Owl Hat

Yes, I caught on to the craze. These are just so darn cute!!! I found a really cute free pattern on Ravelry. Hers is much cuter than mine, but I still like it

Crochet-top Dishtowels

Hi all! LONG time, no post. I have been crafting, but have also been incredibly lazy at documenting said crafting. Trying to be better. 

Annette bequeathed me two darling dishtowels, one of this embroidered owl in a tea pot (don't ask me what he was doing there...) and a cute little Mexican girl wearing an over-sized sombrero doing the wash. I found a breezy tutorial on crochet top dishtowels, Pinned it and voila! I used left over cotton yarn and a button I had around. Took me 20 minutes, not including the pesky hemstitching I had to do to the top, by hand. >:-/ Wish I had a hemstitching machine. I love this style because you can hang it up on your oven door handle and you won't have dishtowels falling to the ground every time you dry your hands. Can't wait to start the other dishtowel!

Sorry for the poor quality, camera phone.

Afton's Afghan

---Revised---
Jan. 8 2013

I made a video tutorial and posted it on Youtube here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7FIHaz9cvw&feature=youtu.be

It's my first video tutorial so be patient :)

----Revised----
Aug 28 2012


This is the Blanket Grandma Turner (Tyson's Grandma) made for Afton when she was born. Since then I have been trying to figure out the patter because it's so amazing!

Yes, it would have been easier to just ask for the pattern but it was fun trying to figure it out on my own.

Well, I finally did it so I thought I would share because it really is one of the neatest patterns I have ever seen. It gives the afghan a 3D look and I love it.

So I kind of came up with a pattern but it was kind of hard to explain so I decided to do a picture tutorial. (also, I always wanted to try a picture tutorial) It's not the best but here it goes.

This is the actual pattern I came up with:


Here's the revised version to try and make it easier to follow

Grandma's 3D Baby Afghan

Hook Size H

Lion Brand Pound of Love: pastel Pink

Row 1: Using this technique of a no chain foundation, 122 dc. Turn

Row 2: ch 3 (does NOT count as dc), 3 dc in next dc. (ch3, sk next 2 dc, 3 dc in next dc) 40 times. DC in last dc. Turn

Row 3: ch 3, 3 Bpdc in the first dc of 3 dc set. ch 3 [working behind the ch 3 of previous round, 3 Bpdc in 1st dc of 3 dc set, ch 3) 38 times. 3 bpdc in 1st dc of last 3 dc set. Dc in last turning ch of previous row. Turn

Repeat row three until desired length

Last row: ch 3, (dc in next 3 dc, dc in ch 3 sp ) repeat to the end of the row. Dc in last turning ch. fasten off and weave in ends.

Photo Tutorial:

Starting on Row 3-

Ch 3. Yarn over,

Going behind the ch 3 of previous row

bpdc in the first dc of next 3 dc set

(Going around the front of the stitch)

(Yarn over, pull through, finish dc)

When making the next bpdc in the set of 3, do it the same way but make sure the second one goes on top of the first one, not beneath it. (which mean you may need to pull down the 1st st in order to get the second one on top of it) So the three stack on top of each other. You'll get a totally different look if you do the dc under the previous one.

Here's what it looks like when you just finish the 3 bpdc

This is what the back side looks like

ch 3 and repeat till the end. Then dc in last st (it's the turning ch 3 from the previous row)

This is what the edging looks like

And here's a few rows done

Wow that was not an awesome attempt to explain that but I hope it helped even a little. I love this blanket and I think I'm gong to make lots. It goes pretty fast too.

Basketweave Earwarmer

This is What I made for Lex for Christmas.

I couldn't find a free pattern so I mad one up and posted it on Ravelry. (I love Ravelry).

The start of Christmas Projects

These are only a couple of projects I've been working on for Christmas gifts. These are the only ones I can post right now (in case the recipient would look on here)

The first one is a bear I made for Bailey for her birthday. She loves dolls and stuffed animals so I thought it would be fun to make up a pattern and I crocheted it out of some yarn I got from Grandma Brown.

It's not fabulous but I think it'll be fun for her.

This is a pattern I found and loved. The only problem is I picked horrible colors. I love the pattern though and it was so easy to make. I'll probably use this pattern again.

Hairpin Lace Afghan

I'm in love with Hairpin lace now. On Ravelry I saw a few things that looked so cool and I had never heard of it before, so I did some research, got me a loom (mine was $5 at a craft store) and started off.

There are lots of ways to make your own loom too but I was lazy. Someday Tyson is going to make me an AWESOME one out of wood with some designs in it...someday.

This is the first and only thing I have made so far. It's a baby blanket for my SIL's new baby girl.

I would do a tutorial but there are much better ones out there than I could do Like the one here I used.

I really messed upon the first blanket. I read the directions to connect them wrong and so it ended being completely diagonal. So I started over. Luckily these are easy to do and they work up quickly

The end result with fringes. I could have crocheted a border but I decided this was easier.

I really loved doing this and I can't wait to do more. I want to do some bookmarks too. Those are really pretty.

Newborn Hanging Nest

My SIL Celeste made a request that we figure out how to make these hanging hammocks and "potato sacs" that are SO DARLING in newborn shoots. Seriously, if you haven't seen them before google newborn hammock photo shoot or something cause they are the cutest!

Anyway, so while we were in Boise with them, Celeste and I made up a pattern. The hammock didn't work out so well (I'm going to try again when I have more time) but the potato sac turned out good I thought. But to us it looked more like one of those round hanging bird's nests, so that what it's called.

