Storage for Tsukineko DewDrop Inks

My mother-in-law always comes bearing gifts.  To her, many times, I know they're just castoffs (like 28 practically brand new Tsukineko Dew Drop inks), but there's a lot of new stuff in there, too.  I got a stamp set from the most recent Sale-a-Bration through Stampin' Up! because she always orders a lot and then sometimes doesn't want any of the free stuff, so I get the free stuff.  It's so awesome!

I'm pretty sure most people know how to make these little boxes, but just in case, I'll give a brief explanation.  If you need a ton of details, look around online at how to make cardstock boxes, but chances are you can figure it out just from written directions.

Each of these boxes will hold 24 Tsukineko Dew Drop Inks.  These are not the sturdiest boxes, but I will say that the first one I made several years ago is still practically perfect even though I repeatedly dragged it with me to classes in tote bags (laying flat, of course, not on its side) over the course of about 3 years.  For the purposes of neatly storing your inks, they work perfectly.

The inks fit into the boxes as shown below... one pointed up, one pointed down, six of them across the slightly longer side, and four down the slightly shorter side.  I use regular cardstock to make these and, as always, my favorite glue is Scotch Quick-Dry Adhesive.  It dries hard and makes the finished boxes feel more sturdy.

The box size is 7.5" by 7.75", with one inch sides.

To make the bottom, cut a solid piece at 9.5" by 9.75".

To make the lid, cut one piece at 9 5/8" by 9 7/8".

Score both pieces one inch in from each edge.

When you've scored the papers, you'll notice little squares at each corner.  Cut into ONE of the sides of each square, creating little flaps.

Fold all of the scored lines in.  At this point, you should be able to visualize how this is going to turn into a box.

Glue the square flaps to the OUTSIDE of the sides of the box.  No matter how you cut them, you'll end up with four squares glued along the edges, creating the sides of your box.  Complete this process on both the bottom and the lid, gluing the flaps along the outside.

At this point, I like to make a mosaic of favorite scraps along the top of the lid.  This is for decoration as well as strength.  The first box I made a few years ago is on the right, the most recent one is on the left.  Basically, glue pieces down, and when you get an odd hole, measure it with your ruler, cut a piece that fits, and stick it in there.  Because the lid is actually 7 5/8" by 7 7/8", you will end up with some pieces needing to have an extra 1/8".  Go until your entire top is covered.

Glue one inch strips along the outside edges of both the lid and the box bottom.  I basically just cut a bunch of one inch strips and start wrapping all around, not cutting at the corners.  Gluing these strips makes the box sturdier and hides the square flaps you folded and glued to create the box shapes.

Arrange the inks inside according to color.  I go pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, neutrals.  It creates a nice little rainbow look that is really pretty!

I also take the time to stamp with each pad.  This makes sure that the inks are still good, but also, since I store the inks upside down, it helps me identify what color I'm looking at.  The tiny strip on the bottom of the ink is not enough for me to see very well.  I use a roughly 1/2" stamp (a wood mounted rubber stamp, ideally, because of how often you'll be cleaning it, but another stamp will still technically work) and a 1/2" circle punch.  Punch each stamped image and glue it towards the top point of the back of the ink so that you can see the color itself in the stamp and the name of the color just over the bar code at the bottom.

The boxes stack really nicely in my second desk drawer, towards the back.  The footprint of these boxes is somewhat large, but they stack nicely and as you can see, I have nice, deep desk drawers and I stack almost everything in layers to fit more in.

Hopefully this was helpful to anyone!  I'd love to see the box you made to hold your little inks.  They're so handy and so cute and I love having that many colors at my fingertips in a relatively small space.

How to Make Round and Oval Rosettes, plus Rosette Math Theory

Here's a (not at all) quick post about how to make rosettes.  I'll start with the basic instructions and then move on to my little trick for making oval rosettes.  I will also share with you how to make sure that the width of paper you're using won't be too wide for your finished rosette.  (Warning: that part takes... MATH!!!  I figured I'd get it out there now for those of you who tremble at the mere mention of its name.)

I'll save the usually lengthy introduction and simply say this: rosettes are awesome!  These are another one of those things I like to make on those days when I want to sit and make something, but I don't know what.  Bang out a ton of rosettes, flowers, etc., for use in future projects.  That's the way to look brilliant with less effort when it counts!  ^_~

Tutorial:

I use Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive for gluing the initial folded circle and hot glue for the finished rosette.  I find that I prefer low temperature hot glue for these because it sets faster than the high temperature hot glue.

