Unicorn-Unique Niece

My niece just turned 9, which I can't even believe is possible - how is she growing so fast?!?  In my mind she's still my little Livy-bug, but in reality, she's old enough to have an Instagram-worthy, hashtag-ready, rainbows & unicorns themed birthday party.  Seriously, this girl needs to be introduced to an old friend of mine named Lisa Frank ;)

I decided to crochet her a pillow - something she can snuggle up to while reading, or cozy up with watching tv.  I have had this awesome pattern saved on my Pinterest for quite a while now, just knowing it would come in handy.  It was super easy & it worked up quickly, I was pleasantly surprised :)  I even had it done before we went on vacation, a whole month before the birthday!

You can see I did a sleepy eye, instead of a hard plastic one, so it would be a bit cozier.  I also did the mane differently - as much as I just LOVE the one in the original picture, I wasn't thrilled with how it was turning out as I crocheted it... so I just used a rainbow yarn and made a fringe trim along the top & back of the unicorn's head (I cut a guhzillion pieces of yarn then gathered 3 together, folded them in half, and used my crochet hook to pull them through the edge stitches & knot them in place).

I think it was a hit - when she opened the bag (which I also crocheted - that post will be coming sometime) she let out a squeal and jumped up to give me a hug.  That, of course, is my favorite part of crocheting for my family & friends ;)  And, my sister texted me that my niece has requested a blanket, so... we shall see where the inspiration takes me, on that!

All You Need Is Love...

Y'all.  Y'all!  I know I say this all the time, but this time it's for reals - this is my FAVORITE thing I've ever made (aside from my sons' baby blankets, naturally).  This project was super fun, the yarn was a joy to work with, and the whole concept of it was a new thing for me to try.  So, I am so happy to present to you my niece's birthday present, The Beatles Blanket:

My niece is turning 6 on Monday, and thanks to the show "Beat Bugs," she is a huge Beatles fan.  Enough of a fan, in fact, to have a Beatles themed birthday party!  She decided this far enough in advance that I was confident I could finish a (small) project in time, and I started searching online for a project.  Of course, I just couldn't find anything that really called to me.  Lots of Sgt. Pepper amigurumi stuff, but... honey, no... I felt myself moving in the direction of a blanket to snuggle up with, but I couldn't find any great patterns.  So, I drew inspiration from a picture I saw online, and I came up with a pattern I could turn into a graphgan (afghan made from a graphed pattern, where 1 block = 1 stitch).

Keeping with the Beatles theme, I picked a psychedelic-looking yarn for the words, and a super soft grey for the background.  Even though it can look intimidating at first, a graphgan is actually super easy - you just carry the non-working yarn along inside the stitches, and switch back-and-forth whenever the chart tells you to.  Depending on which stitch you use, you may need to do TWO stitches for each block on the graph (i.e., in sc, 1 stitch is accurate, but hdc, dc, or even tc will really skew your results - I did this blanket in all hdc, which is why mine is taller & narrower than the graph.), but other than that, it's quite straightforward.  The only important thing to remember is to always hold the "secret" yarn towards the back of the picture, so that it doesn't show through on the front side.  You can definitely see some spots where I got lazy with that (particularly the bottom left side), and I tried to pay more attention to that as I went on.

Once I had the graphed portion of the blanket done, I went around the whole thing with single crochet, then did a second round in dc.  This made a nice, uniform border, and also helped restore the blanket to a more squared shape, after it got wonky from being handled so much.

I'm really hoping my niece likes this blanket.  In true almost-6-years-old fashion, she changed her mind about a week ago & requested a gymnastics party (though my sister did me a solid & merged the two), but she still loves the Beatles & neon colors ;)  Either way, this project was fun & a big step for me into trying new techniques!

Baby Blanket for the Brussels Sprout

This post has been sitting in my "to post" bin for a bit, because I was waiting til the recipient opened the present at her Baby Shower.  And boy, what a fun time that party was!  My cousin, who is having a baby in August, lives in Belgium.  But the families are scattered, from Colorado to New York, Massachusetts to Maryland... there was no way we were going to be able to get everyone together, right?  So, Momma-to-be's sister came up with the idea of a "virtual shower," and It.  Was.  AMAZING!  Everyone shipped their presents overseas in the weeks leading up to the big day (T, how did you ever have the self control for that?!?), then we all gathered at local homes to join in on a shared video call to get to chat & watch the presents be opened.  They even shipped decorations to each home & ordered cupcakes from local bakeries - totally genius!  I swear, it was one of the best showers I ever "attended," and I was just so impressed with how much love & dedication the Auntie-to-be put into it =D

