Last Minute Holiday Crochet Gifts

Hi, everybody. Welcome to our live crochet event. I'm Brenda KB Anderson. And in this special tutorial, I'm going to be, um, helping you guys think up some Christmas ideas or other holiday ideas, um, for this season. And, um, I'm gonna be doing a little bit of demonstrating, but it's not gonna be like my normal live tutorials where I show you something from start to end. It's gonna be like a little dabbling here and there. So there are three projects that already existed on the creative crochet corner website, um, that I kind of revamped for the holiday season. And then, so I'm gonna be telling you what I changed what I did differently, um, to kind of do my little holiday makeover. And then, um, at the end of the session, I am going to be going through a couple of the other patterns that I su suggested what I did, uh for Chris or for holiday gifts. So, um, what I did was I was thinking ok, you know, I, I figured out a way to make a couple of things into more holiday spirit at things. I was inspired. Um, actually by one of these projects and I'll talk about later to do this. And then after that, I just couldn't stop. I kept looking at all the other projects and thinking, well, this would make a really good holiday gift and this would make a really good holiday gift. And so I really wanted to kind of pull together a collection of things. Um a good collection of really quick makes for people who are looking for some last minute gifts um to crochet. So, um all right, I am so glad you guys are here. I love it when you guys are active in the chat. When you say hi, if you guys have other suggestions of things that people could make for the holiday season, um for gifts or otherwise, um put those in the chat also. I I'm very curious um how you guys are doing on all your holiday prep work. So for just for crochet, just, just the crocheting, knitting, sewing, whatever that kind of crafty part. Um So, uh if you are so inclined to put in the chat, I would like to know sort of like a little informal poll whether you are consider yourself to be more of a procrastinator. I'm a little bit more on that end or if you're somebody who's been working like all year round, um or really gets things done ahead of time. You never have any problem with that. You have everything wrapped in under the tree and it's sitting there looking all pretty while I'm still figuring out what I'm gonna make. So, um, I, so procrastinator would be uh a one, non procrastinator would be a 10. Um I'm just interested to see what you guys are at. So rate yourselves. I would call myself a three. So I always get things done on time, but I am kind of doing things at the last minute like every single year. So I'm trying really hard to change that. All right now, hopefully this little packet of goodies will um help you guys along, you know, in your road to getting your stuff done too. All right. So um first I want to talk about the project. Let's see. OK. Well, actually let me talk about this download, ok? There are 38 pages in this download because like I said, I couldn't really stop. I was just very excited to be able to kind of pull together some ideas for you guys. Um So this packet really includes a lot of patterns. Um And then it also includes the changes that I made to the existing patterns. OK? So for example, the first thing that I'm gonna be talking about is the Snowflake memories ornament. So that is this beautiful ornament here. Um And so in the packet, I explain what I did differently about this. I also give you the original pattern um directions is also included in here. So that way you have everything that you need in order to recreate, you know, my holiday makeover version or the original version, it doesn't really matter whatever you like. All right. So this is actually the, the item that inspired me to do this whole collection of pulling things together because way back, I think it was maybe last spring or last summer, I came up with this idea to make the sunshine photo frame. So that, that's what these are actually, I'm sure they look familiar because I was just showing you the white version of this kind of. Um And because I wanted to, it was like right around Mother's Day. Actually, I'm pretty sure and I wanted to do sort of a little tribute on my wall at home of my mom and my grandma, grandma on both sides of the family and just have some little photos put up on the wall. And I thought it was really lovely. And as I did this, I couldn't help but notice that it could definitely be a snowflake if I had made it in white. So I was already thinking about this way back then. I was like, this could definitely be a holiday ornament. Um So I, I kind of always had that in my mind that I wanted to revamp it as such. And I've done that here. Here is, this is actually my dad on a little like a little scooter that my grandpa made for him um in front of their Christmas tree. So this is like a really sweet little holiday memory for me. Obviously, you don't have to do like an old time photo. You could do something current you could do, um you know, a picture of your kids and you know, gift it to someone or hang it on your own tree. Um It could definitely be in color. You don't have to limit it to, you know what you see here, of course. Um But the only thing that I did differently for this project instead of here's the original, obviously, you can see the color is different. I used a crochet cotton. I used a size three crochet thread, actually size three crochet thread um to make this and I followed all the same instructions up until the part where you stiffen the points on this. So in order to do that, um I and on this go round when I did the sunshine photo frame, I made the top section. So that's this part where you stitch around a piece of cardboard and all this little detailed part. And then I stiffened that separately and I made this rounded backing part separately. And then after this was dry, after being stiffened, I stitched them together. The reason I did that was because I was really worried I was going to wreck my photo with the um with the fabric stiffener because it's a liquid. So this time around, I was like, ok, I really want the points to be extra sharp and, and pointy. Um So, you know, I want, I really wanted to be able to pull pretty tightly on that and I knew if I did that with this little tiny cardboard ring in here, I might distort it. So I was like, all right, I'm just gonna try it. So I put the whole thing together, the back and the front, it was completely finished except I had skipped the step where I stiffened this. Then I laid this down onto a piece of parchment paper, got my fabric stiffener, got a little paintbrush and then I, you know, got, got my paintbrush wet with the stiffener and smush the stiffener into here all the way up, you know, onto this very ridge right here. Not on top of this part though. OK? And then definitely don't want stiffener on the back because that's gonna seep through and get your um the paper and the or the cardboard and your photo all wet. So you just keep it out here. Then after I did that, my parchment paper was kind of gooey on one side. So I took that and a paper