Knitting Dragonflies

Nico Designs After years of being a Behavior Specialist and Special Education Teacher, I sew for sanity. My two babies (ages 3 and 2) make everything in the past seem so ordinary and what lies in front of us as amazing. And chaotic. As for the name of my shop? My Dad is my hero. And he calls me "NICO" for my middle name, Nicole. At Nico Designs we create each item with design, style and functionality in mind. We strive to create products that are eco friendly by utilizing a combination of new, repurposed, recycled or upcycled materials. As we strive to understand our role as stewards of our planet we will adapt our manufacturing to be as lean as possible. This means we use our scraps/remnants in other projects or donate them to keep them from a landfill. She also donates a portion of her sales to help fund childhood cancer research. Proceeds from the sale of select items will go to the Ronald McDonald House in Temple. And 10% of sales from the other items will go ...

Coraline is a 2009 American stop-motion 3-D horror-fantasy film based on Neil Gaiman's 2002 novel of the same name. It was produced by Laika and distributed by Focus Features. Written and directed by Henry Selick, it was released widely in US theaters on February 6, 2009, after a world premiere at the Portland International Film Festival. When you realize Coraline is stop motion animation and with that comes a long process for creating each puppet in the film. and beyond that, someone has to outfit them! Would you believe one woman knitted all of Coraline's sweaters and gloves? This is an amazing film, that took many, many true artists to craft this story together. Below are several videos of artisans. Althea Crome the knitter of Coraline’s sweaters and gloves.   Suzanne Moulton head of the hair department   An idea of what it took to make the world of Coraline Technorati Tags: Coraline the movie , knitting coraline's sweaters , Suzanne Moulton...

Winter here usually includes a long stretch of sunless, wet, muddy grey days. The predication last night was for ice and then snow. Well I woke up this morning to neither and bright clear skies and sun! Yay! I’m delighted to see it after many dull days without it, but do miss my snow. So I decided to find some homemade remedies! WINTER WONDERLAND PINK SNOWFLAKE COOKIE GIFT SET - $18.00 us Snowflake Goat Milk Handmade Soap $2.70 us Original Photo 5x7 Snowflake in the Window $8.00 us Mini Clipboard and Post it Notes – Snowflakes $8.50 us Snowflake. Silver Plated Locket Necklace $22.00 us Snowflake Dangles Technorati Tags: etsy snowflakes , homemade snowflakes , knit , knitting

Need some help finding patterns? Knitters Review gives us a lift of seven great little knitted items, hats, neck warmers and a cute little mouse. From Knitty Winter of 06 it’s Norberta the Dragon by Kate Kuckro, and her blog SimplyCrafted.com Kate also had her Toasty pocket creatures in Knitty winter 05, cute and quick From Crafts on Toast a super cute Bender pattern! (from Futurama) Who can’t use another HackySack ? This is a knit pattern for them from Sharon at ShazzasPatterns blog. I have crocheted them before but never knitted. From Cosmic pluto knits, here is a shawl pattern that only takes 350 yards / 320 m of fingering weight yarn, (you can use your handspun!) Reversible and fast and beautiful! It is the Milkweed Shawl . Destined to become a classic by anyone that knits it! She also has LOTS of other great patterns! I love this The Thing Pattern , for your comic book or Fantastic Four fan, by Knittycat.vox . Please check her blog out. From ChezPlum a sweet l...

Fire Hooping, Barrington. Photo by Amanda Giles My girlfriend Rachel, who is my Henna sister, got a fire hula hoop for Christmas! While I’m still practicing on a standard hula-hoop, she has progressed to a LED hoop and now a fire hoop . I love the directions, it actually says, “at some point you will catch yourself on fire”, so someone stands by with a fire extinguisher while she hoops. Now that person should be sober! And you can’t really knit if you are the extinguisher person either. Red Hat pattern by Bernat , this is the second hat I have made with this pattern. Every month we get together to henna our hair, if you are interested in moving away from chemical coloring to henna, like many people are, (especially if you are being treated with chemotherapy or pregnant) the best website is Henna for Hair. Rachel before hair…light brown   and after….beautiful auburn We were both interested in switching to henna and started the journey together. She is a light brow...

Burrrr……It is cold here! We have had about 2 weeks of very cold weather for Southern Indiana. With temps in the single digits at night and in the teens during the day, we are bundled up and ready for some warmer temps. As usual, we are the marathon dog walkers, no fenced yard, and large dogs equals our own exercise routine. This has resulted in a hat knitting binge for me. Quick and warm, everyone needs a hat. My mother always taught me that most of the heat escapes through your head, and you need to wear that hat to stay warm. Now I have read the study that determined that may have been misleading , but when it’s 4 degrees out and the wind at 30 mph, I’m not going out without my hat. When the temp dips this low it feels great to put on a knitted wool hat and bundle up against the winds. The pattern I used is a free one from Bernat for bulky yarn, I used Bernat yarn felting natural wool in color 94310, (a pink/purple blend). On size 8 US circular needles, using the magic l...

  Well I’ve become somewhat obsessed with sock monkeys! It seems that people have definite opinions on them, similar to clowns, love or hate them. So it all starts with a pair of socks $4.95 from WalMart. After making a couple for gifts for my niece and nephew. The mania began. The traditional sock monkeys that we think of were made with a specific sock, the  Rockford Red Heel Socks . John Nelson, a Swedish immigrant to the United States, patented the sock-knitting machine in 1869, and began manufacturing work socks in Rockford, Illinois in 1890. During the Great Depression, American mothers first made sock monkeys out of worn-out Rockford Red Heel Socks. Sometime around 1951 Nelson Knitting company discovered that their socks were being used to make monkey dolls, this resulted in a dispute over the pattern. The company was awarded the pattern in l955 and started including it with every pair of socks. In 1992 the Nelson company was acquired by Fox River Mills.  A...

Enjoy yourself, watch some football and knit!