Strings Attached Shoulder Bag

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This fun little bag was a way for me to use up all those odds and ends of yarn that were too small for much else. Because of the random nature of the yarn colors, it’s very forgiving. I used two different base colors because I ran out of the first, and it still worked out perfectly!

The best part? No ends to weave in!

First thing’s first, take your tiny, mismatched yarn bits and tie them end to end, making one big random yarn ball.

You’ll Need:

Odds & Ends Yarn Ball (see above)
Dark worsted yarn
K Hook

Notes:

work with two strands throughout, one of the dark worsted yarn and one of the Odds & Ends
try to keep all the yarn ends on the outside of the bag
Ch 3 = first DC throughout

Ch 24 (chain more or less for a bigger or smaller bag)

Round 1: dc into the 3rd chain from hook 7 times, dc in each ch across, dc in last ch 8 times, working on the back side of the foundation ch, dc in each loop across. sl st to the top of the first st. Mark the center of each end (between the 8 dc) with a stitch marker or piece of yarn.

Round 2: Ch 3, working in the back loop only of each stitch, dc in each stitch around, sl st to the top of ch 3 to join.

Round 3 – 14: Ch 3, dc in each stitch around, sl st to the top of ch 3 to join. Do not finish off.

Strap:

Use the stitch markers on Round 1 to find the centers on either side of the top of the bag. Starting three stitches to the right of center, join yarn with a sl st.

Row 1 – 37 : Ch 3, dc in each of the next five stitches.

Cut yarn, leaving about 15″. Starting three inches from center, whipstitch strap in place, knotting the yarn at the end.

Optional Pocket:

ch 15

Row 1: dc in 3rd chain from hook and each ch across.

Row 2 – 8: ch 3, dc in each stitch across.

Cut yarn, leave about 1 yard attached to pocket. Position where desired (inside or out) and whipstitch three sides of the pocket. Knot off yarn.

Finishing:

Making sure all yarn joins are securely knotted, trim to approximately 1″, leaving ends visible.

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a featured project on Cut Out + Keep, October 2009

vlog: TTMT – Gifts, Gifts, Gifts

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If you make a Sew Awesome Craft or any pattern, craft or recipe from sewhooked, I’d love to see a photo. Email me or add it to the sewhooked flickr group.

quilting: Cat’s Quilt

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You may have noticed a distinct lack of quilty posts of late. It is not, I assure you, lack of quiltiness! In fact, the opposite is true, and I’ve been working on a number of gifts that were (and are!) under wraps until they are received.

There is a very special person in my life that I talk to almost every day. She has proofread my manuscript, tested my quilt patterns and helped keep me sane when I lost my book contract. She’s a guest designer on sewhooked, was a Crafty Witch with me when we both worked at Leaky, she’s a co-mod on twilight_crafts and is an all around awesome person that constantly gives of herself to her friends. She regularly sends my kids chocolate biscuits and keeps them in Phantom comic books. Most of all, she’s one of the most giving and selfless people I’ve met.

She lives on the opposite side of the world to me, and it doesn’t stop her from being one of my closests friends. So, I made her a gift. It has finally arrived in her mailbox and I can now tell you about it.

quilt-in-progress, lots of colorful batiks from my stash

further progress…looks quilty, eh?

Well, at least Marie approves. She had something to say about this, too. “Well, you did say it was for Cat!”

I present Cat’s Quilt, “From Austin To Australia” made especially for her because she exudes Win and Awesome and most of all FRIEND.

Special “gift wrap” made from the backing fabric and main batik.

Empty “gift wrap”

The main batik in the quilt was a gift that Cat gave to me some months ago. She said she’d had it for years and thought perhaps I could use it. I knew as soon as I received it that I wanted to make a quilt for her.

I fussy cut the flowers from the batik for the center of the Austin Block, found on Quilter’s Cache. The bright squares (seen in the first photo)s are all batiks I had in my stash. The black fabrics also came from my stash. The back and binding are a batik I bought just for this quilt, with the decisive help of my 14 year old daughter and my best friend, Jewells, who got to see the quilt in progress and pre-quilting when she was here in July. The sawtooth edge was made with all the triangles I cut off when trimming those blocks. It was quilted by my awesome bee friend Linda, on her long arm quilt machine. It was a labor of love and I’m extraordinarily proud of the way it turned out.

