Wednesday, October 31, 2012

For the Crocheter...the Magic Circle

The magic circle is an amazing technique that you can use to begin anything you crochet that is in the shape of, well, a circle! It is also known as a magic ring, an adjustable loop, or any combination of these terms. I love the way a hat looks when I use this to begin. I hope that this brief tutorial will help you learn how to make it. If you need more help, feel free to contact us!

In this example, I'm going to show you how to make a magic circle with 10 single crochets. Normally, you'll see it used with single crochet, double crochet and half-double crochet. 

First, you make a circle by putting the yarn tail behind the working yarn (coming out of the skein). At first, until you master this technique, you'll want to leave a longer tail, probably 5"-6". Once you have it down, you'll be able to shorten that length. 


Next, use your hook to pull a loop through the circle.


Chain 1.



Now you begin your single crochets. The hook goes through the circle (as in the first photo), you pull your loop up around the circle and the tail, and make your single crochet.


Continue crocheting until you have the required number of stitches. Be sure that each stitch goes around the circle and the yarn tail.


Now, I realize that I didn't take this picture correctly! What you need to do at this point is remove your hook and make the loop from the hook bigger, just so that it doesn't pull out. Then you're going to hold the circle in one hand and gently, but firmly, pull on the tail until the circle tightens... 


...and looks like this! Insert hook back into loop and continue crocheting. Do be careful when tightening the circle as some yarns, such as handspun and rovings, can break fairly easily. I even had cotton yarn break once.


You will need to fasten off the tail so that it doesn't pull out; you can do that after you crochet a couple of rounds, or like me, just wait until you finish and do all of the fastening off at the same time.

If it's awkward at first...no, check that. It probably will be awkward at first, but I encourage you to practice, and I think in no time at all, you'll wonder how you ever crocheted round stuff without the magic circle!

Sunday, October 28, 2012

For the Crocheters...the Invisible Join

Over the years, as I have learned more and more about crocheting, I have found two "secrets" that I don't know how I managed without before I learned about them. Understand that these techniques are no way, no how, original with me. If you Google them, you'll find dozens of tutorials on how to do them. I've opted to share them in our blog, not because I'm awesome with them or I'm a great hand model, but because I want to include a link in the patterns we're beginning to publish so that if people don't know how to do them, they've got an easy way to find the instructions. 

The two techniques are the magic ring (aka the magic circle, the adjustable loop or any combination of these). Those instructions will come tomorrow. :) The second technique, the one I'm going to share here, is called the invisible join. I use it to finish off nearly all of the hats I make. With this technique, you make a nice, smooth join as you finish off, so that it is nearly, well, invisible!

And without further ado...the invisible join!

For my example, I've just finished a hat and am ready to fasten it off. 


 First, remove your crochet hook and leave a bit of a loop.
Cut the yarn about 3-4" from the last stitch.



Next, pull on the loop so that the tail comes out and you don't have a loop anymore.




Now, thread a yarn needle with the tail that you have just pulled through. Insert the needle into the stitch you want to join to. (When I'm doing this on a hat, I always use the first stitch to the left of the chain that began that round. Translated: the first stitch in that last round.) Be sure to go under both loops with your needle, just as you would if you were crocheting a stitch, and pull the yarn through.
 





Now it gets a wee bit tricky...well, tricky to explain, at least, but hopefully easy to
understand and do! Put your needle down through the back loop of your last stitch
and pull the needle through, to the inside, until you have that nice little
v-shape that technically isn't a stitch, but looks very much like one!


Pull it until it is the same size as your other stitches, and voila!...you have a nice smooth join at the base of your hat! 


 
Happy joining!

Friday, September 7, 2012

1500 Likes...2 Winners!

Random.org has picked the winners! And those winners are:

Joanie      September 7, 2012 5:13 PM
Congrats on 1500 =0)

and

theresalucin     September 7, 2012 12:24 PM
came from heavenly crochet photo props! LOVE!


 Congratulations to you both! And thank you so much to everyone who stopped by. It was a spur of the moment thing, but we couldn't let this milestone pass without some kind of a thank you to our wonderful friends and fans. :) 

Joanie and Theresa, send us an email (motherdaughtercreations139@gmail.com) and we'll let you know how you can redeem your $15 credit. 

Thanks again, everyone!

