Waylon's blanket

Earlier this year, we learned that my sister-in-law Linda's daughter Brianna was expecting her first child, which was going to be Linda's very first grandchild, and our family was super excited to welcome our newest little addition. It's going to be a boy! 💙

Naturally, this news also meant that Auntie Susan needed to get busy stitching up a keepsake blanket to welcome her newest grandnephew!

Finished with 43 rows, before blocking

I searched for baby blanket ideas for a few days with nothing really jumping out and grabbing me until Red Heart Yarns shared on social media their pattern for this blanket made with Red Heart Bitty Stripes yarn. Instantly I could see in my mind's eye how amazing this design would look made in shades of blue and green, so I ordered the kit with those colors and then anxiously waited for it to arrive. 

This pattern says to use an 11.5 mm hook, even though the yarn is rated as a standard 4 weight. I did purchase the 11.5 mm hook with the Yarnspirations kit (it was less than $2, and I didn't already own a hook that size, so why not?) for the blanket project, but as I started working the foundation chain, it was just soooo loose that it really didn't look right, so I switched to using a 6.5 mm hook, and that seemed to look a lot better to me. A 7 mm hook would probably be ideal, but I don't have one that size (yet).

The free pattern wasn't yet listed in the Ravelry database when I started this project, but it could be downloaded from this page at Yarnspirations.

Measures about 36 inches wide

Since I'm using a smaller hook than the pattern suggested, I also added more chains to the foundation chain to ensure that the blanket wouldn't be too small. Thus, I started with a foundation chain of 153 instead of 113. After working several rows of blocks, the piece measured about 36 inches wide, which is a good size for the width of a baby crib blanket. This blanket is 14 squares wide. I'm aiming to have the finished blanket size be about 36 inches wide by 48 inches long. I figure I will just keep adding rows until the blanket looks more rectangular than square, so I'll let you know how many rows that ends up being after I've finished.

Work in progress...

I'm also fairly new to tunisian crochet techniques, and I wasn't understanding the written instructions for how to get started, so I looked up this Yarnspirations video tutorial (hosted by Mikey!! Yay!! He's such a great teacher) to get me through the blanket setup. Once I was able to understand how the tunisian block pattern works, it became super fun to make this pattern. It only takes about 4 or 5 minutes to complete each block (it takes about an hour (ish) to complete a whole row of blocks), and as the yarns gradually change colors, half of the fun is seeing which color will come next, so I found myself wanting to keep making "one more block" and never wanting to stop. 😊 The beautiful colors of the Bitty Stripes yarn play so well together, too. It's just a gorgeous effect when it's all put together. 

WIP at 27 rows

I'm using the Seaweed (green) colorway as Color A in the pattern and the Horizon (blue) colorway as Color B. 

The first skein of Seaweed ran out after the 15th row. The first skein of Horizon ran out in the middle of the 16th row. The blanket was basically a square at the point where these first skeins ran out, so if you wanted to use this pattern to make a roughly 36-inch square blanket, you might be able to do it with just one skein of each color (plus more yarn for a border, if you wanted to add one). 

In working out the math for the sizing of this blanket, I calculated that 48 inches is approximately 1.33 times 36 inches. And since 14 squares measures about 36 inches, I estimated that I would need to work 18-19 rows of Color A (or 14 times 1.33) to reach my target length of 48 inches long. Notice that that's only counting the Color A rows. Since the pattern is alternating rows of Color A and Color B, the total number of rows would actually be approximately double the number of rows of counting only Color A, which I'm estimating would be around 36-38 rows of squares. 

Standard hook = crowded

I went through phases of using three different 6.5 mm crochet hooks while stitching this project. I started off with my regular blue-handled Boye hook (this set is one of my overall all-time favorites to work with). Because the squares in this pattern are fairly small and only require a maximum of 7 loops to fit onto the shaft of the hook, it is possible to manage that with most standard crochet hooks, even if 7 loops gets to be a bit crowded. 

A Furls hook helps

I looked around at the options available and thought that the long shaft of the Furls style hooks might work better for this project than my Boye hook, so I ordered a pretty 6.5 mm Furls hook from Amazon. 

All the hooks I went through

When the Furls hook arrived, it was noticeably easier to fit all the loops onto its shaft. But the problem with the Furls design is that the shaft gradually tapers into the larger grip area, and that larger part of the shaft was making the loops on that end of each row bigger than the other loops. It wasn't a huge issue, so I worked quite a few rows with the Furls hook. 