plate, just a regular thick paper plate, flipped my paper plate over, put the parchment paper on with the gluey side to the plate, like I was gluing my parchment to it. And then I laid my wet piece of um you know, my crochet on here and then I was able to really pin out these corners. So I put pins in like this at this kind of an angle and I was able to pin into that paper plate and it was really rigid. So it was keeping it in its shape and I could really stretch these. So I worked, you know, from top to bottom and side to side, pulling on all of those and then I just let them all dry. And then the last thing that I did instead of the original where I had this little, um, I use these kind of little, oh, I forget what they're called command strips. I use that with a little bit of plastic. I don't know if you can see this if I make it kind of shine. There's a little bit of just like plastic from a, a yogurt lid container right here that I stitched onto the back so I could put a command strip on and stick it to my wall. The other way I, um, hung these up is I just put one of like a little tiny nail um, on my wall and then I just hung it through one of the points. So for this version, of course, because I wanted it to be an ornament. I just added this very thin little piece of string here. You could do it in the same crochet thread, but I kind of liked the contrast in it. So it didn't feel like the snowflake was kind of going up here into the loop. So that's why I chose this little silver thin thread here. Um, but you could do something else if that's what you have at home anyway. It made, it made a really nice little Christmas ornament. And, um, I'm very excited to put it on my tree. All right. So that was the first little holiday makeover that I did. The second one was I had a, a couple of months ago, maybe, maybe not even that long ago. I did a live tutorial on making these little zippered pouches, um, which would make a great Christmas gift in itself. You could just choose the colors that, you know, go along with whoever you're gifting it to um something they would like or maybe sports team colors or something like that. Um But I decided I wanted to make it holiday style. So I made a little Santa version and I, I thought it would be fun to have it be like a gift card holder. So I made it about the perfect size for that. Here's my little gift card in there. Um So really the only difference here, of course is that I made this, I started it out in the red color, um, or I actually have a little Elf version that I'm going to be working up a little bit of um on here today. So I started out with the red zipper the red, um the red yarn and then I switched to black for a while to make this belt switched back to the red and I'm gonna show you a little bit of how I did that. And then of course, I added this little buckle motif on there which I will show you as well. So I am doing, I have a little sample in progress here. Um I'm not gonna go through, you know, all of the beginning to end of any of these projects, as I mentioned before because there are al already tutorials that you guys can reference. Um the first project, the the snowflake ornament that I showed you that photo frame has its own live tutorial. There's a link in the download. Um You can also find it on the creative Crochet corner website. Um And then this uh this particular uh project. This is just a crocheted zipper pouch. No, so crocheted zipper pouch and there is no pattern that goes along with this because you don't even need a pattern. It's that simple. It's just a technique that you use to crochet right into your zipper. You, you aren't actually sewing the pouch to your zipper, you're crocheting right into your zipper. So you'll need to watch that to figure out how or to learn how to put one of these together. And it's done exactly the same way as I show you in that video except that we change colors for the belt and we make a little tiny ridge. So let me show you what I mean by that. So you follow the main video tutorial up until this point. And now I'm so I'm making a little elf one. That's why I decided it would be green. Uh And then you can grab your belt color. So once you're at one of the sides, the side where you, you know, at the beginning of your round, you're gonna be right along that fold line there. Then you are going to just insert your hook into the first stitch of your round yarn over with that new color for the belt. And you're gonna bring that up and bring it through that last loop on your hook and then you're going to make slip stitches all the way around. So I'm gonna slip stitch into each stitch around here. And the reason that I am doing this is because I really wanted the belt to appear like it is stuck on top of the red like it is, it is a separate piece sitting on top. So it kind of creates this nice little, a little bordered edge. And then it also makes it look like it's just slightly dimensional. It makes it look like the black is sitting on top of the other color. And I use this technique all the time when I'm working on amateur roomy because for some reason, I just really love putting pants on my Amaga roomie creatures. I've made a lot of Amaga roomy with pants and when I do the pants, I really want the pants to look like they are sitting on top of my, my critters. So I do one round of slip stitches just like this before I switch colors to the pants color because that way it looks like it's sitting on top and it's not just a two tone creature. It makes the edge really neat and tidy and straight. And you can see the difference. Actually, if you look between the edge of the black and the red here and then the edge where the pink and the blue are, it's kind of like zig zagging and bumpy and this is very straight and it looks like um you know, it looks like a separate piece sitting on top. All right, when I get all the way around here, I will show you the next step. Oh, looks like we've got a bunch of people saying hi. Whoa, I'm way behind Renee saying hello from Edinburgh, Pennsylvania, Susan Connor one Nettie saying hello from Rensselaer, New York. I'm sure I said your city wrong. I am sorry. Um Coffee Zombie is saying hi hello, Coffee Zombie. Um procrastinator number four. We got our first rating. Ok. So you're a little less of a procrastinator than me, but not much. Good luck to you. Um Donna is saying hello from Massachusetts. Marie is saying yes, I'm a procrastinator. Donna is saying she's a four OK. Sea wolf pack is a 1.50 Sea Wolf pack. Last minute gift idea, cotton facial cloth bundled with a local artisan soap. That's a great idea. I love doing the combination of a little bit of handmade thing with one little purchased thing um like that and it's kind of a uh gives it like a nice, nice kind of special touch. Um you know, to give a homemade gift, but then you also have, you can support another artist too. Um OK. And see Wolfpack is saying, crocheting Fair Isle style ornaments as they watch. Awesome. How cool Annette is saying hi again. Hi, Annette. Welcome back. Rochelle is saying hi Brennan, everyone. Hello, Rochelle. Oh, and you, you're a one. OK. Oh, you know, I I realized the ones Susan Connor and Nettie are both