Get a strip of cardstock or paper, usually either 11 or 12 inches long.  Make your strip half the size of your desired finished rosette.  If that's 2", for instance, cut a 1" strip.  If you want a fancy edge on your rosette, punch along the edge of your paper first and THEN cut the strip, else you'll end with a rosette smaller than the one you initially wanted.

Don't go any wider than 1 1/2" for either side, unless your edge is punched like mine, with an up and down pattern.  Then, for a 12 inch strip, you can get away with 1 3/4".  This instruction is all based upon evil maths.  I won't get into the maths part yet, but just listen to your Sensei to avoid some grief.

When you have your strip cut, go ahead and score.  I use my handy dandy Martha Stewart Scoring Board, which I love beyond all reason.  I usually score every 1/4".  You can try to score so that each line lines up with the dip in your punched edge, if you have one, but I never do.  I think I did once.  For me, that way lies madness, and the finished rosettes look just as good, in my opinion, so I abandoned that bit of OCD in favor of productivity and I haven't regretted it even one time.

Once the entire strip has been scored, begin to accordion fold your piece along all of the score lines.  This means that you will fold up at one point, then fold down at the next, then up, then down.  If you were to set the paper down, it should look like a line of wee mountains, and make your heart glad to see it.

At this point, I'll say that cardstock is harder to fold in that it's thicker and therefore more difficult to push the folds true, but it's easier to fold in that it's more stiff and will basically only fold where it's been scored.  Paper is easier to fold down, but you have to be really careful that you're folding on each actual score line instead of just past it or just before it since paper is flimsy and will fold anywhere.

When you get to the end of the folding, you'll end up with two ends that look exactly the same and don't seem to join together.  Other tutorials will tell you to cut one strip off of one end so that you can neatly fold one end to the other, and you can do that.  I just put glue on two of the folded sections and then fit the two sections of the other end on top so that I don't have to grab yet another tool at this point.  By the time I'm  here, I'm ready to be done, quite frankly, and this still works out for me.  Press firmly on the glued join and proceed at once to the next step.

As soon as you've glued the ends together, that part will be flat from your pressing.  To make it folded again and heart-gladdening, simply fold the section again.  Grab the folds nearest the join and squeeze them onto the place you glued.

Press the rosette into its final formation.  This gives the rosette a little bit of a memory and makes it easier to push down when you go to glue it.  It also convinces you that, yes, you will soon have something to please you as a result of all of this effort if you'll just keep going a little further.  Sometimes I need this kind of motivation.

(I grabbed my silicon craft mat because I'm using pretty paper as a backdrop so that I stop offending everyone with my ugly desk.  Normally, I'd be doing this part directly on my desk because it's much easier to slide the rosette down onto the glue when it's being done on a surface that will allow sliding.  If you have a silicon craft mat, you could technically do this next step without the little paper square underneath, but you'd have to wait for the glue to set completely before you could move your piece.)

Cut yourself a little scrap cardstock square.  This is an excellent way to use up those random strips of cardstock that are too thick to throw away, but too thin to really be of any use.  Some people use pretty punches for the backs of their rosettes instead, and I think that's very nice if they can make it work.  I find that I can't perfectly center the punched piece on the back and when it's a punched piece, it looks like it's supposed to be centered, so if it's not, it looks a bit dreadful.  In light of this, I use a simple, smallish cardstock square.  I can usually put a punched piece on the back later if the back will be visible in the finished project.  99% of the time, for me, you won't see the back.

Put some hot glue in the center of the square.  (Again, I prefer low temperature hot glue because it sets faster.)

Get your folded circle piece ready.  Start to push it down, then peek through the hole and make sure you're centered over the glue.  Keep pushing down, aiming carefully for the glue.

Push your rosette all the way to the bottom and hold for a few seconds.  You know it's okay when you lift your fingers and the rosette doesn't pop back up at all.  Congratulations!  You've just made a round rosette!

Now, to make an oval rosette, you basically repeat all of the steps above, but change the last part, where you push it down.  Also, make sure your strip is no bigger than, say, 1 1/4" thick.  You need a bit more wiggle room for this to work, and the finished rosette ends up bigger anyway, so it balances out.

Get to the point when you'll be pushing the rosette down.  Don't just push it down straight, though.  Stretch it slightly from side to side before you push it down and you will end up with a pleasing oval shape.  (I usually do this with two hands.  It's only one hand below because I had to hold the camera with my other hand.)

