Technical difficulties...

I realize I haven't posted in a few days--I'm having issues with my netbook charger and finally had to bite the bullet and buy a new one. While I'm waiting for its arrival in the mail, thought I'd drop by and inform y'all that I'll be;

*back later this week(I hope!)
*posting some exciting new items.
*posting the stylish result of an item swap
*discussing pattern writing and publishing
*And I will not be making boring lists. Back to the pictures and patterns soon, I promise!

Oops oops oops!: Raspberry Beret Pattern

Oh Lord...


Just for clarification; the Raspberry Beret pattern does not cost $30.00. The finished beret, made to order and sent to your home is $30.00, and I accidentally linked to that rather than the totally free pattern.It's been fixed now.

So...to order a Raspberry Beret handmade, click here.

To download the pattern and have lots of fun and giggles making one yourself, click here.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

Free Pattern: Raspberry Beret

Trying to get my feet wet in the world of pattern publishing, so here we go...

 Download!

Make your very own raspberry beret(although, if you want, I'll be happy to make one for you!)

The pattern is at an advanced beginner level--you'll need to know half double, triple, and puff crochet stitches.
Download it HERE, feedback is very welcome!

If you don't want to download the pattern and prefer to view it online, click HERE.

Peace beautiful people!

Fixed it!: Purple Tunic pt II

 

Order Purple Tunic Now!

So remember this travesty? 

It's become a success story, by my reckoning...gave up the idea of drapey sleeves and instead added a cool cowl collar. I blocked it a little bit, but the point of fishnet fabric is to drape and stretch, so I didn't overdo it...it's going to be a bit uneven and that's the point.

At this point I'd like to give a shout out to my friends' R & L's lovely water garden, which is the site of most of my photo shoots and many quiet, reflective moments of prayer. It's a one thousand gallon multi-level pond, complete with koi fish and water lilies, even in this freezing weather. (Don't let the bright sunshine fool you. I live in Colorado.)

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out...what do you think?

So pretty...

Can you believe this is made out of a coat? Anytime I get to feeling pompous about my little creations something gorgeous like this comes along and reminds me I have a LONG way to go before I really become the Head Patternista.

This flower brooch comes from Lil Fish Studios . There's a tutorial on that site if you're interested.

*goes back to drawing board*

New Item: Greensleeves

Alas, my love you do me wrong/To cast me out discourteously...

Since this is crochet and not knit, there was no casting out, on or off involved in the making of this sweater(...craft joke...sorry y'all), but in any case I am VERY excited to be featuring my first sweater in the SweetShop. As you can see, all the pieces and bits from this post came together pretty well. It's a chunky, cobble knit acrylic crochet hooded sweater/jumper in a women's size small, with variegated sleeves and a cowl hood.


The trickiest part was getting the sleeves to match up properly to the body...took a while to get them set in properly, and since I'm not exactly a champion sewer...

Overall, I'm pretty proud of it.

That purple tunic, on the other hand...*grumbles*

Order Greensleeves Now!

Work In Progress: Greensleeves

~sigh~ I hate sewing. I hate it with the passionate heat of a thousand burning suns and Wacka Flocka Flame's breath.  Unfortunately, my sweater pattern skills have only progressed to the "make separate pieces, sew together while swearing under your breath" level, so here's what I'm working on right now.

I'm also working on fixing that purple tunic from an earlier post. It's got good bones, I've decided. With a few fixes, it'll be up in the shop by tomorrow, hopefully.

New Item: Frilly Cup Cozy

Order Now!

Yep, a brand new item for the Sweet Shop...I've seen some very cute cup cozies in my local coffee shop but they're all either knitted, made out of weird plasticky materials or Very Manly. So, I thought I'd make a cute feminine one for myself, saw how easy it was, and well, you know the rest. 

I'm not going to say much about how it was made because this goes in the category of so easy it might put me out of a job. :-P

As always, comments are welcome, orders are very welcome. Both can be done at this blog or at my etsy shop.

I wish I could sew...

Isn't this adorable? Spotted over at Crap I've Made, made by the lovely Char. I want one for Christmas...

Featured item: Orange Crush ladies cap

model: Shana Stokes

Order now!

 There's no big story behind this pattern, I just wanted to make something that looked like a baseball cap for those bad hair days, but was a lot cuter. I made quite a lot of these last year and became thoroughly sick of making them...but because they sold so well last year, I've brought them back! 

It's such a simple pattern that I can whip up two in a day...so I make them to order, in the color you choose, using Caron Simply Soft yarn and my trusty K hook.

The hat band is elasticized, which is tricky because the brim has a little extra stiffness and bend and I don't want the hat to get too bulky. 

I wish I'd also made that glorious tomato red sweater on the model, but alas. We have thrift stores and a good eye to thank for it's appearance on this blog.

Pattern test--Tube Tunic

See the bottom half of my facial expression there? Yeah, about sums it up. I need to do some serious fix work on this...basically meant to be a tubular tunic with short drapey sleeves. By the time I get finished with it, it'll probably be a closed-sleeve tunic with a cowl collar.  And I really need to block it to even out those stitches in the body.

Oh well. Back to zee drawing board.

Hi!

Welcome to SweetShop Creations, a blog created in association with my etsy shop, SweetShop Creations!

I started SweetShop Creations to:

1) do something I love
2)design lots of fierce hats
3)give back to the global community by donating part of the proceeds from the shop to Helping Hands International Ministries, which educates, empowers and encourages people in Uganda.
4)raise awareness of the sweat shop mentality and encourage people to think about their spending in terms of people, not just getting a good deal.

I named the shop SweetShop to draw a contrast with sweat shops...many of the clothes we buy and wear are handmade to some degree, but is that person really getting paid what they're worth? And is that sweat shop sustainable?

So, I crochet hats and gloves and scarves with my own two hands. It's not easy work. It is fun. And I pay myself more than 15 cents a day to do it and hope to enable other folks to make a decent amount for the work that they do as well, even if it's only in a very small way. I'll talk more about this in depth later, but that's the basic idea.




I love life, believe in kindness and hope, and trail yarn behind me everywhere I go.

That's about it, really.

To find out more about Helping Hands, visit http://www.hhiminc.org

To find out more about me, visit http://mamalazarus.wordpress.com

Peace and blessings go with you!