For about two months now, I’ve been practicing with fire once a week. It makes me so happy to feel myself getting more brave with the flames each time! Every Thursday night, I come home smelling like fire, with usually at least one small burn mark on me and much less arm hair than I started out with but it’s all part of learning and I’m having SO much fun!

This past week, my friends and I had a bonfire at the beach and hooped it up! It was such a blast that I almost don’t even care about the $80 parking ticket I got while I was there. I think I’m overdue for a fire video, right? I had no idea that I was being recorded so it was a nice surprise when one of my friends posted this video of me! I’m so happy that the trick I nailed at 1:18 was captured because it’s been so hard to get!

I’m curious how many of you reading this are hoopers too? Say hi & let me know! :) If you’re not a hooper, I hope you’re at least entertained by all of my hoopiness!

I’ve had a hard time finding a sparkly yarn that comes in all the colors I want (I love Red Heart Shimmer & Caron Simply Soft Party but the colors of both are a little limited) so I came up with an easy technique that allows me to add sparkle to any yarn I want! Here’s a tutorial that will explain what I used and how I did it!

I love that this let’s me add sparkle to any yarn I choose, any fiber, any weight! And I also get to pick the color of the sparkle! I hope you have fun with this! Let me know if you try it out! :)

Oh and here are links to the sparkle threads I used: Holoshimmer (the sparkly silver) & Metallic (the clear iridescent).

Ok, so I feel a little bit weird about the title of this but I didn’t know what to call it! :P You know that hole that’s left at the beginning of a crochet project when you’re working in the round? Here’s how to close it up!

Obviously, this isn’t always necessary, sometimes things look fine with a little bit of a hole in the center. Actually, I rarely close it all the way, but sometimes I want to make it smaller. It’s mostly a matter of personal preference! But certain designs (like the star hat and bag I’m working on) really benefit from having it completely closed up.

Here’s another video tutorial I made recently! This one shows how to do the type of picot stitch that I use in my barefoot sandal patterns. It’s smaller than a normal picot so this video is really only intended for those of you who are working with my barefoot sandal patterns! Otherwise, this isn’t the proper way to do a picot! ;)

Several of you suggested adding beads to the barefoot sandals so I made a video to go along with the patterns, to show how to add beads to crochet. This technique isn’t specific to the barefoot sandal patterns, it’ll work with any crochet project!

I’m not quite as happy with this video as I normally am, but I hope you’re able to learn from it! I’d love to hear what you think of it. :)