Welcome to the EAC Disney Inspired Hand Knit Socks

Welcome to the EAC, Dude! I've been hanging on the this sock yarn for longer than I'd like to admit. I often see beautiful hand painted yarn, snap it up, and then wonder how I can use it. It doesn't show off intricate patterns too well, so you have to be somewhat picky in the choice of socks you are going to knit. This is true of self-striping yarn as well, although that's the beauty of the self-striping stuff. You can knit a plain old vanilla sock and get something that looks amazing.

I finally found a pattern that fits this beautiful hand painted yarn. It reminds me of the scene in Finding Nemo where Crush welcomes Marlin and Dory to the EAC! The pattern sort of swirls around the legs a bit without distorting or pooling the colors. And oh how I LOVE these colors!

I also fell in love with this pattern for two reasons. The first is that this was a very easy pattern to memorize. This is wonderful for knitting on the go. The second is that I was able to alter this pattern very easily to accommodate my very curvy calves. The pattern comes in four sizes and the chart was very easy to modify going from the larger size for my calves, to the smaller size for the rest of the sock. If you are into those sorts of details, you can find them all on my Ravelry page. There's even a link to the pattern.

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust, Dude!

DIY Disney's Crush the Turtle T-shirt

I think Crush is my favorite character in Finding Nemo (although I'm in love with Dory too). And I LOVE seeing Turtle Talk With Crush when we are in Epcot. I think I may even like it more than the kids! I'm always the first to suggest it. And when I saw this excellent turtle design in the Silhouette shop, I knew a t-shirt was in order!

I started with a 2T-3T shirt I happened to have on hand. We get a lot of hand-me-down clothes and I like to use them for these sorts of projects. It helps to make them feel new. It also makes this a very budget-friendly project. Since I had all the materials on hand already, making this was completely, 100% free to me!

I cut out this Turtle Tribal design from Silhouette stencil vinyl using my Silhouette Portrait machine. I sized the design to be about 6.5" wide and 3.875" high. This is an intricate design, so be very careful transferring it to the t-shirt. Make sure all those tiny dots are on there nice and tight! Once I had the design transferred, I painted the design with black fabric paint.

I then cut out the word "dude" using the Jungle Fever font. I had planned on putting it right below the turtle, but I'll let you in on a little secret: I smudged some paint on the shirt while I was rushing to finish it (haste makes waste!) - so I decided to cover it up with the "dude"! I'm really happy with the result. It's a little unexpected; kinda like Crush!

I was also toyed with the idea of writing "dude" or "squirt" on this one. I like the idea of both, so I'm thinking I might do another for Minnie to wear with "squirt" written on the back, the way you would see it on a jersey. We'll see what happens with that idea! Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!