ones. OK. For some reason, I thought that was a typo and you were actually responding to me. I am so sorry. Yeah, you guys are procrastinators. Excellent. I'm so glad to be in a, a group full of procrastinators like myself here, Rochelle one. Um See Wolf fact said she made her sister a spa day in a bag with handmade cloth, facial scrubbers and a matching basket for the scrubbers, a headband and then added her own recipe for skin balm in an ecofriendly container. Awesome. What a nice gift. That's, those are great ideas. Thank you for posting those Um, and Sue says hi, hi, Sue. See Wolf Pack. That is so cute. Oh, thank you. I'm, I'm assuming you're talking about this, but maybe you're talking about the little photo thing. Um, let's see. And Debbie is saying hi again. Welcome back, Debbie. Thanks for coming back. Yes. Yes. And she told, uh, see Wolfe said she told her sister it was a curated gift. Yeah. Well, it is. All right. So we've made our slip stitches all the way around. Um Until we get to, here's the very last slip stitch that we're gonna do that green. And then we are going to begin working single crochet, stitches um into each stitch around. So there's a couple of different ways to do this if you want to experiment a little and you've never tried this before. You can take your hook from the wrong side of your last slip stitch. I know it's a little tricky to see because this is black, but I'm putting my hook from the wrong side to the right side underneath that first black slip stitch that I have there. Then I'm going to place that hook or that loop back on my hook and pull it through to get it to the backside. Um And then I can start my single crochets back here. You don't have to be that fancy though because this will blend in just fine. That's, that's how I wanna do it. That's how I usually um end my slip stitch and begin my single crochet if I'm being super extra careful there. But really, this isn't gonna show because it's black and you're gonna pull this forward a little bit and place your hook underneath that first single crochet that you made in green. So that was two rounds ago. It was before the slip stitching round. The very last round of single crochets that you made, I should say. So I'm inserting it underneath that first stitch yarn over, pull up, loop yarn over and pull through two to start my single crochet. So you can see there's a little speck of green right there, but that's not really a big deal. It's on the folded corner. So you don't really need to worry about it. We don't need to be so careful. All right. So then you could just continue working single crochet, stitches into that last round of green or red, whichever color version you're doing. Um And so you're working behind, I mean, technically it's behind the slip stitch because it's back here. Um But really it's not, you don't have to dig around too much. You just have to kind of go up. It's more like above the slip stitch like that to do your next round of single crochet stitches there. So because you have that slip stitch round there that is making a nice straight line. It's separating the, the belt fabric from the shirt fabric or coat or whatever this is. Um, and it just makes it look very neat and tidy right there. So you would go all the way around and then you would continue working some more rounds of the black color until your belt is as wide as you want it to be. So, um, this is more of like a, you know, it's not, it's not a real pattern, it's not written out. This is kind of more by feel. So you just can crochet your belt as wide as you want it to be. And then keeping in mind that after you do your belt here, I'll turn this upside down. So you can see after you do your belt, then you're gonna have a little, another little section of the same color as you started with because that way, um it really looks like a belt sitting on top of a coat. All right. So you would go round and round and round in black and then when you are satisfied with how wide your belt is, you do another round and again, this time you're gonna do it in black. And that might seem weird because last time we did it in the new color. But if you do it in black, whatever color you want to look like is sitting on top is the color you do your slip, stitches with. So we did our slips first round of slip stitches here with the black because we want that to look like it's sitting on top. We still want the belt to look like it's sitting on top of this. So we do another round of slip stitches here. And then after that round of substitutes, we change back to the red or we change back to the green and then do a number of, of single crochets there. All right. So your piece will look like this once you've worked the whole thing up, I do have instructions on how to seam this closed. I just use a slip stitch here, um working all the way across. Um But you know, just go ahead and watch that video just to understand how, you know how to do all these parts, how to add your stitches into the zipper. The whole thing is all um demonstrated for you in that video. So, so here we have this and now we just need to add a little buckle. So in order to make the buckle, I'm gonna do it out of this cotton yarn. This is actually a decay yarn, but I probably would have preferred to use a, a worsted weight, but I didn't have a worsted weight in exactly the right color. So that's why I'm using this. It doesn't really make a difference too much. It'll just make your belt a little bit thicker, a little thinner. So I'm just gonna chain on enough chains until it's about the right size. And I'll show you what I mean, in just a second. So basically I'm chaining. I don't know, like maybe five or six here and a few up the width of the belt like this and then some over across the top. I like this project because it, sometimes you just wanna make something and not have to follow someone's pattern. So, um, that's why I became a designer. You guys, it's not a lie. I just, yeah. Um, but anyway, it's nice to be able to just kind of make something and eyeball it and be like, yeah, that looks good to me. I'm gonna add that or I'm gonna do a couple more rounds and it's fine. So, all right. So this looks like it's about the right size for me. Um It might shrink up a little bit. If you're worried about it, you can add a couple of extra stitches and those can be undone later. Um But I'm just gonna go kinda go for it. I'll add one more for like a turning chain and then I'm gonna work single crochet stitches across the bottom bump. So I turn my chain over. So it's upside down. So this is the top with all the little vs I just roll it over. So now I can see all of those little horizontal dashes and I'm just gonna work some single crochet stitches into those. And at first when I was working on this, I thought, oh, I'll just do something where I have increases at all the corners to make really sharp corners. And then I was like, you know what, this is too complicated. All you really need is a strip and then you could just bend it to your will when you're pinning it onto the, onto your little zipper pouch and it's fine. I, I was over complicating things. Sometimes things should just be simple. Right. All right. Let