Windy's Spring scarf

We've made the first of our series of children's scarf patterns. This one is a light, cotton scarf (unisex), inspired by Windy's red scarf. It is very simple and quick to knit and a great first project for anyone wanting to try knitting for the first time. It's also a nice project to knit over the summer and wear in September. Our pattern also has a cozier muffler-length version for winter.

Here it is: Windy's Spring Scarf. If you are a member of ravelry, you can find it there, too. This is a free pattern.

Tiny Quilts

Sometimes you want to do a craft project, or learn a new skill, but it's daunting to start. Making mini versions is a nice way to get in the game. Also, miniature versions of almost anything are so pleasing. We made Snowy and Chinook's bedding out of some fabric scraps and some felted wool (the mattress is a stack of 2 books and their sheets are paper) — we'll see if we can find a better detail to post.

The purlbee is one of our favourite resources for craft ideas and inspiration. They are currently working on a series of mini quilts. Below is a detail of their February quilt. We think this is a fantastic idea, and it has inspired our post today.



The nice thing about quilting is that the quality of the hand sewing leaves a sort of fingerprint behind. All the imperfections in the sewing make it more special. Allowing the shapes to be wonky, as in crazy quilting, makes it more interesting, rather than less perfect (image is from texasquiltappraiser).

Patterns

We've been developing some new, simple craft projects for the spring. Here's a little preview...Spud & Chloe Sweater yarn in "Lake"; Blue Sky Cotton in "Tomato" and Manos Serena in "Boysenberry".

While we're on the subject, Spud & Chloe have some very cute free patterns on their web site. If you would like to knit a hat, or a pear, for example!

The Lonely Doll scarf

A  very simple project for beginners: a unisex scarf, sized for adults. This post has moved here.

Puppet Theatre

Here is a beautiful rainy day project for the kids.

Bloesem Kids and June crafts have put together templates for a puppet theatre to colour in and download. Find the links here. We made ours using a shoe box, which made it very stable and easy to use.

This is very inspiring!

You could take pictures and use them to make a book....

Easter Bunny origami

Do you remember the meadow bunnies in Windy? Here they are flying their kites.

You can make your own bunny with origami. You just need a square piece of paper, a pair of scissors and a pencil or crayon. You can check that your paper is perfectly square by folding it in half, the same as the first steps in our directions below (1 and 2) below. If there is no overlap, then your paper is square. Here are directions for folding up your bunny:


So it will look like this as you fold:


You can use some scraps of coloured paper to make the insides of the ears pink (or you might colour it in).


If you like, your bunny can have a kite, too (tutorial here). We used small sticks, glue and paper to make our bunny kites, but you could simply use plain folded paper. We used florist wire for the string, which is cloth-covered wire (so it holds the kite in the air). It is tricky for bunnies to hold their kites. Usually they use their mouths, front feet or tails. Use your imagination to make the perfect kite for an Easter bunny. We would love to see pictures of your bunnies. Mail your pictures to windyandfriends{at}gmail {dot}com.

Hello Baby

this post has moved here.