Instead of a cardstock square, cut yourself a cardstock rectangle.  Put a relatively large bit of hot glue onto the rectangle.

Push the rosette down, stretching the sides, and looking down through the middle to make sure you'll hit the glue.  You may have a tiny bit of wiggle room to adjust sides, but it's mostly just moving forward and hoping for the best.

You can see my oval rosette in the card below, which I made as part of my husband's Valentine Card Bomb.  Obviously this wouldn't do for an envelope, but they get displayed instead of given, really.  I think a card like this wouldn't need an envelope, anyway.  Just stick it in a gift bag as is and let it be part of the present.

Now, for the evil maths.  I'm going to do my best to explain this in such a way that no one gets too upset.  Once you understand this, you will always know how long to make a strip for any rosette you want to make.  If you've ever worked hard and folded up a strip only to have it be too short to form a flat circle after you've already glued everything, you will feel motivated to learn this.

Basically, you have three parts to any circle.  They are:

Radius: measurement halfway across
Diameter: measurement all the way across
Circumference: measurement all the way around

To put this in rosette theory, the width of your beginning strip is the radius because that measurement is only halfway across your finished circle.  When your rosette is finished, the diameter is the measurement all the way across the rosette.

When you start with a 1" wide strip, that's the radius.  The finished diameter of your rosette will be 2".  If you start with a 1.5" strip, your finished diameter will be 3".

That might not seem so scary, but we haven't gotten to pi yet.  Yes, I said pi.  Hold your hats, I promise this won't be too bad.  Pi is basically equal to 3.14, and that's as far as we need to go for our rosettes. 3.14 is just a number, and it's not scary at all.  It's a very special number, and I'll explain why.  When we get finished here, I think you will LOVE pi.

Pi is an expression of the ratio between the circumference of the circle and its diameter.  The circumference of any circle (including your rosette) is always about 3.14 times the diameter.

The circumference of the circle is the outside line, all the way around.  Basically, why this matters to you is the fact that the circumference of the circle will never be longer than the length of your strip.  You can imagine that when you cut your strip, one side of the strip (usually the punched end, if you decorate it), will end up circling the outside, and that side will become the circumference.  If the strip is longer than the desired circumference, you'll be fine.  If it's shorter, you'll end up not being able to push the folded circle down to form the rosette.

How do you know your desired circumference?  You multiply your diameter by 3.14, or, pi.  If you're making your 2" rosette, for instance, it breaks down like this:

Initial strip width: 1"
Final diameter: 2"
Circumference: 2 x 3.14 = 6.28"

Your strip needs to be at least 6.28" long.  You'd be totally fine to make a 2" rosette from a 12" strip.  This is where the math magic comes in.

For a 3" rosette, it breaks down like this:

Initial strip width: 1.5"
Final diameter: 3"
Circumference: 3 x 3.14 = 9.42"

Your strip needs to be at least 9.42" long.

For a 4" rosette, it breaks down like this:

Initial strip width: 2"
Final diameter: 4"
Circumference: 4 x 3.14 = 12.56"

You need a strip that's at least 12.56" long, which is why a 12" strip won't work for a 4" rosette.  You'd need to basically accordion fold an extra two-three inch piece and glue it to your folded up 12" strip in order to make it work.

For a 6" rosette, this is what you'd do:

Initial strip width: 3"
Final diameter: 6"
Circumference: 6 x 3.14 = 18.84"

For these, I will cut two 12" long 3" strips and score them every 1/2" instead of every 1/4".   Glue the strips together and then glue the ends together to make your final rosette.

Anyway, I know that was a very long winded and technical explanation for how to make rosettes, but understanding this has sure helped me in making sure I'm always cutting the right lengths for the rosette I want to make.  You also don't absolutely have to use a calculator each time.  Just multiple your diameter by three, and round up at least two inches, and you should be fine.  Now go make some awesome rosettes!  ^_~

Card Bomb How To

I'm making a million cards for Valentine's Day, and I know this makes me look crazy, but really, it's not that difficult.

I don't think I clarified before that the cards I'm making for my boys are little 2"x3" valentines, almost like the ones they will be getting at school from friends.  Their Valentines are easy to throw together rather quickly, and it's easy to batch create them when you do them assembly line style.  I make each one unique, but I get my stuff ready before I start.

