Lanyards for festival season

Break out the handmade lanyards — it's festival time again. 

Knitting a long 3-stitch i-cord is a fast and easy way to make lanyards that are soft and comfortable to wear. These won't cut into your skin or feel scratchy like standard ribbon lanyards or lanyards with breakaway clasps. You can customize your lanyard by using any colors you desire and even add beads or other findings for a truly unique piece that suits you.

I used worsted weight yarn and size 6 DPNs to make the lanyards in the photo, but they can be made with any yarn weight and needles that give you a nice, snug gauge on the i-cord. Leave a 6-inch tail at each end of your work so you have plenty of length to secure the hardware and fasten with knots before weaving in the ends.

I'm thinking a nice fingering weight yarn on size 1 needles with lots of sparkly seed beads would make a lovely one. I'm going to have to try that next.

These work up quickly. I made the worsted weight ones approximately 36-38 inches long, and they each took just about an hour to knit. (Adding beads would, of course, make the knitting time significantly longer.) At this gauge my lanyards each used about 12.5 yards of yarn. After fastening off and securing the hardware with a few knots and weaving in the ends, I'd estimate each lanyard takes about 90 minutes to complete. And you could easily sell these for about $10 each, depending on your audience, so ... not a bad ROI.

Before tying the ends together add a small keychain split ring or a large jump ring and a spring-close clip or lobster clasp. Tie the ends together over the split ring/jump ring and weave the ends back through the i-cord. Simple, easy finish.

Sweet baby shoes

My friend Jeanie shared this video she found of some really sweet crocheted baby shoes. Awwww!

Mesh problem

I have a slight mesh problem ... 😂

Craft breweries

Those damn craft breweries... 😂

Autumn Mists vest pour moi

I crocheted a warm, button-front vest pour moi back in 2015, and it’s awesome, if I do say so myself. I didn't use a pattern, just kind of winged it and figured it out as I went along.

But it didn't take long for me to decide after wearing this that the vest really, REALLY needed pockets. It took me two years to finally get around to adding them, but at last it now has two patch pockets on the front. 

To make the pockets I modeled them on the patch pockets of my husband's Carhartt vest. Using the same double crochet mesh stitch as the vest itself, I did a fdc of 24 stitches wide and then worked the pockets from the bottom up. 

But I also wanted these pockets to be able to hold anything I put in there, so I knew it would be important to line them with fabric. That way even tiny coins and the like would not be able to fall out from between the crocheted stitches. I used a remnant of this adorable penguin fabric to make the pocket liners. I tacked the liners to the front of the vest and then sewed the crocheted pockets over the liners. I sewed around the pocket opening to secure all the layers together there, and that's all there was to it. I'm a lot happier with the vest now that it has pockets.

Living in California, this vest is the perfect thing to wear outdoors on just about any winter day, so I'm sure I'll get lots and lots of use out of it.