Weekend Smorgasborg

I have a few things I've been working on/have finished that I wanted to post.
First, as I mentioned before, I did another baby hat for new niece #2, Emily.
This one, I managed to get the right size (AKA: made for a baby head, rather than a full grown adult), so that was exciting.



Next, I sent my dad a homemade father's day gift this year. If I would've thought of this sooner, I would have made him something cooler but since it only occurred to me about a week ago, I decided to make something simple. I decided on a can/cup cozy. It was a free pattern I found on the Lion yarn website, and very easy. I think it's a little endearing that I made him something that a 4th grader could have made...don't you?



My family is just going to have to live with the fact that they will be getting hand-made gifts for the rest of their life.

I also started work on a full size afghan. I don't have pictures yet, but honestly, this project will probably take me at least 6 months to complete so there will be plenty of time for pictures :)

In other news, I found a pretty cool site, www.ravelry.com, where you can post pics of your work, search tons of patterns, see projects that other people are working on and just get some great ideas for future work. If you are into crocheting or knitting (this site caters to both), then you should definitely check it out. So far, I have added fingerless gloves, a dog sweater and slippers into my queue...so who knows what I'll be up to next...

xoxo

Cookie Monsters

This is a quick, drive-by blog post. I made the dogs some homemade treats this weekend. Our dogs are spoiled and needy so when we found out that Luka had an allergy to wheat that caused his skin to be very flaky, we started them on a strict no-wheat diet. You'd be surprised how hard it is to find wheat-free food and treats for dogs...not to mention how expensive it is when you do find it.

So, I started baking the dogs, homemade, wheat-free dog treats in tons of flavors. This weekend I made the old stand by: essentially a chocolate chip cookie for dogs...however, dogs cannot eat chocolate so these are made with carob chips instead. And brown rice flour + oat flour as opposed to wheat flour. These dogs have the life.

resting after a long day:

Aunt Attack!

I found out late last year/early this year that both my sister & sister-in-law (and thus brother) are having new babies this year! It's been about 4 years since there were any babies around so it's a pretty big deal. We also recently found out that they are both having girls. Now, this is the really big deal part because up until now, they've both had nothing but boys. I have FIVE nephews...and I love those boys, but dear god, i just wanted to buy a baby dress for once in my life.
Baby girls (or babies in general, but especially girls) also open up a whole new world of crochet.
I decided to make my first big project a cute hat and blanket for new niece #1, Katie. (This actually came before the crobot but I had to wait to post until I had sent it.) I found the pattern in the book " Stitch "N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker" by Debbie Stoller. This was actually the first crochet book I ever bought...mostly because of the title. It also has many patterns you wouldn't normally find in a traditional crochet book. I haven't made very many projects from this book but hope to in the future. It does have great information about technique, different stitches, etc.
Now, onto to the blanket/hat combo. First, the hat. I love these hats. I even have a few. But seeing a baby in this hat has to be one of the cutest things ever.


The hat was, by far, the easiest part of the project. I completed it in 2 evenings (which probably could have been 1 if I really wanted). It's made up of double crochets in the round.
There is a potential problem: I think I increased too much at some point and the hat is bigger than it should be....but hey, Katie will need a hat at some point in her life and now she has one :)

Here's the blanket:


Please ignore the crazy eyes...I was pretty excited. Now, does the blanket look a little larger on one end vs. the other? Well, that's because it just may be. You have to remember that the first few lines were some of the first few rows of a real project that I had ever done...so I *may* have missed stitching into a few turning chain stitches along the way...oopsie. The great thing is that Katie will never notice!

And here's the finished package, and proud crafter:


Despite the initial challenges, I am happy with how these turned out. It gave me the confidence to keep crocheting and now I have lots more projects to share in the next few days, including ANOTHER baby hat (hey I got 2 nieces!), a cute, quick father's day gift, and the start of something big.

xoxo

PS- it just occurred to me that if i ever start a business, i will call if Crafts & Crossbones....

In the beginning...

So, I'm starting this blog so that I can document all of my crafty escapades..good, bad and ugly.

I've tried to be crafty my entire life and I usually succeed about 50% of the time. In the last few years, I've tried my hand at sewing, but still haven't totally gotten the hang of it. I've made homemade dog treats which were fun but with my dogs as the only customers, only managed to make them fat. I also learned to crochet. So far, this has been the crafty avenue that I've found the most success. It took me quite a while but I finally picked it up, and before you knew it, I was learning different stiches and teaching myself new things and even surprising myself a few times with the way things turned out. So, needless to say, I'm now on a crochet kick since I've finally found a hobby I'm actually good at!

I hope to use this blog as a way to show off my work a little, but most of all I hope it will keep me motivated to continue to make cool things...with the intent of showing them off obviously.

So, without further ado, I present Hercomer. Hercomer is a Zombiebot. I bought a book of how-to crochet Crobots and this was my first attempt. I made him as a gift for Jason, since this was his favorite. It took me 2 nights: 1 night to crochet all the pieces, and another night to piece him together and add the accessories/notions. It was a little difficult at first since I had never worked with a crochet hook this small (size B) and since the bot is so little, you have to get used to fiddling around a bit. He is comprised mostly of single crochet stiches so pretty simple even if you're a beginner. If you can crochet in the round, you can make these! And even if you can't, you can learn pretty quickly! The book I got, Crobots: 20 Amigurumi Robots to Make, by Nelly Pailloux, even has a section at the beginning that explains all stiches and techniques that are required to make any projects in the book.

Okay, now for the good stuff. Here's Hercomer-

After the first night- all in pieces:

All finished:

One Happy Customer/Husband:

Next Post: baby gifts!

xoxo