Halloween Snow Heart Beanie

Oooh, it's almost my favorite time of the year again!

Designer Leesa Nixon recently shared a photo on her socials of the Beetlejuice/Halloween colors version of her Snow Heart Beanie (paid pattern), and I just knew that I needed to make one for myself in a messy-bun/ponytail style, because Halloween is probably my favorite holiday, too!!

These Sour Apple poms by Dannisdesignscrafts on Etsy add the perfect finishing touch! This is a really fun and quick pattern to crochet, and it doesn't require very much of each color of yarn. Love it!

A Chicken for Suzanne

My dear friend Suzanne is a self-proclaimed "chicken gal" and suburbanite-of-necessity who longs to return to her farmgirl days living in the country with a yard full of chickens.

What better way to celebrate her upcoming birthday than sending an Emotional Support Chicken for her to hug and hold while she dreams her sweet farmgirl dreams?

The Emotional Support Chicken by Annette Corsino is just a downright fun pattern to knit, and I think it looks best when executed in tweedy-ish yarn colorways that are reminiscent of the feathers of real chickens. When I saw the lovely marled colorways of KnitPal Cotton to the Core, I just knew they would produce some lovely chickens well worth adding to any metaphorical flock. For this hen, I'm using Caramel Brown as color A and Fresh Peach as color B.

This yarn is on the lighter side for being labeled as a worsted weight - definitely much lighter than the stuff that Red Heart labels as worsted weight. In my opinion, it's closer to being DK weight. I'm still using the needle size specified in the pattern, though, so we'll see how big this hen ends up being compared to the other ones I've knitted with Red Heart. 😅 

I hope Suzanne loves her new chicken, and if she gives it a name, I will update this post to let all y'all know what it is! 💜🐔💜

I'm pretty sure that Suzanne's chicken is the first one of these that I've managed to sew together according to the way the pattern designer intended. Yay!

Mini Simple Stardew Valley Chicken

I discovered that this pattern makes an adorable chick-sized mini chicken if you use a few scraps of standard 4-weight yarn, a 5 mm hook, and 8 mm safety eyes. This is the Simple Stardew Valley Chicken free pattern, which can be found on Ravelry.

They are so quick and easy to make that you can whip up a whole tiny flock in just an evening. I made all three of these in just a few hours. 

Each chick measures about 3.5 inches long by about 2.5 inches tall (not including the comb). The kawaii safety eyes came from this kit on Amazon. You can view more info about the yarns I used for these on my Ravelry project page.

The pattern was originally designed to be made with chenille blanket yarn, which produces a much larger softie (example photo from the pattern below).

 

Pen Pocket for my Doc

At my recent checkup, my doctor, who is an active duty officer in the Air Force, was complaining that she didn't have anywhere to carry her pen in her Class B uniform blouse. (The Air Force women's Class B uniform blouse doesn't have any pockets.)

My husband mentioned to her that when he's wearing a shirt without a pocket (which almost never happens anymore), he would clip his pen so that it was sticking out between the buttons in the front button placket. My doc thanked him for the suggestion but pointed out that wearing a pen that way would not only technically make her be "out of uniform," but that it also wouldn't sit as well on a woman (breasts, obvs). I included a random photo from the internet, below, to show (more or less) the way my husband was suggesting she could wear her pen, except that this picture doesn't show the pen's clip holding onto the front of the button placket the way my husband was describing.

My doc was wearing an ID lanyard, however, so the idea that popped into my head was to sew a pen pocket for her that could be attached to her lanyard and was made from a similar-color fabric as the light, almost baby blue of her uniform blouse (in the hope that the color would make it less conspicuous). The only way I would ever be able to exactly match the fabric color is if I were to buy a woman's Class B uniform blouse at the AAFES clothing sales and cut it up to use the fabric to sew the pen pocket. So I'm hoping that the fabric I used will be a close-enough match.

I asked her if adding a pen pocket like that to her lanyard would make her be considered to be "out of uniform," and she didn't think that it would, so we agreed that a pen pocket on her lanyard could maybe work for her.

I told her I would sew one for her and bring it to my next appointment (whenever that is! LOL! I don't actually see her very often).

After searching around online, I settled on this tutorial by Ashley Hough for how to sew an elastic bookmark, because the pen/pencil pouch portion of the tutorial was a close match to what I had in mind to give to my doctor. The only real difference with mine is that instead of sewing the pouch to the long loop of elastic, I added a button hole to the top flap for the lanyard's plastic loop to fit through. (This was the first time I'd ever used the button hole function on my new sewing machine, so that was exciting, too. I think it turned out pretty well and was a lot easier than the way I used to have to sew button holes.)

The finished dimensions are about 6.5 inches long by about 1.75 inches wide. It has two pockets, so it can hold two pens or one pen and one pencil. It was a quick and easy project and only required just a small amount of fabric. I also added featherweight fusible interfacing to the back of both pieces of fabric to help them hold their shape. 

I hope my doctor finds this little accessory helpful while she's on the job!

Tooth Fairy Pillow pocket lovey

This tooth fairy pillow is going to be a gift for my wonderful dental hygienist, Carra.

In recent years, I've developed awful sensitivity in my teeth from enamel damage incurred from grinding my teeth and/or clenching my jaw during sleep. I started wearing a mouth guard at night, but not until after the damage was already done.

Ever since my teeth were damaged, having dental cleanings done has been terribly painful, to the point where I even considered not going to the dentist at all anymore (yeah, of course, I know that skipping dental visits wouldn't have made my situation any better, obviously, but ugh). I even felt that I had to change dental practices because my previous dentist didn't seem to be sufficiently sympathetic to my pain and wasn't really working with me to follow a plan to manage it.

My new hygienist, Carra (and, really, the entire team at Dr. Shelton's), has been nothing short of AMAZING. Carra has been very sympathetic and gentle with me at every visit and always gives me and my teeth the most wonderful care.

I always try to profusely thank Carra each time I see her, to let her know how much I appreciate her wonderful "bedside manner," as it were, but in addition to saying thank you, I wanted to give her a small, tangible token to express my gratitude, and thus I went searching for a crochet tooth pattern that was both super adorable and also sort of representative of who she is in her career. To me, Carra is my personal tooth fairy angel! 👼

This free Tooth Fairy Pillow pattern by Heather Corinne Smith is just right in every way. (She also has a video tutorial you can follow.) The design makes a tooth softie/lovey of a nice size (mine is about 6 inches tall, not including the hanging loop, by 6 inches wide), and the kawaii embroidered facial features are just so cute. The pocket on the back (about 3.75 inches wide by 2.5 inches tall) is the perfect size for holding a Dutch Bros gift card and sticker to add an extra touch of sweetness to the gift. I finished mine by adding a bow made of a small scrap of hot pink ribbon (it was only about 8 inches long to start with, so it was barely long enough, but it worked!!) that I had in my stash and followed this quick tutorial on YouTube to tie it, then I carefully sewed it to the tooth using a needle and thread.

Back with pocket

This turned out so cute, and I think Carra is going to love it. So if you love your dental hygienist as much as I love mine, maybe you should make one of these for your hygienist, too!