My husband's cards are all handmade individually, and they're bigger, and they're for him, so they take up much more time.  I had already made him five cards, I believe, throughout this past year, knowing I needed to get ready for this, so that means I have 9 hand crafted cards to make over the next 13 days.  All in all, not impossible, but those are made the old fashioned way, so I don't have any real advice for getting those done except to just do it.  Whenever there's a spare moment, make something.  That's how I roll around Valentine's Day.  Come to think of it, there always seems to be some occasion, so it seems like that's how I roll for most of the year.  I keep busy!

Valentine Card Bomb How-To

If you were interested in making handmade Valentines for your child (probably a girl, unless your boy is in Kindergarten or you have a lot of really manly supplies... I had to throw that in there, because I have never made handmade Valentines for my boys to take to school even though I constantly dreamed of it, which may be how this whole Card Bomb thing started) to take to school, these tips and tricks would work out well for you!  I'm making 28 cards this way.

First of all, and most importantly, decide on your basic color palette and stick with it.  For my cards this year, I'm doing red, black, and creams and browns (vintage), with occasional splashes of pink.  Deciding this ahead of time helps you to make the best use of your time by eliminating most of your choices in decoration.  Less agonizing over choices means getting more work done.

Next, pick out colors that match your theme and cut out and score all of the card bases.  The base size of the card pieces themselves is 3"x4".  You can get twelve 3"x4" pieces from each piece of cardstock.  Score each piece 2" in along the 4" side.  I leave them unfolded until assembly so that they all stack neatly.

Side note: This is a great way to use up those weird, random pieces in a 12"x12" stack that you don't really like, but don't really hate, but that you know in your heart you will probably never use.  It's funny how even the weirdest patten ends up looking SO cute folded up as a little 2"x3" card.

Prepare appropriate stamps and punches for sentiments, decorations, etc.  I'm making at least two each of 14 different sentiments for 14 different cards.  If you were batching these for a classroom, you would probably just need one sentiment for all of them.  Because each day my boys need to get a unique card, my process is more involved in this step.  I use a lot of Stampin' Up! stamps and punches because they coordinate.

Grab a piece of white or light colored cardstock and start stamping images along one side, making sure to leave room for the punch to go around each one.  I use only one color of ink (usually black or dark brown) to save myself time.  I have a baby wipe on hand to wipe each stamp clean as I finish, and I put everything away as I work.

When you get all the way to the edge of your page, punch out each image, and then slice off that portion of the paper with your slide cutter.

You end up with a really cute pile of punched sentiments and a fresh edge to start working again.  Go ahead and just keep repeating this process across the page.  Try to, for the most part, use punches that are about the same height, that way you don't use up too much valuable page space.  But, above all, don't agonize too much over this part. 

If you're not sure whether or not a certain image will fit inside a certain punch, just make yourself a template from scrap paper (or cut apart a piece from one of the strips you've been making) and simply lay it like a window over the stamp to see if it will work.

This also works very well for helping you eyeball placement of stamps along the edge of the cardstock.

After about 45 minutes to an hour of work, I ended up with a nice pile of sentiments that looked something like this:

Now, you could totally just go from here and start work on your cards, but I happen to have border stamps that fit each one of these punches, so I sort of had to do an extra step.  To me, I think truly beautiful objects are all about the details of their creation.  This is for my precious boys, after all, so I have to add these steps even though they probably will never know or care.  It's just essential to me, whether or not they recognize the work in the final product, that my love can't be expressed with anything less than my best.  It reminds me of God, actually, and the way He loves us every day.

Now that I got myself all teary eyed over the boogens in the middle of my own tutorial (hopeless sap, I know, but I can't help myself), I will show how I do border stamps on punches.  If I'm doing multiple punched images (sentiment AND border), I always do it this way.  If I'm doing only a border, then I stamp the border and punch it out.

This way seems to get more consistently good enough results, if that makes sense.  I have yet to find a method that is perfect every time.  Some stamping genius probably knows some way to line everything up perfectly (and, actually, I know how to do it, too, but it's too time consuming to contemplate), but usually when I'm making stuff, I have to get something done, so I do as few steps as possible.  This works out very well for me, especially when using a light colored ink.  It all ends up getting rather well hidden when you ink the edges of the punched pieces.

Lay your stamp down, face up, on your work surface.  Ink it with a light colored ink.  I used Distress Ink in Antique Linen, and I also used Victorian Velvet, which is not very light at all, but I almost never completely follow instructions.  Even my own.  Basically, you can use a darker ink if it's not going to interfere too much with your sentiment.

