Tag Archives: yarn

Crochet Blankets

10 Feb

Along with the hats, I have a few blanket projects that I have completed over the last few months. I already shared the knitted blankets that I made, but I decided to try out crocheted blankets as well.

I started out small. Our previous neighbors had just had a baby, and their now second youngest asked if I could make him a blanket when he saw the other blankets I was working on. He likes to carry toys and things around as he goes, so I knew that a smaller blanket would be easier for him to take around. I found a green yarn in my stash, that was his favorite color, and found a pattern I had wanted to try out, Little Boys Favorite Throw. I don’t remember how many chains I started with, but I want to say it was around 45. It wasn’t very big, about 13″ x 21″, even after adding an extra row to the border, but he loved it.

Start of the blanket

Start of the blanket

Almost finished with rows

Almost finished with rows

Finished blanket

Finished blanket

After that, I was a lot more confident with my skills, and apparently so was my husband, because he asked if I could make a blanket for one of his co-workers that was expecting a baby boy. JoAnn Fabrics happened to have a 50% off all baby yarn sale at that time, so I picked up 2 skeins of Bernat Baby Blanket yarn in the Little Boy Dove color. I found a cute pattern, Baby Bobble Blanket, and made a few modifications. Instead of 5 in each cluster stitch, I only did 3, but still got a good “bubble” with each stitch. I also used a white yarn for the edging/border, and did the following:

Edging:
Start white color in corner.
Round 1: sc in every stitch, sl st in first sc at end
Round 2: ch 3, 2 dc in the same stitch, skip ch 1, sl st next 2 stitches, skip ch 1, 3 dc in next ch 1, repeat from all around, making sure to make the “shell” in each corner. Sl st to ch 3 and fasten.

This made a little bubbling in the border to go along with the bobbles in the blanket. It came out to be about 36″ x 36″

IMG_20141209_224835_172 IMG_20141209_225359_092 IMG_20141209_231010_188 IMG_20141209_231036_694

After completing this blanket, my husband said he had another co-worker having a baby, and asked if I could make a blanket for them. With the previous sale at JoAnn Fabrics, I bought a Lion Brand Pound of Love yarn in Pastel Blue, which was perfect since they were having a boy. I decided to use the Little Boys Favorite Throw pattern again, and do the full blanket. It was quite time-consuming, but I was really happy with how it turned out. It’s a very nice pattern, and may be my go-to pattern for baby blankets in the future. This blanket was 36″ x 36″ as well.

IMG_20150206_221423_692 IMG_20150206_221612_459 IMG_20150206_221655_987 IMG_20150206_221736_192

I have plans to make blankets for my girls at some point too, but I need to decide on a pattern and size for them.

Crochet Headband

4 Dec

I let both of my girls pick out yarn to make a scarf. When I finished the first one, I had not enough yarn for a hat, but enough to make a headband. So, I luckily found this quick and easy pattern for a headband, and made a few more Flower Appliques for the accents. (Don’t worry, I’ll post more on the knitted scarves later after I FINALLY finish the second one!) I finished each of these in a few hours each. My girls love them!

Pattern: Chunky Crochet Headband. I did chain more at the beginning for my older daughter’s because her head is bigger

Yarns:
Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Blue Heather
Bernat Vickie Howell Sheep(ish) in Turquoise(ish)

Hook size: J/6.0mm

Close-up of blue heather headband with Flower Applique Headband on younger daughter Turquoise(ish) headband with complimenting scarf

My New Hobby – Knitting and Crocheting

3 Dec

When I was a kid, I did a LOT of cross-stitch. I think one year my sister and I cranked out Christmas ornaments for a huge list of people. I had always thought about learning to knit or crochet, but the time or opportunity just ever presented itself. Last year, my daughter joined a knitting club at school, and I decided it was time to time to try to learn. I used the sheets she was given and watched some videos on YouTube, and learned how to cast on, the knit stitch, the purl stitch, and the stockinette stitch. I started with scarves. I figured those were easy enough! I played around with the different stitches to get different looks and had fun doing it.

My first scarves Close up of my first scarves

Then, my daughter lost interest, and life got busy with other things, so I didn’t work on anything for about a year. We recently had some new babies born in our family and circle of friends, so I got the urge to start working on some new projects to give as gifts. I had to watch the videos again, but was able to pick it back up. Then, my mom came to visit, and she was working on crocheting granny squares for Christmas stockings. Again, I watched a few videos and watched her work, and learned how to do chain, slip, single, double, half-double, and treble stitches. Then, after posting a few projects on Facebook, a friend from college let me know about a forum called, Ravelry.com, which is free to join, and has a TON of free and paid patterns for both knitting and crocheting. It was a whole new world opened up for me, and I have been busy creating since.

I’m hoping to be able to keep it up, and over the next few weeks, I will share my finished projects. As I work on more, I will share those too. I’m starting my younger daughter on knitting, and my older daughter has been knitting again and wants to learn to crochet as well. I’m excited at the opportunity to work with them on this as well!

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