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This little idea is pretty clever and useful. If you would like to have big round white low-brightness lights strung up around your decor at Christmas, this might be the thing for you.
You simply take your regular string of Christmas lights and some ping pong balls. Use a knife to score the holes — be very careful with the knife. You should always wear cut-proof gloves.
Cut a small “x” into the ping pong balls, and pop them over the bulbs.
Basket Weave Mitts (Free Pattern)
How about this crochet pattern for fingerless gloves? Here’s a stitch pattern that creates a basket weave look on one side and a ridged look on another. The RS side looks basket and the WS looks ridged. These crochet mitts are very popular with a lot of crocheters, and we wanted to find some good crochet patterns for them. Our starting point was these green basket weave ones in the picture above. Just the right amount of puffy softness, interesting but very clean and regular patterning and texture, and room for individual customization — any colors you want, and you could modify the length when you crochet them.
Those green ones up top were featured on the Interweave Store. They are the work of the crocheting hands of Laurinda Reddig. This pattern is available for $3.85 for the gloves pattern right from the original publication or $15.00 for the whole ebook. The link for this is at the bottom.
There’s also a free option. It’s by crafter Sarah Reed on the Crochet Me blog on Bloglovin’. Basket weaves are already a pattern that create an interesting appeal for the eyes, whatever you put them on. Laurinda Reddit used these basket weaves and made her gloves. Then Sarah Reed used that and adapted it to make her gloves. Are you the next crocheter to make something and pass it on to the crochet community?
What you’ll need:
Yarn (Laurinda recommended 5 ply (12 wpi) sport yarn weight) around 328 yards (300 m)
Hook (3.75 mm recommended)
This will make mitts 7.5 or 8.5 inches long and 8.5 or 9.5 inches around. Fabric will stretch to fit.
Conceptual overview of the crochet project:
This crochet is a bit tricky, but one works the pattern by skipping 3 stitches on the RS rows and working post stitches in 3’s. Also, you’d work in front of the stitches you’ve already made. Then you work post stitches around the stitches you skipped. The WS rows are worked back post stitches and behind stitches. Some of the difficulty comes from having to find the post stitches in amongst the other stitches.
When all the rows have been crocheted, you seam up the side of the glove, leaving a space for the thumb (an opening in the seam).
For details about the pattern, visit Interweave Store for the $3.85 pattern (click here) or visit Crochet me for the free version (click here).
The NeverEnding Wildflower (Free Pattern)
With this free endless flower crochet pattern, you can make a flower as big or small as you want. You could make it tiny enough to decorate a tea kettle (or even a tea cup) cosie, or you could make it expand until it was the size of a giant round blanket or throw rug. The possibilities are endless with this crochet pattern.
How this pattern started out was the crafter / crocheter Rebecca (over at Little Monkey Crochet) because she wanted to find a way to make a “giant flower” and this is what she came up with. The real interesting bit for this pattern is that the petals don’t just pile on top of each other (which can also be an interesting look), because between each round of them there’s a round of increases. Nice one, Rebecca! This free flower crochet pattern stays the same height when it’s layed down.
You will need: H (5mm) hook (unless you prefer a different size because you’re using larger / smaller yarn), any yarn (the picture at the top, as you can tell looking at it, uses worsted weight — that flower picture is one that’s 8 inches across.
Conceptual overview of the crochet project (rated “easy”):
You will start out by making the first round with double crochet and a slip stitch. Then you’ll make the first round of petals around this wheel. When you make your petals, you were ignoring another loop available there, and now you’re going to use that ignored loop: you work around Round 1 again (with another color, generally, to make it easier to tell the parts apart while working). Continue to add rounds to the wheel, then, when it’s big enough, fasten off and weave in the ends.
To get more details on this free crochet pattern, which can be used for afghans, throw pillows or just about anything else crocheted, visit Little Monkeys Crochet (click here).
