Wreath Ornaments

Lately I have had ornament making on the brain, since I like to include ornaments on the tops of little gifts or in cards. One of the latest Stormtroopers 365 even had the troopers making ornaments. (If you haven't seen this project yet, it is super cute.)

This year I have been focusing on origami wreaths, altought I had hoped to do some felt mittens like those seen on Handmade Homeschool. Maybe next year.

The little wreaths are easy, especially if you have access to a paper guillotine, and are a great way to use up some of my 8"X8" scrap booking paper. One page makes exactly one wreath. Or two pages makes two wreaths if you alternate paper types.

These were a great project to do with Chiquita as well. Although she is often frustrated with origami, this was a project she really took to. The 3 wreaths seen here were made by me, but she spent hours making these in all different types of paper as gifts for friends, family and teachers. Each one is fairly simple but has beautiful results.

Comm Pad

I need to play with my acrylic paint stash more. My housemate asked if I had any paint to do her comm pad for her Imperial Crew uniform. Obviously she had not taken a serious look at the size of the craft stash.


Plus she let me play with actually painting. I had a hard time finding a yellow I was happy with, but fortunately it is just paint. So I was able to just custom mix a color that was slightly better.

I.C. hat

Remember the Imperial Cog motif I was working on? I am still working on revisions, but in an effort to be using up stash I finished the first attempt as a baby hat. Seriously, there are few things cuter than babies wearing geek-cred.

Yarn: Filatura Di Crosa Dolce Amore & Reynolds Saucy Sport
Hook: C/2.75 mm

No pattern (yet), but I will be working on the second attempt with the cog shortly.

I always thought that it is interesting that you see a lot more free-form crochet out there than free-form knitting. Having done both now though, I guess it makes sense. You just have a lot more flexibility in adapting as you go without looking too strange. You can, of course, also do free-form knitting, but it needs a little more thinking ahead.

Imperial Cog Take 1

So I have found a disturbing vaccuum in the (english-speaking at least) internets. I was looking for something inspiring to make this month, and a girlfriend suggested Imperial cog potholders. Now, she is absolutely biased, being involved with the 501st, but while I was looking around for ways to possibly make that happen, I was really disappointed by the knitting charts I have seen out there.

The outer circle and inner cog look ok, but the middle level was not entirely pleasing to me. And I though that a center-out crochet pattern might be a really good technique for the layout of this design. If you are not familiar with what the Imperial cog can be seen here. So here is the first free-form attempt:


I am not entirely pleased with it, though it does come across better than the flash in the above photo would have you believe. I need to play with the spacing of the increases in order to better center the lines, though the proportions are not completely awful. Hmm, back to the design board.