Author: Wendy

Polar Bear Blanket for Munchkin

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After finishing the two afghans for the new baby, Seahawk (my 8yo) said he wanted one of his own; Munchkin (my 5yo) said he didn’t. Well, after seeing Seahawk’s blanket coming together, he changed his mind!

I wanted to do a different pattern than the one I’d been using for his, just for a change, so I had him look through a few fairly simple patterns I’d saved over the previous couple of weeks, and he picked this one. The ironic thing is that I didn’t realize until I started reading the pattern and stitching, but it turns out it was the exact same stitch pattern as the blue/blue afghan for Small Fry and the red/blue/green one for Seahawk! This one’s just put together a little bit differently (and done with a smaller hook). It’s a bit small for him, unfortunately, but he loves it all the same :). My plan is to just add additional borders at some point – if he’ll ever let me have it back long enough to do so!

The bear has lovingly been named “Little Quilt Bob.” (Munchkin is just learning the difference between the different kinds of blankets, and since prior to this, all I’ve made are quilts, every blanket I make is a “quilt” now.)

I found the pattern over on the website for Red Heart yarn. Click HERE if you’re interested in making one of your own!

Sun Hats

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My kids both have red hair, which means they’re very fair skinned and sunburn easily. But they both hate having sunscreen on their faces – which actually works okay since I am NOT fair skinned and never burn, therefore forget to slather them *bad mom*. So this year, I decided to try something new in the hopes that we could avoid having them burn too badly: I made them sun hats. I scoured Google for patterns both in crochet and sewing varieties. I tried a fabric one first, but I wasn’t thrilled with the way it turned out, so I scrapped that idea (no pun intended ;)). The next day, I was looking at a video tutorial on YouTube (hadn’t actually started watching it yet) on baby booties when one of the “suggested videos” caught my eye. It was a brimmed hat, which I thought would be perfect for the boys. I had M with me in my little sanctuary, so I had him pick a color from my stash (he chose light blue) and I got to work. Roughly 3 hours later, he had a hat. Next up was A’s. It took him a while to choose the color; in the end, he went with red – which I could have predicted, since that’s his favorite. I only got about half done with his that night, but easily finished it before lunch.

Now comes the hard part: reminding them to wear them every day!!

I’ve included at the bottom of this post the video tutorial for the hats if you’re interested in making one of your own. It’s very easy, and I definitely recommend trying it if you’re in the market for anything even remotely similar. Doesn’t take too much yarn, either, which is always a plus. One thing I encountered that you should be aware of should you make one (or more!) of these hats: it takes on a taco-shell-like shape for the first several rows. Once you get to around row 10, though, it evens out and finds its place as a hat.

If you prefer written instructions rather than a video, click HERE for the link to the Crochet Geek blog. Her instructions are clear and concise. If you know even the basics of crochet, you shouldn’t have any trouble following them.

Happy stitching!!

Happy Mother’s Day!

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I know I’m a day late here, but that’s okay :).

I subscribe to the JoAnn ad, mostly for the 40% off coupon that’s always in there. Sometimes there’s an additional gem, though; the April ad was was of those times. They were advertising something that was taking place in all of their stores, not just the bigger ones: “Kids, come make your mom a cupcake magnet for Mother’s Day.” Well, my kids love making crafts of all kinds (much to the detriment of the cleanliness of my house a lot of the time!), so this sounded like a perfect opportunity for them to get to make an “official” craft. I recruited my husband to take them in (at ages 8 and 5, they were not interested in letting me take them!) and make these crafts. They were so proud of them that they couldn’t even wait until Sunday to present them to me. Therefore, they’ve had a proud spot on my refrigerator since Saturday afternoon :D.

Afghan for Seahawk

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As mentioned before, this pattern is one of my most used. My eldest son, after seeing the blue/blue blanket for his future-brother, wanted one of his own, so he selected the colors and I put in the work. I’m not going to post the tutorial video again since it’s the same one. Just look at the “Afghan 2 for the New Baby” post to find it.

Pajama Pants

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These were made for my nephew’s second birthday. He’s a huge fan of Mickey Mouse. I made similar sets for my two sons for Christmas – the pajama pants along with a bathrobe apiece. My mom thought they were so cute that she asked me to make a set for my nephew. The deal was she’d provide the fabric if I provided the labor, and it would be a joint gift for the little guy. It worked out well!