me check and see and see what the numbers are again. Let me see if we have any new numbers. Oh, no, no new numbers yet. Um Let's see. Um Coffee zombie saying I have quite a few projects started but half done. Yep, I can relate to that can definitely relate to that. Maria is saying hi from Parker, Colorado. Hi Marie, welcome. And Renee is saying, how would I put a divider in the pouch? I'd like to separate my cash from my cards. Oh, ok. Um Well, you could crochet a little rectangle to put on the inside. That actually wouldn't be too tricky. I think you could just crochet a little rectangle. So let me see, a rectangle that's the same size as your finished pouch. And then you can flip your pouch right si uh inside out like this, then lay your rectangle across, reaching to those two edges and then just do a little whip stitch. Just be careful not to go all the way through to the right side of your work. But just catch, you know, the, the backsides of these stitches and whip stitch around here across the bottom and across the side. And then when you flip it this side out, you will have a little divider that's right in the middle. I think that would be a really good idea, actually. Thank you for suggesting that. All right, we have a few more single crochet stitches to do here and I'll show you how to attach this and make a little tiny um prong to make it look a little more recognizable as a buckle. So, um in case you haven't seen the original tutorial for these little zipper pouches, you can make these in any size you want. Um I kind of walk you through that and talk, talk about how to make sure that it's, you know, you're putting the right amount of stitches in for your gauge and all that kind of stuff. It is a little bit of trial and error. Um But it's, it's a pretty fun project and it's great for using up scraps. Like I made a whole bunch of them that you just used up little scraps that I combined together colors I, that I kinda like together. Um And it was just kind of fun. I, I really love using um I love projects that involve u using up scraps, that feeling of making something out of nothing. It's, it's pretty awesome. Ok. So I just fastened off. I just have that one row of single crochet, stitches and then first I stitched the two ends together when I did mine. You don't need to do that. You can just pin it right on here and then sew everything down. But I'm gonna do that because I feel like it might help me place my buckle in the right spot and kind of get it to be shaped the right way. It doesn't have to be perfect, but I'm just gonna kinda tack these two ends together here. That, that looks good enough, doesn't have to be perfect because you can use your other strand of yarn to make your edges match perfectly once you are actually sewing it onto your pouch. But if you kind of get them tacked together, it does. I feel like it just makes it a little bit the process of getting it in the right spot. A little easier. Not much to weave in there. Um You could definitely weave it into the inside of your pouch later. I just did not really want that flopping around while I was trying to get everything pinned in place. And, um, here we go. So let's see. So then you just, you can just, um, line up this little join wherever you feel like it would be the least noticeable. I think I'm just gonna put it here right at the bottom and you want your buckle to sit just below the belt like it would you know, you want the belt to look like it's going through the center of the buckle. So, kind of pull those up this, I feel like that's a little off center. I'm gonna scooch it over just a little bit. That looks a little better to me. All right. And then we can just go ahead and sew that buckle on. All right. So, um, what I was doing was just stitching just below these little vs here in order to make it kind of a tidy stitch. I wasn't doing a whip stitch over the edge like that because I really wanted to have that nice ridge. And I like doing a back stitch. So if my needle is always facing, I'm right handed. So my needle would always be facing to the left. If you're left handed, you can watch this in the mirror and it'll look just like you would do it. But if you're left handed, your needle will be facing to the right and it's gonna be facing the direction that you're sewing in. But you're gonna insert your needle um behind where the stitch comes out and go ahead of where your stitch comes out. So that your stitch should come out halfway in the middle of, of um where you went in and where you came out. I'll explain that a little better in just a second here when I take another stitch. All right. So if you think about this is like you're going a half a step back and a full step forward. So you're going past the point where that stitch came out, that might be a little bit easier to visualize there. And I'm just taking, I'm just making sure um that I am only stitching through the top layer. Actually, I would recommend opening that and putting your hand behind it just so that you're not accidentally stitching through to the second layer because I could definitely see that happening. Um Another thing you could do is you could cut out a little piece of cardboard and put that in there. Um Just so that you can't possibly get your, your needle through to the other side. But this is all you really need to do, just kind of sew that buckle on there and then we will make the little prong I'll go a little further here. Um Renee is saying, thank you. Yes, she was the one who or they were the one who was ask, they were asking about the divider in the pouch. Yep. Yeah, I hope that works for you. And then Deb is saying it's fun to do a project without a pattern. Sometimes I made a chair for my granddaughter without a pattern. Cool. Was it a crocheted chair or are you talking about like a wooden chair? I need to know. Um Yeah, that is very cool. Yeah, I really like, I mean, you know, I design things so that I can make things without following other people's patterns. But also, you know, I just, I really enjoy the design process. And if you guys are interested in more things that um don't have a pattern, but more of like a process a little while ago, I did a tutorial on making a beanie. It was called the freestyle beanie and that is mostly just half double crochet ribbing. It's very easy. You don't need a pattern. Um And the live tutorial uh actually you can, there is a download that goes along with it just to help you remember how to do all the steps, but it is um it's very simple. So I would recommend checking that out if you're interested in making beanies. Um or if you're just interested in working up more projects that don't involve reading somebody's pattern. It's a, it's a, it's a really fun way to make something, especially if you're newer to crochet and it, you know, making the gauge watch can sometimes be kind of frustrating and it's nice to be able to just use whatever yarn you already have and make something that works and fits. Um I ran out of yarn there so I would have to join more yarn to continue, but I would go all the way around this edge and then I would, I know this seems like it might be a little overkill, but I would go around