Christmas 2016: Gifts Round-Up

Here's the final post for last Christmas; I wanted to share just a few more things I created.

First up, I decorated this library bag for my sister - with a quote from the Harry Potter books.

I found the bag at Hobby Lobby - it already had the gold dots on it, which I thought would help make this look a little more professional (ish).  You can't tell from the picture, but this bag is really quite large, so even Hermione would find it sufficient for her library books.

Second, I made more of these hanging kitchen towels. I've posted about these before, but I think it's fun how many color combinations you can make with this project.

Finally, I made several more of these flowy infinity scarves. I found the fabric at our local craft store's annual tent sale for about $3 a yard.

Love and Floral,

Leah Joy

Hand-Sewn Christmas Presents Day 2: Infinity Scarf

There are a million tutorials out there for an infinity scarf, so I'm not going to link to a specific one, and I'm also not going to turn this into another one.  Find the one that best suits your fabric.

I found this sort of chiffon fabric (really not sure what it is) at Field's Fabrics for $3 a yard.  I bought two yards, and then made two scarves, each one two yards in length, but half the width of the fabric.

I think they turned out very nicely, and they're a great length for doubling:

Love and Chandeliers,

Leah Joy

Rainbow Scarf

You may or may  not remember when I shared this fantastic picture of the headband I made:

Well, I never told you about that fabric, and it's a great story.  I was a Salvation Army 5/$5 clothing sale and I found this huge rainbow floral skirt.  It said it was size small, but all the elastic had worn out, so the waistband was more like size extra-extra-extra-extra large.  But for $1, I knew I could do something awesome with that fabric.  I was wrong.  I could do LOTS of awesome somethings with that fabric!  In addition to some headbands, I also made 3 scarves like this:

One for me, one for my mom, and one for my sister!

And they're so pretty!

(And yes, that one is posing in my bathroom.  Where do your scarves pose?)

And I still have a little of the fabric left over....

Love and Soft Scrub,

Leah Joy

Kind of a Failure, But a Pretty One

I wanted to make a rainbow scarf with clouds on the ends. (See next week's tutorial for my Cloud-Ventures.) Vertical stripes, 'cause that looks more like a real rainbow.

Vertical stripes also means that you have to chain the length, and each row adds to the width.

I had no idea how long to chain, so I chained about 255 stitches. It's hard to keep track exactly, but it's about that long. That was probably too long, but it's okay.

I chained with pink, then did a row of double-stitch of pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. It didn't look quite symmetrical or even, so I finished the purple with a row of slip-stitch to try to imitate the chain on the other side.

It looked really good, and then it started curling. That's probably because I don't always use even tension in my stitches. It makes big curlicues out of the whole scarf, which is fine, but then it starts folding in half on itself. It ends up looking like I'm wearing a yellow disc around my neck. You can see it sort of try to begin doing that in the pictures.

Oh - and I ended up not putting the clouds on the end because of all the curling, but now I know how to make clouds. Again - see next week's tutorial!

Love and Rainbows,

Leah Joy