Wonderling

Cozy Coffee

 

Crafster user kymj made this french press cozy for her coffee-loving husband. I would have never thought to make a cozy for my french press, but look how cute it is! 

Knitting for a natural baby

image by Wool Windings

On Saturday I went to the baby shower of a good friend of mine. She's going as natural as possible with the birth and baby accessories, which is wonderful. Knowing that she's going to be using cloth diapers I thought it might be fun to whip up some soakers for her. I haven't really been knitting much lately, but I found that soakers are insanely easy to knit. I actually knit one up the morning of the shower in about an hour and a half. Because I was pushing it with time I didn't stop to take pictures, but I'll share a few tips and patterns. 

There are a few free patterns on the web and I'd reccommend them over buying a pattern. It's not hard to customize or tweak the basics of a soaker patter, so the basic pattern is really all you need. 

I used this Punk Knitters pattern by Ms. Crafty Galore, but here's a site that lists other free soaker patterns.

Some interesting things to note: 

 - soakers should be 100% wool. Some people say at least 75%, but it's much easier to fine 100% wool.

 - soakers may need to be treated with lanolin from time to time to maintain their waterproof quality. They make spray lanolin now, which makes this much easier. Some people recommend treating them right away, other say that's not needed. 

 - the soaker will eventually stretch. I altered the pattern by using much smaller needles on the ribbed waistband and not including a drawstring, but in the end you will probably need to string an icord or shoestring through to hold them on. One way to be sure your soakers keep their shape is to lay them flat to dry. NEVER wring them out.

 

 - you don't have to wash them after every use. I know it sounds gross, but wool has a natural reaction with urine. Once it's dried there will be no smell, so you can reuse them a few times before washing. Just be sure to wash them if they get more than urine on them. Hand washing in cool water with a wool wash is recommended, but you can also toss them in the washer if you use a cold, delicate cycle. Be aware that their color may bleed. 

 - Babies come in all shapes. Not every baby will fit into the same pattern. This is kind of a trial and error thing, but again, altering the pattern is super easy if baby needs some more or less room in some areas. 

For some great diaper patterns (sewing and knitting) visit Cloth Diaper Sewing. I have a slew of fabric at home that I didn't know what to do with....now I think I know!

Egg Carton Lamp

This lamp is made from about 80 egg-carton-cups! I love the deep purple color, but I'm not sure I could spare that many cartons since I constantly have eggs to put them in......I'm thinking that there's something else I could recycle to make a lamp this pretty, I'm just not sure exactly what it would be yet! [via CRAFT]

Recyclable Organization!

I've been looking for a pocket-sized accounting ledger to keep track of what I spend "on the go", but I haven't found anything smaller than letter size. I'm at the end of the week from hell and it's threatening to continue through the weekend, so I took a breather and decided to look for small ledgers again and this amazing little website called pocketmod popped up bringing a ray of sunshine to my gray day.

The best part is that you can make anything into a pocketmod booklet. I've seen tourist guides to Italy, Mac OS mini-handbooks and all sorts of other sites with pocketmodded cuteness.

I need these...

Paper Brain is in the studio. That equals hours of time spent in one room with very little to do....other than listen to stuff. Tonight I spent my hours surfing the web. In all my surfing I found a "real" bigfoot, lots of cute shoes and these lovely, wonderful, amazing tabletop items from Lama. If it was humanly possible I would have hearts in my eyes.

What a girl wants!

Emma is one lucky girl! Who wouldn't want a mustache and chest hair on their birthday cake. Now I'm sad that my birthday has already passed. Made by Alicia

Bird Mobile

found in a yahoo! mobile group this bird mobile is the perfect mix of simplicity and slight creepiness. All you have to do is print out the pdf, cut the birds out and string them together.