The Crochet Crowd’s Summer Stitch-cation Challenge!

This is an awesome and fun summer project that The Crochet Crowd has recently put up on their blog! This fun project begins on July 1st and was designed to refresh or expand your crochet skills by using 10 different stitch combinations for this project! They are requiring everyone who does this challenge to use a minimum of 8 colors and you have to be able to change colors effectively without the use of horrible knots. You can put the required squares together any way that you want and you must have a border element (which is totally up to your choosing) to tie it all together.

They not only have the directions and videos for the project on their blog but they also have it available as a downloadable workbook! This is super awesome to me because it makes it easier to take it along everywhere you go!

Now comes the fun part! This awesome challenge ends on Labor Day, September 1st so make sure your afghan is submitted before then to qualify to win 1 fo 3 Red Heart Loaded Yarn Bags with Crochet Crowd Gifts! Yes, you read correct! They will be giving away THREE prizes for this challenge!!! The 3 winners will be randomly drawn so everyone has an equal opportunity to win one of these awesome prize bags!

Be sure to check out the link to enter the Challenge and check out the other awesome things that they have on their blog! http://thecrochetcrowd.com/stitch-cation/

Felt Tetris Board

So, I am a huge geek that still loves everything from my childhood. That could be why my girls watch My Little Pony (even though I like the way they used to look better), Care Bears and Smurfs. But that is not were my geeky side ends, that is why I started working on my newest project. Peanut (my oldest) already knows all over her colors and shapes but Mushy (my littlest) doesn’t know them yet. So, I wanted to make them something new to play with that will challenge both of them…. FELT TETRIS! It can help Mushy learn her colors and shapes while Peanut works on her puzzle skills (which she happens to LOVE).

First I started with a bunch of felt. I picked black for the general shape of the game. I kept it the regular size that the felt sheets come in. I then picked a couple of fun bright colors to make the shapes in. There are five shapes so I picked the colors Yellow, Green, Red, Blue & Orange.

Once you have all of the colors picked out it’s time to start measuring for the different pieces. To make it easier for me to figure out, I used a 1 inch square to build the five different shapes. I cut them out of paper first so that I could have a good pattern before making the shapes out of the felt.

I wasn’t sure how  many of each shape I should cut out of the felt but I thought that 8 pieces for each of the colors/shapes would be a good amount to give both kids a choice of what to use. You can always cut more if you feel you need more.

After I had everything all cut out I set up the boards on the table and let the girls try it out… I have to say it was a success! Peanut just loves to work with the shapes and fit them all together. She even figure out how to use the shapes to cover the whole board without any of them sticking off the edge! I love how the felt sticks to itself and also separates when it’s time to take apart and start over.

The girls both give this project a thumbs up!

Robin