next to this inside edge here. Too just to make sure that isn't flipping out. It's probably ok without it, but I just, I, I just want it to remain looking good every time you take it out and put it in your pocket or in your, in your purse, it's gonna start catching on stuff. So I would do another ro round of stitching right here by these, by this edge as well. And then to do the little tiny prong thing, all I did was just like a couple of little stitches and that's it. And I'll show you how to do that. So um to join an extra piece of yarn, I am just gonna kind of weave this back and forth a little bit here. I where I'm doing this right underneath this. So that just in case it shows, I mean, it wouldn't show through the, through the top just in case I went through those stitches a little too much, it wouldn't go through the outside. All right. OK. We'll come out here and I'll just stitch my way over to where I wanted to put the prong. I was thinking I was gonna put it here, but I think I wanna put it over on this side. No, I'm gonna put it on this side. I changed my mind. All right, back to the side. This is gonna be the same side as my Santa pouch on that side. All right, I'm just gonna kind of stitch my way over to that oh area. And it should be at the halfway point on your belt where you want to come out. So, there we are. And then I'm just gonna take three little stitches, basically trying to make a satin stitch right here in yarn. Just one and then one right next to it to. And three oops, that one kind of went off to the side a little bit there. Let me fix that. I'm gonna kind of gather these up a little bit here just to make sure they're right next to each other. Make that one a little longer when I did the other one, all I did was the three stitches. But because this one was kind of wandering off to the side, I'm gonna take a little tiny stitch right at the base of that to just kind of force it to be next to its little buddies there. Sometimes it's kind of hard to get those stitches. Exactly. Perfect right next to each other because crochet is a bumpy fabric, you know. So there's, and there's holes between our stitches. So sometimes you have to do some little things to make it look a little bit better. That looks good to me. OK? And then you would just weave in your ends and there you have it a little tiny elf pouch or little sand pouch. And you can definitely make these in any size. If you make a really big one, you might consider making two rows of single crochet to make that belt, a belt buckle a little bit thicker. Um, just something to think about. All right, so let's talk about my third holiday makeover project. So let me just check it real quick here. Let's see, Shatika is here. Happy Chris. Let's see. Holiday tree presents of awesome crocheting and knitting. Um, Dev is saying it's a round crocheted chair with the back and two sides all crocheted. I do wanna put two armrests on it at a later time. Awesome. So cool. All right. That sounds like a very creative project. All right. So this is my next holiday makeover project. So this is called the Bijou Headband. This was the very first live that I ever did and it is now up on the creative crochet corner website. So you can go ahead and watch it so that you can learn how to make this exact one. Um And there's a couple other versions in there that I talk about doing it with doing a version of this with scraps and also one that's just one solid color. This was a self striping yarn and it worked out really well for this pattern. It was pretty awesome. Um But I wanted to revamp this a little bit because I, I had always thought of these little puff stitches as being kind of like beads and it just sort of lodged itself in my head that it would be really pretty to have one of these with actual beads on it, which is what I did here. So this, I'm hopefully you guys can see the little sparkly ones. There's little tiny sparkly beads. Maybe. If I move it around you can see it glimmer a little bit. There's a mixture of pearls and these little tiny faceted beads. They're all plastic though. Um, you could get away. You could definitely do. Actually, these might be glass, the pearl ones I think are, might be glass. Um One thing to think about when you're doing beads on crocheted fabrics is you just want to make sure it's not going to get too heavy. So, if you're going to put a lot of beads on here, maybe just think about how heavy that is going to be and if it's going to bother you or pull on, pull on the, the threads at all. Um, a lot of times for crochet projects, I, instead of using glass, a lot of times I will use plastic just for that reason. Um, but these are, you know, sprinkled pretty sparsely. So it's probably not really a big deal either way. It's just something to think about if you decide to add more beads to your project. Um, but in order to add beads, it's really not very tricky. It's just one little technique that I'm gonna be showing you how to do. Um, this project, I used the, actually, you can see in the download. I actually, I actually list the two yarns that I use in this project because they're different than the original yarns. Um, so I list the, the name of this yarn. These are both from the same yarn company. I thought they looked really pretty together. They're not exactly the same color, but they blend in really nicely and it gave it sort of a little bit more of a heather look to it, which I thought was pretty. Um You, if you're gonna be adding beads though, you are going to definitely be needing a sack yarn or some kind of thin yarn or thread to string the beads onto and you're going to hold that together with a thicker yarn. So in this case, I am using a number five, this is a very fluffy, extremely light and lofty yarn. I actually had this left over from my sugar plum cowl, which I did maybe about a month ago. I did a live on that. So if you're interested, um you can check that out. It actually would look really cute with his headband. Um So I, I had some leftovers of that. So I'm combining these two together in this project to create this really pretty hard. Um So in order to add beads to something in this, in this way, I added them on before I started stitching, I didn't sew them on later. Um And how I did that was let me just show you how I threaded them all on. Um, I took a little piece of sewing thread and then I added them to the sock yarn. So just imagine, I know this is just like one piece of yarn, a short piece of yarn. But just imagine this is connected to the ball of yarn. You're gonna be stitching from and then you just lay your thread across, fold this back and fold the thread this direction. OK. So, what we've done is we have like a loop of thread that comes through here and a loop of yarn right here. OK. And then we can go ahead and you can either hold the two ends together and feed that through your beads if you're able to do that. That's actually what I did on this headband. But I thought it might be a little bit easier to thread those two ends of the thread onto a needle. Oh. Um, but your needle has to be small enough to be able to go through your bead. OK. So I'm using beads that have a hole that's about a millimeter. Let