All of the presents at the shower were wonderful, of course, but in my completely biased opinion, this blanket was my favorite one!  I picked a super soft, cozy, cuddly yarn, and worked it up on a nice, fat hook, so the stitches are soft & puffy.  And yes, I know that creams/browns aren't traditionally baby colors, but this color scheme just called out to me in the store - you see, my cousin's "happy place" is the New England beach, and this yarn instantly reminded me of the rocky coastline & beautiful beach where she got married :)

This is 3 skeins (minus the couple yards that got so tangled I had to cut it off...) of Bernat Baby Blanket yarn.  I've never used this before, because I tend to stick to worsted weight yarns, but once I felt it, I was in love.  I can't wait to use it again and again!  Because the variegated colors created a pattern naturally, I didn't use any fancy stitch here - just straight rows of hdc.  Which was nice, because it worked up quickly & it's easy to do while watching tv, or between chores.

My favorite part of making baby blankets is watching my loved ones enjoy the present - it warms my heart when I see people get excited over something I made!  My cousin was super excited, which made me so happy (and it was so cute to watch her snuggle the blanket herself).  I can't wait to see her little Brussels Sprout wrapped up in it, too!

Crochet Gingham Blanket

Hee hee, can you tell I'm trying my best to get caught back up with my blogging?  3 posts in a week must be a record for me!  Today I am happy to share with you the blanket I crocheted for my newest nephew, born in January.  I adore being an Auntie (I have 2 nieces & now 2 nephews!) for many, many reasons, not the least of which is that I have extra kiddos to crochet for.  Each one of my buddies has a blanket I made for him/her, and it makes my heart so happy!

This time around, I chose to use the tapestry crochet technique to create a gingham pattern, using white, sage, and forest green yarns.  In a nutshell, tapestry crochet just means you create a row of stitches in 2 (or more!) colors by carrying along the color you're not using, hiding it inside the active stitches.  So, for example, in that first stripe (left side in the picture above), when I was making the white blocks, I was hiding the sage yarn inside, then when I switched to sage, I tucked the white yarn in each stitch.  It is a SUPER easy way to create more complex patterns in your work, without having a guhzillion ends to weave in later.

As always, I started with a solid row of single crochet, to get a good foundation, before I started working in pattern.  In this case, I chose to chain 121 stitches to begin, single crocheted in the second chain from the hook and in every chain after, giving me a foundation of 120 stitches.  At that point, I began carrying my sage yarn across with me, and I created the blocks of color every 15 stitches (8 blocks x 15 stitches each = 120 stitches total).  The secret to getting the smooth transitions is to pick up the next color in the final yarn over of the last stitch of the previous color.  Just be sure that you're always pushing the yarn to the back of the work, which will be away from you on odd rows & toward you on even rows, of course.  This is especially important at the edges, when you carry the non-dominant yarn up a row.  You want all of these visible spots to be on one side, so the front of the finished project is clean, with no tell-tale signs of transitions:

I chose this pattern because my sister-in-law and her family are down home, country living kind of people, and I thought she'd like the aesthetic.  But, it actually turned out to be one of MY most favorite things I've ever crocheted, too!

Momentos for Christmas

I know most of my posts are about crocheting, but I do enjoy many other crafts as well, and my sewing machine is one of my most prized possessions.  It has unfortunately been stuck in storage for 2 years, while we moved out of our townhouse, stayed with my parents for a year, and moved into our new home.  My DH just got it out of the storage unit this week, actually, so I can't wait to get it set up... But, in the meantime, I was forced to hand sew any projects I wanted to work on.  For the most part, this translated to putting items on the back burner.  But, there were two Christmas presents I just knew I wanted to make, for special, sentimental reasons, and I forged ahead without my machine.

As I've discussed, my DH, our 2 sons, and I moved last year, into his Nan's old home.  We are SO happy & honored to live in the home she filled with love & wonderful memories for so many years.  It's such a blessing to be in our "forever home," establishing those warm & fuzzy experiences for our own family, surrounded by Nan's memory.  I wanted to extend that blessed, loved feeling to my husband's family, so I used some of Nan's clothes to create a couple momentos.