Happy Quilting!

vlog: TTMT – Operation Save Sue

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vlog: TTMT – Nine Minute Tour

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Okay, so the video is almost 10 minutes, but that’s because there’s an intro! See my completed 12″ Block Swap-ghan and then take a tour of my recently (and mostly!) cleaned and reorganized sewing/craft room.

Completed 12″ Block Swap-ghan

If you make a Sew Awesome Craft or any pattern, craft or recipe from sewhooked, I’d love to see a photo. Email me or add it to the sewhooked flickr group.

Vertical Ribbons 6″ Square

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add to your Ravelry queue:

printable version

This is another pattern for the Twilight Crafts Black & Red Swap. While the pattern itself is very easy, working on it is a bit tedious. It’s well worth the patience to get the awesome pattern that works up as you go.

Color A – Black (worsted weight)
Color B – Red (worsted weight)
Size H Hook
Gauge – 4dc = approximately 1″, 2 rows = 1″

Special Note: The pattern is achieved by changing colors at the top of every dc across. At the end of rows, continue to change colors at the to of ch 3 (i.e. ch 2, change color for third ch).

Throughout the pattern, you will be working across the strand of yarn that you are not using. This means you’ll only have ends to weave in at the beginning and end. See the illustrations in BD Chessboard for examples on how to do this.

Because of the way this pattern is worked, you’ll want to pay special attention to your two strand of yarn so they don’t get too twisted.

With Color A, ch 22

Row 1: dc in 4th ch from hook, change color at top of dc, (dc in next ch, change color at top of dc) across

Row 2: ch 2, change color, (dc in next ch, change color at top of dc) across

Repeat pattern for Rows 3-12, always working across the color not on the hook, finish off.

More free crochet patterns from sewhooked

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paper piecing: The sewhooked Sampler

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Occasionally, when testing patterns I’ve designed, and whenever it’sappropriate, I piece sets of blocks in the same fabrics. My intention in this is to eventually have not only tested the patterns, but to have samples to scan and eventually a set of blocks that can be pieced together and donated to The Linus Connection.

Earlier this year, I did have enough blocks for a 3×3 quilt, but decided that wasn’t quite what I wanted. I love Cat Magraith’s chicken patterns, available through the sewhooked Guest Designer page, so I decided to make a few of those, too.

Not all the blocks were exactly the same size, so I added borders in coordinating colors, then squared them all up to, if memory serves, 10 1/2″.

If you like trying out paper pieced blocks, or are maybe just learning, and don’t have a project in mind, consider piecing together a sampler and donating it to a local blanket-making charity. There are charities all over the world that take handmade quilts and yarn blankets and usually finding the one near you is one Google search away!

Included in the sewhooked sampler:

Row 1: Sasha’s Tree, Jar v.2, and Star of My Heart (available only in my etsy store)

Row 2: Scrappy Heart, Scrappy Heart II, and Wonky Log Cabin #1

Row 3: Wonky Log Cabin #2, unposted heart pattern (from a Demo I did for Linus), Jar v.3

Row 4: Hen with Chick, Rooster, and Chicks (all by Cat Magraith)

Like Star of My Heart, listed above, I’ve recently started posting new patterns for sale in my etsy store. Part of the purpose of this is to help fund sewhooked. I don’t currently have advertising or sponsors and I pay all the fees for the website and blog out of my own pocket. Now, I do love sharing free patterns and doing so has given me the ability to hone my skills to the point where designing is becoming my work-from-home career. I briefly considered a paypal donation button, but what would you get from that? I’m not a charity, I’m just one woman who loves to share, teach and inspire and I have done my best to do just that, for free, for many years now.

If you enjoy sewhooked and all it has to offer, consider purchasing a pattern or other item from the etsy store now or in the future. If not from etsy, I also have a number of items available through zazzle. All proceeds go right back into sewhooked and keeping all it’s free content online.

What you’d be supporting: sewhooked dot org – Free patterns, crochet & crafts by Jennifer Ofenstein
Etsy – ofenjen is sewhooked – handcrafts and original designs by Jennifer Ofenstein
Zazzle – Sewhooked – made to share – t-shirts, totes and buttons, designed by Jennifer Ofenstein

If you make a Sew Awesome Craft or any pattern, craft or recipe from sewhooked, I’d love to see a photo. Email me or add it to the sewhooked flickr group.

stencil: Revisiting The Cullen Crest

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My original Cullen Crest t-shirt, made June 20, 2008

Once upon a time, I made myself a Cullen Crest stenciled tee. I posted it here and started getting requests to share the stencil.

