Here is a cute teacher gift: crocheted pencil bookmarks. They make up quickly, use just single crochet, and use up yarn scraps, or those cute tiny skeins. I made these in May of 2015 using this pattern from LittleOwlHut on Ravelry.
Important note, as you crochet these curl. To get them flat, steaming them works well. You can also iron them between two thin layers of cotton. If you choose to do blocking (getting them wet and laying flat to dry), pin them down well.
In April of 2015 I was making crocheted mushrooms. They are cute little things, and can be made using yarn scraps.
I added some embroidered elements with more scrap yarn. I like the french knots most. The caps of the mushrooms are removable. They stand up better if something small and heavy is placed inside the stem.
These mushrooms use standard amigurumi stitches, basically a single crochet stitch with increases and decreases for shaping and done with a much smaller hook than recommended for the yarn.
I found a skein of acrylic yarn with a long color repeat in a recent stash clearing. I love making worry worms from these kinds of yarn because I get one or two or three color worms in all different combinations.
The color repeats were more exact than I expected, and I started getting the exact same colored worms, so I pulled out the other end of the skein and mixed and matched different colors together.
I like that these little bobbles bring people genuine amusement.
My youngest gifted me two skeins of yarn last December. I cast on with size 11 knitting needles at the end of February, thinking that a nice wide scarf would be cozy. Hm. Two skeins does not make a very long, wide scarf.
So the scarf became a shrug. Sewing the ends together for a few inches formed short sleeves, which help keep the shrug in place.
It works! It is now a garment that gives a little extra warmth, and as a bonus, doesn’t wrap around the neck. This isn’t the first time, and won’t be the last, where I have had to pivot the purpose of a project. This one definitely came out better than the original idea.
When we hide rocks for the Kindness Rocks project, we put some simple instructions on the back. I wanted to put something similar on my worry worms. I started with a scarf idea, with a simple slit for the attachment and words burned into man-made felt. After a couple tests, I thought the scarf looked more like wings, so changed my design in Adobe Illustrator, saved it as an SVG, and imported it in my laser cutter’s program.
I just love their little wings! I did find it interesting that the thin stencil font was easier to read than a bold stencil.
I took these to my regional chorus competition and my chorus had a great time “hiding” them for other competitors to find.
Critters and Craft 