The first thing I created was this pillow for my mother-in-law.  Using one of Nan's soft, comfy cardigans, I cut squares from the front & the back, being careful to preserve the embroidered pattern, which is just "SO Nan," and the buttons, to keep the look of the shirt.  On that front panel, I hand-embroidered a poem:

This is a shirt

Nan used to wear

Whenever you hug it

Know she is there

The easiest way to do this is using water-soluble stabilizer, like this one.  You print the design in your regular printer, stick it on the fabric, and embroider it however you like.  Then all you do is soak it in warm water & the stabilizer flakes off, leaving you with hand-embroidered fabric.  Best.  Invention.  EVER.  Once that was dry, I hand-sewed the two squares together, using a back stitch, to make sure it was sturdy.  The best part of this project was that the buttons created a built-in opening to insert the pillow form, so I didn't have to leave a hole to sew up later ;)  Easy peasy, and I think it turned out just beautiful.



I also made a teddy bear for my (at the time) nephew-to-be.  My sister-in-law was very close with Nan, and took her first son to visit quite frequently.  Unfortunately, Nan passed away before this second baby made his appearance.  So, I used another one of Nan's cozy shirts to make a memory bear, so Nan's love & snuggles could still be available in at least a little way.

I did not come up with this pattern myself - I used this tutorial, from the PA Country Crafts blog.  I've had this pinned for quite awhile, hoping to make bears from each of my boys' "coming home" outfits, so I was very excited to try it out.  Let me tell you, it was so easy & simple - even without my machine handy! - that I can't wait to do it again =D  This bear turned out exactly how I wanted it to, right down to the floral pattern that reminds us so much of Nan.

Cluster V-Stich Rainbow Blanket

Lord have mercy, how long has it been since I've posted?  6 1/2 months?  Whew!  I'm not sure what's gotten into me, because it's certainly not like I stopped crafting.  I've made a blanket for my brand new nephew, Colton, holiday gifts for various family members, and some holiday decorations... and I also made this random blanket, for no one in particular, just because an idea struck my fancy.

I was sitting in my office, daydreaming about a crochet project (as I frequently do), and I was hit with the idea that rainbow stripes, alternating with a stark black for contrast, could make for a beautiful blanket!  I have always loved rainbow colors.  I'm positively sure it's because of my anxiety/OCD - I love colors in the "correct" order, so rainbow stripes just feel good.  I frequently find myself drawn to LGBT-pride items, which cracks up my family & friends, but to me that's a win-win, right? ;)  So, it's not surprise that my yarn stash already had all of these colors just sitting around, since I use them in so many projects, and I had the black leftover from an ill-fated Disney project (lol).

I wanted a chunkier, more substantial stitch pattern, to hold up to the worsted weight yarn and the bold, primary colors, so I went with a cluster v-stitch.  It works up similar to a traditional v-stitch, working into the spaces of the previous row, but each v is made up of a puffy "cluster."  It's super simple to do:
Yarn over, insert hook through stitch, yarn over and pull through two loops, leaving two loops on the hook.  Yarn over and insert it through the same stitch. Yarn over and pull through two loops, then yarn over again and pull it through 3 loops remaining on hook.  Chain 1, then repeat to make the second half of the cluster: yarn over, insert hook through stitch, yarn over and pull through two loops, leaving two loops on the hook.  Yarn over and insert it through the same stitch. Yarn over and pull through two loops, then yarn over again and pull it through 3 loops remaining on hook.

I always start my blankets with a row of single crochet.  Controversial among crocheters, I know, because most people prefer to start their foundation row in the pattern.  But I prefer the sturdier foundation, as well as the easier stitches to work with when I start my pattern.  This blanket needs an odd number in the starting chain, so I settled on 75, for a baby-sized throw.  I single crocheted across, chained 3, and turned my work, before starting my pattern:

Row 1: DC in first st, *skip 2 chains, Cluster V-stitch in next chain, repeating from * across, DC in the last stitch.  Join in next color, Chain 3, turn.

Row 2: Cluster V-stitch in each of the Cluster V-stitches from previous row, DC in last chain of your chain 3.  Join in black yarn, Chain 3, turn.

Continue the pattern, repeating Row 2 & alternating the colors.

The only tricky part to this was having to weave in all of those ends when I was done – hoowee, I hate that part!  I’m not gonna lie, sometimes I tie knots (gasp!) and just crochet over them when making the border.  But shhh, that’s our little secret… Anyways, this time, I did it right, then I finished up by adding a black, single crocheted border down each edge, so the entire blanket is framed by that bold line.

I really enjoyed this project, because the stitch pattern is lovely but also super simple, and the blanket was done quite quickly.  I think this would also look beautiful using just one variegated yarn (which means no ends to weave in!), and I think I'm gonna try that asap!  But for now, this is folded & stored in my craft closet, waiting for the right person to give it to :)