Thursday, September 6, 2012

1500 Likes on Facebook!

Thanks to three shops that allowed us to be vendors in their giveaways, we just hit 1,500 fans on our Facebook page today! First of all, a huge thank you to Boomer Beanies, Carmen's Crocheted Creations and Heavenly Crochet Photo Props for including us! The Boomer Beanies giveaway has closed, but the other two are still going on, so head on over and check them out before it's too late. 

Now. We are thrilled to have so many new friends, so we're giving two $15 credits to our Etsy shop! Yep, you read that correctly...two people will win a $15 credit to go shopping at MotherDaughter Creations! How to enter? Easy peasy! Just comment on this blog post with how you came across MotherDaughter Creations. Yes, really. That's all there is to it. :) No sharing, no liking, just a quick and easy way for us to say thanks!

Need a little incentive? Here are just a goodies we currently have available in the shop...

Women's slouchy beanie--OOAK

Baby cowboy hat and boots--various sizes available

Newborn owl critter cape set--photo by www.storybookphotographybyshelly.com

OK, here are the nitty gritty details for those who are, indeed, detail people. In 24 hours, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time Friday evening, we'll use random.org to pick two people from all who comment.on this blog post. We'll post those two winners here, on the blog, and they will need to email us. They will each have a $15 credit to spend in our shop. The credit must be used by October 15.

Ready, set, comment!

Monday, August 27, 2012

An Extra Birthday Surprise!

As a thank you for coming to our blog to get details on the birthday celebration...an Etsy coupon code! Use coupon code TENPERCENT when you check out in our Etsy shop, and you'll get 10% off your purchase. That is in addition to the 25% off the items that are on sale and the free cotton beanie! Be sure to read the post below for the details!

NOTE: The offer for the free beanie and the coupon code are good from 8:00 p.m. Monday, August 27, through 8:00 a.m., Wednesday, August 29. (Times are U.S. Eastern.)


Saturday, August 25, 2012

Celebration, anyone??

On Tuesday, August 28, a member of the MotherDaughter household will celebrate a birthday...a rather significant birthday, in fact! And what's a birthday without a celebration and presents? We're so thankful for all of our friends and fans, and I, the soon-to-be birthday girl (Lori), am so very blessed in my life with a wonderful family, great friends, a day-time job I enjoy, and a little on-the-side business that allows a bit of creativity to emerge...so let's celebrate!

First, we're giving you an opportunity for some great deals in our Etsy shop. We'll mark many of our OOAK items 25% off beginning Monday evening, and that sale will last through Labor Day, the following Monday. 

Second, on Tuesday only (well, we're going to actually make it Monday evening through Wednesday morning jut to hit all the time zones), with any purchase from our Etsy shop, we'll include a FREE cotton beanie! Yes...a free beanie, because it's my birthday and I want to! You can pick whether it's for a boy, for a girl or Christmasy, and you can pick any size from newborn up to 12 months. Beyond that, we get to do the choosing! :)

Third, we regularly give a percentage of our sales to HOPE61, a ministry of One Mission Society, that  is dedicated to promoting awareness of human trafficking and bringing relief to those affected by it. During the birthday celebration (Monday evening through Wednesday morning), for any purchase that you make, up to $50, we'll give a flat $5 to HOPE61. For sales over $50, we'll give 15% of the purchase price rather than our normal 10%. 

Please plan to join us for the celebration...great deals will abound and lots of giving will be happening!

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Sharing the Love

In our first blog post, I said that we want to share about other wonderful folks that we have come across since we began MotherDaughter Creations. We'll do this periodically in posts entitled Sharing the Love. As you can see if you pop a glance up at the title here, this is the first of what I hope to be many of these. Every time I think "Surely there can't be that many more photographers, yarn sellers, vendors, etc. out there", I find a new photographer, yarn seller, vendor, etc. whose work I love! So, in hopes that we can help you find some new favorites also, without further ado...let's share the love!

Our first feature is a no-brainer! The reason that MotherDaughter Creations exists is because of Shelly at Storybook Photography by Shelly. Last summer, Andrea was helping her make baby halos (because Shelly needed more to do!), and as they talked, Shelly found out that we both enjoy creating with yarn. She encouraged us to think about making baby things to sell online. (OK, if you happen to know Shelly, you know that "encourage" probably doesn't really describe it well...there was a lot more enthusiasm involved than "encourage" implies!) After praying about it and talking about it a lot, the rest, as they say, is history! We're now into our second year, and we're having a blast with it! 

