Vlad

I absolutely love this pattern! This is Vlad by Lydia Tresselt! It was a very easy pattern to follow. It includes very detailed instructions and it also had very useful pictures in order to help you figure out what to do. I am definitely going to try another one of her fabulous patterns!

Captain America!

I have been working on this doll for awhile now and it is now finally complete! I made this for a coworker whose last day is this week so I cut it pretty close! I absolutely love it and I need to make more of these dolls. This is a pattern by Mary Smith. I want to try many more of her patterns because they are all so cute, however, I am still working on Vlad the vampire bat by lalylala. When I finish with that I think I am also going to start on Frankenstein and Frankenstein's Bride, both by Mary Smith. Mary Smith's pattern was very easy to follow which made it fun to make this doll, so I definitely recommend you check out her patterns. Her Kid Hero patterns are free!

A Bear and a baby!

Today I got to meet my friends' new baby! She was born yesterday and I am so happy for them! I had been taking a break from amigurumi but I have been wanting to get started with it again and I really wanted to make something for the baby. I found an adorable pattern for a bear and I got started with it yesterday. It was not quite finished when I went to see them, but it is complete now! I used the Smugly-bear pattern by Lilleliis. The only thing I didn't do was the heart for the bottom of the bear because the fabric that I bought was fraying a little too much (there is probably something that needed to be done to the fabric that I don't know about)  so I didn't want to add that and I think it looks pretty adorable without it. I absolutely love it and plan on making more! I love all of her patterns and hope to get another one of hers to try soon.

I am going to start lalylala Vlad the vampire bat today!

A Quick update!

It has been a few months since my last post. Sadly I have not been doing much crocheting or knitting lately. I have been searching a lot for patterns to get back into both but there are just too many different options so I can't decide.

I have started knitting a cardigan for the baby that my friend is having, but I have taken a short break from it. I will post a picture as soon as I finish it. So far it has not been too difficult!

I found some patterns for some really pretty shawls that I want to try. The pictures of Drachenfels by Melanie Berg look like it wouldn't be too difficult but with the color changes has a really great look! Imagine When by Joji Locatelli and Summer Flies by Donna Griffin are two other patterns that I really will want to try.

I am also thinking using one the patterns I have found for Baymax from the movie Big Hero Six.

So that's it, just wanted to have a quick update even though I haven't really been up to much!

Adventures in Knitting

I have been looking for more knitting patterns to try and I decided try my hand at Gretchen's Easy Tam(you will need an account to see the pattern). I had been a little hesitant about trying fair isle knitting but I found this to be incredibly easy! I tried out using both Continental and English style to hold both yarns at the same time but for the most part that was too difficult for me but with more practice of course it should get easier.

I pretty much made this hat in a day. We had a snowstorm this week and so I didn't have to go into work so I had plenty of time to work on it! I still have never done any blocking yet so I didn't block this like it is recommended but I really like just wearing it as a beanie instead of how it is pictured on the pattern. I am quite proud of this hat! 

Baby blankets!

When I first found out that my best friend was having her first baby, my first thought was how excited I was for her and her husband and then I realized I will now have someone to make tons of stuff for! I anxiously waited to find out the gender and of course found tons of things to make for a girl and some things for a boy. Then a couple of weeks ago they found out they are having a girl. The minute I found out I bought a bunch of yarn and planned out three blankets for her!

Here is a small picture to showcase the stitch that I am using for the first blanket I started. when its finished I will put up a picture of the whole blanket;

This one is crocheted. I also bought yarn to crochet the Neopolitan Ripple baby blanket and some for the Simply Stripes Baby Blanket, which is knit. 

I am also currently working on this crocheted chevron blanket. I am using Knit Picks Brava worsted yarn and even though it is 100% acrylic, it is quite soft! This one will be a good lap blanket!

I have been wanting to knit myself a pair of fingerless gloves for a long time, so I am making these Cupcake Mittlets. Now these have been troublesome for me. I bought a bunch of yarn that just was too thin and was probably sport weight rather than DK(the labels didn't have the weight listed) and they were just coming out too small. I also kept messing up and forgetting steps and I am still very new to knitting so I have no idea how to fix most of my mistakes, which means I have restarted these many many times! I am almost finished with the first glove!

