Craft Splurge!

The new school year is only a week away, and this means this is the last serious crocheting time I will have for awhile. So, for the past couple weeks I've been going crochet crazy! Here's a quick rundown of what I've worked on.

1) Wolf Dreamer OTH's Umbreon. Still have to finish this one up actually, but I've just got the circles and the eyes left!

2) Baby Elephant. Kind of on a whim while I watched superhero movies, I crocheted up this adorable little elephant. A pretty easy amigurumi pattern with almost no sewing, you attached the ears and legs as you go!

3) A matching hat and cowl set for chilly football games. I made these two from separate patterns, but they look pretty good together. For the hat, I added an extra row of increase (up to 48 sts) because as written it was turning out too small for my already little head.

4) Actually I just made a lot of cowls in general. The sage green cowl was the first time I'd done a foundation sc, and it turned out alright! There's a link to a video posted with the pattern if you've never tried this before either. I made the smaller of the two sizes. The other green cowl was a pattern I made up as my boyfriend and I watched Dollhouse. It's bulky yarn and basically just works alternating rows of sc, hdc, and dc. I may post up a quick pattern at a later date.

5) Colorful coasters! This is another pattern I made up that I will post when I refine and make a few more for my apartment.

6) A crochet bag for my momma! This pattern is available as a Ravelry download.

That is it for now, but stayed tuned for some possible new patterns!

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.

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

Waffle Hats

Over spring break I was walking around in Hobby Lobby while waiting to pick up my boyfriend from class and I saw some bulky yarn on sale. Now, if you partake in the fiber arts you know that this yarn is more expensive than "regular" yarn, so I jumped on the opportunity and got green, gray, and teal. I'd been wanting to make some hats that needed bulky yarn and now I could make some!

These are waffle hats! Aka they have a mesh pattern.

I made the green one first, following the pattern exactly and it took me one sitting (while watching Skyfall). Only problem was, the hat didn't slouch.

Probably because I crochet tighter... So I decided I needed to make another one.

For the gray hat, I added about 5 rows to what the pattern calls for...

And huzzah! It turned out! 

The pattern was very easy to follow, and like I said before, very quick! It was a nice breather from the blanket. (I'm halfway done with the earth (2nd) square!)

Some clarification for those of you out there who might be in the dark like me: apparently slouchy hats are hipster.

Waffle Cone Hat Pattern: http://www.gleefulthings.com/blog/?p=3258

Don't have bulky yarn? Sugar Cone Hat Pattern: http://www.gleefulthings.com/blog/?p=5569

Tiny Turtles

The week before spring break is always rough. Deadlines and exams seem to be coming at you from all directions! That was two weeks ago for me, and I had the most difficult exam I have ever taken. (found out I did well though!) After five hours of hardcore studying one night I decided I needed a crochet break. I'm still working on my blanket, but I want to make a quick project; something I could make in under an hour. While searching on Ravelry I found a pattern for little turtles, and so I made a couple!

Adorable. As you can see, they are very teeny. Each one took me between 25 and 30 minutes with distractions (Pirates of the Caribbean). The pattern is easy to follow and I learned a couple new stitches (popcorn and spike), which I enjoyed.

I apologize for the not-so-high-quality pictures. My digital camera is about 5 or 6 years old now.

I have plans to make more for the other women in my small group, so there will probably be an update with more later!