Children's Church Projects

Here are a few more crafts I assembled for the children's church:

It's finished!!!

Here are the green leaves for the poinsettia completed and assembled:


And here is the poinsettia!!!

I am so proud of myself for doing it and I think it came out really nice! It measures 12 inches across, which is a bigger size than the instructions stated. But that is probably because I kept losing count of the number of rows I was knitting for the green leaves, so they aren't all the same size.


Most of the time you only get to see the front of a project. Well, here is what the back looks like. That little bit of red yarn is what is left from me knitting the red to the green:

Lovin' that flower!

Everyone who sees my poinsettia is giving it raves!And it isn't even done yet! Next I am kntting the green leaves that will be attached behind it. I have finished 4 so far:

I only need two more, which I expect to complete tomorrow.The first 3 didn't come out so well. They are uneven and skinny to me. But I altered the directions a little bit and the last one I did came out better. Most of the green leaf will be hidden behind the red ones anyway, so it won't be too noticeable. See if you can pick out which one is the last one I did.

Leaves Assembled

Voila! The poinsettia! It only took a few minutes to assemble the red leaves.

I made the yellow part using Bernat Satin Sport Warm Yellow and 15 yellow pony beads. The instructions were to string the beads onto the yarn first and then knit them in. At first I thought this was going to create a tangled, loose mess, but I knit it taut and cinched the bottom closed. As I gathered the top it clustered into the neat ball that you see here. I didn't have the Knifty Knitter spool loom, so I improvised using the pink loom, removing one of the pegs, and using a loom clip, as below:

This was easy to do. Here is what the back of the poinsettia looks like:

So far I have completed 3 of the green leaves, which I will post shortly.

Loom Clips

I forgot to mention that I used loom clips as I was knitting the practice sock. Using the clips was easy... SNAP! and they are in place. But unsnapping them must be done carefully. I was concerned that I might break them as I twisted them off, but I didn't.

I am almost finished with the second leaf for my poinsettia. I'm still struggling with the yarn being wrapped too tightly on the loom, so I have to find that "perfect" balance to knit with. The two main problems with the yarn being too tight are: 1. sometimes the peg pops out of the loom while you're trying to pull the yarn over the top of it, and 2. sometimes the yarn you are trying to knit over comes off as you are trying to knit off. So both strands of yarn are left dangling while you try to figure out which one belongs on top. ARGH!

Crafty...

Recently I became the Craft Coordinator for the Children’s Ministry at my church. Basically this means that I prepare the craft supplies for the teachers to use each week, and create a sample of the craft for the teacher to use as a guide. All the crafts are from the Kid’s Quest program. I didn’t make them up; I just followed the directions on how to make them. Here are a few of the crafts I have been working on:

The raven

The pig

Daily Bread

Bean name

Growth chart

The temple

Sheep

Cute!

Happy 4th of July, all!

Had a great time yesterday at the Kutztown Amish festival in PA with family and a friend. The quilts there were amazing. We walked around and saw all the sights. Dancing, crafts, craftsmen making all sorts of things, all kinds of food, live music, and a nice play area and petting zoo for the kids. They even had a horse drawn carousel! I really enjoyed the festival. It inspired me to continue doing my artwork.