Knitting Journal - Washcloths for Mom

This fun set of washcloths was sent to my mom for her birthday. I love me a good, useful gift. :)

Pattern: The Baby Fan Dishcloth (FREE)
Needles: US 7
Yarn: Lily Sugar n' Cream (Cottage Twist)

Pattern: Petit French Farmhouse Dishcloth Pattern No. 1 (FREE)
Needles: US 7
Yarn: Lily Sugar n' Cream (Jute and Cottage Twist)

Pattern: Slip-Cloth Dishcloth (See below)
Needles: US 9
Yarn: Lily Sugar n' Cream (Jute and Cottage Twist)

Here’s the pattern:

CO 41 st (or any odd number you prefer) 
Row 1: (With color A) K all stitches 
Row 2: (With color A) K all stitches 
Row 3: (With color B) {K1, slip 1} repeat until last st, K1 
Row 4: (With color B) {K1, wyif slip 1 (as if to purl), wyib} repeat until last st, K1

Repeat these rows ending with 2 knit rows.

Sunday Sketch - 2/9/14

Clearly my sketch from yesterday was influenced by our First Friday Art Class this week.

(it's supposed to say 'sweet' at the bottom, but it sort of looks like 'sweat' or 'seveet' doesn't it?)  :)

First Friday Art Class for February 2014 - Let Them Draw Cake!

This being February and the month of Valentine's Day, I decided we'd draw a bunch of sweet treats and fun food this month.

So our treat had to be sweet and fun too, right? Cake Balls are most certainly sweet and fun... (mine still never look as good as Bakerella's but they sure are tasty!)

We began in our sketchbooks just drawing some basic, fun, cute food. I drew on the white board and the girls drew with me in their sketchbooks. Some of these drawings came from the book Craft-a-Doodle from Jessie Oleson Moore (she is SO fun!) And some of them came from a great youtube video called How To Draw Cute Food.

We had fun adding faces to the food. This definitely adds to the cuteness.

Once we were warmed up we dove in to drawing cakes. This does involve some measuring and angles. But learning this concept can take your drawings to the next level.

One of the girls pointed out that eating cake is the most fun, drawing cake is the second most fun, and actually making a cake is the least fun. :)

Here is our handout for today's class:

We practiced drawing cakes with slices taken out of them and also layered cakes. This method gives your drawing so much depth! The girls were surprised and proud of how well they did.

We then went to our final project...a finished, decorated cake.

Here are the exact steps I did to make the sample (seen at the top of this post):

STEP 1 - Draw your cylinder, drawing very lightly as some of these lines will be erased. We are working on white card stock.

STEP 2 - Take out your slice using the steps shown on the handout. Add a layer of frosting if you'd like.

STEP 3 - Lightly sketch in some decorations.

STEP 4 - Draw your cake in pen. We are using our usual Papremate Flair pen.

STEP 5 - Go over the ink lines again and add some topper decorations off to the side (as we will be cutting everything out). 

STEP 6 - Add color. Here I used Prisma Markers. (The girls used colored pencils in class.)

STEP 7 - Add some extra details with the black pen and then some embellishments with a white pen. I used a uni-ball Signo pen.

STEP 8 - Cut out a cake stand. We did this by folding a piece of colored copy paper in half and drawing a sort of squiggly design and cutting it out. 

STEP 9 - Cut out a platter for your cake using tin foil. This is such a fun touch that adds a bit of playfulness to the piece!

STEP 10 - Cut out your cake and topper decorations. (Sorry no pic of this)

STEP 11 - Mount your parts onto another piece of card stock starting with your cake stand, then platter, then cake, and finally your topper decoration.

STEP 12 - Trim down the page and mount it onto another piece of card stock. Here I mounted mine on black.

The girls got so creative with their cakes! I know I say this every class but I am ALWAYS so impressed with their creativity and personality. Love it!

This artist didn't get all the way finished, but don't you LOVE her design and color scheme? That middle layer made us think of the Queen of Hearts. Gorgeous!

Didn't get a picture of this cake finished, but her decorations are so precious and sweet. I'd love a cake that looked like this!

This creative gal had a whole story about hers...the bride cake topper is looking very put-out because the groom cake topper was flirting with other girls at the wedding. That's the actual bride's hair you see in the top right of the drawing. She's dancing with the actual groom who would NEVER flirt with other girls. :)

Don't you love the look of this one mounted on black paper? Such great contrast! And I absolutely adore her polka dot cake!

