  It is worked a little differently from most stitches in that it is worked around a chain and not in the chain. The pattern calls for a chain of a certain number and then a half double crochet (U.S. crochet term) in the 2nd chain from the hook.  This anchors the clones knot.

To make the modified clones knot, (simply wrap the thread around your hook once and around the chain) 3 times, yarn over and pull the thread through all wraps at once.

 Slip stitch to close 3hdcCL (modified clones knot). These stitches will stay at the top of the chain.

After that is made, the pattern says to make a number of  single crochet stitches around (not in) the chain left down to the center of the flower. This packs all the stitches on the chain which makes it really stiff so that it will stand up.

I really love how this pattern came out.  If you don't enjoy thread crochet I have two different versions of this bookmark in my shop already made for you to buy.

 a blue and white columbine bookmark

a dark columbine bookmark



I am also happy to make a bookmark in any columbine combination of colors that you love.  Just push the "ask a question" button on the side of my Etsy page and I will make it for you in the colors you want. However, I can't promise they will be done by Mother's Day of this year as I am already working on a number of orders to get out.

The pattern to make your own columbine bookmark in the colors you chose is can be found using the "buy now" button at the right of this post or at LoisLeigh's Ravelry store.  This pattern will be available by tomorrow at AndersonsCreations. Etsy.

I have also designed a choker using this glorious flower. A blue and white columbine choker already made for you.

It has a crochet tie closer at the back so that it will fit most neck sizes.  dark columbine choker

If you would like to make your own with the colors you chose the pattern can be found using the "buy now" button on the right or at LoisLeigh Ravelry shop, AndersonsCreations on Etsy or Lois Leigh's Creations on Craftsy

I have always found flowers to be a great source of inspiration.  The biggest issue is how to translate that into crochet.  I hope this tutorial helps in making this amazing flower for your own columbine creations.

Summer crochet and knit patterns.

We had had so much rain this past month that everything is blooming.  I love this time of year.  Flowers are so inspirational.  Here are some pictures of our various gardens and the patterns that they helped to inspire.

Iris are so beautiful and was the inspiration for this luxurious iris lace scarf.  You can find the patterns on Craftsy here or on Ravelry with the buy now button or from this link. 

Morino wool and silk long scarf

This is very long scarf [100 inches (254 cm) long] and is made with a wonderful yarn that is not only soft but also has the wonderful shimmer than goes with silk.  The scarf keeps the iris alive all year long.





 Columbine are my absolute favorite flower and so I had to try and make some accessories that included this flower.  In honor of our granddaughter I made a headband or hair clips that include this wonderful flower.

Pre-made hair clips on Etsy

This pattern includes instructions for making the headband for any size head and can be found with the buy now button on the right, or on my Ravelry store or at my Craftsy store. Of course I had to make some bookmarks for my Etsy shop.  I love how they came out.

 

Another favorite flower is the rose and with our recent rain, our roses are blooming like crazy.

I love to crochet roses.  They are fun to make and they never lose petals to the Kansas wind.  Here is a doily pattern at my Craftsy store or on Ravelry.

already made for you on Etsy

 

Here is a pattern that has more blooming roses. If you follow the instructions and add a prism you will have rainbows on your wall when you hang this from a southern facing window.  (I love rainbows on the wall.)

pre-made window sun catcher

 

If you would like to make one of these for yourself, using the colors you would like to see, the pattern can be found at my Ravelry shop or on my Craftsy store.

 

With Father's Day coming up, how about making Dad a pair of fingerless gloves?  I made this pattern for my husband who wanted a pair using cotton yarn which is so much easier to launder. 

 





pre-made for you in my Etsy shop

 

If you like to make cable knits, this fingerless gloves pattern has both a chart and written instructions and as with all my patterns has been tested by two other people to find mistakes in the instructions.  The pattern can be found in Craftsy here or at my Ravelry store.

 

 

I am still designing bookmarks and should have a new one out soon.  In the meantime, I just found a Russian blog that is featuring my bookmarks.  The Google translate does a pretty good job and I was so honored to be featured.  Here is the here,  My designs are now international, lol.

 

I hope everyone has had a wonderful spring and that you are now ready to for summer.







Mother's Day ideas

I have been super busy with business taxes, custom orders and some other tasks.  I am done with taxes and have a bit of time to write in my blog.