I think it looks alright for my first ever knit fingerless gloves!

When I finish a couple of these projects I am going to try out the Running in Circles hat or the Hermione Hearts Ron hat to use up the sport weight yarn that I bought!

Coffee Sleeves

These past couple of weeks, I have been getting ready for my library's 2nd annual craft day. Last year I made these coffee sleeves. This year I am making more coffee sleeves but this time I am using the pattern by Frayed Knot. I initially saw them because of a recent post made by All About Ami. (I love her blog and she has many great ideas!) I really liked the look of these 15 min. coffee sleeves. They really are fast to work up.

Besides making the coffee sleeves I haven't really made much else. I have been distracted by many other things. I am a big reader and my to-read pile just keeps growing! Currently I am reading Tana French's In the Woods. Also since it is October, fall TV shows have started up again, so that's another distraction!

Anyway, I am going to try to do some more knitting soon. I think I want to try to make some mittens and hat set. I just have to find the right patterns. I need something pretty easy because I still get a little bit confused by how knitting patterns are written. Of course as with anything, it will just take practice to get used to them!

It's Been awhile!

It has been a few months since I last posted anything. I have been busily crocheting two blankets. I finished the Dew Drop Blanket I talked about in my last post. Here is the finished project!

Now I am working on a blanket with this stitch:

This isn't the best picture of the stitch and the color is actually a little bit darker. The blanket is big enough for a queen size bed. I initially started with a different pattern, but even though I was counting each row and being careful, my edges were very crooked so I switched to this v stitch shell stitch(I think that's what it is called!)

Not only have I been working on these blankets I decided to take up trying knitting again. I did okay with some of the things I had made but I decided to try some hats. I managed to make two in one weekend! I found these to be easier than the scarves I was trying to make. I kept dropping stitches with the scarves but I did much better with these hats:

For my next knitting project, I think I am going to try either some mittens or fingerless glove. There are so many fingerless glove patterns that I have seen that look awesome. I'm not sure what I am going to do next for a crochet project but I think I am going to make some more amigurumi!

Dew Drop Blanket

Interestingly enough, now that it is warmer out I have found more inspiration to work on more projects than I did in the winter. I would think it would be the opposite but maybe I am just a little strange! I have all these ideas now on blankets that I would like to make. Currently, I am working on one using a stitch called the dew drop stitch. I just love the colors that I am using for it. I am using Red Heart yarn for it and the colors are light raspberry, charcoal and white.

Sadly the craft store that I would buy yarn from, that had a good stock of the yarns that I like to use, went out of business . I hadn't bought enough yarn for a whole blanket, so now I am at a standstill until my shipment gets here. This at least gives me time to start another blanket! I haven't decided the stitch yet but I am going to use Caron Simply Soft Cool Green, possibly with a white border. Of course I don't have enough of that color either but I can order that online too! Maybe I should plan better.

Budget wise I haven't been able to venture much beyond the Red Heart for yarns but I am going to try to order some new yarns soon, if I can decide what I want. It always takes me an incredibly long time to make a decision about buying things sometimes! Especially, if I have to buy it online because I obviously won't know what it's like until I get it. I am leaning towards Knit Picks Comfy Worsted which is a cotton/acrylic blend. I just love the colors that Knit Picks offers! I have used it for a couple hats that I made and liked the results. I might try to make a blanket with that yarn.

Crochet Bee!

So it has been awhile since I made my last post. I hadn't really crocheted anything for awhile and then recently I made a baby blanket for a friend of mine who is having a baby, a bear for a co-worker who is having a baby, and just this past weekend I made this giant bee! I don't have pictures for the first two things that I made but here are some pictures of the bee I just finished.

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out! I didn't have a pattern that I followed to create this. The tricky part had been figuring out how exactly to do the wings but I like what I came up with.


Now I am waiting to get this book called My Crochet Doll by Isabelle Kessdjian from the library. It looks like an awesome book! I'm hoping to make a few dolls from it. It looks like a book I would want to add to my collection eventually!

I was also thinking of making either a dragonfly or a butterfly next. I will just have to figure out which bright colors I want to use!