Chocololic Knits and Crochet Blog

I’m very excited to be a featured guest blogger on Everyday Mom Ideas! Check out my DIY Hair Accessories project there, and don’t miss the other cool DIY projects like making bowls out of melted CDs and making artistic shredded shirts.

I’m also having a Giveaway on Everyday Mom Ideas, for the 2 headbands that I’ve created for this project, so check it out for how to win!

I’ve been working on these for a while, and after a lot of hard work finally posted the first wristlet purse to my etsy shop!

The wristlet purses measure 6″ long by 4.5″ tall, and are meant to be easy to carry around, and also easy to hang onto (the wrist-sized strap) so you can take out it when you don’t want to bring a heavy giant handbag, and only need the necessities (like going out for a night on the town). The outer layer is knitted in delicate and interesting patterns, and then a fabric lining (actually two lining layers for the blue-purple wristlet) was machine-sewn to the zipper closing, and the lining hand-sewn to the knitted layer. The zipper pulls are made from the same fabric as the lining (it was pretty hard pulling the fabric right-side-out after sewing the wrist straps!).

I’ve listed the red and black wristlet purse in my etsy shop, but I’m not completely satisfied with the blue-purple one yet, since the inside lining for that purse is a little too close to the zipper which makes it hard to zip closed without catching the fabric in the zipper. Sadly I think I’ll need to take out all my tiny handstitches and redo the lining (again)…! *cries*

You can see the nice lining in the pic below- making good use of the new sewing machine! Love using the zipper foot to sew really close to the zipper…which was actually bad for the blue purse as mentioned before…doh.

Yep, this is the new sewing machine I got! It was only $110 on Amazon, plus I recently took advantage of the 1-year free Amazon Prime for students (hehe thanks .edu email address) so I got free 2-day shipping yay! I was so excited when I saw the giant box sitting outside my apartment door when I got home :). So much sewing and crafting to do!!!

There were a lot of options when I was shopping around, but this was pretty inexpensive, and had pretty good reviews on Amazon (mostly 4 stars). The picture is kind of small, but you can see it has lots of dials to adjust everything, very cool- stitch length, stitch width, different stitch types, and not sure what the last one is…maybe stitch tension? I skimmed through the user manual and was impressed, it has pictures and clear instructions thank you!! I still had to look up online though more about how to sew a zipper on by machine, didn’t really find anything too helpful…but it made sense after I put the zipper foot on, and there are 2 different sides you can attach the zipper foot on, depending which side of the zipper you are sewing. Anyway I thought it was pretty cool…and useful…okay and I may have also wanted to like this sewing machine because it happens to be PINK. At school I used to have a pink TI-83 graphing calculator and it was always easy to find when I lost it cause someone would find it and say who has a pink TI-83??

Anyway, I’m finishing up the first 2 knit wristlet purses I’ve been working on! I had hand-sewn a lining in the first one, before I had ordered the sewing machine, and then I thought it would really be better and sturdier to sew the lining on the machine so I took it apart :(. All that time spent making tiny little hand stitches…dohh! And I actually went fabric shopping, again, and got some nicer fabrics, one is really shiny, and pink,  and looks great on the inside of the purse! The other purse lining is softer but still a little shiny, and black.

I sewed the lining to the zippers, which sounded a little scary at first, and I put a ton of pins to hold it in place, but it got a lot easier and I only really needed a few pins by the last side :). Right now the little purses are sitting on the table, with the knit outside pinned to the finished lining, just a little more sewing (by hand) to attach the lining! yay!

I just jumped on the bandwagon and started a Christmas in July sale at my etsy shop! Get both of my amigurumi patterns (panda and sushi critter) for one- both will be emailed in PDF form :). There’s also tons of other great sales going on all over etsy so definitely check it out!

Also join my facebook group for Chocololic Knits to make sure you don’t miss any sales or promotions.

As part of a swap-bot swap where we are promoting our partner’s etsy shop, this is a look at the Canada-based Etsy shop Goodness Bakeshop and the delicious, healthy treats available there. The baked goods at Goodness Bakeshop are vegan, cholesterol-free, lactose-free, and preservative-free. Orders placed at the etsy shop (linked above) can be delivered to the U.S. or, in the Canadian areas local to the seller (London, Stratford and St. Marys), delivered fresh personally.

There are some uniquely flavorred desserts such as these blueberry ginger cookies shown above!

I would love to try this peanut butter banana cake (unfortunately but understandably this one is only available for fresh delivery in Canada).

This cinnamon roll look delicious, and would be a guilt-free treat since they are made with all organic, healthy ingredients :).

I haven’t had time to take nice pictures of the new projects yet, especially since it’s been pretty cloudy and the lighting inside is pretty bad, but here are some teaser pics of what I’ve been knitting and crocheting and am almost ready to post on etsy!

This is the comfy, cozy pink “quilted” scarf I mentioned in an earlier post. The stitch features a lot of slipping stitches over other stitches, hence the puffy, quilted stitch appearance which is so nice. It was fun to make but took so much longer than I thought it would!

Another project has been this cute giraffe amigurumi! I actually first designed this for a swap-bot swap where my partner really liked giraffes. (Swap-bot name is turtlegirl11, although I am probably going to change my name to chocololic to match the etsy shop name.)

So those 2 projects are done and just need “photoshoots” to look all pretty, and next up I am working on a lacy elegant wristlet purse! I had orderedsome beautiful yarn from another etsy seller, quovadishhandspun, and I had to think a lot about what to make with it. It was so pretty I wanted to make sure whatever I knitted with it would be something worthwhile. Then from taking pictures of the ipod case, and using the Coach wristlet purse as an accessory, ta-dah! I should make my own “designer” wristlet purse with that gorgeous yarn. Check back later for the results!

Mmmm ❤ ❤ ❤ yarn…