I did want to share a link to an online magazine, Mental Floss, that is showing different bookmarks.  My cowardly lion is in the round up with a wonderful review.  http://mentalfloss.com/article/63057/11-beautiful-bookmarks-bibliophiles-will-love  What an honor to included in this article.

Is your mother a reader?  Does she have a favorite character from a book that is not trademarked?  Here a link to some bookmarks that are already made.  https://www.etsy.com/shop/AndersonsCreations?section_id=6209177&ref=shopsection_leftnav_2

I just finished a custom order for someone who wanted an Alice in Wonderland with the flamingo so she can play a game of croquet.  She is going to put it in a shadow box and not use it as a bookmark, so I was able to stuff the body of the flamingo.  Here is the finished product.

I am really happy with the result.  I enjoy custom orders as I get some really great ideas from them.

If you would like to make your own bookmarks I sell patterns at my Craftsy store, Etsy bookmark patterns or use the buy now buttons on the side to buy them on Ravelry.com. I also have some of the patterns bundled for better prices at my Etsy shop.

Etsy bundled sale patterns

If you don't see the group of patterns you would like to purchase, just ask me in my Etsy shop and I can set up a group just for you.

 

Does your mother love roses and doilies?  Here is doily she will love.

Rose budding hearts doily



Want to make it for her yourself?  Use the buy now button to get it through Ravelry.  On Craftsy, doily pattern or in crochet patterns at my Etsy shop.

 

Does your mother love rainbows?  Here is a sun catcher that looks wonderful in a window and includes a crystal to create rainbows on her wall.

sun catcher in Etsy shop

If you would like to make your mother a sun catcher, this pattern includes instructions on how to attach a crystal drop to make the rainbows on her wall and can be found Ravelry shop pattern, and in my Etsy shop or on Craftsy.

 

Does your mother like columbines as much as I do?  These wonderful chokers would make the perfect addition to her spring wardrobe.

etsy shop pre-made columbine chokers

Would you like to make these beauties in the colors she would love.  Click the buy now button to find the pattern on Ravelry.com, at Craftsy.com, or in my etsy shop.

 

With spring comes the up and down temperatures from day to day and sometimes hour to hour.  For that special mother who deserves only the best, this glorious shrug is available in my shop.

spring shrug

This one is made for a woman size small to medium and is made using wonderfully soft Merino wool and silk yarn.  It is nice and long.  If your mother needs it in another size and color combination, here is the same pattern with the same glorious yarn for women up to size large. 

marsala and charcoal shrug

 

Hopefully, I will have the pattern back from the testers soon to offer that in my shops as well.

 

With mother's day right around the corner and spring in the air, I hope this round-up gives some great ideas for items any mother would love.  What do you think?





Custom orders

It has been a while since I was able to blog.  We had two wonderful vacations this summer.  One to see our darling grandchildren and one to see the Colorado mountains where I get so much inspiration.  When I got back, my computer broke.  After the purchase of a new one it is finally up and running.  Then came the loss of my father in this world. (I know I will see him, again, one day.)
 One thing my father taught me is, when life gets tough, start looking at everything I can find to be thankful for.

I thought I would do a post on one of the wonderful serendipities to selling my knit and crochet on line.  That is custom orders.  They always challenge me.  One concern I often have is in using words to describe what a customer wants can cause confusion.  (i.e., they want a tree.  When I think tree, my mind envisions a Ponderosa pine tree.  Is that what your mind envisions?)  Most of my customers are not artists and so sending a simple drawing to show me what they have in mind is not an option.

A few months ago, I had a customer who was an artist.  She could define colors to the shade and sent simple drawings.  She also loved my rendition of columbines and she was wanting different versions of what I had in my shop with color variations from what was already there.  She loves dark columbines and she wanted barrettes using these colors. Here are the pictures of the barrettes she wanted.

She also wanted a set of traditional colored columbines.

 

 

Custom orders give me an idea of what others are looking for and so I often make more to add to my shop.  Here is what I am currently offering but color variations are an fairly simple request.  current supply of barrettes in my etsy shop

 

Besides this particular item, she also wanted columbines made into bookmarks and I came up with this design.