(Also, at this point, if you're going to be assembling cards right away, you might want to plug in your hot glue gun if you use it.)

Okay, stamp inked and ready.  Take your punched piece and lay it on top, lining it up as best as possible.  Basically, you're going to reverse stamp now.  Take a clear block or the back of another wood mount stamp and press it onto your punched piece to get an even press of ink across the surface of the paper.

For truly tiny stamps, you can just press on the back of the paper with your fingers.

When you're all finished, you should have a nice little pile of double stamped sentiments that look something like this.

Not all of them are absolutely perfectly centered, but it's not the end of the world.  I put the details, and I always aim for perfection, but I don't let it get in the way of getting things done.  Anyway, I think it just adds a lovely extra layer of craftsmanship to have the borders on there.  If you don't have border stamps, you can stamp a background stamp with a light ink (for REAL, a light ink this time, even I wouldn't not do it in this situation) over your sentiment to create that extra layer of craftsmanship.  It will still look really nice!

To assemble, get your hot glue gun (or some other quick drying adhesive) ready to go.  I am discovering that I love tissue tapes because they save so much time!  Pieces of cardstock would work just as well.

Pick your punched sentiment, plan where it should go, fold up the card base, and get to work.  Basically, lay some kind of grounding strip (tissue tape, cardstock, ribbon, or combinations of those) centered where your punch will go.  I am finding myself obsessed with banners right now and decoration everything I see with little strips of ribbon hanging down, like you can see in the "you're a gem" card in the back.

I like hot glue for this because it's fast.  I do a line of adhesive on the card itself and then press the ribbon on top.  For my ribbon dangles, I run a line of hot glue over the back of the punched piece, then put my little ribbons in place.

I purposefully use the same exact embellishments on the cards as I make.  Obviously, this saves time, but since I usually make these in separate groups, it creates a natural mix in the finished pile of cards.

I made these five cards in about 20 minutes.

Inside of each card, I put the number and write something sweet.

You also need a way to keep track of which sentiments you used.  I just grab an index card, label it with each child, and create a checklist.  As I use a sentiment for one child, I put it on each child's list, but only check it for the child that received that card.  This way I don't have to hunt later to find the different sentiments and figure out which child got what so far.  This is my 2013 improvement.  I have high hopes for it!

Because these cards are so small, they and all their papers and sentiments fit very nicely into a sandwich size bag.  I throw everything in there after I'm finished working and toss it into my desk drawer.

It's a lot of work, but I find it so necessary.  I'm creating a crazy memory for them more than I'm making cards.  I love the idea of them sharing this memory with people.  Even when they're teenagers and they'll probably think it's so lame, I'll keep going.  I'm not too far away from my "everything-is-so-lame" teenager years that I don't remember that I also did actually appreciate stuff, but was too "meh" to admit it.

Here is the display of the Card Bomb, day one.  It ends up looking much more impressive later.

And here is a closeup of Adam's card, but you can't see inside that one.

I'm off to add more cards to the table, turn Netflix on my laptop, and make some more!

Top down hat method: no pattern, no gauge swatch, no stitch markers!

I get comments all the time about how clever I am, but really I feel like what I actually am is lazy to the point that I always end up creating about fifty times more work for myself trying to avoid certain steps I find reprehensible in certain creative processes.  Occasionally, the results of my spectacular need to avoid work end up looking like brilliance, but I always kind of shrug off any suggestions to that end... I'm too familiar with myself and my own motivations to accept such praise.

I love knitting.  I really just love making things.  That's the other key to practically everything I do--I LOVE making things.  As in, I love making things.  To clarify further: I adore making finished objects.  As in, FINISHING things.  So, I suppose that actually I can say that I really just love finishing things.  Simple is good for me.  Getting it done is usually my goal.  There are very few things in this life that I make just for the pure joy of the making.  This might make me sound much less romantic about my "art", but really I feel that I make very little art.  I don't find some huge satisfaction in being called an artist.  I make things.  Finished things.  With two boys and a very full life of volunteering, business, etc., I don't feel like I have time for anything but actually accomplishing something when I finally get to sit and make things.  This could be why I feel so obsessed with making tutorials on my blog.  It's hard for me to feel motivated to share just about myself... that doesn't feel like an accomplishment.  But teaching something?  There, now, THAT'S suspiciously like making something (a tutorial), so I can do it.

