Crafting 101

So for a few moments, I stopped sewing (I seemed to be doing a lot of that lately) and picked up my crochet hook. Our music minister’s wife is having a baby soon and her shower was today and my goal was to make her a blanket for their baby-to-be!

If you’re on Ravelry, I have all the details here! If not, you need to be! LOL! I used Vanna White’s Baby yarn, though not quite as soft as I would have thought it would be, but I couldn’t find these colors in Caron Simply Soft. The theme was a jungle theme so I wanted to use the colors they picked out.

The pattern is from LionBrand and with your imagination, you could make this look so awesome in any color! I made one of these before with different colors and a different pattern and it made a totally different blanket.

I hope that she liked it, she acted like she did and I wanted to get a photo, but I was too far away (there were lots of people at the shower), but hopefully one day I can get a photo with the baby using it! TTFN!

So we checked the mail today, I realized we hadn’t checked it in a few days and it was a good thing we did! Deanna had an invitation to a birthday party! So what did I do this afternoon? I made another purse! I asked Deanna what her friend would like, she’s a tomboy, but girly at the same time. So I decided to recycle some jeans, do a little crocheting and a little bit of sewing and boom! Purse is made!

I cut off a pair of size 7  or 8 jeans that were messed up in the legs and such so they were in my basket to recycle. So I cut the legs off, sewed up the bottom, made the lining and crocheted a strap for it. Pieced it together (had to do some hand sewing since I didn’t want to break my needle) and there it is!

I have a few more photos here for you to look at.  I think it turned out cute! I closed it with some elastic over the button for the jeans. It’s very unique and fun! TTFN!

I’m sure that each of us knows someone who is going through cancer treatments right now or we know of a local hospital that treats cancer patients that need some sort of support. If you are a crocheter or knitter, take a weekend or a week to make a hat or two for your friend, family member or for your local hospital. You can check out the hat patterns here at headhuggers.org where the patterns are free and easy to follow. And if you don’t have someone to make one for, you can always donate them to HeadHuggers and they will make sure the hats get to someone who needs it. Thought I’d pass this along! TTFN!

I was looking at one of my friends blogs and she made a neat crochet hook holder in some pretty colors. You can get the pattern here.  I put a picture of what she made here. I really like the colors. I would have to make the pattern and then triple it because I have way too many hooks and needles!

Now, I have two holders myself, one I sewed for myself for my knitting needles and the other my friend Allena sewed for me for one of my birthdays (tried to find a picture of it, but can’t). I found a neat site that has lots of sewing directions for sewing one. It’s called Cut Out and Keep and it’s another one of those sites where you can post different projects you do for everyone to see. But you can click here and see some sewed crochet hook/knitting needle holders. This photo is one that popped up that I really like the colors of. I want to remake mine for my knitting needles since I have lots more now that I need to put in there, but I want to make some pockets larger for my circuler needles and some scissors. This is the one I want to make, but it’s because I love the colors! LOL!

Anyways, just wanted to post something today and share what I’ve found online. I’ve been sewing, you’ll have to check back to see what I’ve made. Also, I went surfing the other day I have loads of things to show you!

Today I held a knitting/crochet playdate at my house and thanks to Kris who wanted to learn how to make these cute little crocheted flowers, I ended up making some myself! I looked over the flowers and tried making one myself, but couldn’t figure out how to do the second round. So as always, there are others online that have already done this!

Check out Craft Stylish where she has a great tutorial on making these flowers quickly and easily. I found it this morning and had one made in twenty minutes. I then should Kris how to make one and finished making one this afternoon. I made tow different sizes, one I used with a size ‘G’ hook and the other is a size ‘F’ hook. They are much different in size! I also changed when I started the brown on the second one. I think they turned out cute!

Just imagine what you can do with them! I plan on attaching these to hair clips and give them to my friend Amanda’s daughters. Amanda made them yellow dresses with brown polka dots so I think these would go great with those dresses. Just have to get the clips at the store. It’ll be fun!

I found this online tonight while looking for something else and I thought, how cool is that! I absolutely love NCIS. I had never watched it before until Richard came home from his last deployment and now I’m hooked! But I found a crocheted Abby doll from NCIS. You can find the pattern here and it’s actually a combination of knitting and crochet so you get to do both at the same time! My husband loves Abby so I might make this for him. I searched online to see if I could find anyone who made any of the other characters, but did not find any. She looks fun to make!

So do you have any favorite character that has been made into either a crocheted or knitted doll? Maybe it was sewn? LMK and I’d be happy to post it here. I’m looking for content all the time.

On a side note, my novel is in the hands of three people total who are reading it and editing it for me. I’m looking forward to the critiques so I can polish it up and get it published. I still haven’t been able to think of a title, but maybe I’ll figure out something soon. I’ve already started the second book as a continuation so I know I need to add some things to the beginning of it in case someone picks up the second book first.

Well, thought you’d like this little fun pattern for today! TTFN!

