Tuesday, May 13, 2014

MineCraft Creeper Hat Free Pattern

If your kids are as into Minecraft as mine, they will love this hat! And the best news is that at the end of the week, I will be sharing another Minecraft pattern (for the Steve character)! When I opened my Toluver's Creations Shop, my very first order was for a minecraft hat. The funny thing was, at the time, I didn't feel confidenet in pattern writing so I just made up a pattern without writing anything down. Now that I actually want the pattern, I'm looking at the pictures I took and trying to remember what I did! I've learned my lesson and now I ALWAYS jot down the steps as I make up something new.

MINECRAFT CREEPER HAT 


Thursday, May 8, 2014

Printable versions!

I am not the most computer literate person in the world but I try my best to learn what I can. Blogging is a fairly new realm for me and there's a lot I do NOT know how to do just yet. I desperately wanted to offer a way to print my blog posts easily so that you can take the patterns with you on the go and work on your projects anywhere.

It seemed so complicated. I thought I would have to make my own PDFs of the posts, find a site to host them, create links to them and share the links on the page.

And then one of my friends who is so much smarter than I am found me a website. I clicked through and signed into my blogger account and it said "do you want to add a print function to your posts?" I said yes and that was that.

you will now find a print button on each of my posts. Once you click on it, it will pull up a printable version that you can either print or email to yourself. You also have the option to open it as a PDF and save it to your computer.

Happy crafting!

Lalala... A rag doll hat inspired by Lalaloopsy

My daughter has been pretty into watching Lalaloopsy cartoons on Netflix recently. To be honest, so has my son! Haha! One day recently I watched a little bit with them and decided that I absolutely needed to make a hat inspired by Lalaloopsy. The characters are just begging to be recreated in yarn, don't ya think???



Tuesday, May 6, 2014

A Very Blue Platypus

Funny story. We home school and last week my daughter started a unit study on the platypus. She's enjoying it but my son was not so impressed. “What??? I thought platypuses were BLUE!” He's devastated. Completely devastated. Perhaps we've watched a little too much Disney Channel in our home? 

 


And so I bring you the latest pattern in the Toluver's Creation collection. A blue platypus, inspired by none other than Perry. It's too bad this hat is too warm to wear in the Florida heat in September because it would be awesome to wear at Epcot during Agent P's World Showcase Adventure. Maybe I'll bring it just for a photo op or two. My daughter and I are dressing like Phineas and Ferb, so we could do an awesome photo!

Monday, May 5, 2014

The Braelyn Newborn Hat

I love my customers! Sometimes I just can't think of a new pattern but then a customer comes to me and says "Can you make something like...?" and the inspiration begins and a new pattern is born. This pattern is for a baby who isn't even born yet, but I sure can't wait to see her wearing it. 





Excuse the lousy picture. I can't believe I did this, but I shipped it off to its new owner without taking pictures of it! So silly. I had only snapped this quick shot on my phone to send to my customer. 


Thursday, April 17, 2014

Pooh Bear Hat!


I love AA Milne. I love the original Pooh stories and I love all the poetry, too. When my oldest was a baby, I decorated her nursery in Classic Pooh. Love, love, love.


So when a customer requested that I make a Pooh hat, I was obviously excited!

I knew I wanted to use bulky yarn, similar in style to the Polar Bear hats I'd made in the past. And then I decided that the pattern I used for those hats would be a great jumping off point for my Pooh hat.


Thursday, April 10, 2014

Granny Square Button Bracelet

Ah, the granny square. I'm guessing that 's how a lot of us first learned how to crochet. I used to make countless squares. But never enough to actually make a blanket. And in the days before the wonders of the Internet, I had no idea how many cool things you could do with a granny square!


Monday, April 7, 2014

Little Pig, Little Pig, Let Me IN!

One of the most fun thing about character and animal hats is that they do more than keep your head warm. They are actually fantastic additions to a dress up collection. My kids are addicted to dress up games and we have an awesome collection. When other kids come over, pretty much all they ever want to do is play dress up. I do a lot of clearance shopping after Halloween to boost our collection but now I'm going to be adding some hats! And the first one I'm adding to the collection is a piggy hat that's perfect for playing Three Little Pigs! This hat is super easy to make!


