As you can see by the photos, I've tried a little bit of everything. I love using commonly found items and transforming them into something unusual and interesting.

This Christmas Teddy Bear was made from a rose bowl, along with some polar fleece in tan color, as well as some scraps of rick rack and felt. You can sew the pieces together manually, or if you have a sewing machine, it goes much faster. It makes a great Christmas candy jar. I sold quite a few of those at a Christmas craft fair we had locally.

This potpourri jar is also made from a rose bowl, and all it takes is some fabric, some cotton batting, elastic, a bit of lace, and some ribbon and artificial flowers. Again, this item is created much more quickly with a sewing machine.

This beautiful Poinsettia afghan was created from a free Red Heart pattern (#928-522). I used Hunter green, white and red Red Heart^TM Comfort yarn for the project. I had some wool left over after the afghan was finished, so I made a couple of pillows to match (see photo).

I used a free pattern from Knit  Addicted called Bulky Yarn Booties to create the cute slippers shown in the picture. They are knit using two strands of wool, and are very warm and durable. They knit up in very little time, and are extremely easy to make. I also used Red Heart^TM Comfort yarn for these.

These socks and mitts are knitted using any basic mitt and sock patterns that you can find anywhere online for free. I like using the four-needle method for knitting the mittens, but there are also two-needle methods that are easier to learn for a beginning knitter. They are great sellers at craft fairs as well, although it is very hard to charge a price that reflects all of the time you put into knitting these items.





In September of last year (2006), I finally decided that it was time to start my own craft site! I had been thinking about it for quite some time, but I also have a few online marketing/webmaster sites as well, and this was already keeping me quite busy. And so Joanne's Crafts was born. I started off with just a few patterns , but was lucky enough that Patons, Bernat and Lily yarns allowed me to add their own free patterns to my site, and it's kind of exploded from there! Besides all the great free patterns, we now have a crafting reciprocal links directory, a great little crafts article directory, as well as crafts newsfeeds. In the future I intend to add a craft store to the site so that I can sell my handmade items.

I hope you'll come and visit us at our site, which features many knitting, crocheting and tatting patterns, as well as a wide range of crafts articles:

 

Blessings
Joanne

The Arts Exhibitions Team