Hats, cowls, and mittens

Since I haven't been stitching amigurumi right and left like I have in years past, what have I been making?  Stuff to wear.  It really is too bad that I moved to a state where a lot of this clothing isn't seasonally appropriate for more than two months out of the year....

Hats are so fun to make!  Yes, they need to fit correctly, but they are a heck of a lot easier to fit than, say, a sweater.

Anna from Frozen (this is more a hat/wig combo!!)

Yoda

Super Mario (for my Super Mario-loving nephew! What a crazy-awesome pattern.)

Declan's hat (I have done cabling on many knit projects, but this was my first cabled hat!)

November Cabled Hat (I loved the first one so much that I jumped right into another!)

Cowls are also so much fun to knit and crochet.  They are relatively small projects and you don't have to worry as much about fit issues.  For my first cowl attempts, I wanted to give Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable yarn a try....  If you haven't seen the amazingly beautiful color ways offered in this brand of yarn, RUN, don't walk, to your nearest big box craft store to check them out.  GORGOUS!!!  First, I crocheted a cowl:

Turquoise V Stitch Infinity Scarf

And then I knitted one:

A Very Braidy Cowl (This pattern showed off the gorgeous colors so much better, I think! And what a ridiculously cool pattern...)

With these successes under my belt, I asked my sister if she would like a cowl.  She ordered a chunky chocolate brown one, and I decided to make this project with my first ever purchase from a store that is devoted to yarn and yarn only (Holley's Yarn Shop in Dallas).  I think it turned out so beautiful....

Vite Cowl

I think the Vite Cowl might also have been my first attempt at knitting lace.  Once I figured out the whole "yarn over" thing, I was entranced.  There will be more lace to come in future blog posts....

With my knitting confidence climbing, I attempted my first pair of mittens.  How fun are these?!

Frozen Mittens (made by combining two patterns: Basic Cuff-Up Mittens and Warm Mittens)

Unfortunately, I didn't take into account that the mittens twist a bit when you put them on (due to the placement of the thumb on the palm as opposed to the side), so the snowflake stitching is a bit off-center.  Oh well, hopefully Avery doesn't mind!

Learning to Knit

What's that you say?  You see pigs flying?  Hell froze over?  Well, I might know why.

I LEARNED HOW TO KNIT.

I used to joke that crocheters and knitters were like the Sharks and the Jets (please see West Side Story if you don't get that joke), but then I started "meeting" lots of crocheter/knitter double threats on Ravelry.  Crocheting and knitting are apparently compatible.  Who knew?!  My one disastrous attempt at learning to knit in my early 20's had given me the idea that knitting was WAY harder than crocheting and that I just wasn't coordinated enough to handle two needles at a time.  But, OH!, those beautiful knitting patterns I kept seeing float across my computer screen... After Christmas crocheting season was done, on January 1st, I picked up knitting needles and gave it a try.

My first few swatches turned out great, so I dove right in to my very first dishcloth.  BOY, was that humbling.  It took me FOREVER and I hated how it turned out.  To top it all off, I ran out of cream yarn near the end and just decided to finish it with a different color, making it even less attractive.  Without further ado, I present MY FIRST KNITTING PROJECT:

Oof.  I got the pattern out of my 10-20-30 Minutes to Learn to Knit book, and it drove me nuts, switching back and forth between knit and purl stitches.  My brother suggested that perhaps I had bitten off more than I could chew with this first project, but honestly, it is the very first project presented in this book, and I think there's no time like the present to dive in feet first.  Still, I took his comment to heart, and for my next project, I found a WAY simpler pattern.

This Basic Adults Knitted Beanie is a fantastic learner project.  You work the hat flat and seam it up at the end (with a yarn needle), so there is a seam that any experienced knitter would consider a pattern deal-breaker, but for a beginner, I say it's fine.  I even bought a Clover brand pom-pom maker after deciding that wrapping yarn around cardboard and then spending the next hour trimming the pom-pom into shape was not good enough for my first knit hat.  Sonia chose the yarn-- can you tell?

I next decided that I wanted to try my hand at cabling.  This simple Diagonal Owl Dishcloth pattern looked like a good idea, but it was poorly written and didn't include any stitch count checks in the middle, so all my cabling, while done correctly, looks wonky due to losing count of my rows.  I gave this dishcloth to Sonia to use in her play kitchen.  Good riddance!