Friday, March 28, 2014

Stretchy Headband and a Hello Kitty Inspired Applique

This blog post is awesome because it's really two patterns in one. Bonus awesomeness!

I'm including both the pattern for the stretchy headband AND the Hello Kitty attached to it. The headband is very versatile and can be used for so many crocheted appliques. It's also perfect for clipping ribbon bows to for baby girls.


So let's get started!

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Nautical Fun with an Anchor Hat


Over the past weekend, we did some spring cleaning, which led to some redecorating. I had a lot of beachy decorations scattered all over the house in random spots and I really wanted to pull it all together. Plus, I needed to do something with my fireplace mantle. I had pulled it apart at Christmas and never did anything after. So we did some scrubbing and dusting and ripping apart.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

My Basic Hat Patterns

There are a lot of different instructions out there to make a basic hat. I'm not going to pretend to be inventing something new here! But I have used a lot of different people's patterns and tweaked them here and there to come up with my own version of the best possible pattern in different sizes. At least, in my opinion.

Unless a hat has a unique texture, it starts with a simple pattern like this. Here are some hats I've made that start with a basic pattern:



Monday, March 17, 2014

Stencil Shirts. Warning: This is addicting!



We have six months to go until our next big trip to Disney. We aren't people who go on vacation to Orlando and stop by Disney. We DO Disney. Eight days on Disney property and we don't typically venture out into the rest of Orlando at all. We are Disney loyal, I guess. And I put about nine months into planning each trip. From outfits to wear, meal reservations, which parks to visit on which days, researching the best shoes to wear, picking a perfect park bag... My point is, you will be hearing a lot about Disney on this blog!!!

Friday, March 14, 2014

Hooray for half priced days at Goodwill and Salvation Army!

Hoping to hit up some thrift stores this afternoon to gather the supplies needed to share with you some of our "crafting to Disney" projects. Many of these Disney projects will veer off from the normal routine around here as they will not be crochet!

The first one I plan to share is how to make stencil shirts. We've done it several times already with great success and I can't wait to share my tutorial on how we did it and how they have turned out so far!

We are also planning to make some other items like bracelets and sippy cup straps and phone number necklaces for the kids to wear in case we get separated. I'm pretty excited to craft the time away until our trip and REALLY thrilled to share all our creations with you here on the blog!

A tisket, a tasket, a very easy basket!




This is a very simple, easy basket that even a beginning crocheter can tackle with ease! The only real twist to this one is that you are using two strands of yarn together to make it nice and thick and sturdy enough to stand up on it's own. It's not hard at all, but it may be a new technique to some people.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Drawstring Bag Pattern

I searched Pinterest. I searched and searched and searched for a pattern for a drawstring bag that I liked. But I couldn't find one that was exactly what I wanted so I did the only thing I COULD do. I sat down and made up my own!


Monday, March 10, 2014

An Easy Headband

OK, we are going to start small! If you can crochet even a little tiny bit, I promise you can do this project!  It is only chains and double crochet.

I used white cotton yarn and red and white polka dot ribbon because this head band is part of our "crafting to Disney" project and I think this is very Minnie Mouse!



Welcome to my blog!

I think it was inevitable that my crochet hat business would eventually lead to a blog. I knew from the start that this was something I wanted to do but I've been putting it off for awhile because I was scared. Writing a blog scares me. I love to write but I kinda freak out about people reading what I write. But I also am scared to share my crafty creations with people and I'm doing that now through my business so I figured, hey, why not? Let's just face all these things that scare me head on!

Here's the thing. I majored in Accounting in college. I don't know why I did it. I wanted to do something creative. But I was terrified. Scared out of my mind over the idea of being graded on my ideas. So I went about as far in the opposite direction as a person can go. I went all the way to Accounting, where everything is black and white and, in my opinion, easy. And in those four years of number crunching classes, the professors would always joke around saying things like, "You all are here because you aren't creative." I started to believe it and I really lost confidence in my craftiness and creativity. It's been almost eleven years since I graduated from college and I'm just now getting some of that confidence back!

Please be patient with me as I start this journey. If you try out one of my ideas and like it, share some photos! If you try something and it doesn't work, tell me, and we will work out the kinks. If you have an idea you want to see, let me know that as well! I hope you enjoy this blog as much as I know I will enjoy writing it.