Afghan 2 for Small Fry

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After finishing two fairly major projects, I was feeling confident enough to try something completely new, so I found a tutorial video for this pattern. It’s become one of my go-to patterns now. This one is smaller than the beige one; my thinking was that it could be used for “out and about” once Son #3 is here–it’s big enough to cover a carseat (or a baby in a carseat) completely, but small enough that it will be convenient.

It’s not perfectly clear in the picture, but it’s royal blue and sky blue (not white). The colors compliment each other beautifully :).

Here’s the tutorial video:

Purse

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Here’s the purse I made as my first reintroduction to crochet. It’s great, and I love it, but I don’t use it often; I don’t carry much in a purse, so I don’t like the big ones. For one, they’re too cumbersome. For two, my husband seems to think if I have a large purse, he can just add things to it for me to carry for him, lol.

That big white-ish area on the front is a pocket for my cell phone; I’ve found that if I just put it in the regular pocket with everything else, I go through screen protectors too fast, so I always keep it separate now.

I didn’t use a tutorial for this one; I used the basic stitch that my mother-in-law taught me in 2003. This was made before I started experimenting with other stitches.

Amigurumi Elephant

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In case you don’t know, Amigurumi is the Japanese word for a crocheted or knitted stuffed toy. I’m just beginning to dabble in that particular art, and the elephant here is my first project. You might notice that he doesn’t have any eyes. That’s because as soon as I finished the head, both of my older boys decided they wanted one of these cute little creatures, even though my intention was to have this one be for the baby (the nursery theme is going to be elephants and giraffes). Knowing that I’d end up making at least 3, maybe 4, of these (I love elephants, too, so I might make a fourth to put up on my own shelf!), I opted not to sew the eyes onto any of them until all of them were completed. My thinking is that they’ll all have different colored eyes based on who they belong to – my 8 year old has green eyes, so his elephant will, too; my 5 year old has blue eyes, so his elephant will, too… you get the picture – but I don’t want to give a toy to one kid and not the other, so they’ve been told that neither will get one until both are completed. Similarly, I don’t want to have them mocking each other with “Mom already made mine!” even if they don’t technically have possession of it yet. Make sense? 🙂

For anyone interested in making your own “Baby’s Elephant,” click HERE for the free pattern, courtesy of Red Heart yarn.

Afghan 1 for Small Fry

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I’ve always been afraid of crochet; my first two experiences with it weren’t exactly positive. The first was when I was pregnant with my oldest son. My late mother-in-law taught me a basic stitch so that I could make a baby blanket. The project took me most of the pregnancy, so I didn’t keep up with it – I’m an “instant gratification” kind of girl. When I got pregnant with my second son, I had an urge to make a similar blanket for him, so I did – my second major project. That one didn’t go any quicker than the first, so I dropped the hobby yet again.

When I stopped writing around December 2011/January 2012, my husband noticed that I seemed “aimless,” so he suggested I learn to knit. In his opinion, it would be a good hobby that I could do nearly anywhere. I thought, “What the heck,” and picked up some yarn and knitting needles from our local Jo-Ann store. Well, it turns out that knitting was even harder than crocheting! I tried for hours with YouTube videos and couldn’t get anything to stay on the needles, so the next day I went back to Jo-Ann and bought a set of crochet hooks instead – even if it was slow, at least I already knew how to do it. I had two skeins of yarn to use up, after all. My “first” project was a purse (essentially a piece of crochet “fabric” about 12×19 folded in half and sewn up the sides to make a pocket with a 3×36 strap). I was able to finish the entire thing (including a zippered liner sewn into the crocheted shell) in about 3 days. Talk about encouraging! I’d never been able to crochet that fast before. That took one full skein of yarn, but I still had one more. I headed back to YouTube to find a pattern I liked for a baby blanket. This was the one I came up with. We found out we were having another boy shortly before I finished this, so I added a royal blue border when I was done, and voilà! A baby blanket that didn’t take the entire pregnancy to complete!

Here’s the video I used for making this one: