Baby Hat Experiment

This is a terrible cell phone picture of a hat I whipped up from Bernat Baby Jacquards just to see what it would end up as when you crocheted with it instead of knitted.

For ages and ages all I saw for this year was knitting patterns for this yarn, and finally a free crocheted hat pattern showed up on the label.  The yarn was on clearance at the time too, so I grabbed a ball for about $3. I should still have enough for another small hat out of it too!

5 Resolutions You Can Make: 2013 Edition

Last year my post about 5 Resolutions You Can Make was my most popular blog post, so I am back again with the 2013 edition.

Resolution #1: Use up your Stash
Based on the theme of this blog, obviously this is a continual resolution for me year after year. I did make a lot of progress during the Ravelympics this year, but more work is definitely needed, especially considering a lot of my yarn I have no plans for and it was just bought because it was cheap.

After a trip to Petsmart a couple months ago (where I always have to visit the kitties up for adoption while I am there), I noticed some hand made blankets in the cages with them. A very large portion of my yarn stash is a bunch of miscellaneous 1lb balls of yarn that I got for $1 each when Walmart was moving to the new store they built. For the longest time I've had no idea what to use it for other than various amigurumi projects, which would take a very long time to use up the yarn. Problem solved thanks to my love of cats.

If you have some yarn with no plans, I challenge you to find a cause close to your heart and find a way to use up some of your stash in 2013.

Easy Cat Cage Nubby Blanket

Resolution #2: Take a Vacation

This is another resolution I am working on this year. I am desperately trying to make sure I spend a week on a beach this February despite life's obligations not exactly wanting to cooperate to allow that to happen. 

If you have more free time than me, wouldn't this bag be great to whip up and take along with you for a beach vacation?

Hexagon Beach Bag

Resolution #3: Cut Back on Sugar

I'm not going to lie, as I type this post I am drinking a Vanilla Coke. It is not the first Vanilla Coke I've had today either. I try to cut back on sugary drinks especially, though it's not always easy. 

However, this cute tea pot cosy could make integrating more antioxidant rich green tea into my life a lot more fun perhaps. 

Daylily Tea Cosy

Resolution #4: Tidy Up

If only there was a way to crochet some magical floating bookshelves, a lot of my problems would be solved. However this is a great and cheap option for parents of little ones with lots of little friends hanging around the house that need to be tidied up.

Toy Hammock

Resolution #5: Prepare Early for the Holidays

Again if you're anything like me, December winds up being a very busy month. There's just too much to do and too many special touches that I want to include in the holiday season for those that I love. 

I didn't actually do too terribly at preparing early this year, but it helps to always have it in the back of your mind throughout the year and it's nice to spread your holiday crafting out throughout the year. Here's some quick and easy projects to get you started.

Candy Cane Reindeer

Christmas Wine Bottle Wrap

Christmas Candy Cane Dispenser

Emergency Stash Trashing

Yesterday I got placed in a very awkward position due to an unexpected and more-extravagant-than-necessary Christmas gift. I don't want to go into details, but basically everyone that I go to school with has been put in an uncomfortable gift situation by one person in our class and none of us really know what to do about it.

Fortunately though my yarn stash is hopefully saving me I think, or rather I hope.

I came home and dug around and found some nice Homespun yarn from a project I long ago abandoned that needed to be repurposed. After a quick search on Ravelry I found this pattern and was up and crocheting as soon as I got everything ripped out.

Mine was worked with 2 strands of yarn on a 10.0mm hook and I believe I did one extra row, but other than that I followed the pattern to the letter.

This holiday season I am thankful for my ever-providing stash, bulky yarn, and large hooks. What about you?

'Tis the Season....Already!

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! Now that Halloween is over, it is time to turn my crocheting sights to the sometimes-despised, sometimes-beloved C holiday. Yes, we're barely into November and I'm talking Christmas already.

I've been busy helping Fat Shae work on her crochet projects for her new friend Bosco lately. She's very proud of her work:

All she has to do now is go out and pick up some cat treats, catnip, and mousies and she's got all her Christmas shopping done. Hopefully Bosco is surprised!

Some puppy friends are also getting a special surprise this Christmas. These will be packed up soon and sent off to Sarge and Roxie:

Has anyone else started getting prepared for the holidays yet?

Another One Bites the Dust

Another project completed! I have done this pattern before, but I definitely like how it came out this time a lot better. I made this baby blanket for one of my mom's coworkers, who is due in November. She doesn't know if she is having a boy or girl, so I went with a gender neutral theme. Turns out chocolate brown is a part of the nursery colours, so it worked out perfectly!

I found out a few days later that her husband absolutely loved it as well. She was apparently shocked at his reaction when she brought it home and showed it to him, so I have a feeling this blanket will definitely be cherished.

2012 Ravelympics: The Results

As you know, I started with this:

That massive pile (which it turns out wasn't all the cotton yarn I had by the way), has since turned into this:

Not quite my goal of abolishing every ball of cotton in the apartment, but very respectable considering what I started with and the minimal free time I had during the Olympics. At the end of the day I managed to use up almost 2 pounds worth of yarn I had sitting around, so I'm happy with the results. The rest of the yarn will hopefully be used up quickly as a nice commuting project when I start school next week.

And last but not least, for those that are interested, this is what nearly 2 pounds of dishcloths looks like:

Just Had to Share...

Commission Piece #2 Complete!

All done! This blanket is made with Bernat Pipsqueak yarn, a 6.50mm hook, and lots of double crochets. It is actually considerably longer than it looks, coming in at about 60" long (it is of course doubled over for the photo).

Goodbye little blanket, happy travels!

WIP Wednesday #12

I only have time for a quickie post today; underneath my current project is the work I should be focusing on, ie. my physics work. You've seen this pattern before, it's nothing exciting. In fact, in this picture you can see something else you've just seen and even a hint at my next completed project post too.

Again another Wave Stitch Blanket with a 4.25mm hook, but this one I really have no idea who it is going to because I have now run out of pregnant friends, very sad for me indeed! There are rumours that one of my mother's coworkers is pregnant, but I already have something else planned with more stash yarn for her that will suit her personality better than a ripple.

On that note, everyone out there better get busy tonight working on some more babies for me to spoil, regular size stuff is just not nearly as cute!

Peachykeen

Here we have another lovely finished project, most likely going to my best friend from high school, who was the first of our group to get married and will very soon be the first to have a baby. She is having a baby girl and I have the distinct feeling she is going to receive a barrage of everything pink, so I am hoping she appreciates the break and enjoys some peach instead.

If you remember correctly from a couple weeks ago, there was actually two of these blankets and I was having a little problem while I was making them. Unfortunately I can't take pictures of both blankets because I ended up giving one away to a coworker that just had a baby girl on May 22nd.

I actually have two more of this blanket started, just with a different colour of yarn, so you will be seeing those around here soon. In the meantime though I had to set them aside for this piece so I can get that finished off and mailed as soon as I can. After that, I am hoping a can squeak out another project or two before I start the Ravelympics in July!

The 2012 Ravelympics

As I am sure most people around the world know, this summer brings the Olympics to London. As I am sure fewer people know, this summer also brings the Ravelympics to Ravelry.com.

I am been a member of Ravelry.com since March 21, 2010, but I have not been an active member for anywhere nearly that long, and I conveniently missed the Vancouver 2010 Ravelympics, so this is my first time ever participating and I am quite excited about it.

I'm not going to lie, I'm a little mixed up about the whole sign up process: where you comment exactly to say what team you want to be on, setting up your project page properly, entering multiple events, etc. I did add my name to a random Google document, so even if I am not actually signed up properly, I am going to pretend I am at the very least.

Since my goal is to use up my stash of yarn, naturally I chose to be on Team Stashdown! Smackdown. Clearly the obvious choice of events for me would be synchronized stash busting, but I am going home stuff hammerthrow instead.

See this?

This is the pretty, doesn't look too terrible picture I took of all the cotton yarn I could find in my stash. Here is the less pretty, but you can see the horror that awaits me picture:

Yes, that is 31 skeins of various colours of cotton yarn. 4,152 yards worth of yarn I am hopefully going to finally kill off. Some of that stuff is definitely not a year old (thank you Michaels $1 per skein sale), so it would be cheating to put it under synchronized stash busting, so I am hitting the home stuff hammerthrow. I've had two people mention to me separately about searching out homemade dishcloths,  little do they know they are about to be bombarded come August. Obviously I'm planning on putting a few away for December too if you check out the colour scheme I have for about half of those skeins.

Side note: is there some secret cult following of non-knitters/crocheters seeking homemade dishcloths? One of these girls apparently searches through thrift stores for her homemade dish washing treasures. I didn't think they were such a big deal.

Anyway, that is my plan for July 27-August 12. Hopefully you will all join me, or at the very least check back to see my progress and results!