Hence, my top down hat "method", which has been called brilliant, yet feels anything but for reasons mentioned above.  I'm going to attempt to teach here how I do it without a pattern and without stitch markers.  I apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures, but what I had with me when last I was working with massive yarn was my cell phone in very poor lighting.  I attempted to edit them to be clearer in Instagram.

This method was basically taken from Barbara Walker's "Knitting from the Top", which is actually brilliant, but pretty hard to get through at times.  You have to really read it and re-read it to get some of what she's saying, and most of her methods involve a ton of math.  I think it's worth it to learn her methods because once you do, you know how to make something, instead of just reading a pattern.  You develop an understanding of the process rather than blindly following someone else's directions.  I'm going to put the key words in bold so that you can find them if you're just skimming for tips and don't feel like reading all of what I'm saying here.

I said before that I work very hard to avoid certain steps.  Two things I hate more than almost anything on earth (in the confines of knitting) are gauge swatches and the use of stitch markers.  I don't think I have to explain the gauge swatch to anyone.  The stitch marker thing might sound strange, being that I kind of make the best stitch markers on earth (according to my friends at my LYS, who faithfully and constantly buy them from said LYS), but it's really more for situations such as making a top down hat... when you have to use more stitch markers than stitches at first.  I don't mind one or two in a shawl, across a few hundred stitches, but having eight stitch markers for eight increases over only 60 stitches or so?  Drives me crazy!

So, this method is about getting rid of gauge swatches and stitch markers... let's get down to it!

Basically, you start with as many stitches as you'll increase.  I do 8 stitches every other row for a standard hat with a nice, gently rounded top.  This works out brilliantly for me because I knit on five double point needles, so everything divides nicely into four for me.  I do 4 stitches every other row if I want to make a totally cute elf style hat.

Use needles that usually make a good fabric with the yarn you're using.  If you have no clue, usually the ball will tell you somewhere what size needles, from smallest to largest, that the manufacturer feels work best with their yarns.  If you tend to knit very tightly, use the largest listed needles.  If you tend to knit very loosely, use the smaller needles.  If you have no clue how you knit, just pull out all the sizes the label says, close your eyes, and pick a set at random.  Fortune favors the bold and all of that... Carry on!

With some irony attached, here's the basic pattern for the patternless top down hat:  (Many VEHEMENT thanks go out to MissJones on Ravelry who caught my mistake below and fixed my instructions for me!  Thank you so much!)

Cast on 8 stitches.  Join for knitting in the round.
Row 1: knit plain
Row 2: knit each stitch front and back until the end of the round.  (16 stitches)
Row 3: knit plain
Row 4: knit 1, knit one front and back.  Repeat until the end of the round.  (24 stitches)
Row 5: knit plain
Row 6: knit 2, knit one front and back.  Repeat until the end of the round.  (32 stitches)
Row 7: knit plain
Row 8: knit 3, knit one front and back.  Repeat until the end of the round.  (40 stitches)

I hope you've detected the pattern by now.  Every other increase row, you will knit one more stitch than the row previously before you increase.  Once you've knit far enough, you should be able to spread the emerging hat flat enough that you can measure how many stitches you're getting to the inch.  Do this on 3-4 places on the hat to make sure you're getting a constant measurement.

In my experience, knitting requires both math and figuring.  Stay with me and I'll explain myself, and hopefully I'll do it well.  There's the cold hard calculations and numbers... That's the math.  Your gauge measurement is where the math comes in.  Say I'm knitting a hat on size 10.5 (6.5mm) needles with bulky yarn and I'm getting a gauge of 3.5 stitches to the inch.  If I need the hat to fit a 21" head, I would multiply my gauge by my desired finished size.  In this case: 3.5 x 21, which equals 73.5.  That's the math.

I don't know about you, but I don't really know how to knit 73.5 stitches, so I'm going to have to figure this out to make it easier on myself.  This is the figuring.  Usually, with knit hats, you can get away with the thing being about an inch too small.  In fact, I would say that you actually WANT to knit slightly smaller than your desired finished measurement so that the knitting gets to stretch a bit and hug the recipient's head, rather than just sitting perfectly on top and then falling off every time they pull a hood up and down or cartwheel or whatever else they may do.  So an inch less than 21" is 20", and 3.5 x 20 = 70.  So we have two math results of 73.5 and 70.