 

 

current columbine bookmark in my shop

 

Finally she wanted a columbine necklace in various shades.  I added this particular variation to a columbine pattern that is available in my pattern stores because I love how it came out.

current columbine chocker necklaces available in shop

 

If you would like to make your own choker necklace in the colors of your choosing, the pattern for it can be found here.  columbine necklace pattern  The pattern includes picture tutorials that explain any stitches that might seem challenging.

 

It is amazing what ideas can spring from one customers order.  I am very grateful for custom orders.  I love making just what the customer had in mind and it sparks all sorts of ideas in my mind to do for future shoppers.

 

 

 

 











April Showers bring May Flowers

After a very long winter and a very dry spring, we finally got some rain in Kansas.  I thought I would show some of the spring flowers in my yarn.

The red bud trees are putting on their bloom.

The iris are glorious.

Peonies are popping out all over.

daffodils are almost done.

My first bloom on my new rose bush.

I found a fabulous artist in a shop on etsy.com called ClaySoul.  She makes some wonderful stoneware clay toad houses.

ClaySoul Toad House

Encourage toads to eat the harmful insects in the garden

www.claysoul.etsy.com

What a delightful way to add color to a garden when the color of the flowers is gone.  She is a wonderful artist to work with.

What does this all have to do with fiber art?  Flowers are one of my main sources of inspiration..  Their color and beauty is so amazing and I just have to pick up a crochet hook (or knitting needle) and see what I can make that will imitate them.

Right now I am working on a large custom order of Columbine hair accessories and bookmarks in specific colors.  This is a fairly advanced pattern and I love the results.

What is your favorite thing to do with May flowers.

Christmas in July

Maybe it is the heat in Kansas this year or just a hankering for snow, but I decided to have a Christmas in July sale at my Etsy Shop. 

 

 

 

So starting July 1st and going through July 19th the prices in my Etsy shop have been lowered and everything that ships to the United States will have free shipping.

 

AndersonsCreation.etsy.com

 

This is not just for Christmas themed items but for everything in my shop.

 

 

 

Many sellers on Etsy are having a Christmas in July sale.  Just go to Etsy.com and put in either christmasinjuly (all one word) or CIJ in the search bar and see all the wonderful sales going on in July.  You could get your Christmas shopping done early or maybe buy that item you were hoping would go on sale.

 

Here are a few other items that can be seen in my shop.  Just click on the link AndersonsCreations.etsy.com to see everything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love to shop for Christmas at this time of year without all the pressure and crowds. Why not check out all the wonderful artists that are having Christmas in July sales on Etsy. 

 

 

 





Designing for new blessings

I have a new granddaughter that arrived this past year.  What a blessing she is.  (Of course, so is her mommy and daddy and big brother.)

 

She arrived just after we had spent a week in my Colorado Mountains.  There were Columbine flowers all over those mountains.  I took these pictures because I just wanted to try to design these wonderful works of art.

 Here is another shot from the side view.

 

These wonderful flowers are so much larger than the domesticated variety but they do not come in all the wonderful color combinations as the tame ones.  I always try to grow these in Kansas.  Here is a shot of one of my efforts.

Now, something that seems to hold true with all my children and now grandchildren is that they are all bald.  I spent two years taping bows to my oldest girl's head just so people knew she was a girl.

 

I just knew I had to design a beautiful headband for my new granddaughter that would accentuate her beauty.  I have always wanted to crochet Columbines because they are so wonderful so I got to work.

 

First came the flower which can look so different when it is a side view or a front on view.  So after many, many hours of frogging steps I came up with the flower from both the side view and the front view.  My daughter loved them and suggested just making them into clip barrettes that she could add them to an already existing headband.  (I wish I had had headbands like these when my children were young).

 

So the pattern continued.  It included instructions for just making the clip barrettes and I continued to work on the band. 











It calls for really soft elastic because babies head are so tender and I chose to buy some of the baby headbands and cut them up to fill the elastic gap.

 



The pattern has a lot of picture tutorials to help others through the process of making this work of art.

I love how it came out.  God gives us so many examples of his love.  For me, His gorgeous Columbine flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow are one example.  Daughters and now grandchildren are are such precious blessings that even when I doubt that He cares, I just have to look at them and know my doubts are lies.  What have you found that proves God's love in your life?