me see here. This is a test of my bifocals right now. Hold your breath, everybody. OK. Oh, I got one but not the other. Let's try it again. Oops. All right. I'll try it again. This is why, um, normally I like to have my needle threaded before I start, but I couldn't really show how to add this thread if I did that. That's one of my little secret tricks. So you guys wouldn't know that I'm having trouble with my eyesight. OK. Here we go. Oh oh I still can't get it one more try. OK? And while I'm doing this, if you guys wanna think if you guys have any questions, definitely let me know. Um But also if you guys have ideas for future projects, I can't remember if I mentioned this in this group yet. I don't think I have. Um definitely let me know if you have ideas on things that you want to make because as c wolfpack knows, um I oftentimes will, well, I always look through and see what you guys um suggest and then I oftentimes will make things based on what people have suggested because I wanna make the things that you guys are interested in making and I like being challenged and coming up with new. There we go. Finally. OK? You guys, I got it. I like being challenged and coming up and you know, it helps me think outside my normal um thinking path when you guys suggest things. Ok? So that shouldn't have been that hard. I don't know why that was so hard. But anyway, I threaded the two ends uh through my needle and now it'll be really easy for me to get these beads on here. So, um coffee zombie is wondering if I didn't want to use a zipper. Could I make another square and attach to the top fold over and add a button? Absolutely. You sure could. And you might want that to button to the back if you're doing the Santa version. But if you're just doing, you know, a stripy cute version, then absolutely, you could even have a rectangle that folded over with a button at each corner too. That would be cute too. Or snaps or one thing that I like doing is putting snaps and then putting fake button. Well, they're real buttons but sewing buttons on top of my snaps anyway. Ok. So to get the beads onto your yarn, you will just go ahead and thread them onto your needle like that. And I used sort of a random smattering of pearls and these little crystal kind of beads. And I did, I think I did maybe like in this original one, I did maybe two thirds crystals and one third pearls or maybe it was three quarters crystals and one quarter pearls. I can't remember what the ratio exactly was, but it's good to kind of mix it up because you're not unless you really wanna plan the whole thing out if you're a super planner and you can figure it all out. That's great. I did not have the patience to do that for this because I knew there was gonna be different sizes. Oh, that's another thing I should explain. I forgot. Um, because I was using this bulkier yarn held together with a sock yarn. My gauge was a little bit bigger than it should have been. So I in the download, I tell you how many stitches like what the new gauge is for this project and then how many stitches to make for your beginning chain for all the different sizes that are in the pattern? So, just so, you know, if you are making it with the same two yarns I used or you're getting a gauge similar to mine, you will have to start with a different amount of stitches and that is listed in your, in your download. OK. So that basically if you get your beads to kind of stick on here, um you know, don't pull them all the way down here first get enough of them on this folded section where there's two layers and that holds this loop and it'll keep it from slipping out. So you don't have to worry about that as you're stacking your beads on. So you're gonna pres string a whole bunch of beads on. I think I did 48. Um That also is in, in the download as well. Um 48 or so beads ahead of time and then you're gonna follow the pattern just exactly as it's written. Except of course, you're working over fewer amounts of stitches because you have a different gauge and the, the again, those stitches are listed in the pattern. Download and you're gonna follow that all the way up until you're working. Row three, row three is right here. That's the first row that you start placing your beads. When you place a bead, you're actually going to be placing a bead while you are looking at the wrong side of your work. So you're gonna be looking at the backside and placing beads on the front side. So I've worked a couple of rows here so that I could show you kinda how I place the beads. Um But when you, before you get to placing the beads, you are just gonna be sliding these down your strand like this, you just kind of push them out of the way, you know, in little sections just to get them out of the way. So you can use the yarn without the beads on it first. Then when you're ready to use the beads, you can let them be up close to where you're gonna be working. So I am going to be working. Let's see, this was row, let's see, 123456. So this would be row seven, an odd, an odd number row here. And we're going, I chained one at the very end and I'm just working in the yarn over slip stitch pattern. And if you um need a little extra help, definitely watch the tutorial, the original tutorial for the Biju headband because this, it'll tell you exactly how to make all these stitches, how to make the puffs everything. Um And you can see my very first live and how nervous I was. That was fun. All right. So we're gonna start with the very first stitch of the row and we're gonna do a yarn over slip stitch. So we yarn over and we're gonna insert through the back loop because we're working the yarn over slip stitches through the back loop. Only yarn over, pull up a loop and continue pulling that loop through the two loops on your hook. So let's do that again. You're an over, insert through the back loop. OK? So we're skipping that front loop. Just working under the back loop. You're an over, pull up a loop and pull through two. So when you wanna place the bead, let's see. I don't wanna place mine quite yet. I'm gonna do maybe two more stitches just make, you're just gonna keep sliding those beads out of the way until you want them. All right. This would be a good place to place the bead. When you're placing beads, you're just gonna keep looking at the backside to see where the other beads have been placed. So that you're not putting a bead, you wouldn't want to put a bead right next to another bead. So you'd wanna kind of stagger them a little bit. So I'm gonna be placing the next speed. So I slide it all the way up to where my hook is just like that. And then I'm gonna do a yarn over slip stitch just past it. All it's gonna do is hang out there. It's just, it's not even doing anything. I just slit it right up to tonight next to my work. And I'm doing a regular yarn over slip stitch through that back loop. Only yarn over, pull up a loop and pull through two and that anchors that bead in place and there it is, it appeared on the opposite side as what I was looking at. Ok. So I'm looking at this side, this is the wrong side. It's gonna show up over here. It's just as easy as that. It's so easy you guys to put beads on things and