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?

Baby Gifts Are a Thing Now

I'm getting to that point in my life where people my age are having babies. This past summer I saw that one of my best friends from elementary school was going to be having a baby girl! I haven't seen her for many, many years, but I wanted to make something for her and her little one.

Firstly, I wanted to make a blankie of some sort. I didn't have a whole lot of baby color super soft yarn in my stash, so I wanted something with a lot of texture. After searching through Ravelry, I found this lovely pattern.

Unfortunately, I have a camera from like 2005, so the pictures are not the greatest. Maybe one day I'll be able to afford a new camera! But I really liked how the bobbles turned out. It's just enough texture to make this lovie an exciting, but not overdone piece.

My friend also really like owls. There are so many owl hat patterns out there that I think I looked at about ten before deciding on Sarah Zimmerman's pattern.The last time I tried to make a newborn hat it turned out WAY too small, so I decided to play it safe and make the 3-6 month old size.

I used cotton for the hats because I wanted it to be washable as well as (hopefully) comfortable. I was very pleased with how the baby hat came out that I didn't want Momma to be left out. So I made her a matching hat!

Super cute!

And with that I boxed them up and sent them off in time for Christmas! The baby is here now, quite adorable, and both her and my friend are doing well!

Craft Trade!

At the end of last month, one of the clubs that I'm in went on a field trip and I made the awesome discovery that one of my friends knits. We decided that since I crochet we should do a craft trade. So she knitted me a scarf and I crocheted her a hat!

The hat is made with super bulky yarn. However, the yarn I used still wasn't bulky enough for the pattern that I used. I ended up adding three of the dc rows and three of the sc rows. I didn't increase any stitches around, but if I make this hat again I definitely will find a way. The other modification I made was starting the earflaps with 8 stitches across instead of 6.

Me modeling the hat

When we traded the final projects, we discovered the yarn I used for her hat was the exact same yarn her sister had used to make her a scarf! It was destiny.

I am completely in love with the scarf she made me (I'm wearing it right now)! It's so fluffy and does a good job of shielding my neck/face from the bitter winter weather.

Minion Hat

Every once in awhile I get a PAID commission. And those make me happy, because being a broke college student kind of stinks. What happened was that a friend needed to get a secret Santa gift, but they only thing she knew the girl liked was Despicable Me. So what better to make than a minion hat? I managed to get it done in three evenings, which is pretty good since it was during the last week of class.

I made a couple of modifications to the pattern that I used. I added two additional rows of yellow at the end, and made two black rounds in the eye instead of one black and one brown.

The eye sits a little higher than I'd like. So, if I make this again, I think I will also make one more round of yellow before switching to black.

After crocheting for almost two years, I've decided it's a universal truth that I crochet tighter than patterns expect. There is something fun about experimenting with crochet, but I should probably learn to properly use a gauge!

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!

Drogon (A GoT post)

The nice thing about dragging my crochet around to class with me is:
A) I stay awake easier in class
B) Sometimes people ask me to make them things AND offer to pay for all the materials

B is exactly what happened last semester. I had someone that sat behind me in our Native American History class. It turned out we were both part of many of the same nerdy fandoms. I had been bringing my Avatar blanket squares around with me to work on and he asked if he could pay me to make something. After deciding that it would be something based on Game of Thrones, I found a wonderful pattern for the Khaleesi's dragons. My friend's favorite is Drogon.

Even though the pattern called for assembly as you went, I prefer to finish all the pieces before putting them together. First step after completing all the pieces was attaching the head to the body

Next was getting the wings in working order.

Pinning the wing-bone to the actual wing.

Finished! Then I could assemble everything!

Yay! Also, super cute. To make the eyes I wound black thread through the button holes on red buttons in an attempt to recreate slit pupils.

The pattern called for floral wire (inside straws) to steady to wings and help hold them up. I found straws just fine, but I could not for the life of my find the right kind of wire. So I improvised and bought giant paperclips and undid one, and frankly it worked pretty darn well.

I was super happy with how he turned out (I spent more time than I'd like to admit on him). Also, my friend seemed super excited which made me happy. I was worried for a second that I wouldn't be able to get it to him though because I was showing another friend before church and suddenly five other people were admiring him and passing him around!

This was the first pattern I have ever purchased, and as a result I can't share the pattern directly, but here is the link to the Ravelry page: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/dragon-wyvern-game-of-thrones-style