Seahawks Mania!

Living in Seattle just got better when the Seahawks won the Super Bowl!! I was already a Seahawks fan, but this was the icing on the cake. To honor this great achievement I have been creating Seahawks fan gear. Everything is available in my Etsy shop: rainydaydesigns.etsy.com

Braided Seahawks Scarf

Seahawks Football Earflap Beanie

Seahawks Knotted Headband

Of course not everyone is a Seahawks fan. All of these are also available to be customized to your favorite team's colors, or whatever colors you would like.

Two New Additions

There are two new little additions to my family. My cousin-in-law had her TWINS last week!! That means I've been hard at work making lovey blankets for them to cuddle, and hats to adorn their adorable little heads.

I got the idea for the lovey blankets from a woman I follow on Instagram and this pattern on Ravelry. They have an elephant themed nursery so I'm going to make an elephant head from here (which I also found on Ravelry) to put on the lovey blankets instead of the lamb like the pattern. I was watching the last episode of "Smash", sniff sniff :( , while working on them the other day.

The hats are a Tunisian crochet pattern and yarn that I found buried in one of my yarn bins. I totally forgot that I had bought that yarn to go with the free pattern from the shop along the LYS Tour two years ago. It's still cute none-the-less, and I can't wait to see how it works up. It was a pain to wind since the beads can't fit through a regular ball winder; so I had to wind it by hand off of the swift.

I'll post pictures of the finished projects in a few weeks. What are your favorite projects for babies? What projects are you currently working on? I love to hear your feedback!

Learning How to Knook

No, it's not the e-reader from Barnes & Noble. It's a special crochet hook with a knitting needle on the other end. For me it's the combination of two of my favorite hobbies, knitting & crocheting, into one awesome craft! With a little help from a kit I got at JoAnn's and watching a few YouTube videos I have gotten the hang of how to knook.

Pictures are always helpful so here are a few of my new adventure:

This is the Instagram picture before I even opened the kit

Figuring out the knit stitch

Figuring out the purl stitch and making stockinette

Starting my first project: spa cloth from the booklet that comes with the kit

Super excited to be using scented cotton yarn! (Sorry it's sideways)

Finished spa cloth!! (Again, sorry it's sideways) Working on more to add to my Etsy shop. :)

So far I'm enjoying this combination of knitting and crochet. It's also a great conversation starter since hardly anyone knows what it is! My next knook project is a toddler hat for a friend's 12 month old. What knitting or crochet projects are you working on?

New Coupon Code!

It's Cyber Monday so I'm giving you extra incentive to check out my Etsy shop. This coupon code expires a week before Christmas...so hurry over to my Etsy shop to order gifts for people on your list. Just enter "CHRISTMAS12" at check out to receive 15% off your total purchase!

P.S.--Links to my Etsy shop can be found on the top tabs or the slideshow on the right hand side. :)

Technical Difficulties

Wow! It's been awhile since I last posted on here. I'm sad that I forgot about posting a new Etsy shop feature last Friday (I even have it written in my planner & still managed to forget!). I was busy with work, friends, and other things needing to get done. Now I'm trying to post it, but I'm having issues with adding pictures to the post. I think Blogger is busy right now so I'll just try again in the morning. :/

I have been working on some crochet projects for the fair though. I'm hoping all of the items will make it to my Esty shop. I have to find another baby sunhat pattern though since the one I used 1) says it's copyrighted and doesn't want anyone selling the made product and 2) didn't quite turn out as cute as I had hoped. Off to Ravelry for more pattern hunting! The baby crochet mock crocs turned out super cute though. :) Pics to come when I can get it to work.

Thinking about the Fair

I realized today that the Evergreen State Fair is only a month away (well at least the deadline for entering items is)! This means I've got to get to work on finishing any items I wanted to enter into the fair, and possibly get started (yeah I know there isn't much time) on new projects. This possibly means that I'll be putting my Etsy shop on vacation while I work madly on finishing projects in between my crazy work schedule. I enjoy entering crafts into the fair because then I can volunteer and get free admission. :) I also like the rush I get from looking at my hard work displayed for all to admire with a ribbon (hopefully blue) attached. It's also fun to enter little contests. Last year i made this little cupcake pincushion:It didn't win, but I think it's sweet (haha pun fully intended)! It was made out of scraps of yarn, too. :) Well, I better go work on some projects & think about realistic deadlines. AGH!!

New Way of Listing

Etsy has changed the way we sellers list items for sale. So this is my job today: update all of my items for sale. I've also been working on some new items so stay tuned because I'll preview them here first!

Just Keep Sewing (and Knitting and Crocheting)...

This week I've been reading a lot of posts and forums on Etsy about improving my shop. Instead of grouping items together in one listing I've separated them into separate listings. This is a win-win for me as it gives my shop more items, and also gives more listings when a customer searches for an item. I've also changed my shop section titles. Since my shop tag line is "knitting, crochet, and sewing"; I decided to use those as section titles instead of "for home, for baby, for fun". That way my customers will know what craft they are getting (I can tell the difference between knit & crochet, but many people don't know).

I'm going to start a new tradition on my blog (here) and my Facebook page: item of the month. I'll post an item from my Etsy shop for the month and an item on Amazon that goes well with it. So for this month the item is the Duck Tag-Go Blankie pictured to the right------>
I think it makes a great baby gift along with the book "Make Way for Duckings" (one of my favorite childhood books). You can find it on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Way-Ducklings-Robert-McCloskey/dp/0670050172/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305229729&sr=1-4

New Item on Etsy and Cute Fabric

I'm listing a new item on Etsy this week and you get a sneak peek! Here it is:
These are crocheted baby bibs with a snap on the neck so it's easy to get on & off for parents. Made with 100% cotton yarn so just throw them in the wash after meal time. More colors are coming soon!

Here is the adorable jungle animals baby blanket I've been working on.
There's more where that came from! This is the cute fabric I found:

These will be adorably cute unisex and girls' blankets soon! Can you tell I like brown & pink together? Check back for an update on how these blankets are coming along.