Knitted Animation

Here's a short animated film you have to check out!

Knitted Animation

And the winner is.................

I hope people are taking the time to read through the entries for the halloween contest, some of them are really awesome ideas. Of course halloween is over for this year but youcould use them next year.

The winner is Cindy and her entry read:

My favorite Halloween costume that I made for my daughter was her spider costume... I used and old black sweatshirt. I attached 3 legs to each side (stuffed and wired with shaped coathanger). I attached each leg to each other so when she raised her arm all 4 of her legs raised together on each side... She wore that costume for all her parties and trick or treating and in 2 parades the following year!!!!! I guess she liked it!!!LOL...

Cindy left me no way to get in touch with her, so Cindy, please contact me at debsstuff55 (at) yahoo (dot) com

Halloween Contest

In all the years of raising kids I think I only bought actual Halloween costumes once or twice. I considered them a great waste of money. I sewed costumes once or twice, but usually I made them up from stuff I had around the house. The one I remember most clearly was when my guys (now both 6' tall and in college) were preschoolers and I hadn't come up with anything by Halloween. I grabbed two of my shirts, one red, one orange, put them on the boys, and stuffed them with pillows. Then I used green construction paper and cut out leaf shapes. They went trick or treating as a pumpkin and a tomato! They were pretty young or I probably would have heard lots of complaints with that one.

So for the contest, I want to hear about costumes you've made from stuff around the house. Just leave a comment (with a way to contact you, blog, Ravelry ID or whatever) about your Halloween costume past or present. To earn another entry, link to this post from your blog or site.

The prize will be a knitting bag (like one of my green bags) and three skeins of Red Heart Super Saver yarn. There's two skeins of Holly and Ivy varigated and one Ranch Red which matches the Holly and Ivy. If you don't knit or crochet, I can do fabric instead, I'm flexible!

Contest ends (when else?) October 31st

I Know This is Way Overdue

Here are some of the ideas on what to do with the tops of the T-shirts.

Jennifer says:
How about using the neck ribbing for baby bibs or adult bibs made with towels that slip over the head.

Knitting Rose's idea is:
You can sew up the neck, arm holes & bottom - fill with rice and use as microwavable heating pads. We do this with our old t-shirts (I use the bottoms of them for rags). They fit across the back of your neck and shoulders and hold the heat well.

Turtle said:
stuff them and making pillows or quilts

Marilynart's idea is:
I have slipped this sort of thing over a coat hanger to secure dresses with spaghetti straps.

Gift Bows from Magazines

This is an awesome way to use those colored pages from your magazines. Make your own gift bows to decorate your packages.

Gift Bows Tutorial
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OK, I'm Stuck for Ideas

I've used a bunch of T-shirts for cat beds and T-shirt yarn and, since I cut the T-shirts right under the armholes for both of these, I have a bunch of tops left over. Does anyone have any great ideas to make something out of these??? I'd be happy to give anyone who comes up with a useable idea one of my green bags! Just leave a comment with your idea and email me at debsstuff55 (at) yahoo (dot) com with your address.
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I'm getting good ideas but no one seems to want my green bags. Please send your name and address if you've left a comment.

Scraps and a T-shirt Make a Cat Bed

One of my readers sent in an idea for making pet beds from pillowcases and fabric and yarn scraps. Since I didn't have any old pillowcases sitting around but did have some old T-shirts, I decided to use that instead. It also works well since you can use a hanger and hang it up in a convenient place. The first step is to sew the bottom of the shirt closed. Hang it up and start collecting scraps of fabric and yarn. When it is about halfway up to the underarms, cut right below the sleeves, turn the edges under and sew closed. That's it, you now have a bed pillow for your cat or small dog.

Here's my baby Sammi enjoying her new bed. I made one for each of my cats and will be making more for my daughter's cats and my sons' cats. After that I'll start making them to give to animal shelters.
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Someone asked me how they washed since shelters wash the bedding frequently so I threw them in the wash and they went through just fine. came out all fluffy.