it's nice because you don't have to go back through and sell them all all on later. Um, and, you know, if you're doing that, you're, you're relying on your sewing thread probably or beating thread to, you know, it needs to be able to stretch if you're putting them on something stretchy like a headband like this. And that can be pretty tricky. So it's best if you can just add them as you go, um, string them all on and then slide them up and add them as you go across. And if you want a bead there, then you slide the bead right up next to your hook and go ahead and lock it in place. Let's see. Get a little closer here. Past that pearl. There is my next bead, my shiny bead sliding it right up next to the hook and I'm locking it in place with that next slip stitch. Ok. So you can see there's one here and one there, those are the two that I just placed in this row. Let's see, it looks like Deb shared maybe a picture of her chair. I'll have to look at that later. I'm excited to see that. Ok. Um So yeah, you just continue placing those beads and I figured it out, you know, the 48 stitches that's including about seven, sorry, 48 beads rather that you string on here, that's about seven per row. But you're not placing your beads on every single row, you're placing them on every other row because you only place them when you're working across the wrong side rows because you don't want beads on your forehead, right? You want them on the outside of your headband. So there's really only six rows here. 12345 and six where you're placing those beads. So however many beads you wanna estimate that go across one row multiply that by six. And that's how many beads you should thread on and then add some extra just in case. Um And then the only other thing that I did differently on this headband was besides the stitch count, which I talked about already the beads and then I worked these puff stitches into the back loop instead of underneath both loops. And the reason I did that now when I first developed this, I wasn't really sure which way I wanted to do it. Um, working it under both loops, seemed like it made it a little sturdier in this yarn, which is a little thinner. But now that I had a thicker yarn, if I worked it under the, the back loop, which this is all in your download. So if you forget it's OK, I worked it through the back loop and that left these to um this little V free here. So that looked the same as this one. It was just a little more symmetrical. If none of that makes any sense to you, you could just choose whether you want to follow, you know, the bijou pattern. Exactly. Except for placing the beads and the stitch count and that will be just fine. I also did two fewer rows of the slip stitch through the back loop only. Um Oh, sorry, the yarn over slips are to the back loop only because it was getting really wide because my gauge is a little bigger. So that's the kind of thing that, um you know, you can alter that if you want. Uh Just like I did. All right. So that is the third holiday makeover project. But there's more. So let me see. I'm gonna try to go through these in order. Um OK. So now we are moving on to the extra patterns that I included in this little download. The next thing is the 11th hour beanie. So I included this, I choose to include this because this is just like really thick yarn. It's a really fun stitch pattern. Um And I don't know if you've ever tried working up a hat with really thick yarn before. Sometimes your fabric turns out really stiff and it's very frustrating um to get something that has stretch to it. Like you can see here, this has got some nice stretch. Um And it has some nice drape considering how thick this is. It's not stiff like, you know, wearing a helmet and, but the other part is is when you stretch it, you don't see holes between your stitches. Now, that is one of those things that oftentimes happens when you have a thicker yarn, you'd go for a bigger hook. It all makes sense. But then you get these big holes between your stitches. So I designed this on purpose to be a sort of last minute gift, a last minute holiday gift because it uses such thick yarn. Um And it's really fun to work up. Um And really, and this is the Trinity stitch pattern. It's a really fun stitch pattern. It's simple and there is a video tutorial. It is linked inside your pattern. Download. So um check that out if you're looking for a very warm snuggly hat that's, it comes in, this is a baby size. Um and it goes all the way up through a larger adult size. So this is a really great one for everybody. And then the next thing I want to talk about is the gnome for the holidays. So this is one of my favorite little things that I designed for the creative crochet corner. Uh This is just like a really good Amaga Roomy project for people who are, have never tried Amaga Roomie before. One thing that really kind of, I don't know, I think people hesitate to make a, a room because they're worried that the face is going to turn out weird. Um which can very easily happen if you're, you know, newer to making Amaga roomy. But guess what? This guy is going to be adorable no matter what because his face is literally just like this little wooden bead for a nose. He doesn't really have a face, but he, he has so much personality, he doesn't even need one just has a little tiny nose sticking out. Um So this is a really fun Amaga Roomy kind of starter project. It's very simple. It's easy. And the thing I love about this is the idea of taking this, you know, you're just taking balls of yarn that don't have a lot of personality in themselves and you're making something that is just ridiculously cute and then you can hide this in people's houses. So it's just kind of like peeking out in the bookcase or, you know, just, I don't know, it's just kind of a fun little prankster kind of holiday gift. I, in my opinion, or of course, you can just put it in a box and gift it like like a normal person would, but why would you do that when this is so much fun to hide these? Um So this is, yeah, so this is called known for the holidays. This pattern is also included in your download and there is a link to the tutorial as well. So you can learn how to make this um follow along with me and I will show you how. Um and let's see, the next thing I wanted to talk about is this, so this is called the Swirly flying disk. And you might be thinking, what, what are you talking about? Are you making a frisbee? Don't, you know, it's winter. Um But you know, well, it is warm in some parts of the world right now. But the thing I love about this design is that it's really floppy and your kids can throw this in the house and not break things. So that is part of the reason that I included in this, in this um group of projects because it's a really fun toy. It's, you know, for active kids who just cannot stop throwing things in the house, then you can have this and not break anything. And of course, it works. Not in the house, like when it's summer time, you know, you can bring it to the beach. It works, whether it's wet or dry, it, it will not float though in the water just in case you're thinking about that. Um, it will sink, but it's cool because when you throw