To make things easiest on myself, I want a final stitch number that is divisible by my number of increases, that way I can end up with even sections, which makes me happy.  So I'm looking for a final number that is divisible by 8 (because I keep increasing 8 stitches).  A number between 73.5 and 70 divisible by 8?  We've already got it... It's 72.  If you are knitting on a circular or on two circulars or whatever, then this is the end of your figuring.

Now, I'm knitting on five double point needles, so one needle is the working needle, and four of them are constantly holding my stitches.  I like for the number on each needle to be even.  So I want to have a final number that is divisible by four, because four needles are holding my stitches.  Obviously, if the final number is divisible by 8, then it's divisible by 4.  But these are the things you have to think about when you do your own figuring if, say, you were increasing 7 stitches instead of eight.  I don't know why you would want to do that, but you could have some amazing reason that makes total sense to you, and it's helpful to know that being able to divide it evenly across your needles, however many you use, is helpful if that's something that you care about.

So now that I've done both my math and my figuring, I know that I will increase until I have a total of 72 stitches, or a total of 8 groups of 9 stitches.  Or, on my set of five double points, I would end up with 18 stitches per needle.

So how do you do all of these increases, especially if you're knitting with a smaller yarn, if you're not using stitch markers?  And how do you know when to do an increase row vs. a plain row if you're not using a row counter?  In fact, how can you knit a whole hat without a pattern and without even keeping track of anything at all!?  It's by learning how to READ your knitting.  It looks brilliant, I suppose, but really it was because I was sick of having to go to the effort of, like, making a hash mark on a piece of paper or something.  (Oh, the horror!)  Or, you know, putting a marker somewhere in the knitting.  (The stuff of nightmares!)  So I sat and figured out how to do it without all of that other stuff.  Fellow lazy crafters, rejoice!

Enter the photos...  I will do my best to explain, and again, I hope I do it well.

When you knit front and back (my preferred method of increasing for these things), you end up with a kind of a lump marking where you did an increase, like so:

When this lump is sitting RIGHT next to the needle or cord as in the photo above, you know you've just completed an increase row.  If you've just completed your increase row, it's time to knit a plain row.

Here is what your knitting looks like after you knit a plain row.  See a stitch has formed above the last lump?

So with that plain stitch above the increase lump, you know it's time to do an increase row.  How do you know where to increase without a marker?

Enter my gorgeous husband, who is pointing out with a third needle where the increase goes.  You knit front and back in the stitch on the needle that's over the last lump.  See, in the photo below, I've knit up to that point...

And NOW, I've knit into the front and back of that one stitch, making a new lump.  See how it stepped to the left of the first lump?

So the next time you come around, you'll see the lump sitting next to the needle and knit a plain row.  Then when you come around again, you'll see a stitch sitting on top of the lump and you'll knit into the front and back of the stitch on the needle over the lump, creating a NEW lump that sits farther left.  So you'll always increase one stitch in exactly the right place.

Now you basically just repeat this process until you get enough stitches to measure.  Then you do your math and your figuring and knit until you have as many stitches as you need, then you knit however you want until the end.  I stop about an inch and a half short and do some ribbing.  Rib the whole hat if you want to.  Again, it just depends on what you want at this point.

If you do this process on five double points like I do, you don't have to do as much "reading" of the knitting as someone knitting on a single circular or on two or whatever, because you'll always have one increase in the middle of one needle, and then at the end of the needle, so you'll increase in the middle, then knit and increase in the end without having to "read" at all.  You also don't even have to mark the beginning of your round because a quick glance at the lump on the needle tells you whether or not you're about to increase or knit plain.  If you are knitting on a 16" circular, however, even I would mark the beginning of my round.  Again, I'm not totally against all markers.  I just hate having a million of them.  I wouldn't mark the beginning of the round for two circulars or for magic loop because the beginning of a round is always one side, either way, and a quick glance at the lumps tells me what I'm doing for that entire half of the hat.

For the bind off, I thought I was doing Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off, but I found out I was doing it wrong.  Here's what I do (and it works very well):

I bind of all knit stitches in a typical bind off.  Knit two.  Slip the right stitch over the left stitch on the right needle.  For the purls: yarn over, purl the next stitch, pass both right stitches (previously bound off stitch AND yarn over) over left stitch.  Repeat for every purl.

If you did knit one, purl one, you'd basically knit one stitch, yarn over, then purl one stitch, and pass the two right stitches (yarn over plus bound stitch) over the left one.  Then you'd knit the next stitch and pass the right stitch over the left stitch, just like a plain bind off.  Then yarn over, etc.

