I had a table in Rosemount High School's March craft show. There weren't nearly as many shoppers as their November show, but it wasn't too bad. I debuted my newest creations--hair clips and bows with hats and headbands for babies and little girls. Apparently the hair clips work for dogs too as I sold some to some pet owners. I purchased my supplies from a local woman who had her own business making them and selling them but no longer has the time to do it. I wasn't sure how good I'd be at it, but I discovered it wasn't too hard and I really like making the flowers and clips. It took me awhile to get good with the glue gun, but now I'm not too bad. And I discovered that using jeweled brads (found with scrapbooking supplies) instead of glue-on jewels in the big flowers is much easier. I also learned that the best way to make these is to set aside an afternoon and spread out on a big table and work assembly style. I'm one of those people who likes to finish something before moving on to something else, but doing that makes this slow going. An assembly line process works much better.
I have also designed a baby afghan. A customer wanted a baby afghan in a soft cushy yarn using a lattice stitch. After searching around for a pattern using such a stitch, all I came up with was a little internet picture of the stitch itself and some brief instructions on how to make one row of lattice stitch. After verifying that's what she had in mind, I did a lot of trial and error and came up with the number of stitches necessary to get the width I wanted (stitch more single crochets than your desired width because once you start the front post stitches, it will tighten up the width). To determine the size I wanted, I looked at several baby afghan patterns to get an idea of what the most common size was. I also decided to make it square based on the cost of the yarn (Patons Baby Beehive Chunky). I was trying to keep the cost down so I didn't want to make it too big. I had originally thought of using Lion Brand Jiffy, but after looking at it in the store and all the other yarns they had, I thought the Patons felt softer. Even though it was a little more expensive (thank goodness for coupons!) than Jiffy, I thought it would be the best choice and was also a prettier off white than Jiffy. I decided that I wanted a more finished look, so after finishing the basic pattern, I added a scalloped edge. The final afghan measured 35x35. As I did each row, I wrote down what I did. (I still have to type it up.) The afghan was a hit and now I have an order for a pink and a blue one!