For my next project, I decided to see what my favorite Knit/Crochet designer goddess (Margaret MacInnis) had for me to try.  She teaches people to knit in her Ravelry group, and I have crocheted a bunch of her patterns before (including Niki & Corey's afghan), so I knew she wouldn't steer me wrong.  I found this cool Hazelnut Stitch Dishcloth and gave it a try.  The hazelnut stitch pattern is really beautiful, but unfortunately, I chose yarn that is WAY too busy to show off the pretty texture.

Here's a slightly better picture of the "hazelnuts".  Aren't they cool?

Armed with more knitting confidence, I gave another of Margaret's beautiful dishcloth/afghan block patterns a try.  This time, with a much better written pattern to follow, my cabling efforts were successful!  I can almost hear these owls hooting.

While I was doing these other knitting patterns, I was lurking in a knitting thread on Margaret's Ravelry groups' discussion board.  I watched as knitters posted pictures of this Turtle Ford dishcloth/afghan block pattern that Margaret presented as a mystery knit along.  After I finished the waffling owls dishcloth, I screwed up my courage, bought the turtle pattern, and got to knitting.

How hilarious is this little turtle?!?!?  He pops right off the dishcloth.  At the request of the teacher, I brought him in to show Sonia's kindergarten class, and the kids were enthralled.  They just finished up a learning unit all about fabric, so I was showing them how I knitted my own fabric.

Ok. So, I think I'm hooked on knitting.  I still love to crochet a lot, too, but expanding my yarn-maniuplating skill set to include knitting is absolutely thrilling.  Margaret put out a call for testers on a new series of garden-themed dishcloth/afghan block patterns, and I shyly put up my hand an asked if I could help.  She kindly let me join in the fun, and I dove right in.  These patterns are beautiful, amazingly written, a ton of fun to knit.  And, just for kniter/crocheter double threats like me, Margaret includes an optional crochet boarder for each pattern!  Here are my attempts at knitting the Garden Series:

Block 1: Beetle Mania

How cute are those beetles?  Hilariously enough, the back of the dishcloth is just as cool as the front:

Block II: Raindrops (don't look too closely-- there are several mistakes-- but at this point, I hadn't yet learned how to rip out my mistakes without having to start the block over from scratch, so I left them in)

Block III: 'Brella (loooooove the purl stitch rain drops!!)

Block IV: Picket De'Fence (v1) (I somehow forgot to take a picture of it after it was done, so here is one taken at the 99% point.)

Block IV: Picket De'Fence (v2) (Margaret changed the pattern to add pickets to the tops of the fence posts, so I re-tested this block.)

Block V: Lattice Bud (soooooo pretty!!)

Block VI: Sculpture (This one is absolutely gorgeous when knitted well, but I had a bit of trouble with a few of the stitches.  I am SO trying this one again once my knitting skills improve a bit.)

Aaaaaaand, there's more knitting to come!  Stay tuned!

More hats than you can shake a stick at

Is there anything more fun, satisfying, and relatively quick to crochet than a cute little hat?  Nope.  Here are a few that I have made over the last few months...

This kitty hat was based on the Crazy Cat Hat pattern, but because I wanted to use worsted weight yarn, I incorporated the Crochet Shark Hat pattern and the Hello Kitty Hat pattern. Despite the Frankenstein-ish combining of patterns, I think this hat turned out pretty cute!  I gave it to my beautiful cousin, Audrey, for Christmas.

Sonia modeled it for me, and she almost refused to take it off and give it back.  This girl would like it if I did nothing but crochet millions of hats for her.

When my little buddy, Ike, broke his arm over Thanksgiving weekend, I freehanded this Chop Chop (from Skylanders Giants) hat to send to him.  Sonia happily modeled it for me.

There is a removable face mask part, but I failed to get a picture of Sonia wearing the hat with the mask attached!  Whoops.  Here it is (as modeled by a canister of coffee):

I made another one of my beloved Graph Beanies, and this time I created my own graph!  My Michigan State University-loving brother-in-law received this hat from me for Christmas.

Here's yet another graph beanie, this time with a Longhorn on it!  My daughter's school mascot is a longhorn, and their colors are black and red.  I donated this to the school's annual silent auction, and someone bought it for $10.

I had been wanting to try making the Olivia's Butterfly Hat pattern for several years now, and I finally found someone to make it for-- my adorable neighbor (whom I am teaching to crochet!). I love how the butterfly is created with negative space.  I should have straightened out the butterfly a bit more before taking this picture.  Isn't this such a cute hat?

I love crocheting hats.  LOVE.