Here's the pattern I wrote out. It's my first pattern ever so if it doesn't make sense I'm sorry. Let me know what to fix so I can get better.

I'm extrememly sad we didn't have an actual newborn to try this out on cause I'm not positive on the sizing but it's easy to make bigger if needs be.

And it's really more fun to do photo shoots with a real baby instead of your two-year-old's baby doll.

So I thought it turned out fun and I want to do more designs with different stitches. And maybe embellish it with a ribbon or flower or something cute like that.

Go Cubs

I made this for Jason for his Birthday. He's a big Cubs fan. it's made of small granny squares sewn together. I wasn't super impressed with how it turned out but it was the first chart I made of anything so I guess I can live with it. I have the chart here.

The "b" is kind of fat

I sewed on some fleece to the back so you couldn't see all the ties and strings.

PS. on a previous post I had a link on how to do a "Magic Loop" after re-sewing at least 20 little squares, I advise you to beware if you use this stitch! Maybe it was the yarn I used but most of the loops came undone. I was so frustrated. So from now on, I'm not going to use it.

Blessing Dress

since I have no other projects to post at the moment I thought I'd post full pictures of the dress.

They're not the best pictures but oh well

G-I-R-A-F-F-E, Giraffe, Giraffe, Giraffe

Isn't he cute?! Thanks to my SIL Lisa who found the pattern here

I really am loving it. This was for a friend's baby so I'm going to have to make another one for my baby

By the way, the title is a song. I'm really not crazy

Easiest Scubbie Ever

So as I was craft-blog hopping, I found the Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef blog and thus began the inspiration. I've been trying to find a good scrubbie pattern and there it was. The site is a place where people from all over crochet a coral reef as a "woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world."  It's really cool all of the designs they come up with, so I made my own little coral to be my scrubbie. 

Materials: 

Peaches and Cream Yarn

Crochet Hook- any size (I used size H)

NOTES: 

• sc=single crochet
  
• You can use any basic stitch you want
  
• Crochet in the front and back loops to make it sturdier
  
• Worked in one continuous round
  

1. Make a Magic Ring. (Planet June has the best photo tutorial for this. You'll never go back to the old way)

2. Crochet 2 sc in each sc 

Ta Da: that's all

Repeat Round 2 until you feel like it. 

Finish: slip stitch into next stitch and fasten off. Weave in Ends. Trim the middle yarn

It starts out looking like this

After a few more rounds, it starts to get wavy

You can stop here if you want, or keep going.

These are my finished scrubbies. 

The best part about this is, you can make them as big or little as you want, or until you run out of yarn or time. The big one takes about 15 min. 

You can make at least 4 or 5 out of the small Peaches and Cream ball. These would be good to give with a bottle of dish soap as a bridal shower gift. 

Baby hats

These are two of the skull caps I'm making with flowers on them. I plan on making more cause I have a whole bunch of flower patterns that my mom bought me in San Francisco. I'm really excited cause the patterns are really cute.

Craft Weekend Warm-up

Chelsea and I warmed up our crafting muscles for the big craft day tomorrow. I also broke in my new machine. I got it because my old one is a 1950's singer and it does a fabulous straight stitch, but nothing else... so this machine can do some applique, which I've been wanting to do for a long time. So far, I love it, even though it's not the fanciest machine on the block. I finally got around to doing a baby girl quilt top that I've had the fabric for for quite awile. This is just the quilt top, so I'll post it when it's quilted and bound, but I love the fabric. This is from the village shop's blog and it's called multi-stripe baby quilt. It's soooo easy. I think it took my an hour and 45 minutes total.

Chelsea and I made 3 nursing covers for Sylvia's daughter in law's (step daughters?? I don't know what to call them). I chose the fabric and cut them out, and chelsea did the sewing. I wanted to keep the polka dotted one for myself. Chelsea also made some Stardust cloth baby shoes from the scraps of my baby quilt I made and from the nursing covers. I love the quilted shoes! Definitely going to have to try that again. After seeing these cute polka dotted shoes, I was really mad I didn't buy more of that fabric. I love it.

A boxy bag that I loved so much that she gave it to me :)

My fam bought this yarn at Sin City Yarn in San Francisco while they were on vacation. It was my dad's idea for Chelsea to make a scarf for Grandma out of it because she looooooves soft things and the color green. It was $15 bucks a skein (yowza!) and it took 3 skeins, but it is literally the softest thing I have ever felt.

And here's the lady herself modeling it:

Project Gallery

I'm trying to transfer over all of my craft projects that I orriginally posted on my family blog, so bear with me if you've seen these before! Here's the teddy I crocheted. It's 12" and is made with thin chenille yarn. It was a fairly difficult pattern. I'm glad I did it, but probably wouldn't do it again! (I'm into instant gratification projects anymore...) Here's the Itty Bitty Baby Dress from Made by Rae. I made the larger of the two sizes and it's still a little big for my now 9 pounder. Some Stardust cloth baby shoes and a Heather Bailey headband to match.
My Black Apple Doll that I named Fiona (Apple) :)
More Stardust cloth baby shoes
Tag Blankie

Baby burp cloths A la Jill. I've made too many of these to post again, but this fabric was my favorite!

A Martha Stewart Patchwork Quilt

A crazy 9 patch crib quilt

And last but not least, I bought this crochet pattern from Nikki Painter on etsy.com