At church we have Secret Sisters and when we come to the end of the year, we have a pizza dinner and we give a final present and reveal who we are. So since I can’t really make anything for my secret sister during the year or she’d figure it out, I wait until the end and make her something.

This year, I made what I consider a lapghan since I’m making it for a woman, but the pattern is for a baby blanket. It’s basically one huge granny square! I used Vanna White yarn which I really liked. I used three colors and just made up the scheme. I sort of ended it at the size I did because, well, I ran out of yarn! This used just about three skeins of her yarn. The solid colors come in 7 oz skeins and the varigated came in a 6 oz skein.

I have all the information regarding the pattern over on Ravelry and have lots more pictures from when I started to when I finished it. It took me three days to make it, but that was doing it quickly and at every waking moment just about! I didn’t get the idea until the Monday before the dinner, that’s the day I got my yarn, found a pattern and I started it on a Tuesday and finished it about an hour before I had to leave for the dinner! I like cutting it close!

The pattern is free from Lion Brand’s website and it’s called Bright Baby Blanket. You can make it in any scheme of colors and make it as small or as large as you want it. Well, that’s another project finished! I’ll have another tomorrow! TTFN!

I wanted to stick this post in here for awhile, but haven’t been able to. I have a wonderful friend Allena (who you can find here and here) that wrote an easy LTC Scarf (Learn to Crochet Scarf). I didn’t know she made one until she mentioned it and I wanted to give her a plug! Also, to show how easy it is, I made one myself! I had some yarn leftover from a lapghan I made and I had a friend mention she loved that yarn and the colors so I decided to make her a scarf.

The yarn I used is Vanna White solid and one that was variegated. They looked really good together. I have never used that type of yarn, well, not something so fancy as Vanna White, but it was nice and at least at Wal-Mart it wasn’t too expensive.

So bad to the scarf, it was so super simple! I finished it in about an hour, that’s how simple it is! I used several different skeins of yarn, but you can use just the one and have it made in less than two hours. It’s also a great small and easy project to keep in your bag for when you are on the go. You can get the pattern here (it’s a Ravelry link). Again, if you haven’t joined ravelry yet, you must and LMK your ravelry user name so I can see what you’re doing!

I threw in a few pictures of the scarf. I think it looks really nice and it’s short to wear with just a nice outfit, but you could add more rows to it to make it thicker or add more chain stitches to make it longer. Anyways, it was fun and easy to do!

My apologies for not posting the last ten days. March got a little bit busier than expected, kids got sick and more. But I have several posts planned for this week to wrap up what we need to learn. As promised, this post is all about the different stitches in crochet. I hope that it’ll be a post you will bookmark for reference and I’ll post a link on the side for the future. Enjoy!

Crochet Stitches:

Basics:

ch: chain
dc: double crochet
hdc: half double crochet
sl st: slip stitch
sp: space
tr: treble  (sometimes called “triple”)

Advanced:

bphdc (back post half double crochet): Yarn over, insert hook from back to front to back around post of half double crochet one row below, yarn over, draw up a loop, yarn over, draw through all 3 loops on hook (this is worked on even # or wrong side rows)
bptr (back post triple): Yarn over twice, inserthook from back to front around post of stitch on previous row and pull up a loop, (yarn over and draw through 2 loops on hook) 3 times.
fphdc (front post half double crochet):
Yarn over, insert hook from front to back to front around post of half double crochet one row below, yarn over, draw up a loop, yarn over, draw through all 3 loops on hook (this is worked on odd # or right side rows)
fptr (front post triple): Yarn over twice, insert hook from front to back around post of stitch on previous row and pull up a loop, (yarn over and draw through 2 loops on hook) 3 times.
hdctbl: Half double crochet worked in the back loop
hdctfl: Half double crochet worked in the front loop
For even more stitches that actually combine several of the basic stitches to create a unique look to your work, check out the extensive Crochet Stitch Directory at Crochet Pattern Central.  They have lots to show you!

I hope that you are enjoying working on the basic stitches of crochet. How did the videos work for you? I hope well! I hope to be able to show you more stitches with the videos on the other difficult stitches. The hubby and I are working on a little bit better set-up for making the videos.

So, if you haven’t done the pattern already, check out the Learn Your Stitches Coaster pattern that I wrote last week for learning the basic stitches.  I have the pattern on Ravelry too so if you make it and you’re a member of Ravelry, please let me know!

So besides posting the link to the pattern, I wanted to give you a run down on all the other stitches that are out there in crochet. I found a few lists, one on About.com, another one on Just Another Crochet Site, and another one at Needle Pointers. They are all great and let everyone know all the stitches out there and give explanations. So I wanted to post them here. But since I want to make it all in one post without any other jibber-jabber, I’m going to post those tomorrow. So you have to tune in tomorrow for that!

Please, please, please ask questions if you have them and if you’re making things, I’d love to know. Show me the pictures too! Hope you have a great weekend! TTFN!