Easter  Basket Weaving This Easter during the stay at home orders we decided to make our own Easter baskets. So I brought in all my materials and we set to work. This was my youngest daughter's first basket, but she was a natural Paul has made baskets before and he's got skills! Some students have less patience than others! The finished baskets You can find out how to make your own basket right here on my blog. Just visit part one of my ribbed basketry tutorial.  These baskets aren't just for Easter and you can order everything you need online. Amazon has supplies, but in order to support small businesses I would check out other places first.  I have found good prices at East Troy Basketry, Royalwood, and Earth Guild.  Just do a search of basket supplies and shop around. Part 2 Part 3

Star made with basketry scraps. Christmas Tree woven with scraps of raffia, sisal, jute and seagrass. These natural ornaments are made with basketry scraps. I made them as a prototype for a class I'm giving in December.  Let me know what you think! Follow me on Pinterest for more basketry and craft ideas. 

I haven't posted anything in a while (about a year)... I thought I'd post some pics of my latest project. I've been doing a lot more basketry recently. Since moving back from Egypt I've started working so I haven't had as much time for my crafts. With Summer on its way, however, I hope to remedy that. I taught a basketry class at BOW right before Easter. I taught two sessions and I had some really great students. I will be teaching again around Halloween at the next BOW gathering. These classes always leave me feeling refreshed and inspired. I was feeling inspired after teaching the class... so I decided to weave my kids Easter baskets. After we dyed our eggs I used the extra dye to color some reed and other fiber. I'm not sure how colorfast egg dye is. But I'm not sure how many more years my kids will be hunting Easter eggs either so hopefully it will stay colorful for a few more years.       I hope everyone is having a wonderful...

Here is a great pattern for Easter. It is quick, easy, and a perfect way to use up scraps of yarn. Materials E or F hook worsted weight yarn tapestry needle Stitches: Ch - Chain Sl st - slip stitch SC - Single Crochet Inc - Single crochet 2 stitches into one Bunny Body:  Row 1: Start by making 6 sc into a magic ring (6) Row 2: (sc, inc) around (9) Row 3: (sc, sc, inc) around (12) Row 4-11: sc in each stitch (12) Sl st into next two and fasten off  Ears: Make ears by chaining 8 then sc into second stitch and continue to the end of the row. Fasten off and attach to the body. Weave in all ends. Sew on a cute face and you are done.

I am working on a small afghan right now.  I've never made an afghan, but I got a large amount of yarn from someone moving away and I didn't have any projects that I could use if for. I decided to make small blanket to curl up on the couch with.  I just made a traditional granny square and I will continue to make rounds until I run out of blue yarn.  I would say I'm in the home stretch right now. This is one of those projects that I put away for long periods of time and then pull out when I need something mindless to do while watching a movie.  Since I'm almost done I might work overtime on it for the next few days and get it ready for Christmas. Cheers, Jenn

Here is my handmade for the holiday project for the day. I am heading to my daughter's school to teach her and a couple of friends how to make these chain stitch wreaths for the holidays. I'll post photos tomorrow of our results. For a photo tutorial on how to make these wreaths click here .

I'm in the process of making snow in Cairo... or at least I'm crocheting snowflakes. Christmas break is approaching and I'm making snowflake ornaments and washcloths for my daughter's teachers.  I still need to weave in ends and block them.  I also need to make a few more of the washcloths.  I thought I'd make some hot chocolate mix or some cookies for them as well.  Click on Photo to go to pattern Click on photo to go to pattern The only chance we will have of a white Christmas around here is if we take a trip to the white desert.  Here are a couple of photos from our Eid holiday trip.  It is stunning and I could easily visit it a second time.

Our Christmas Tree in Egypt Amid all the chaos here in Egypt right now we have just been trying to make things as normal as possible for the kids: Soccer games, school functions, dinners at Gaya Korean restaurant, and.... Christmas.  With the holiday season coming it has been a bit of a difficult task.  Thankfully many of the local garden shops and stores have trees and decorations for sale.  It is hard to get in the Christmas spirit so far away from family back home and in a land where Christmas is just a holiday celebrated by "others". We didn't bring our Christmas decorations to Egypt so this year we've had fun making our own. My daughters have interesting senses of humor and so our tree has a bit of the "Nightmare Before Christmas" feel to it. I like it! We bought our tree down the road at a nearby garden shop and one of the employees followed us back to our apartment, winding thorough nighttime traffic with our tree in a wheelbarrow. My husban...

I knitted a kitty purse for my daughter's birthday two years ago.  She loved it and carried it around all the time.  Recently while on a walk here in Cairo we lost it.  We retraced our steps and came up empty handed.  I decided to make her a new one for Christmas, but I decided to rewrite the pattern as a crochet pattern.  Here is what I came up with. With an E hook and worsted weight yarn chain 19 Row 1 - sc into second chain hook across to the end (18) Row 2 - sc into each stitch across. (18) Row 3-42 - repeat row 2 It should be about 7 inches long at this point. Now begin the decrease for the flap. Row 43 - sc2tog, sc across until last two stitches sc2tog (16) Row 44-48 - repeat row 43 until you only have 6 stitches across. Fasten off and weave in ends. Now fold it so that it makes a good size change purse with the tapered flap for your kitty face. Now you are going to sc around the edge in a contrasting color. Start at the bottom corner. ...

I sent off a package for a secret santa project I've been working on in Ravelry. Hopefully it will get there without problems. I made this mug hug (click on photo for free pattern) and then I included a card, some Egyptian cotton yarn in a Christmasy color, a Tunisian crochet hook, a bookmark, and a tree ornament (it is a Bedouin decoration).

I have patterns for hats... and I have patterns for octopuses... but now I am putting them both together so that you can make this cool hat and find all the information you need in one place.  The pattern includes 3 different hat sizes as well as three sizes of octopus to perch on top. 

Just in time for HALLOWEEN! Buy one Little Creature Pattern and get one free right now on Ravelry. Just select two of the above patterns and when you check out you'll get them for the price of one!