Here are just a few examples of Shelly's amazing work in photos that she has taken of babies modeling some of our goodies. 







Gorgeous, no?! You can see even more gorgeousness on her website here. Shelly doesn't have a Facebook page right now , but if you leave a comment here to show your appreciation for her work, we'll make sure she sees it. :)  

Have a great week!
 

Sunday, July 15, 2012


And the winner is...

When we made plans for our give away, we offered the opportunity for each person to gain an extra entry by sharing the give away on her Facebook page. But here’s what we didn’t anticipate…we had fewer people enter than we had prizes! So we just entered everyone’s name in the drawing, doubled up some of the prizes (the patterns and the dishcloths) and everyone’s a winner! Important information for each winner---you are responsible for contacting the vendor from whom you won a prize. I have sent them your names, but you must contact them to make arrangements for receiving your prize.

And here are the winners (as determined on www.random.org):

1 pattern from Busy Mom Designs:
Sherri

2 patterns from Busy Mom Designs:
Jennifer Luhman Ryan

2 patterns from Speckled Frog Crochet:
Jennifer Kessie DeLury

2 patterns from Speckled Frog Crochet:
Kim Dell'Aquila

1 skein of handspun yarn from Lolaz Thyngs:
Sue Anderson

4 hand-sewn baby burp cloths from Graceful Baby Boutique:
Julie

1 hand-crafted necklace from Jillian Raye Designs:
Tiffany

1 upcycled newborn hat from MotherDaughter Creations:
Brittany Ressler

1 newborn beanie (purple) from MotherDaughter Creations:
Teara Watson

1 daisy cloche from MotherDaughter Creations:
Denise McGeary Elliott

1 teddy bear hat from MotherDaughter Creations:
Brook Grayson Jones

1 party hat from MotherDaughter Creations:
Jennifer Kessie DeLury

1 pumpkin beanie from MotherDaughter Creations:
Shelly Dibble

1 brown baby beanie from MotherDaughter Creations:
Terry Webber

2 dishcloths from MotherDaughter Creations:
SweetyHeart Photography

2 dishcloths from MotherDaughter Creations:
Mary Poland Fukuhara

2 dishcloths from MotherDaughter Creations:
Jessica Hollopeter

$20 credit in our Etsy shop from MotherDaughter Creations:
Niicole Luhman

Congratulations to all of the winners! Thank you for participating!
The give away is now closed!

Thank you soooo much to all who sent congratulations for our anniversary, shopped our Etsy shop, bought great deals in our clearance sale and entered our give away. Andrea and I are enjoying coming up with new ideas, and we're looking forward to what year 2 will bring. Hope you'll stay with us to see what's coming in the days and weeks ahead!

We will post the winners of the give away here on the blog...hopefully yet this evening! Winners, you are responsible for contacting the vendor that you win a prize from...you can do that through their Facebook pages. 

Stay tuned.....!!

Sunday, July 8, 2012

It's time to celebrate!

We are so excited to be celebrating our 1-year anniversary on Etsy this week! We're very grateful to all who have supported, purchased, encouraged...thanks to each and every one! But what's an anniversary without a celebration! So let's get right down to it...here are details:
1. Give away begins Sunday, July 8, and runs through Sunday, July 15 at 8 p.m. Eastern.
2. To enter, you must like our Facebook page. You must also like the Facebook pages of the vendors who are giving away prizes. (A thank you to each one on their Facebook pages would be lovely as well, though it's not necessary to enter the give away.)
3. After liking the Facebook pages, come back to this post and comment that you have done so.
4. Want an extra entry? Share our contest on your personal or business Facebook page, come back and comment separately that you have shared the contest (link to this page) and you'll get your name in again (only one extra entry). 
5. Wait patiently after July 15 to see if you've won! Please give us several days after the contest closes to get the winners all figured out. :)
6. Don't forget the other celebration fun! Get 30% off in our Etsy shop through Thursday with coupon code ETSY1YEAR. We've added several new items, included our brand new upcycled section! The coupon code is good on everything in the shop.
7. Summer clearance sale coming later this evening to Facebook! Everything at least 50% off regular price.

And without further ado, here are the prizes and the AMAZING vendors who are generously sharing in the give away for our celebration:

Three people will each win one pattern of their choice!