WIP Wednesday #11

Meet my new commission piece for a friend of mine in Ohio! (Who doesn't love crocheting when the yarn is free? See my first big commission piece here). Her sister in law is having a baby girl at the end of the summer, so naturally a blanket to keep her toasty warm for the winter is required. It is made with my arch nemesis yarn, which surprisingly isn't totally horrible if you aren't ripping out the entire thing several times over. I almost said no to this blanket when the Pipsqueak was mentioned, but so far I'm not regretting my choice to do this. Hopefully my friend's mom loves this yarn as much in blanket form as she did when she saw the balls of yarn in store!

By the way, I have to admit that I am lying in this post. That picture is from yesterday morning. As of today, it has doubled in length and then some and it is now over halfway done. Here's hoping that this is the only WIP Wednesday for this blanket and that I will be mailing it off home soon!

A WIP No More!

Does anyone remember this blanket from way back when? Do you also remember how I was worried I was going to run out of yarn for it? With less than 3 rows to go, I ran out of blue. To rub salt in the wound, no one seemed to carry the right colour of blue anymore. I scoured Joanns every trip I took down to the USA. Walmart and Zellers even started carrying this brand of yarn, but do you think they would carry the colour? Nope. No dice. I thought this blanket was just going to sit in my room until I gathered the courage to rip the entire thing out again and start from scratch. 

As luck would have it, and as you can tell from the following picture, I did manage to find another ball at a Joanns somewhere between home and New York City where we stopped for dinner on the way home while on a bus trip. This was extremely fortunate, as I sent my Grandma on the hunt for another ball in the same colour at the original Joanns where I first bought the yarn while she was down in Florida for the winter again, and even she couldn't find it for me.

I still have no idea who this will be for, so it will be going for a little vacation in the chest of completed objects for someone someday, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out despite all the problems it caused me.

I was going to take pictures of another project I've had laying around that I have since completed (one of the two is even gone without pictures being taken!), but of course that is not what her royal majesty intended to happen as you can tell.

As you can tell, her majesty is rather protective of her throne too.

Have a good day everyone! Hopefully the cat will let me have the chair back soon for some more pictures!

WIP Wednesday #10

As you can see, things have changed quite a bit since my last WIP post. I have about 10 rows or so left to go I figure, and then as soon as I sew in all the ends on both blankets this project can be marked done!

I am planning another 2 or 4 blankets with the same pattern and type of yarn most likely because I was bad and went on a little shopping spree when my favourite yarn was on sale for half off. Hopefully I can work my way through these quickly and hopefully soon there will be more babies to give them to!

One of these two will definitely be going to a high school friend who commented on my lovely work a few weeks ago, and the second may have a new possible owner any minute now if my coworker has gone to the hospital today. We will see!

WIP Wednesday #9

Wow it's been forever since I've done one of these posts! Since my last post of course many works in progress have crossed my lap, but I thought I'd show you what's sitting on it today. 

The pattern I'm using is Wave Stitch Blanket, except I am using Baby Coordinates yarn and a 4.25mm hook. As you can see the blanket looks a little funny right now, because it actually isn't one blanket, it's two. It turns out I had a little problem with the dye lot that I didn't notice until it was almost entirely too late. Baby Coordinates yarn so kindly tells you on the label that it there is no dye lot and you don't need to worry, except it turns out that was not true in this case. 

Turns out I had 6 balls total, 3 in one dye lot, 3 in another, and rather than having two mismatched blankets it would be better to pull out on third of the blanket and have a do over. Annoying, but necessary in this case. 

Once these two blankets are finished, one will be going to a high school friend and one will join the baby blanket stash so I can get ahead. I have a couple other colours of extra Baby Coordinates, so i have a feeling that I will be doing this pattern a few times.

Long Time, No See!

*Blows dust off blog*

I can't believe I have become such a blogging slacker that it has been nearly a YEAR since I have updated! Today I am home sick from work after a terrible dental emergency/SURPRISE you have a sore throat weekend, so blogging seems like the logical activity for the living room couch bound person.

You'd think I would have a long list of things that I've made, but sadly I don't. At least not in picture form. Lately it seems like I have been churning out baby gift after baby gift, with no time to spare for picture taking before it's wrapped up and out the door. This mainly includes a countless number of Hailey blankets, my go-to pattern for a quick and simple baby blanket. I'll tell you a little secret about my go-to blanket; every time I go down to the United States shopping, I always make sure I bring back however many Pound of Love balls of yarn I can buy (with a coupon of course!) You can buy them for around $5 depending on coupon, they make about one and a half "Haileys." This way even the most casual acquaintance of mine can receive something handmade, and my wallet isn't decimated in the process!