A tunisian hook is ideal

But eventually I decided to finally bite the bullet and buy some type of actual tunisian hook, in the hope that it would make it easier for me to keep the loop sizes more consistent across the entire row. I settled on this double-ended tunisian hook by Red Heart. 

The only reason why it took me so long to finish this blanket was because I struggled somewhat with finding the energy to keep working in the middle of the project (health struggles, sigh), so even though I knew that I really wanted to have it ready to be a gift for Baby's first Christmas, I put it in time out for a few months to let myself rest. But as December rolled around, I found the burst of energy I needed to pick it up again. 

After finishing the 43rd row, I measured the length of the blanket and found that it was just about exactly 48 inches long and celebrated finally reaching my goal.

I had ordered a skein of baby blue Red Heart yarn that looked online like it would coordinate well with the blanket's colors and make a good solid color for the edging rounds. But it was evident as soon as I saw the yarns in person that this edging color was not going to work. Happily, I still had a lot of leftover Red Heart in the Denim colorway, which complements the blanket colors nicely in the border rounds.

For the border, I worked two rounds of SC (turning to work the second round in the opposite direction to help prevent curling) followed by one round of twsted SC, which gives a simple but lovely, texture-y, rope-like edging that I have used to finish many blanket projects. Twisted SC looks exactly like RSC, but twisted SC is a LOT easier to work, IMO. 

Sally Stitches Pumpkin

Many years ago, as I was first learning about how to work with circular knitting machines, I used a small scrap of Red Heart Ombre yarn in the True Blue colorway to make a quick, single-layer pumpkin.

After finishing it, I decided later that circular-knitted pumpkins definitely look better when they're made double-layered. But I had this single-layer blue pumpkin sitting there wondering how it might fit into my seasonal decorating for one of my favorite holidays: Halloween.

Inspo photo from Disney's Emoji Blitz game

My poor blue pumpkin actually sat for a long, long time (more than five years!) waiting for its chance to become something more. I didn't want to just rip it apart and start over, using the materials for something else.

I would pull it out of a yarn bin every so often and ponder it. I'm not sure exactly when it finally occurred to me that the light blue yarn kind of resembled the skin tone of Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. But once I got that idea in my head, I was determined to transform my blue pumpkin into a Sally character pumpkin.

Another inspo photo found online

Sally's most distinctive features are her blue skin, her cherry-red hair, her big white eyes with little black pupils, and, of course, the black stitches all over her skin. (Her colorful patchwork dress is also distinctive, but for this project, I was going to focus just on Sally's face.)

Another inspo photo found online

For the eyes, I followed this tutorial by Harriet's Crochet on YouTube. I made the eyes with fingering weight cotton yarn in black and white and a 2.25 mm crochet hook. I used white instead of the iris color shown in the tutorial, and also added an extra round of white to get them to the finished size I wanted.

Top view after adding hair and eyes

For the hair, using the cherry-red yarn and a 5 mm hook, I crocheted a foundation SC chain until it was long enough to reach vertically from pole to pole on the pumpkin, which ended up being 28 stitches long. The remaining rows are worked in YOslst in the back loop to give a texture that resembles her strands of hair. The finished rectangle is about 14 inches long and covers about 2/3 of the pumpkin (leaving the other 1/3 of the pumpkin open for her face). I gathered the top and bottom edges and wrapped them around the pumpkin and tied everything together to secure.

Then I crocheted a vine-like stem similar to the one I added to my crocheted Little Rustic Pumpkin back in 2019. To make the vine, I crocheted 6 SC in a magic circle, then kept crocheting the 6 stitches in a continuous spiral until the length was long enough to cover a 12-inch pipe cleaner. (I actually twisted together two pipe cleaners.) After inserting the pipe cleaners, I started increasing each round of SC until the circle had 42 stitches (to provide a secure base for the vine, and to cover the "bald spot" at the top of Sally's head where I wasn't able to cinch the top of her red hair any tighter).

Bottom view

Sewing on her eyes was probably the scariest step for me, because I didn't want to have them end up looking wonky. But I just worked slowly and carefully, and they ended up looking pretty good. 😊 I intentionally did NOT stitch her eyes down tightly where they cross the creases between the pumpkin segments. 

Using the fingering-weight black yarn, I embroidered a kind of stem stitch to line the top edge of her eyes and then continued sewing her eyelashes in little V's back across the line across the top of her eyes.

