Patriotic Pinwheels

     I found this project on youtube.  I was watching some patriotic DIY videos last week looking for something new.  I found this fun pinwheel project and I knew I had everything in my stash to make a few of these.   The person who did the video is Rebecca Virginia DIY.  The link to the video is here.  This video has 20 projects in it.  I want to say this is about the 2nd or 3rd project she shows in that video.  I will put some written instructions here just in case you don't feel like finding the actual video instructions.

    These are the pinwheels I made.  

    Cut two 4" squares from patriotic or solid fabric.  I used a combination.  Cut 2 -  4" squares of Heat & Bond Iron On Adhesive.  Iron the heat and bond to the wrong side of each 4" square.  Remove the paper from the Heat and Bond and place the two pieces of fabric wrong side together and iron together so you now have a 2 sided piece of stiff fabric.  Trim the edges of each square with your pinking shears just enough to give it a pinked edge.  I think I took about 1/8" of fabric off each edge.  Find the center of your square and mark it, measure out 1" from the center and mark that in each corner, cut the corner of each square toward the center with the pinking shears up to the 1" mark.  Turn down alternate corners and hot glue to the center.  Hot glue an appropriate button or charm in the center.  You can glue these to skewers, chop sticks or quarter inch 12" dowels.  

    I made two modification to these instructions.  I only used 1 square of Heat and Bond for each pinwheel since it's two sided, you really don't need the heat and bond on the back of both squares.  I also didn't measure and mark the places to cut the corners, I just eyeballed it, it worked fine.  I didn't want to make any marks on my fabric. 

    I can see me making these for other holidays and also making them into a banner.  Pinwheels aren't just for summer.

Easy and Quick Crochet Beret

      Last week my daughter asked about making a beret for a party she was going to.  She had to dress like she was in the 1960's so she decided on the beatnik style.  I looked up how to make a quick beret and lo and behold, there was a youtube video on how to make a no sew beret from a t-shirt.  So I had to try it with a goodwill t-shirt dear daughter bought.  The instructions were not great and I didn't do a very good job with the beret but if you took some time making your pattern you could make a decent hat with the youtube video.  

    After that experience I started looking at berets I could crochet.  I love the look of a beret and I've never tried to wear one.  This will be a hat for winter wear.  I didn't look up knit berets because I didn't want to spend weeks working on it.  I knit too slow.  I found a pattern on Ravelry called the Incredibly Simple Slouchy Hat which was a free pattern with a webpage link.  The link is here.  This hat took me about 3.5 hours to make.  The instructions were very clear and easy to understand.  I enjoyed making this.  I didn't have any chunky yarn so I used two strands of Knit Picks Brava Worsted in Celestial colorway with a size M crochet hook to make this hat.  Dear daughter likes the color of this one so I'm giving this one to her.  I will be making another for me in the Navy colorway.  I'm getting a chance to use up some of that big yarn stash I organized last week.

Scrappy Quilt is finished.

    I bought 5 yards of Kona Pool (it was on sale at Joann's) for the backing and binding fabric and at the last minute decided to put a couple of rows of scrappy squares in the middle since I had to piece the back anyway.  I did simple cross hatch quilting lines.   This finished at 56 inches x 66 inches.

   With this finished quilt, I'm feeling better about my projects that are in line to be worked on and I have quite a few of them.  I decided to take inventory of a bunch of acrylic yarn I purchased in 2017/2018 from Knit Picks.  I love Knit Picke's Brava Worsted yarn for hats, ear warmers, scarves, and afghans.  I started two afghans back in June/July 2018 with these yarns but I quickly put them up.  I started a stripey ripple afghan and a granny square afghan.  I fully intend to finish each one so one night last week I pulled the large tubs of yarn out and sorted the yarns for each project.  I made a list of all the colors (there are so many colors) and how many skeins I have of each.  Now each afghan project has it's own box and I have a plan to get these afghans started up again later this summer.  Small granny squares would be a nice crochet project for the summer months since they are easy to make and won't be sitting on my lap until I put them together and I can join them together in the winter.