it, this swirly motif kind of spins around and it looks really awesome. I'm gonna throw this so you can see, hopefully, maybe you couldn't see the top of that. But I wanna show you how I revamped that for the holidays. I couldn't help but notice that that looked a little bit like a peppermint candy. So instead of working four colors like I did in that actually, that one. Yeah, that has four colors in it. Um There's four sections swirling around. Actually, I'm going to just pull this chart out here so you can see where did it go. So you can see what I'm talking about. Oh, here we go. The swirly flying disc pattern. Um And it really does fly. I don't know if you guys could see that when I threw it, but you can actually throw this pretty far. Um So here is the chart. If you're not a chart person, that's OK, the directions are all written out too, but I wanted to show you there are four different colors going on here in the chart and those represent the four different colors that were in the original sample. Now, in this sample, I used three, I substituted three colors for just white. OK. So here's, there's 12 and three, you still have to um have a, basically the way this is constructed is you have four yarn or four working ends going on at all times. And that might sound just like super overwhelming. But if you watch the video, it will, it will really help, it really, really helps to see someone do it. Um So three of those colors are just white. So here's one and two and three and then one of them, the very first one that I did that is this pink color. It's kind of like a pinkish red and so it looks a little bit like a peppermint candy. I thought so I thought that that would be a really fun twist on it for the holidays and it would make a really awesome stocking stuffer or, you know, gift adults, kids, anybody who likes to play frisbee dogs also can catch it with their mouths and not get hurt. Um So if you have some pets at home, maybe that's something to think about. Um Oh, Seawolf pack three says people should not be afraid to try Amega Roomie. It's just single crochet in the round with increases and decreases. Great for beginners. I agree. I agree. That is a very good point. Seawolf pack. Thank you for adding that. Um Yeah, definitely. Amaga roomie, I think some people hesitate, you know, because of the faces. But also you can just use safety eyes. And one thing to think about too is when you're making amaga roomy, you know, everything's gonna have its own little personality and you know, the more, the more you practice it, the more you notice little tiny nuances like, oh, this eyebrow is tilted a little like that, that makes the expression different. It's just um you know, you'll learn as you go. And when you make those first couple of aig roomies, even if the face is not how you expect it to be, it'll still be its own little original thing and it's still cute and it's still fun. It's, it is a fun. Uh This is, this is really my favorite kind of project actually. Ok. So I have two more things to talk about. Um The last thing in your packet is called the Fall Fall Harvest Cowl. That is right here. Um So this I added in there. It, it is a little bit bigger than some of the other projects, but it is so super simple. You guys, um it's just re you know, a two row repeat, I'm pretty sure. Um And so this is a really good one for like if you're watching a holiday movie or something like that and you just want to work on something you don't have to think very hard. Um And it's, it kind of has the look of a shawl or a smaller shawl or a bandana call when you're wearing it, but it's really not that much fabric. You can see it's really not that much crocheting. It's really not that much more than this, you know, just a little bit. Um, and then you can add fringe or you don't have to have any fringe at all if you don't want to do the fringe thing, that's fine too. But this is just a really nice, like a basic kind of warm present. Um Lots of different kind of people will like it. You know, it's just, it's like it's kind of a good go to for me. So I added this in there because it's a little bit, you know, um What is the word I'm trying to say? It's, it's just kind of a classic look like it's, it doesn't have a lot of, sometimes when you're crocheting for other people and you're giving them something to wear, especially if it's somebody who doesn't crochet, they may have tastes that are just um they don't like to experiment or they don't like a lot of wild texture or, you know, like interesting color combinations or anything like that. So I included this just because it's like a really good basic, it's a warm thing. Um And it looks nice on lots of different kinds of people. So, all right. So there's, that concludes everything that's in your packet. But I did wanna share just one more quick thing. Um These are called the Orchard Orchard road mitts. Orchard road mits. Yeah. So these are fingerless mitts and I just brought these to show you guys these have a really cute cable um up the back of the hand like that. Um This is a really great introduction to crocheting with cables. I have a technique um stitch pattern that I like to use to make your cable go straight up your hand because if you've ever tried crocheting cables before, you know, sometimes they kind of veer off to the side a little bit. Um but not with these, they look really good. Um But I wanted to bring these up because these are actually part of if you are a gold member or if um yeah, so if you are a gold member on the creative crochet corner website, you will have access to this pattern and there's actually lots more patterns that only the gold members are um have access to those and the videos. So there is video tutorials. I just wanted to bring that up because I don't think, I don't know if everybody knows that there is another kind of tier that you can belong to where we do offer extra downloads and extra video tutorials. And these, I just love these because they're just super useful to be able to keep your hands free. It's a fun introduction to cables. They're just really like a good classic look with that wintry cable. Um So I just wanted to add these in there even though it is not part of your pattern download. I'm just throwing it out there just in case you guys want to go over there and check it out. So, all right, let me just check in here and see if there is anything else that I missed. Um Let's see, Nettie watch the live for that pattern. I'm guessing you're talking about the Caliban or maybe you watch the known pattern. That's awesome. And Jan is saying, threading a needle for your beads, look into big eyed needle. I used to do a lot of beading and they are lifesavers. Yes, I think those are the ones with the longer eye, which I should have. Thank you for bringing that up because that would have definitely helped me today. I'm sorry, you guys had to see we struggle with that. Um And Deborah is just saying she loves these simple projects. Awesome. Thank you, Deborah. Thank you everybody so much for joining me. Um I hope that you guys have a wonderful holiday making season and have lots of fun with some fun new project ideas. Thank you. Bye everybody.