the “pamper the bride” bridal shower gift

I recently attended a “pamper the bride” shower… I’d never been to one before, and these “themed” showers seem to be all the rage right now. Anyone can go out to a bath and body store and get something that smells divine, but I’m all about being original… so here’s what I came up with!

I was given the info that the bride likes “vanilla scent” and I had just found the wonder of scented yarn. I have a pattern for a kid’s bath mitt and ideas started to fly around in my head. I made crocheted the front and back of 1 bath mitt and didn’t attach the front and the back (they’re identical).

Then I cut out 4 identical pieces for each of 2 colors of “spa-ish” fabric (Robert Kaufman – Night and Day”) by drawing around the crocheted mitt and giving about a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

I sewed 2 pieces of one color right sides together, leaving the base raw – this is the lining. Then I stacked the remaining two pieces of that color right sides together with the mitt in the middle (there is no right side to the mitt) and sewed around the outside making sure to catch all three layers and leaving the base edge raw – this is the outer shell.

I turned the 3-layer stack right side out and pushed the liner inside the outer shell. I turned in the bottom of both and top stitched around the entire base. Viola, one scented bath mitt, repeat with other fabric color.

The gift bag was much like the wine bottle holder in “One Yard Wonders”, it consists of an inner and outer in contrasting colors with ribbons sewed into the seams of each so it’s completely reversible.

Just like the bath mitts, the inner was fitted into the outer (or the outer was fitted into the inner – they’re identical) with the raw edges turned in and top-stitched. To top off the spa pack, I put in a large jar candle that smells like cookies, so I made sure to make the bottom of the bag at least as large as the candle. Tie it up and viola!

guess the WIP

WIP = Work In Progress

You’re not allowed to guess if I’ve already told you what it is! Here’s the “in progress” pic, IRL it’s almost finished…

My husband thinks it looks like a giant sperm… now I can’t see anything but that!

trio of love

I’ve been crocheting away, here is my trio of “Love”:

Going clockwise from top center: Waterfalls, Diamonds Overlay, and Cluster Bobbles.

The new addition: Cluster Bobbles.

The puffs are very… umm… interesting. Only for the very patient person with excellent tensioning.

Did you know that Bernat makes scented yarn? Neither did I! It’s the same price as the normal stuff, and I didn’t even notice that I had some… I HAD noticed that my bag smelled rather nice, but I didn’t make the connection. But beware – make sure you sniff your yarn at the store, my mom tried to buy some and some of the balls had less than optimal scent levels! I suppose that the scent will probably wash out or wear out with time, but I can think of tons of good reasons for scented yarn:

• it makes your bag smell nice
• it’s nice to work with
• it makes an even nicer gift if it smells nice… I’m totally putting them in packages that I mail!
• it would probably make your drawer/closet smell nice, just keep putting a new one in once a month or so to keep it smelling great!
• smell is a great invoker of memories… either to make them or recall them.  Give a child something with a scent, then expose them to the same scent as an adult and they’ll be instantly transported back in time!

And today I also have a fantastic tip for you! I was at Michael’s and I found these cute little paperclips that are shaped like a star. It was about $1.50 for a whole package of them, and I’ve started using them as stitch markers:

They’re great because they’re easy to find, easy to see, easy to hook onto work, but because of the shape they don’t fall off and stay out of your way. You’re welcome. 😀