Then, in black, I embroidered Sally's distinctive slash that crosses her face near her right eye. And then I embroidered the stitches that extend across her cheeks on either side of her lips.

The final touch was to embroider her lips using a sort of puffy satin stitch using a bit of the same yarn as her hair. You can find more info about the yarns I used on my Ravelry project page.

I think my Sally Stitches Pumpkin turned out great, and she looks so happy sitting there on my hearth beside her "Jack Skellington."

Feet up to relax after a job well done

I love Sally's character, and I have even dressed up as her for my friend Kim's Halloween party!

Sally's Song

I sense there's something in the wind
That feels like tragedy's at hand
And though I'd like to stand by him
Can't shake this feeling that I have
The worst is just around the bend
And does he notice my feelings for him?
And will he see how much he means to me?
I think it's not to be

 

What will become of my dear friend?
Where will his actions lead us then?
Although I'd like to join the crowd
In their enthusiastic cloud
Try as I may, it doesn't last
And will we ever end up together?
No, I think not, it's never to become
For I am not the one

 

Skeleton Doll

This is a fun, easy, and quick-to-make pattern by Ashley of A Crafty Concept for an adorably spooky little crochet skeleton doll, a perfect addition for everyone's handmade Halloween decor!

The written pattern is free on her blog, and she also provides a video tutorial.

Work in progress - paint drying

He reminds me of a simplified version of Jack Skellington, so I have set him on my hearth beside his adoring Sally in pumpkin form. Maybe I can give him a tuxedo coat and bat bow tie later for a little more authenticity (Disney-thentic, ha).

Jack's Lament

There are few who'd deny, at what I do I am the best
For my talents are renowned far and wide
When it comes to surprises in the moonlit night
I excel without ever even trying
With the slightest little effort of my ghostlike charms
I have seen grown men give out a shriek
With the wave of my hand and a well placed moan
I have swept the very bravest off their feet

Yet year after year, it's the same routine
And I grow so weary of the sound of screams
And I, Jack, the Pumpkin King
Have grown so tired of the same old thing

Oh, somewhere deep inside of these bones
An emptiness began to grow
There's something out there, far from my home
A longing that I've never known

I'm the master of fright, and a demon of light
And I'll scare you right out of your pants
To a guy in Kentucky, I'm Mister Unlucky
And I'm known throughout England and France

And since I am dead, I can take off my head
To recite Shakespearean quotations
No animal nor man can scream like I can
With the fury of my recitations

But who here would ever understand
That the Pumpkin King with the skeleton grin
Would tire of his crown, if they only understood
He'd give it all up if he only could

Oh, there's an empty place in my bones
That calls out for something unknown
The fame and praise come year after year
Does nothing for these empty tears 

 

How to triple any yarn as you go

I just came across this video by Crochet with Tuula Maaria for a fascinating technique: How to triple any yarn as you go: The continuous looping method. 

I bet this would also work for knitters. 

Most of my stash is worsted weight stuff, but the cool thing about this technique is that it will work with whatever yarn you have, if you have a project where you need the yarn to be bulkier.

Check it out!

 

Ric-Rac Panthers Fan Messy-Bun Earflap Beanie

The football team at our hometown high school, the Perry Panthers, has school colors of maroon and gold. They also have white away-game jerseys, and also alternate uniforms that are primarily black. I'm trying to utilize all of those colors in this hat.

Previous times when I've made this Messy-Bun Earflap Beanie (or the regular hat style), it has been using a combination of three colors. This time I'm attempting to make it using four colors. I sketched out several different stripe arrangements before settling on this configuration. I think it works pretty well at incorporating all four colors while still keeping the maroon and gold as the dominant colors.

Let's go, Panthers!!! 2023 GHSA 4A Football champions!

 

Ric-Rac UGA Fan Messy Bun Beanie

Ever since I made one of these beanies for my grandniece Jill almost four years ago, I've been wanting to make one for myself in a messy-bun style (open top). So when Jill's mom, my niece Renee, announced that she would be hosting a party to celebrate the kickoff of Georgia's new football season, I knew that now was the time to grab my yarn and get hooking on this essential accessory. GOOOOOO Dawgs! Sic 'em! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! 🏈

I used scraps of yarn I had in my stash to make this, so, naturally, I ran out of the main red color when I was stitching the brim. I switched to another scrap of red that was a fairly close match to the first red, but there is a tiny bit of difference in the colors. But since this hat is for me, I'm OK with that. 😊

The hat works up quickly, and the cluster V-stitch is super easy while giving the stripes their distinct "ric-rac" look. I use this tutorial on YouTube by Hooked by Robin whenever I need a refresher on how to work the cluster V-stitch. The design is great for showing off the colors of any fandom, and the slouchy, stretchy nature of the beanie is amazingly comfortable for all-game-day wear. The 5/6 ribbed brim in alternating FPDC/BPDC stitches also provides complete, cozy coverage of your ears, which is wonderful on windy autumn/winter game days.

