Making a Fascinator

I made a Fascinator on Thursday to wear to work on Saturday in celebration of the Preakness - oh, and the Royal Wedding.  It was actually very easy to make!

I used the pages of an old book that was falling apart to make a large paper flower.  Since I used a Dr. Seuss book, I used bright purple berries to make the centers of the flowers.  I hot glued the flower petals together.

I bought a spool of tulle and a spool of sparkly rhinestones from the endless crap supply in my basement, and a headband from the grocery store.  I scrounged some floral wire up at work, and the next thing you know, I had a fascinator.

I looped the tulle into 8 very big figure 8's, and then tied it in the center with the floral wire.  I did the same thing with the blingy tape, and wired it onto the tulle with the same floral wire that I wrapped around the tulle bow. 

I then hot glued the paper flower into the middle of the bow.  I wrapped the wire from the flower around the headband and Voila!  It's a fascinator! 

Oh, the feathers!  I forgot them!  We had a stash of feathers at work that someone brought in for craft projects.  I brought 3 of them home to use for my project. 

Knitted Swiffer Cover

I found this wonderful Scrubby yarn at Wal-Mart not too long ago.  It's 100% polyester, and it has fibers sticking up out of the yarn.  It's intended for use as dishcloth yarn.

Now, I've made my own dishcloths for years.  They do the job, and hold up fairly well over time, but they do eventually rip, tear, or fade.  Ten years ago, somebody gave me a huge spool of dishcloth yarn.  (It was on a cone....unused.)  It was pink.  I honestly didn't care about the color of the yarn.  I knitted up all of the yarn into a lot of dishcloths, and I've been regularly using them since.  They are starting to fall apart.

But hey, I found this yarn and decided to make some dishcloths.  I bought two skeins and I've whipped up enough dishcloths to keep us going for a while when I had a thought - why not see if I can use this yarn to make a cover for my Swiffer and see if it can handle to job of cleaning the kitchen floor?

Directions for a Mop cover:

1 Skein of Scrubby yarn - or a similar dishcloth type fiber.
1 set of size 10 knitting needles.
yo = yarn over

Cast on 5 stitches.
Knit 3, yo, knit to the end.
Continue until you have 50 stitches on the needle.
Knit 3, yo, knit 2 together (twice) knit to the end.
Continue pattern until  you have 5 stitches left on the needles.
Cast off.

Congratulations!  You have a mop cover!  Wrap the cover over your mop head, tucking the ends into your mop holes.  And away you go!

I use this on my Wet Jet, and it works really well!

*IF you'd like to use this pattern to make a dishcloth, follow the directions written above, but continue until you have 30 stitches left on your needles, and then begin to decrease.*