So I did, and then in November of last year, I posted about it here on the sewhooked blog. I pulled the stencil together for myself before there was anything commercially available with the crest on it, back when all fans had was a tiny glimpse from an MTV teaser.

Fast forward to today and The Cullen Crest Stenciled Tee is one of my most visited posts, with a downright ridiculous number of visits each month. The Cullen Crest in general is huge in handmade. If you don’t believe me, search it on etsy or on flickr. Woah.

I have see my version of the Cullen Crest everywhere since I first posted it and I thought it’d be fun to show a few of the ways it’s turned up. If you look closely, you can certainly tell the difference from the official crest (shown below) and the image that I created (shown above), so you’ll always know which images, no matter how they are presented, came from the stencil that I designed.

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The first peek, from this MTV article posted June 16, 2008

I took a lot of liberties with the official image to make it into a stencil from the tiny image shown above. Those changes included greatly simplifying the image and adding the “Cullen” text to the top.

The Real Deal – “Rosalie’s Necklace” from Hot Topic

The Cullen Crest goes viral…
My stencil makes it around the world and onto everything you can possibly imagine!

images from a variety of sources

Some of the things I’ve seen the stencil on were for sale, and while I don’t condone the taking another crafter’s stencil, pattern or idea that is free for everyone to use and then making something to sell (in case you didn’t know, that’s a crafty taboo!), I don’t deny the ingenuity of the different uses the stencil has been put to.

To everyone that has used it on something for yourself, a friend, a swap, a gift or any other way that was just for fun and not for profit, A HUGE THANK YOU. That’s why I share my stencils, patterns, crafts and ideas, to spread the crafty love. Thank you, too, to Summit and whoever the awesome artist was that came up with the original crest!

If you make a Sew Awesome Craft or any pattern, craft or recipe from sewhooked, I’d love to see a photo. Email me or add it to the sewhooked flickr group.

vlog TTMT: Living in a Swap World

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<ul>

<li> <a href=”http://community.livejournal.com/twilight_crafts/102566.html” target=”_blank”>Twilight Crafts Black & Red Swap</a> </li>

<li> <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/ofenjen/sets/72157621912495129/” target=”_blank”>My black & red block photos</a> </li>

<li> <a href=”http://www.threadbanger.com/post/8168/how-to-crochet-a-neckline” target=”_blank”>Crochet Neck Tee Tutorial</a> </li>

<li> <a href=”http://photo1.walgreens.com/storepage/storePageId=MemoryBooks” target=”_blank”>Walgreens Photo Books</a> </li>

</ul>

Black/Red Squares 1-4

Black/Red Squares 5-12

Black/Red Squares 13-15

If you make a Sew Awesome Craft or any pattern, craft or recipe from sewhooked, I’d love to see a photo. Email me or add it to the sewhooked flickr group.

BD Chessboard 6″ Square

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This was written for the Twilight Crafts Black & Red Swap. It’s a basic pattern and there are a million and one variations on this theme. This is written to be 6″ with a simple sc edge. It’s super-duper easy and, I think, makes a fun black & red square!

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printable version

Color A – Black (worsted weight)
Color B – Red (worsted weight)
Size H Hook
Gauge – 4dc = 1″

Notes:

Throughout the pattern, you will be working across the strand of yarn that you are not using. This means you’ll only have ends to weave in at the beginning and end.

When changing colors, pull the new color through the top of the last dc. Do not cut the last color worked with (see above).

With Color A, ch 22

Row 1: dc in 4th ch from hook and in the next 3 st, change to Color B, working 1 dc in each of the next 4 st, change to Color A at the top of the fourth st, rep the pattern of 4 dc, change colors at the top of the fourth st, across, joining Color B at the top of the last dc, ch 3 turn.

Row 2: continuing to work Color B across Color A, dc in the next 3 st, change to Color B, continue pattern (4 dc, change color) across, joining Color A at the top of the last dc, ch 3 turn.

Row 3: continuing to work Color A across Color B dc in the next 3 st, change to Color A, continue pattern (4 dc, change color) across, joining Color B at the top of the last dc, ch 3 turn.

Row 4-9: Repeat 2-3, finish off

Finishing: join Color A in any st. Sc in each sc, and in the back loops of the first row, 3 sc in the sides of each dc and two in each corner, around. Finish off.

More free crochet patterns from sewhooked

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