This cake looks good enough to eat. We all marveled at the middle layer's beautiful swirl design.

What a sweet time we had today! There is just something so fun about drawing yummy treats! The girls talked about drawing more cakes to put on birthday cards and Valentine cards.

See you next month.

CT-aRt - Zentangle Lettering with the Young Women From My Church

I had a group of girls from church at my house this week learning Zentangle lettering. I taught this class in the same way I did my First Friday Zentangle class. We used the same videos and handouts from Joanne Fink.

These girls (and leaders) did great!! At the beginning of class one of the girls said, "I don't really do art. My sister is an artist, but I can't draw". Of course I told her we don't say "can't" in my art classes--this is a supportive, positive environment. :) This same girl by the end of class was asking if she could take extra notecards home and then said, "I'm going to draw like this ALL the time!" Music to my ears! I love it!

In our church the kids have rings and other things with the letters C T R on them. This reminds them to Choose the Right. So the girls called our class CT-aRt. We started with the basics of Zentangle, then we did Joanne's butterfly, and then we did the letters, focusing on 'C', 'T', and 'R'. And then the girls went from there adding their own creative flair to it.

Here's a few pics of their amazing work... (including the CTR at the top of the post)

Zentanlge is a great art concept to introduce kids to art and lettering. And Joanne's videos are fantastic. She breaks it down into very do-able steps.

What a fun night with these darling girls and their wonderful leaders!!

A Butterfly for My Niece

My niece recently got baptized and I was able to go visit her. I did this little butterfly drawing for her as a gift on her special day.

I painted the frame her favorite color--light blue.

The drawing is pen and ink and Prisma markers.

Newest washcloth

Pattern: Seed Stitch Dishcloths from Just B Crafty
Needles: US 9
Yarn: Lily Sugar n' Cream Hot Green

Great pattern. Well written and makes a really pretty dishcloth. This one went to my sister on a recent visit. I love to take handmade dishcloths when I visit friends and family.

First Friday Art Class for January 2014 - Inchies!

There is a really fun art trend going on right now and we jumped right onto the bandwagon! Have you heard of inchies? They are itty bitty pieces of art - 1" x 1" that can be used for tons of different things or just stand alone as a tiny, little masterpiece.

I got all my ideas for today's class from THIS POST on Craftster by Phizzychic. And also THIS POST from Kira Nichols.

Before class, I cut strips of paper to be 1-1/2" wide (I decided that 1" x 1" would be just a little too small for us to work with--so our inchies are a little bit bigger). I painted the strips with juicy, wet watercolor. I dripped on them and let them be smeary and irregular. This adds to the interest of the little squares later.

I just used basic white card stock for these and they turned out great. 

I would have loved to have the girls do this step so they could do this project from start to finish, but there just wasn't time in class to paint them and let them dry and then cut the squares.

So once the strips dried, I cut them into 1-1/2" x 1-1/2" squares.

BUT...first things first...our treat today was PRETZEL TREATS because they are tiny, cute squares and they are very colorful--just like our art was going to be today!!

When the girls arrived I showed them some samples and then we discussed things you could do with your finished inchies. 

You can:

Make a book out of them (this is what we did in class today)

Add them to a card

Frame a bunch of them in a large frame

Make a bookmark

Add one (or more) to the front of a plain journal or notebook

...or about a million other fun ideas

And then they got to work. 

With very little instruction, they were busy and excited to make their little books. They each did 8 separate inchies.

We took those 8 inchies and we glued them back to back using a basic glue stick, punched holes in the side, and attached them together using jewelry jump rings. (ETA: we had a bit of trouble with the jump rings. We couldn't always get them to close enough and some pages fell out. A friend of mine did these later and used safety pins to hold hers closed and it looked really cute. She tied a tiny ribbon on each pin. You could also very easily just tie them with some bakers twine or sting. Just don't tie them so tight you can't turn the pages. I also wonder if you could use those earrings that look like little continuous circles?? If you find a great solution, leave a comment and let me know.)

And their books turned out wonderfully! And so fun and colorful!

I'm hoping each girl will go home and create lots and lots more little inchie artwork!!

See you next month for a sweet treat themed February class!