Crochet Baby Sweater

Today I will teach you to make this adorable baby sweater! I made mine for my nephew's first birthday! I am really proud of how it turned out, hence I made it without a pattern. I finished it in one month, but you can finish it quicker if you do it ALL THE TIME. I only. Really worked on it occasionally aside from the road trips I took when all I did was work on the sweater. Remember, if you decide to make this sweater, read through it all before you start, so that you don't waste all of your yarn.

Before we begin, you'll need a 12 peg round knitting loom (3.5in diameter), a 36 peg round knitting loom (9.5in diameter), a loom hook, a yarn needle, a skein (the long oval shaped ball) of yarn in any color (try to get a soft one. I used the red heart brand), scissors, and a ruler.

Now that you have your materials, you'll need an idea of what we're doing. I will give you my nephew's measurements, which will fit a baby from like 14 months to a newborn. I'm not sure they make many looms in different sizes, since I just bought the assorted set of looms, but just remember, if you can stick your baby in the loom, then it'll fit. These looms will work fine for babies, though.
The circumference of his body is 20in, the circumference of his neck is 12in, the circumference of his arm is 7in, and the length of his back is 10in long. Now we may begin!

^These were the measurements I needed^

To start, you'll make a slip knot. I showed you how to do that in more detail in my Barbie Mermaid Tail post, but I'll show the picture below.

Place the slip knot over the anchor peg (that's the one horizontal while the rest are vertical) and tighten it down. Then, take the side that's connected to the yarn and move it to the inside of the loom, to the left of the first peg. Wrap it once clockwise around the peg, then do the same thing all the way around the loom. Once you've completed one rotation, push the loops down on the pegs and wrap all the pegs a second time, going in the same direction. Now take your loom hook and pull the loops on the bottom of the peg over the loops on top and remove it from the pegs.

Now you should only have the second loop on each peg. Push those loops to the bottom of the pegs, wrap the yarn around all of the pegs again, use your loom hook to pull the bottom one over and off, and keep repeating that. If you need help, look in the instruction manual as if you're making a hat that came with the loom.

Keep doing it until the large loom is about 10 inches long. You should stop with only one loop on each peg, and then cut the yarn, but leave a really long tail. And I mean longer than the circumference of the loom. Then thread the tail into your yarn needle, and put it under the loop and pull it through. Do that all the way around the loom. Then pull it through the first loop again (you should've already done it) to finish it off and tie it. Take it off the loom just by gently pulling the loops off of the pegs.

Now you'll need to make another one with the large loom, about a little shorter than the one we just made. That piece is going to be the turtle/cowl neck and the head hole. It is necessary for making this sweater. You will also need to make two out of the smaller loom. They should be the same size, a little longer than 10 inches. If both of those (which will be the sleeves) are not the same length, it doesn't matter because we will roll them anyway. Mine were way off!

Now that we have all four pieces, we can weave them together. Cut 2 long pieces of  yarn of the same length, and make sure to make them REALLY LONG! If they are too short, it won't work, or it will squeeze your baby. I would even do a yard each to be safe. I still have plenty of yarn left and this is after I made a baby hat, and the Dog Leg Warmers. Tie a knot at the end of both pieces of yarn tying them together. Thread both pieces through the yarn needle. I started mine in the back of the sweater, but I recommend starting closer to the arm because now it just looks like there's a knob in the middle of it. If that happens, just say that's the back of the sweater. Okay, first we should establish how it should be set up. Lay it down with the longer bigger piece on your workspace, the shorter bigger piece above that on your workspace, and a sleeve on each side. The top of the sleeve should be where the two big pieces meet. Also, the part that was at the top when it was on the looms, that's where the pieces should meet.

Let's begin. Take your yarn needle and thread it through where the two big pieces meet. Thread it through one loop of one piece, then one loop of the other piece. Do that until you get to the sleeve part, then thread it through one top piece, one bottom piece, and one piece of the sleeve. Here's the tricky part. Pull one of the strings out of the yarn needle and put it to the side. It should still be connected to the seams you did. Using the once piece of yarn that is in the needle, thread it through one loop of the top part and one of the sleeve and repeat that so it is 5 times in total. And remember, that was only going into the top big part. Not the bottom. Okay, now take out the piece of yarn that is in the needle currently and replace it with the other piece. Using that one, go in and out of only the bottom and the sleeve for five times. Then rejoin the two strands into the yarn needle, do the last loop of the sleeve that isn't connected to anything, and then in and out of only top and bottom like before.

