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?

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!