How to crochet a portable doll crib

After the post on the 

fabric yarn 

I have been asked whether I could give some guidelines on how to make the 

crocheted doll crib thingy 

above. 

So here are some of my thoughts on it. 

This is not going to be a tutorial or pattern as I have made the thing quite some time ago and do not have enough time right now to try to recreate it. These are just some basic guidelines how I went about - you will have to figure the rest out for yourself. :-)

Hope this helps a bit though. 

1. I worked the whole thing in single crochet. I like to do it that way as it will give the "stiffest" result. I am not sure whether double crochet might also work though.

2. For the base of the doll crib I just crocheted a rectangle. I basically started at one of the shorter sides. I crocheted a chain as long as I wanted this side to be. (Get the doll that is supposed to sleep in there and use that as a "measure".) Then I just added rows to this until the rectangle was slightly "longer" than the doll supposed to be in there.

3. Then I added the sides of the crib. I simply did it by starting to crochet the sides directly to the rectangle base. I just started to single crochet into the upper loop of every single crochet around the whole rectangle.

(Does that make any sense to you?)

Make sure that you do not increase at the corners - or anywhere else for that matter - as you want your sides to go "straight up". 

You could probably also just crochet rectangles again to make up the sides and join everything by sewing it together. I suppose that would work as well.

4. The handles - well, I made them with a certain technique that I had read about. I have no idea what it is called. Basically I crocheted a chain as long as I wanted the handle to be. Then I turned the chain a bit and crocheted single crochets into the BASE loop of each chain. (You usually do not crochet into that loop.) You can add a second regular row - or as many until your handles are "wide" enough. By doing it that way your handle will not be just a narrow rectangle but it will curve slightly - which I liked. 

But if that description does not make any sense to you, you could also just crochet narrow rectangles and use these as handles. 

I just sewed the handles to the sides. 

And that was it!

It cost me the most time to fiddle around to get the base rectangle to the correct size ... the rest worked up quite quickly. 

Hope this helps anyone a bit.

If you are making a doll crib - please let me know. Would make my day! :-)

And if there are any other questions just ask! I am happy to answer.

And if it takes a bit - I am sorry. I try my best to not take TOO long ...

ABC-board thingy ... with tutorial

As promised finally a proper post again. I am sorry for so much quietness. After my last proper post first my little one was sick. Then there was so much to do that there was hardly any time for blogging at all. And then the Japan-thing happened ... and I felt so weird. Whenever I sat down to write a post I could not ... somehow whatever I was going to write felt so unimportant ... I guess I was just in a very strange mood.

I actually got a few things that I wanted to share already for a while. I war not quite sure where to start ...

So first I show you something that I made for my daughter. 

She is 5 and she know all the letters already for a while. She just started to read properly a bit ago. But even though she knew all the letters she could never remember the alphabet. I was not too worried about that - but still I figured if I could make something where she could SEE the alphabet that might help. She has an alphabet poster ... but I wanted something that would show the alphabet in a row. So I made this quick and fun project

I made an ABC -board

Or what would you call it?

A rail? Or ... I am a bit lost about a name.

Anyway, it was fun. And quick. And you do not need much. And - it worked. Ever since I hung up that thing in her room she knows the whole alphabet. In order! :-)

Am so proud!

And happy!

So if you happen to have a kiddo that is about to learn the ABC and want your own ABC board thingy ... I wrote down how I did it.

This is what you need:

- wooden letters

- acrylic paint

- a long wooden board

- glue

And this is what I did:

1. I used really cheap self-adhesive wooden letters that I scored in the 1Euro section of one discounter. But you can of course use really fancy ones, too. 

If you use big letters I would recommend sanding them. But to be honest - I did not do that. Do not tell on me! 

2. After you did - or did not - sand your letters ;-) you paint them. Easy! And fun!

After you put a coat of paint on them let them dry. 

3. If you like your letters that way you can already hop on to step 4. But I wanted to make mine a bit more colorful so I added some more paint and ended up with this:

That was SO MUCH FUN!

Let dry again.