When I was binding off the purl way on every single stitch, the edge would be almost comically stretchy, so I've started doing it only on the actual purls.  But actually, I bind off ALL of my shawls this way, with that yarn over purl thing, whatever the pattern edge is.  I know at least one lady at my LYS who does all of her shawls this way now, too.  It's seriously crazy stretchy.  You can block the heck out of it.

So how long do you make the hat?  I'm somewhat unscientific about stuff (I don't know if you can tell), but what seems to work for me is to lay the piece flat and look at what I've knit.  Not counting the dome part (or point part... if you're making an "elf" hat) of the top of the hat, I try to make the bottom part look like a slightly squat little square.  So knit the bottom part of the hat (beyond the increases) a bit shorter than the width.  This seems to work out perfectly for me.  Knit it longer if you want or shorter or whatever.  This is the part where your own figuring has to come in, and the preferences of the person you're knitting for, or the climate.  If you need that extra few inches to fold up over your ears because you live somewhere that actually gets cold, then knit extra.  If you want one comfortable layer because your "winter" makes most people laugh their heads right off, then do what I do.  OR, if you really want to be scientific about it, look up some free hat pattern on Ravelry using your weight of yarn and see how long they made their hat, and do it the same.

I hope this was in any way helpful to anyone.  I know it wasn't a real pattern, but it wasn't supposed to be.  I was trying to let you figure out how to make your own stuff.  Hopefully I did that!  I'd love to see any pictures of anything you make using this tutorial.

Paper Craft Christmas Gift Toppers

I'm doing fancy gift toppers this year!

Basically, I've spent weeks now throwing together extra rosettes and little roses in neutrals and Christmas colors.  Any time I had a few minutes to sit and make stuff, I've been making things for gift toppers.  I've cut white extras, green extras, brown, red, etc... Little things to put here and there.

I've gotten the Cricut involved.  I've hunted my stash for anything bright and beautiful.  I pushed past all of the voices in my head that told me I was crazy for planning something like this.

I stamped and punched a bazillion tags.  I got Christmas cardstock for boxes.  I got cute ribbons, but mostly I'm using 50 cent a spool ribbon from JoAnn.

With all the prep, I feel like a Christmas genius!  I know it's crunch time now, but if every now and then you need a break and want to just make something pretty, you can still get some of these beauties together.

The beauty of this, too, is that by sticking to a palette of neutrals and Christmas colors for the decorations, you'll be able to use the decorations you make all year long.  Neutrals and red or neutrals and green... Gorgeous!  And totally not only for Christmas!

If you don't already know how to do rosettes, there are a million tutorials out there you can find.  For roses, THIS was my original inspiration: http://www.bystephanielynn.com/2010/11/diy-faux-curled-rosewood-wreath-made.html.  Stunning!

I personally make my roses with paper, not cardstock, and start with 3" squares which I assemble into roses two layers at a time.  (Cut spirals into two squares at once, then roll up.)  This gets me 8 roses out of one sheet of 12x12 paper.

Here's my process for assembly:
1. Measure gift. (Every single one of these is holding knitted treasures, so I'm measuring the folded item.)
2. Make appropriate box.  (The Martha Stewart scoring board has the measurements listed out so that you don't have to think about it.)
3. Arrange various pieces on top of the box until you have a pleasing arrangement.
4. Assemble the gift topper with hot glue, separate from the box.  I use extra scraps of cardstock on the bottom, if necessary, to hold things together.  But mostly I'm just gluing on top of rosettes, which are already pretty sturdy.
5. Wrap gift in tissue paper, situate inside of box.
6. Tie ribbon in a simple bow around the box, leaving long loops.  Trim tails even with loops.
7. Attach gift topper to box with Zots or glue dots or tape or whatever you want to use... I try to do it so that the box and topper can be reused, if desired.
8. Attach the name in such a way that it can be cut off or removed without destroying the entire topper.

Each gift is taking less time to put together and decorate than hunting down perfect boxes and wrapping.  These things look amazing, and I'm saying that in all humility because, seriously, with stuff this cute, how could it not?


And with all of the reactions I've gotten so far, I'm thinking that next year as Christmas presents, I'm going to be putting together gift kits for people so that they can decorate their own gifts like this if they want to.  ^_^  I LOVE everything to do with presents!!!

(One of my primary love languages is giving and receiving gifts... Can you tell?  ^_~)