Hats, hats, and more hats!

Whoa, I fell off of the crochet blogging bandwagon...  I did not, however, fall off the crocheting bandwagon.  Since I last blogged, I have completed 43 crochet projects.  FORTY-THREE. Granted, 31 of those were 12" afghan squares, but still.  My hook has been a-flying, but my fingers haven't been a-typing.  What have I been up to?  Hats, afghan blocks, and amigurumi, mostly.  And an afghan that I can't blog about yet because I was one of the testers and it's super-secret until the pattern is released.

Let's start with the hats!

First up is a Minnie Mouse hat that I made for a sweet little girl turning two years old.  The pattern came from one of my favorite crochet blogs, Repeat Crafter Me.  I love how it uses buttons as polka dots!

Next, my friend, Pauline, asked me to make a beautiful hat (for her 5-year-old daughter) that was making the rounds on Facebook, but it turned out that the pattern was in Russian.  So, I used this pattern for the actual hat, and by using Google Translate, I was able to figure out the flowers from the Russian pattern.

Sonia loved the hat so much that I made her one, too!  And, then Pauline's co-worker asked if I might be able to make an adult-sized one, too!  It turned out just as beautiful, I think.

When one of my new Texas friends heard that I crochet, she asked if I might be able to make her a slouchy hat.  It turned out awesome and looked great on her, but you'll have to take my word for it because she didn't want her picture posted on the internet.  I should have had Sonia take a picture of me wearing it!  When the hat is just lying on a table, the brim rolls up and doesn't look all that great.  But I would definitely make this Neely Slouchy Hat again! It is a fantastic pattern.

I also made two more Elsa hats and one more Anna hat....  

I also crocheted two Spider-Man graph beanies (like the one I made for Cameron earlier this year)

This one is a bit bigger than the other one....  I hope both of them fit!

With no intended recipient in mind, I grabbed some pretty yarn (Red Heart Super Saver, "Tea Leaf" color) and gave the Crochet Seafarer's Cap a try....  I love this pattern so much!!  The hat turned out a tiny bit snug on my head, so I'm going to have to go up a hook size if I make it for an adult.  But how cool is the brim of this hat?  It almost looks knitted!  And it is very stretchy.  I highly recommend giving this pattern a try.

 I already have a red seafarer's cap about halfway done, and I know I'm making a few more hats before Christmas.  Crocheting hats is so satisfying because they usually only take a few hours and can be done while chatting (unlike a lot of the afghan blocks I've hooked over the last few months!).

More blog posts to come!

Nicholas's Darth Maul hat

My incredibly handsome nephew, Nicholas, turned 5 this week!  We are so lucky that we live near him because Sonia loves to play with her cool cousin.  For his birthday, I knew I wanted to crochet him something Star Wars-themed, but I was flummoxed as to what.  As I've mentioned before, there's a shocking lack of fun Star Wars crochet patterns on the internet (for free or otherwise).  For some reason, Star Wars doesn't seem to lend itself well to crochet?  

Anyway, I decided that once again, I would go with a hat.  One of Nicholas's favorite Star Wars characters is the evil Sith lord Darth Maul, so I looked around for a Darth Maul hat pattern.  Some of them were not good (seriously, have the designers even seen the movie?  he doesn't have goat-length horns....), and some looked so basic that I knew I could come up with something on my own just as easily as following someone else's pattern.

I did use one pattern, though....  My favorite graph beanie pattern by Liz McQueen! It makes such a nice, stretchy, well-shaped hat!  Then, I free-handed some horns, stitched them on, added a bit more detailing, and voila: Darth Maul!

Sonia would like you to pretend that she's not wearing a pajama top with a cute little bow on the neckline.  Instead, imagine that she is wearing a scary black outfit fit for a Sith lord.

Here's a good picture of ole' Darth Maul himself:

Yikes.  Not someone you want to meet in a dark alley.

Even Sith lords gotta smile once in a while.

I studied pictures of Darth Maul very closely while I made this hat.  You can kind of see how the black ovals under the horns on the front of the hat aren't stitched down perfectly around the edge, because if I did that, the hat wouldn't stretch properly.

I think I might have placed the horns a bit too high.  If I ever make this hat again, I'll try to place the horns lower.  They also might be just a touch too big.  Oh well.  At least I didn't make them goat-length.

Sonia posed with the Darth Maul action figure that I bought for Andrew during way back during law school finals (I believe it was when he was a 1L).  Too bad she broke his double-sided lightsaber.