4. Get your wooden board and - depending on what it looks like - you might want to put some paint on it, too. After it is dry you glue the letters in place. 

And that is it! 

DONE!

Admire your work a bit more .... ;-)

By the way, this project is really easy to customize.

You could hang the letters pretty much any other way you can think of. 

I actually had this idea that you could make letters and put them into colorful circles to the wall. Kinda randomly scattered around. It would of course not help with learning the alphabet - but it would sure be a really cute decoration! If you like letters that is. 

I do! :-)

And you could play "I spy" with letters ... I figure that would be fun ...

Oh, and here is another treat for you. I found this a while ago and thought it was cute. 

Printable ABC-Poster

To me it is not much use yet as my daughter is not learning English yet. 

But once she is I think I will print it. So cute!

Hope you enjoyed this!

Have a lovely day!!!

I am sharing this here:

c                

Cute Christmastree Pillow for Little Ones (Tutorial)

When I was thinking of presents to make for the kids for Christmas I found it hard to come up with something for my little boy. He is just one year old. He will play with anything, really. 

But what would be kinda special to him?

So I tried to come up with something that would go well with things he likes ...

He loves to cuddle! :-)

He will carry around stuffed pets and cuddle them. Steal little bear's - my daughter - tiny pillow. Try to haul away the big bear that is almost his own size ... 

Also he loves to play with small things. Take things apart. He especially likes when taking things apart is accompanied by some noise.

And he is totally fascinated by the Advent calendar I made for little bear some years ago.

SO ....

This is what I came up with:

A soft cuddly pillow in a Christmastree-shape with Christmas baubles that attach with velcro  

and therefore make that odd ripping sound when you pull them off. 

He is going to love that! ;-)

And I figured maybe you also have some little guy - or girl - at home that would like one. So here is a tutorial on how to make it.

Sorry, I should have included more photos. But I was kinda hurrying to get it all done ... 

It is easy though! So I am sure you can do it even if there is not a photo for each single step!

Here is what you need:

- fabric for the Christmas baubles - I made 6 baubles and used 6 different cotton prints

- green fleece

- matching thread

- paper for pattern

- scissors for cutting your pattern

- fabric scissors or rotary cutter

- velcro

- stuffing

1. Make your pattern

This is really easy. All you gotta do is figure out how big you want your pillow to be and draw a simplyfied treeshape (triangle with a stem) on a big piece of paper. I used some wrapping paper and newspaper. 

When you have your treeshape figure out how big your baubles should be (all the same size or different sizes) and how many you want on your tree. Make a pattern (or several patterns if you want different sizes) for the baubles, too.

2. Cut your fabric

Cut two pieces for the tree out of green fleece. Remember to add your seam allowance!

Cut two pieces for each bauble you want to make out of your cottons - or whatever you use for the baubles*. Here also add your seam allowance.

3. Make the baubles

Take two fabric circles and sew the hooks of the velcro to one fabric circle.

Then sew the circles together with the right sides facing each other - leave a hole for turning!!!

Turn the bauble and put some stuffing in there if you like. Close the hole by top stitching around the whole bauble!

Now I  have to say I was VERY surprised how hard I found it to sew small fabric circles like that! My seams turned out quite crooked. (As you can easily see in the photos.) 

I was not too worried this time as I figured little man simply will not care at all about the seams. ;-)

But I figured if I wanted the baubles to LOOK more pretty I would have used fleece for them as well instead of cottons. 

* With fleece you could just cut two circle shapes, sew on the velcro and sew both shapes together left side on left side! So NO TURNING. Just cut the fleece close to the seam - and that would be it!

Repeat this step until you have all baubles finished.

4. Make the tree

Take your tree-shaped fleece and play around with your baubles to figure out where you want them to go.

Pin the soft side of the velcro in place. (I used the soft side of the velcro on the pillow rather than on the baubles as I figured it would be less scratchy if the kids happen to cuddle up with it withouth the baubles attached.) 

Sew the velcro in place!

Then put the two fleece pieces together right side facing each other. Close all seams - but again leave a (generous!) hole for turning and stuffing!

