How to Make Paper Planting Pots

Trying to buy pots to start all your plants in can be inconvenient and even expensive. I decided to make my own pots from the pages of a phone book. Yellowbook advertises that their phone books are printed with soy dyes and vegetable-based glues, so planting pots made from a Yellowbook phone book would be pretty biodegradable.
To make this project, you will need:
1) A phone book or some newspaper
2) Water
3) A cup
4) A tray to put your finished pots on (I used foil cooking trays).

First, tear two pages out of the phone book at once. Fold them lengthwise together. Now, begin wrapping it around the end of the cup.

Make sure that when you have it all the way around the cup, a bit of the outside edge overlaps at the top.

This is to give added strength to the pot later. There should also be paper sticking off the bottom of the cup.

Now fold this paper in to make a bottom for your new planting pot.

Once this is done, you are ready to soak the planting pot. Put it under running water.

After it is thoroughly soaked, take it off of the cup. Fold the overlapping edge in to add strength where the seam is.

Now you have your own biodegradable pots to start plants in! I let mine dry overnight before I planted in them.

How to Make Tissue Paper Flowers

Today I'm going to demonstrate how to make your own tissue paper flowers. Specifically, I'll be making a rose. If you want to do this project, you will need:
1) Scissors
2) Floral tape
3) A pencil
4) Floral wire or just green wire
5) Tissue paper; I'm using one sheet of white, one sheet of light pink, and one sheet of dark pink.
6) Wire cutters are nice, but a pair of old scissors will work.

Cut a piece of floral wire using your wire cutters. Make it about the length you want your flower's stem to be. If you are making this flower to go in a vase, 10 inches or so works well. If you are making it to go in a buttonhole, I'd say about 4 inches.

Now take a sheet of light pink tissue paper and fold it into a much smaller square.

Draw teardrop-shaped petals on the tissue paper. They should all be about the same size.

                                                                      
Now cut them out. You'll also want to save enough room to cut out a strip about 3-5 inches long along a single fold.

                                                        
Now do the same thing to a sheet of white tissue paper and a sheet of dark pink tissue paper, except this time you don't have to cut out a 3-5 in. long strip. You should have a pile of petals.

Cut a long piece of floral tape. Start wrapping it around one end of your wire. You'll have to stretch it a little in order to make it stick.

If you run out of floral tape before you get to the end of your wire, that's all right. Just reel off some more and keep going. When you get near to the end, stop. Take the 3-5 in. strip of tissue paper and start wrapping it around the end of wire that is not covered yet with tape. But place the end of wire inside the fold. When you've wrapped it around a couple of times, poke the end of wire through the tissue paper fold and bend it over. Now continue wrapping until you run out of tissue paper. Wrap the rest of your floral tape around this flower center. Start attaching petals. First attach a dark pink petal.

Then attach another dark pink petal, directly across from the one you just attached. Every once in a while, you should stretch your floral tape down to the stem and wrap it around once down there to keep it attached to the stem. Once you have attached 3 or 4 dark pink petals, attach two light pink ones. Then do another dark one. After that, go on with the light pink petals until you have several layers of light pink.

Then add a white petal or two. Once again, add a light pink petal. Now only add white ones until you have several layers of white. The more petals you add, the better your rose will turn out.

You can do these in any colors you like. My favorites are the ones that fade from one color to another.

                                                                       
                                                                 
                                                                       
                                                                         
                                                                                                                                                                
                                                
                                                                         

How to Knit a Dishcloth (pattern in the public domain)

Hello! This post is for knitters who already know how to knit. I'm just going to post the pattern here. If you are a beginner and would like more detailed directions, please visit my post, "How to Knit a Dishcloth: For Beginners (pattern in the public domain)."
I find that dishcloths are very fun and rewarding to make. They turn out beautifully, and they are very good quality. I made some for my mother and for my eldest sister this past Christmas. They make very good gifts.
These should be done with cotton yarn. I think they are especially beautiful with variegated yarn.

You will need:

1) A ball of cotton yarn.
2) A pair of knitting needles. I used size 9 or 10, but I think I would have rather had something a bit smaller, maybe a size 7 or 8.
3) A pair of scissors.

Directions:

1) Cast on four stitches.
2) Knit one row as usual.
3) Knit two, yarn over, and then knit to the end of the row. You will use this pattern of knitting until you have 44 loops on your needle.
4) Knit one, knit two together, yarn over, knit two together, and then knit to the end of the row. You will use this pattern of knitting until you only have 4 loops on the needle.
5) Bind off.
6) Cut your yarn. Separate the tail into two sections with two threads per section. You should have four all together.
7) Thread one of these sections through a nearby loop on the dishcloth. You may have to use one of your needles to open up the hole a little.
8) Knot the two sections together three times. Pull tightly. Cut the threads short.
9) Do the same to the other tail.

