All the Hats!

Because I'm taking forever to actually get things updated, I'm going to combine several projects in this post. After finishing my Avatar: The Last Airbender blanket (another post I need to get up!) I needed a couple of small projects to carry around with me. Hats are pretty much perfect for that!

Hat Number 1: One of my friends was deciding whether or not she wanted to get her haircut. I told her if she cut her hair short I would make her a hat. I wanted it to be a fancy hat, and found this pattern for a Spider Web Slouch. Super cute if I could pull it off. I added some extra pizzazz by using sparkly, white yarn.

Side view

Top view

Detail of design

Overall I was happy with how it turned out (my friend says she was too!). My only gripe is that it came out bigger than I expected, but that's really my fault more than anything!

Next, I had a skein of brown speckled yarn that I had lying around for awhile and I decided it might make a nice project. One of my favorite bloggers, Sarah Zimmerman of Repeat Crafter Me, had posted a polar bear hat pattern awhile ago, and I thought, 'hey, bears are brown too!' (Obvious, I know). So I decided to quick whip myself up a bear hat.

Because I made this hat for myself I decided to leave off the face. I put the ears just on the top of the hat when I probably should have moved them farther forward a little. This hat has been perfect for these last couple weeks where its been in the 40s! 

Lastly is the bobble poof hat I also made for myself! I am completely in love with this hat. I had some bulky yarn that I really wanted to use, and even though the pattern called for worsted weight I decided to go for it anyways. A good choice in the end! 

Bobbles!

It's pretty warm because of the thicker yarn. I've gotten a ton of compliments on it too! And it's three of the best colors in the world. Win-win-win situation.

Kitchen Flowers

For Christmas I wanted to make something more 'sophisticated' for my mom and my boyfriend's parents. They all like to cook and I'd always wanted to try making some potholders, so I scoured Ravelry and found these flower potholders. With the pattern in hand I figured out the color schemes of the kitchens and bought some cotton yarn. FYI: it's important to use 100% cotton yarn for potholders because acrylic melts. Plus cotton is sturdier.

For my mom:

The yellow apparently didn't want to be photogenic.

For my boyfriend's parents:

All together now!

A tip if you want to make them: connect the petals at stitch 9 (counted down from the stitch at the tip of the petal on either side).

I was VERY pleased with how these turned out. They look complicated but are actually very easy.

Sibling Christmas Gifts

I know, I know, it's March. But this semester's been pretty busy, so cut me a little slack.

I made a lot of the Christmas gifts I gave this year. This post will be dedicated to the gifts I made for my boyfriend's siblings and my brother.

First, I decided to try and tackle the gift for my boyfriend's older brother because I had no idea what I wanted to make. Through some "sneaky" question asking during Thanksgiving I confirmed that he was a Zelda fan. Enter the Triforce hat.

I had to add around seven rows to the end of the pattern, and it was a bit tight, but I was pretty pleased with it over all. And he didn't take it off for a couple weeks, so I think I did good.

For my boyfriend's sister I made armwarmers. It took me awhile to decide which colors to use, but ended up using black and white because they will in theory, match more things.

I made my little brother a hat for his favorite sports team that I unfortunately didn't get to take pictures of. The pattern was my own invention, but I'm going to have to modify it some if I want to make it again! New pattern coming?

Batman Hat (Free Pattern)

This is one of those times of the year where I get really busy/ make a lot of crochet Christmas presents. As such, internet, you are about to get A LOT of posts in a short amount of time. First I would like to share the Batman hat that I created for my friend. Louie's Loops has this great Batman bat pattern that I'd been wanting to use for a long time, and this was the perfect chance. The beanie is my own original pattern created with the bat in mind. So here goes!

Batman Beanie

Materials:
I hook
Red Heart with Love in Daffodil and Black
Tapestry needle

Note: repeat instructions in **
         ch counts as 1 dc throughout pattern

In black
1) Make a magic circle, ch 3 (counts as 1st dc), 9 dc in magic circle, join with sl st to chain (10)
2) Ch 3, dc in same st, *2 dc in ea st* around, join with sl st (20)
3) Ch 3, dc in same st, 1 dc in next st, *2 dc in st, 1 dc in next st* around, join with sl st (30)
4) Ch 3, dc in same st, 1 dc in next 2 sts, *2 dc in st, 1 dc in next 2 sts* around, join with sl st (40)
5) Ch 3, dc in same st, 1 dc in next 3 sts, *2 dc in st, 1 dc in next 3 sts* around, join with sl st (50)
6) Ch 3, dc in same st, 1 dc in next 4 sts, *2 dc in st, 1 dc in next 4 sts* around, join with sl st (60)
7-11) Ch 3, *dc in ea st* around, join with sl st (60)

In yellow
12-16) Ch 3, *dc in ea st* around, join with sl st (60)

In black
17) Ch 1, *sc in each st* around, join with sl st, FO (60)

All that's left is to sew in the ends, create the bat, and sew it onto the yellow stripe of the hat!