 Then turn inside out and it should look like in the photo above.

Stuff the tree and close the hole. I did this by hand. At first I wanted to topstitch the whole tree but decided against it in the end.

Now you can admire your Christmastree pillow and play around with the baubles. ;-)

Have fun!

And I would love to know if you make one! :-)

P.S. This pattern is for personal use only. Thank you.

Strawstar Tutorial

As promised - FINALLY - here comes a tutorial on how to make these strawstars.

These stars are a traditional decoration here in Germany and they always remind me of my childhood as I was making them as a kid with my mother.
I love decorating with them!

By now you can buy them for little money over here in many stores. But the bought ones look slightly different ... and also ... well, they just are not homemade.
It is different to have real homemade ones!
I am still dreaming of one day having enough time to make so many that I can decorate my whole Christmas tree just with homemade straw stars and lights.
Well, maybe some gingerbread, too.
But that's it! :-)

So if you want to try to make some, too, here is how to do it:

What do you need?

Not much.
 

- straw for crafting

- thread
(I like red or silver one, but really any color is fine)

- scissors

If you have bought (or only can buy) straw that is still "round" - not as in the picture above - then you need to prepare your straw before you start with crafting.
If you have flat strips of straw you can just skip ahead to the actual making of the stars.


Okay, so if you still have the "real" straw what you do is
-slit the straw open with a sharp knife
-let soak in water for about 15 minutes
(I however had to soak mine alot longer. Do not know why.)
- then iron the straw open

You should end up with strips of flat straw that probably have varying width.
You can make the strips narrower if you want to just by cutting it with the scissors.
I do not find this step too much fun, so I would recommend buying the flat strips if you can.

Now making the stars.

Of the flat straw strips cut 4 pieces to the same length.
If you have never made strawstars before try to choose straw pieces that have roughly the same width. That will make it easier.

Then you make an "x" out of two straw pieces and hold it between your thumb and index finger.

With the other two straw pieces you make a "cross" and put the "cross" above the "x" as in the photo above.
Do not let go!

Now it will get a bit complicated. But once you have mastered this part you are almost done!
 With (a long piece of thread) you weave around the middle of the star as shown above. You have to be careful to weave in a way so the star will not fall apart.

This is hard to explain in words - but you will know what I mean when you try it. For example the thread should not be UNDER the top straw piece but ABOVE it - like seen in the photo - otherwise the star will fall apart once you let go.
You can click on the photo above to make it larger and see more closely where the thread should go.

Do not let go before you have knot the thread! ;-)

I always weave one round and knot. After that I weave a couple more rounds but that is ALOT easier cause the star can not fall apart anymore.

This is what your star should look like from the front if you have weaved around the middle once.

This is a photo from the back of the star after weaving around the middle a few times.

Now comes the really fun part.
You gotta cut the ends of the straw to make a star.
You can do this any way you like ... round, pointed, ...
And then you are done!
Yeah!

Wasn't that hard, was it?

Of course you can vary the look of the stars if you want to. You can user longer pieces of straw or shorter ones. Or both together ... You can make really big or very small stars. You can put two stars on top of each other to make one fancy one.
Here just a few photos for inspiration:

A smaller and a larger star put on top of each other.

A very basic star.

Star made off narrow and wide straw strips.

A very small star. My favourite! I would love to make a whole bunch of these! :-)

Just a photo so you can see how small it is.
(Of course you could make even smaller ones.)

And just so you see that it is not THAT hard - this is a star that little bear - my 5 year old daughter - made with a little help with the weaving.

Well, and while making some stars I wanted to try something new ... and tied a button to the middle of a star.
So this is the first button-strawstar I have ever seen. :-)

I do kinda like it.
I think it would look really awesome to have a bunch with red buttons. Unfortunately I was out of red buttons ...
Maybe when I have more time on my hands I will try this.

Now what do you do with your stars?
Well, you can put them ANYwhere.
On a tree.
On a wreath.

This is my wreath in our living room.
You could also use them for gift wrapping - very cute!

I hope you will have fun trying this!
Let me know if you have any questions!!!!