I sometimes think that having a crafty mom makes children spoiled. They can imagine pretty much anything, and I can make it happen, even if it can’t be bought. On the other hand, being able to see the process and the effort which goes into making something might have a counteracting positive effect. I do feel that they appreciate hand made gifts more than store bought items. But that might just be wishful thinking. What do you think?

I’m never sure when we can officially declare “summer is here”. Even though I’ve been carelessly sunburned twice already (I should really be more careful), there have been many days when it was quite cloudy, or even worse – sand stormy (yuck!). Given that the weather hasn’t stabilized yet on “hot, humid and unbearable”, I have to check what the weather will be every day, so I can decide if it’s long pants or shorts for the kids. And there it was that inspiration struck me and I HAD to make a partly cloudy set of pillows.

As usual, I started with no specific recipient in mind, and my children took them over as soon as they possibly could. So I guess we’ll have another set of pillows to fill the kids’ beds (as if we don’t have enough junk dolls in there already).

In order to make the partly cloudy set you will need basic crochet-in-a-circle skills, so while making all the pieces might take a while, it shouldn’t be very difficult.

I made this doll house a while ago with a pattern from one yard wonders. Later, I found the same pattern in a free online tutorial, so – you can enjoy it without buying the book (though I am a fan). Personally, I would modify the pattern not to include so much hand sewing, but otherwise, it’s an excellent idea and the result is really sweet.

I had big plans for the interior – dolls and furniture and more, but I never got around to it, You know how it is… Finally, I decided that the doll house must be put into use one way or another, and started to think about what would be the easiest way for me to make dolls. I decided on finding a cute doll design and printing on fabric. The first part turned out to be much harder than I thought, whereas the second part much easier…

I made these drawing kits to-go for the kids yesterday. I’m not sharing the pattern, well, because I’m planning to sell them. And the pattern. Coming soon!

Each kit is a padded suit case with hook-and-loop (Velcro) closure. There is a pocket on each side of the inside cover for paper, stickers etc. In the middle there is a zippered pocket for colors, scissors and any other equipment your child might need.

These are for younger children, sized to fit A5 size paper (or A4 folded in half). For older kids there will be larger size, to fit A4/letter paper.

Boy & girl versions:

After I made my daughter a rubber crochet ducky, my son got jealous and requested a monster. We’ve been playing Super Mario on our Wii, so I was inspired by the mushrooms when I designed this monster.

Well, as usual, I’m happy to share. So here goes:

Do I really need to explain why I wanted to crochet a duck? They’re so cute, and my daughter loves them. I knew that she would love it, and I was right! She absolutely insisted to take it to day care and won’t let it go long enough for me to get a good picture. See?

This pattern took a little “figuring out”, because I wasn’t sure how I was going to get the curvy tail shape, and I really wanted to make it one continuous piece instead of making separate body and head pieces and sewing them together. Well, here goes:

We got out all of my older son’s winter clothes from when he was two-ish, filtered out anything that had a truck on it, and were left with plenty of winter clothes for my daughter.

When we got out the winter coat I thought that we could pull it off, all we needed was to make the light blue coat just a bit more girly. So what I did was make a very simple crochet flower using this pattern.

I hand sewed the flower over the monkey-robot-something applique, and now I hope I won’t get too many “Aww, what a cute boy” remarks…

Just in case, I’m putting the money we saved aside for a psychologist when she grows up (all I ever wore were hand-me-downs from my brother!)…

Noam asked for and got a dragon hat. Hodaya can’t speak yet, so she got what I felt like making. Basically, the simplest crochet hat possible, made from such nice, soft, pink yarn (which has made several appearances in past posts).

The hat is super simple to make:

When we were in London, many years ago, we bought a stuffed snake. Years later, both our children love it and fight often over who gets to play with it. When my daughter went to day care, and I made her a snake to take with her. So, of course, my son wanted one too.

When I made hers, I still had a small amount of Etsuko Furuya Glasses fabric in pink (from our local fabric shop budulina), so I decided to incorporate that in the design – her snake got glasses. When I made the manly version (also with fabrics from budulina) I didn’t have any left, so I drew on plain eyes.

All the sizes given in this tutorial are appropriate for fitting a pair of glasses on the snake’s head, but of course – you can make it any size you want!

A while ago I got a truck load of yarn from my mother. The black yarn is always useful, and the turquoise and light blue were used in a boy’s baby blanket I made as a gift. Here I am, “stuck” with about 5-6 balls of grey yarn, without an idea what to make. I asked some friends and readers, and everyone suggested various grey animals: mice, elephants and cats. I already made an elephant once and wasn’t happy with the result (I need to think of a better design than the pattern I used). Mice can be cute, but I really like cats, so I decided to go in that direction. Maybe I’ll make a mouse for the cat to play with next…

I made the body flat because I thought it was softer and more cuddly that way, but it can also be made into a cute scarf if you make the body long enough. You could also make it into a pillow by making 2 body pieces, stuffing them and sewing closed.

So, here’s how to make her (it’s definitely a she):