When you get to the other sleeve, repeat the process. Then once you get back to where you started, thread it through that first stitch again to hold it and tie it off.

You are finished!
I hope you enjoy this baby sweater tutorial, and be sure to follow my new Instagram account @theiincreativity for updates on blogposts, etc. Also, I'm sure there will be a lot of pictures and information on how the sweater fit on my sister's blog soon! ;)

Teen Beach Movie Necklace

Today, I will show you how to make the friendship necklaces that Mack and Lela wear in Teen Beach Movie, and Teen Beach 2. I was told that they don't sell the same flower emblem anywhere because it was made for the movie, so I made it instead. 

For this project, you will need clay. I used Crayola brand and it worked really well for me. It was easy to mold and cut, and it was a white color, so the paint will work. You'll also need a silver acrylic paint, a black sharpie, an exacto knife, two pieces of wax paper, a picture of the flower (I'll put that up here), a necklace with a magnetic clasp (18in), 8mm white craft pearls (I got a bag of 360 because I made 5, but it has enough to make 6 necklaces. Each 18in necklace takes 60 beads), and a small piece of cardboard. It is possible that you will mess up and break your clay, so if that happens, you'll need disposable gloves, super glue, and maybe eye goggles.

To begin, print out the flower picture I provided, but keep the flower at the size of 1.21x1.19in. If you just print out the full picture, I think you'll be alright. Put your picture under one piece of wax paper and with your sharpie, trace the leaf part, and the flower part on different areas of the wax paper.

Then, take that piece of wax paper and put it over the clay, so the order should be: table, cardboard, plain wax paper, ball of clay, and then wax paper with drawing. Flatten the clay to the thickness you want it to be, and then take the exacto knife and cut through the wax paper, into the clay, cutting out the shape you drew. After that, pull the cut pieces off of the clay and put it off to the side. Do the same with the other drawing, but then stick the two together, with the leaves under the flower. Then take a small piece of clay and roll it between your hands making a thin long round piece of clay and stick it across the flower like this. Make two of those and place them opposite of each other. It should look like this drawing:

Then make a tiny ball out of clay, small enough to be the middle, and stick it on. After that, make another thin long round piece of clay, but make it larger than the others and bend it into a circle. Stick it to the back of the flower and leaves to be the part that is connected to the necklace. Let all of that dry. And remember, when working with clay, you have to do it all in one sitting because once it dries, you can't do anything.

Once it dries, you can paint it. I used a silver paint to match how it looks in the movie. Paint the entire thing, then once that dries, take your black sharpie and draw arrows outlining the points of the leaves. On the flower part, draw and color in ovals on the petals.

While it dries, you can string the beads onto the necklace. My 18in necklace fits 60 beads, so I strung them and when I tried to put the emblem on, it didn't fit over the beads. So, only string 30 beads, then string the necklace emblem and other 30 beads when it is completely dry. That's all you need to do!

Also, many of mind broke, so Krazy Glue worked great and you want barely tell it was ever broken. But remember to use safety gloves and eyewear.

And yes, I got my braces off today!

Waterfall Braid

I've seen many different tutorials for the waterfall braid, and never really understood it until I tried it out yesterday and worked out great! Today I will show you how to do it! I did it on myself, but you can do it to someone else easily with this same tutorial.

To start, take a piece of hair by the front, that you will start your braid with. I usually use a section on the heavy side of my part line, because it has more hair, so it's easier to work with. Divide your section into three parts. Start it like a normal braid. The piece towards the top of your head goes down over the middle, but let it fall down, then take the piece towards the bottom of your head and cross it over the middle (over the strand you just dropped). I like to hold all of the pieces I dropped in my mouth or with a clip, so it stays secure. Then, add in hair from the top of your head to the strand that.
is NOW closest to the top. Take that piece and cross it down and drop it just like the last.
Now pick up a piece of hair, right underneath where you let it go, and cross it up, over the strand you just let go of.

Repeat that as far as you want. I did it just to the middle back of the head and crossed two bobby pins. If you want, you can do it on both sides and meet them in the middle back of the head and use an elastic to hold it in place.

Have fun with your waterfall braid and let me know if this video was helpful!