Four people will each win one pattern of their choice!


One person will win a skein of handspun yarn...a $20 value!


One person will win a set of four hand-sewn baby burp cloths!


One person will win a hand-crafted necklace (for the grown-ups!).


We're giving away one each of the following pictured items:
Upcycled newborn hat


Newborn beanie


Daisy cloche (pattern by Busy Mom Designs!)--size 1-3 years


Teddy bear hat (pattern by Speckled Frog Crochet!)--size 3-6 months




Party hat--one size fits many




Our new pumpkin beanie (pattern by Busy Mom Designs!)




Our most popular...the brown baby beanie! (newborn size)
(photo by Jenny Modisett Photography)


Six dishcloths...Six winners!






And last, but certainly not least, one person will win...

Thanks for celebrating with us!

Thursday, July 5, 2012

The plans are coming together, and we want to share some specifics with you! You'll want to be ready for the anniversary fun! Here's how we're going to celebrate:

**The give away! It will begin on Sunday, July 8 at 8:00 p.m. and run through Sunday, July 15, 8:00 p.m. MotherDaughter Creations will be giving away a variety of goodies, plus we have five other vendors who have graciously agreed to participate! We'll have patterns from Busy Mom Designs and Speckled Frog Crochet, credit for yarn from Lolaz Thyngz, burp cloths from Graceful Baby Boutique, and a necklace from Jillian Raye Designs. Whew! It's going to be good!

**30% off in our Etsy shop for four days! We'll give you the coupon code on Sunday.

**We're adding new items (think autumn!) to the shop in time for you to use the 30% coupon code!

** We're adding our brand new upcycled section to the shop this weekend!

**Giant summer clearance sale for Facebook friends...more than 40 items, and everything at least 50% off!

Is anyone looking forward to it yet? Be sure to let your friends know about the fun!

Monday, July 2, 2012

We're getting so excited about celebrating our anniversary with all of our wonderful friends! We invited a few vendors to participate, and you're going to love what they're offering in the give away. Right now, here's a sneak peek at some things we're going to give away. Later this week, we'll post details about all of the fun that begins on July 8!

These two hats that we're giving away, the pumpkin beanie and the party hat, are going to be new listings in our Etsy shop in conjunction with our anniversary. 





And for a little something different...something we haven't offered in our shop, but might consider...we have six crocheted dish cloths to give to six lucky winners!


Check back later this week for more details!



Sunday, June 24, 2012

Welcome to our new MotherDaughter Creations blog! It's hard to believe that Andrea and I are coming up on the 1-year anniversary of being in business. When we began MDC, we opened our Etsy shop and started our Facebook page. We didn't really know where we wanted to go from there, other than we love to create and wanted to share those creations! We also made the decision to support HOPE61, a ministry of One Mission Society with a percentage of our profits.

Now, one year later, we have loved every minute of it, but we're always thinking about new things can we try, what do our friends and fans want to see, how can we better serve our customers. The first thing we've decided to do is this blog. We are doing it for several reasons: 
  1. We want to share a variety of things...other creators; awesome photographers; amazing yarn vendors; and various ideas, tips, and websites that we've run across over the past year, just to name a few.
  2. We are planning a give away to celebrate our 1-year anniversary, and we want to do our best to honor Facebook rules. We felt like the best way to do that is to use the blog to run the give away (and any future ones!). 
  3. Honestly, as hard as it may be for some people to believe, not everyone is on Facebook. :) Hopefully, with the blog, we can reach some folks who haven't found us yet simply because they're not Facebook-ites.
What else can you expect from MDC in the days to come? In conjunction with our anniversary and the give away, we are also going to have a huge summer clearance sale! We have quite a few items that we've made as samples or were just playing around with and we need them gone so we have room for more new things!

We're also going to venture into the area of selling patterns. Our creations vary...some are made from patterns that we've purchased (love them all and will share those sellers with you later!), but we've also done some original designs. We've been asked about selling them, and this seems like the time to do it. We'll be looking for testers! ;)

Last thing, for now, is that we're planning (also to celebrate our anniversary!) to add a new section to our Etsy shop: Upcycled! That will definitely be a work in progress.

The anniversary celebration begins on July 8 and will last that entire week. Watch for more information, coming soon to Facebook and this very blog!