Birthday Goodies

This is the year. The year where my peers and I turn 21. Let the parties begin! One of the first birthdays belonged to my very lovely best friend of 14 years. Now let me tell you something about her. She LOVES owls. And so the theme of her present was decided and a plethora of owls were created.

First up where these two guys. They're adorable, but I felt like they needed a purpose other than to sit around somewhere.

I resolved this by chaining them together so they can hang over the rearview mirror in my friend's car. It's like having fuzzy dice, except better. Because owls.

Another thing she loves is coffee. Maybe too much sometimes ;) 

Now she can sip her coffee and think of owls at the same time!

This was a super easy pattern and only took an hour or so to work up because I was distracted and watching the Avengers.

Lastly, she always has her iPhone with her.

My iPod fit perfectly when I checked it, and this is also a super easy pattern. I originally sewed on beads for the eyes, but I didn't like the way it looked so I hot glued button eyes on. Much better.

Then they all got stuck in a box and sent!

Unfortunately it was the smallest box I had.

I also drew her this very lovely furbie card....it's a long story. So happy birthday, sissy! :)

Want to make something in this post?

Tiny owls (Ravelry download)

Owl cozy

Owl phone case

Cthulhu

The stuff of geek legends..The terrible, mystical beast, best described as a sea demon. Who this? Why, Cthulhu of course!

Looking quite adorable and cuddly, really. Last year I made my boyfriend a d20 for his birthday, and this year I had to try and match that by making him some equally geeky and cool. I had seen this pattern on Ravelry and decided it was perfect, and I am very pleased with the results.

The pattern calls for an F hook, but I decided to use a G hook to make him cuddlier (it's also easier to work with.) The pattern was relatively easy to follow, and the wings were definitely the most difficult part.

In order to get the ribbed, more wing-like look, I crocheted in the back loops only on the way back from the chain. This means you only crochet in the back loops in one direction, aka every other row.

My boyfriend was very pleased and his nerd friends jealous, so I suppose I accomplished my goal!

Christmas Presents, Part 2

As promised, here are the last items for my grandmothers!

This is the second hat. I made this with a super chunky weight yarn. Because of this I ended up using 50 stitches in a round rather than 60, which was plenty.

The first scarf! Again, I used the infinity scarf pattern. Even with a chunky yarn I used the pattern exactly (except for using a J hook), but I made the scarf shorter than the scarves I've made with medium weight yarn.

This is the second scarf. Instead of four shells in a row I used to three, which worked out surprisingly well. I also used an N hook.

Even with slightly different construction, the scarves ended up being about the same thickness. I'm very pleased with how they turned out, especially because I needed to make modifications to the patterns I used. I even found a model!

Now that I'm all done with Christmas presents I can look ahead to other projects! Yay!

Christmas Presents

This was my first Christmas while knowing how to crochet, and so needless to say I put this skill to good use!

Above is what I made for my mother. 

The scarf is the same infinity scarf pattern I had used before because while I was making the first scarf my mom commented how much she loved it. I really like the yarn I used for this set. I found it in a local yarn shop in a small town about 30 minutes from where I live. My only complaint is that they tied to pieces of yarn together in the middle of the skein! UGH! You can see the awful red to suddenly purple transition in the picture. Luckily you can hardly tell when it's worn.

I used about one and a half skeins for the scarf and so decided to make this headband with the extra. Turns out I had the perfect amount! I created this by using a double crochet stitch with an I hook. It was very quick and easy.

This next set is what I made for a gift exchange at a family Christmas gathering. The rules were that it had to be a unisex gift, so neon orange and neon green totally work, right?

Matching hat and scarf! As you can see, I didn't exactly finish before my family had to leave... However, I did manage to barely get it done in time. Whew!

I was tired of making an equal size stripe pattern (plus I had less green than orange) so I decided to try out stripes of different sizes, and I really like how it turned out. Double crochet stitch with an I hook.

Lastly I am making a hat and scarf for each of my grandmas! Below is the hat I have finished.

This was the first time I worked with chunky weight yarn and I didn't realize how much quicker projects take when you use it. Too bad it's more expensive. I used my hat pattern from a previous post, same number of stitches in a round and everything. This made a looser hat, which was my goal.

And because it was Christmas, I had to include a picture with the tree! :)

Infinity scarf post: http://linz-craftingadventures.blogspot.com/2012/11/infinity-scarf-surprise.html
Hat pattern post: http://linz-craftingadventures.blogspot.com/2012/10/neon-green-beanie.html