                                           

How to Knit a Dishcloth: For a Beginner (pattern in the public domain)

Hi everyone! I'm excited to give you my first craft in my library: a knitted dishcloth. These are so beautiful, so much more beautiful than the ones you buy at the store. They are said to be very good quality, too. I have found that they make great gifts. I knitted two for my eldest sister and two for my mother this past Christmas. I unintentionally matched my mother's dishcloths to her new dishes, and when I discovered it I almost gave my secret away.
Well, to start out, you'll need:
1) A ball of cotton yarn.
2) A pair of knitting needles. The size of the needles does not really matter so much, but I have tried a size ten, and in order for that size to work I had to knit very tightly. Still, the dishcloths I knitted came out much larger than those I knitted with smaller needles. It would seem to me that around a size 8 would work well.
3) A pair of scissors.

The first thing you do is make a slipknot. To make a slipknot, lay a length of your yarn on the table and make a loop.

Next, stick your index finger and thumb up through that loop and grab the thread that is underneath.

Now pull it through the loop.

Attach the loop shown on the index finger in the picture to one of your knitting needles and pull it tightly. You are ready to start casting on.

With your left hand, pick up the yarn that is between the ball of yarn and your needle. Slip it in between your pinkie and ring finger. Lay it across your palm. Now stick it in between your index and middle fingers. It should look like this.

Slide the tip of your needle underneath the yarn that is lying across your left palm.

Now twist the yarn on the needle, in a counterclockwise motion.

Now step back and look at what we've got.

See the piece of yarn in the middle? Bring it over the needle towards you. Then pull tightly. This is what it should look like now:

                                                               
Cast on two more stitches.

Now we are going to knit a row. This will be the normal knit-stitch. Take the needle you haven't used yet and put it in your right hand. Put the needle with stitches already on it in your left hand. Poke the tip of your right needle through the top loop on your left needle, like so:

Then push your right needle up behind your left needle.

See the yarn I'm holding out straight on the right of the picture? That's between the ball of yarn and the needle. Wrap it counterclockwise around the top of your right needle and pull down.

Now it is in between your two needles. Take your right needle and pull it over that piece of yarn. Use it to carry that piece of yarn underneath the loop you originally stuck your right needle into. Here is a picture of what that looks like.

Ok, now slide that original loop right off the end of your left needle and pull tightly.

You have just completed a knit stitch. Do three more, until you reach the end of the row. Do not worry if your knitting looks a mess at this time; it will look better.

Now we are going to begin our next row. But this time our row will not be knit-stitches all the way across. We need to start increasing. So knit two stitches.

Ok, see that yarn on the right again? Pull it over the top of your right needle in a counterclockwise motion, just as you would for a regular knit stitch, but without the rest of the stitch. That's called a yarn over. It will increase your number of stitches by one, but it will also create a hole in the fabric. In this case, that is good. It will make for a pretty border around the edge.

All right. Now pull tightly and knit two more stitches. That's how your next rows are going to be: knit two, yarn over, and knit to the end of the row. Repeat. After a few rows of this you will begin to notice that your yarn is turning into the corner of a dishcloth.

Then after several more rows your stitching will probably look like this:

Keep knitting until you have 44 loops on your needle. Then it is time to decrease. To decrease, knit one stitch.

Now you're going to do the actual decrease stitch. Put your right needle tip up through two loops at once. This is what it should look like:

The rest of that stitch is like normal: wrap the yarn around your right needle, pull through, take the loops off of your left needle, and pull tightly.

Now yarn over. Then knit two together again. Finally, knit regularly all the way to the end of the row. This is the pattern you're going to use until you get back down to four loops on your needle. When you get to this point, start binding off. To bind off, knit two stitches regularly.

Now, slide your left needle point downward through the bottom loop on your right needle.

Using your left needle, pull this loop over the other loop and off the needle. Let go of the loop with your left needle. Now you should only have one loop on your right needle and two on your left. Bind off the other two loops.

Now you only have one loop. Cut the yarn that is in between the needle and the ball of yarn.

With your index finger and thumb, pinch the yarn in between the needle and the dishcloth so that your loop doesn't disappear. Pull the needle out.

Now take your yarn tail that you just cut and poke it through the loop.

Grab the end of the yarn and pull it the rest of the way through. Pull tightly.

                                                                      
Separate the strands of yarn in your tail of yarn until you have two threads in each half.

Take one of these new strands and thread it through a nearby loop of yarn. You may have to use one of your needles to open up the hole a little.

Knot your two strands of yarn together three times. Pull tightly.

Now cut your threads short.

Do the same thing to your other yarn tail. You might have to stretch the dishcloth a little one way or the other, in order to give it the right shape. Now you should have a finished dishcloth.

I think these also turn out very well with variegated yarn.