As you can tell by my latest posts, I'm on a beanie-making kick lately, thanks to the approach of fall, my favoritest season in the whole, wide world!! Plus, most crochet hats work up super fast, so it doesn't take long to have your latest favorite hat ready to wear. 

And because crochet hats work up quickly, it also means that I can usually finish one before the arthritis in my hands forces me to take a break from stitching. 👍

 

 

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!

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).

 

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!

Tendril Shawl

The pattern for this Tendril Shawl is available for free on the designer Carmen Heffernan's blog. She also provides a video tutorial that walks you through the setup rows and the first couple of pattern repeats, which is very helpful for getting this project started.

I made mine at a heavier gauge than the original pattern calls for, but it worked out well and produced a lovely shawl/wrap/scarf. My yarn is Hobby Lobby I Love This Cotton in the Emerald Pine colorway, which is labeled as a 4 weight, and I'm using a 5.5 mm hook. I had a few skeins of this colorway left over from my Dressy Swingy Shawlivest project, and I thought they would look good being worked into the Tendril Shawl design. This yarn looks and feels more like a 3 weight despite the fact that it's labeled a 4 weight, and the cotton is so soft and smooth that it's a pleasure to work with.

Finished with gothpixy's edging

I love the sawtooth edge and the beautiful lacy-ness of this shawl. The project grows quickly, which is satisfying, and the four-row repeat becomes fairly intuitive after you've worked it a few times.

Finished size

The only downside to using this particular yarn is that the skeins are pretty short at only 153 yards each, so I was worried I might not have enough yardage on hand to make a full size shawl. The first skein ran out at the beginning of row 36. 

End of first skein

The second skein ran out after making it most of the way across row 52.

End of second skein

My third skein ran out almost at the end of row 64. Thankfully, I had another skein available to finish that row and continue, because the top edge of my shawl was only about 64 inches long at that point. I used the fourth skein to work another two "points" and then do the edging row.

End of third skein

I started working the picot edging row as written in the pattern, but I felt that it was coming out too tight, so I searched through the Tendril Shawl project gallery page until I found gothpixy's project.

Gothpixy suggested an alternate way to work the picot edging that I ended up using for my project. I like their edging better for two reasons: One, it provides a lovely bumpy, wavy edging that finishes the edge really well with an easier method than working traditional picots. And two, it utilizes an extra chain stitch between each bump, so the edging doesn't tighten the edge in the same way that the original pattern's edging row was doing for me. You should check out gothpixy's project to see if maybe you might like their edging better, too!

Getting started

The designer says the finished fingering-weight samples she made measure about 70 inches (178 cm) on the long top edge after 64 rows (65 rows with the final edging applied), which is 16 "points" on the bottom edge, and 32 inches (82 cm) tall/deep on the border edge after blocking. 

I crocheted mine to 18 points, or 72 rows, plus the edging row. My shawl's total length is about 72 inches before blocking.

Beaded Fidget Hedgehog

This is a great pattern for using up scrap yarn from your stash. Each hedgehog requires only a small amount of yarn (plus a pair of 8 mm safety eyes, about 68 pony beads, and the other supplies). 

For my first two hedgehogs, I used glitter pony beads that I've had in my crafting stash for at least 27 years. I originally purchased the beads to adorn some Pocahontas costumes for Halloween/dress-up playtime that I sewed for my daughters back in the 1990s. 

My daughters on Halloween in the 1990s wearing the beaded costumes.

Now, all these years later, I can give them each an adorable hedgehog made with the same beads along with a printed photo of them wearing the Pocahontas costumes when they were little. That's a nifty full-circle moment in my book! 😁

So tiny and cute!

Little hedgehog feet.

Little hedgehog bum.

The pattern also has a link to an Etsy listing where you can opt to purchase a printable "carrier" for gifting your hedgehogs, which gives them a cute finishing touch.