Friends Are The People Who Know The Words To The Song In Your Heart……

I am so fortunate to have had many friends in my life that definitely know the words to the song in my heart. And something that makes me very sad is when one of them is going through something difficult in their lives. You know that you can’t “fix” it for them but all the same you somehow want to help build them up and encourage them that they will get through this hardship.

Today I wanted to share a weaving project that was meant to do just that. A friend of mine was going through something tough and was feeling pretty discouraged and I began to try to think of something that might cheer her up.

I decided I wanted to try to weave something colorful and cheerful for my friend. I was just finishing up a project on one of my floor looms that had some leftover dark brown cottolin warp threads, so I decided to try an experiment. This purse was the result of that experiment.

I knew my friend loved very colorful things so I knew that the purse would need to have lots of color. I went through a bunch of leftover yarns that I had from other projects and made a pile of them by my loom and then began weaving random patterns. This is how it looked on the loom during the weaving process.

There was no rhyme or reason to how I laid the colors or patterns out, this was just random treadling and colorful playing in my threads.

I really did not even try to repeat or keep track of any of the patterns I was weaving.

Once I felt like I had a big enough piece woven to make a small purse I stopped weaving. Of course I also stopped because I ran out of warp 🙂

At this point I really wasn’t quite sure if this was going to look like the cute little purse that I had envisioned. I did the finishing wash and waited for it to dry to see if this was going to be a big enough piece to make the purse.

During this same time period I had been experimenting with dyeing some silk scarves. I went through some of my finished pieces and picked this one to use for the lining of the purse.

As I began the construction of the purse I decided it definitely needed some

embellishments, so I added the mirrored and hand buttonhole stitched circles and the scroll that I had made by crocheting together multiple threads. I added a button and closure threads that had been braided and sewn into the flap.

I twisted a bunch of the leftover weaving threads together, putting a knot at each end to make a tassel, and hand sewed it onto the purse for the strap.

Before sewing the lining into the purse I stamped it with this friendship saying and the music notes on each side. I heat set the printing to make sure it was permanent.

My experiment was now complete and I was anxious to wrap it up pretty and give to my friend.

I was so glad to have something to give to her that I had handmade to brighten her day. She is still very much in my daily thoughts and prayers. Even though we now live many miles apart we still keep in contact and are still a part of each others lives.

I hope this article inspires you to make something beautiful, and treasure your friendships!

Until next time……..

….I Wish You Peace.

With all the cold and snow we have been getting this winter I have been crocheting some gifts for this Valentine’s Day. I really had not crocheted in several years, but with a quick review of the stitches, it all seemed to come back to me pretty quickly.

The following pics are some of the projects I just finished.

These are some of the fingerless gloves that I made recently.

I got the pattern from the bobwilson123 you tube page, under the title fingerless gloves tutorial.

I did change them a little bit by adding a double crochet border to the bottom of the glove and a scalloped border at the top of the glove.

This is a great pattern because the gloves are reversible.

As you can see in the above pic I have turned one of the gloves “wrong side out”. I love the look either way, and have already worn them both ways. As green is my fav color I couldn’t resist keeping the green pair for myself.

I also made several “Bob Marley” style slouch hats from a pattern I got on Etsy from the vendor Pixiebell. It was a very easy to follow pattern and I have already made about 4 hats. She uses the thick and quick yarn for the pattern, but because I wanted to make a set of gloves with matching hat for some of my gifts I just used the yarn that I made the gloves out of, but used double threads on the hook.

The picture above is from the Pixiebell Etsy page.

Another quick to make crochet project I made for some Valentine gifts were these

cute little mug cozy wraps, or as I call them, Mug Belly Warmers! I got the pattern for these and for the embellishments, the mustache and the flower, from the bobwilson123 website also. Here’s a close up pic…..