Of course, there are certain people I like to spoil too. I find a "Hailey" is a perfect addition to my other favourite craft, diaper cakes.

Draping the blanket around a diaper cake really gives it that something extra special I think.

Now off I go, back to finishing off the "Hailey" I am making for a cashier at work.

Yes, Another Baby Blanket

What can I say, I'm a sucker for all things baby. This is a pattern I've been itching to try for a long time and finally the opportunity came knocking when a friend asked if I'd make one for her to give as a gift for a baby boy on the way.

This was my first foray into granny squares and I'm actually surprised because it wasn't as completely tedious as I was expecting. I did block all the squares before I attached them together which took a long time, but in the end that extra time was well worth it I think and I'm very pleased with the results. Perhaps this is the motivator I need to dig out the Snowflake Throw I've had the yarn for sitting under my desk for um, 2 years now?

Busy, busy.

Well it's been a busy few months for me. My last WIP is finished and long gone, as are two exactly like it, just different colours. There was such a fast turnaround in making them and giving them away that I don't think I even took pictures of them when I finished. Strangely though, I have a lot more yarn leftover than I did the first time I made them, which I can't quite figure out. Of course that just means I need to get my thinking cap out and figure out something else interesting to do with that yarn instead.

Regardless of how much yarn was or was not left over, they ended up being a lovely and much appreciated surprise for the mommies and daddies to be that received them and I consider it a bonus that this project used up some yarn that I had no idea what to use it for.

Another little project I whipped up quickly was a crocheted saw that I also didn't bother to take pictures of, which is sad seeing as how I made up the entire pattern all by myself! It took a few tries, but I finally came up with a winning pattern that did its job beautifully. To understand why exactly I needed a crocheted saw beyond using it as a toy for A, you have to understand my feeling about gift cards. I understand that for most people, they're the easiest/best/most appreciated gift option and I fully agree. However, wrapping gift cards is just so BORING. It's like, here's a card with a hunk of plastic inside that has magic money on it, Happy Birthday!

Boring. Boring, boring, boring. If I can't come up with an idea on my own of an actual gift a person would like, I have to at least present it creatively. You see, it was M's brother's birthday. He just recently bought a house and word on the street was that he wanted some tools, specifically a bunch of fancy saws. The last thing I am going to do is to go out and purchase a man tools, personally I think that would be like sending a man to choose my makeup. Not going to happen.

With some consultation from M's parents, we decided that a Sears gift card would be the way to go because Craftsman is apparently *the* brand of tools to have I'm told. Given my feelings on gift cards and what the gift card was meant to go towards, I believe you now understand the saw. Basically I ended up making two little saws and stitching them together, creating the perfect little pocket to hide the Sears gift card inside. In fact, it hid it so well, the birthday boy didn't even realize there was a gift card inside it, and he knows my tricks.

I have also been bad and bought more yarn, but that's another post for another day! Cheers!

WIP Wednesday #8

Today's project is my favourite baby blanket to make that I've found to date. It's a Hailey blanket, which used up all but about 2 feet of a 1lb ball of baby yarn the first time I made it. This is the third or fourth time I've done this blanket and won't be the last time for the next month or two.

The fact that it uses almost exactly a 1lb ball isn't the only reason it's great. My other favourite part of this blanket is that it works up super fast. I can knock one of these babies out in about a week, less if I don't add on the fancy edging. In fact, I hope to finish this blanket minus the edging this afternoon, and then I will start on another one. It seems everyone at the company I used to work for has been drinking the proverbial water and that everyone is pregnant there, so I've got two more to do after this one!

So many babies, so little time.

It's Been Awhile

Hello again readers!

I've been a bad, bad blogger for the past month. I somehow managed to come down with bronchitis back in April and it decided to stick around for nearly the entire month. Needless to say, not much of anything vaguely productive got done during April.

Despite being sick, I did manage to crochet a fair amount of stuff while laying on the couch all day, every day, so I have a lot of posting catch up to do. Are you ready?

3....

2....

1.... here we go!

3 out of 4 wabbits agree that these carrots are cute! These are a part of my new year-long WIP for A, though he'll get these before Christmas because he's still too little for his Godmama to shower him with chocolate for Easter and anyone that knows me knows that I can't just not give a gift.

If you want to make some carrots for a little one you know, the pattern can be found here for free.