The Fairy Slippers Blanket free pattern

This free Fairy Slippers Banket pattern is a variation on the Which Way Filet blanket by Fiber Spider that works up quickly and easily from the center outward.

This Lion Brand Mandala yarn is soft and light, and the colorway is reminiscent of soft rainbow colors that would make a precious, cuddly keepsake blanket for a “rainbow baby.”

I had been hearing the term “rainbow baby” getting used a lot around knitting and crocheting circles, but I didn’t know what it meant, so I finally decided to look it up. According to Google, “A rainbow baby is a name coined for a healthy baby born after losing a baby due to miscarriage, infant loss, stillbirth, or neonatal death. The name ‘rainbow baby’ comes from the idea of a rainbow appearing in the sky after a storm, or after a dark and turbulent time.”

Which means that I am a rainbow baby myself, according to the modern parlance, because my mother delivered me after previously enduring seven miscarriages. I had no idea that I was born under this lovely, colorful label. Ha! 🌈

This filet blanket pattern is also ideal for a rainbow baby because the infinite paths winding and spiraling outward from the center symbolize the infinite potential contained within each new life.

This also means that maybe instead of giving away this baby blanket when it’s done I should just keep it for my rainbow-baby self. 😁 I could get another skein of this Honeydukes colorway, whip up another blanket just like this one, and then sew them together to make a nice and light but colorful, funky, and boxy rainbow poncho!

If I finish this as a baby blanket, I’ll edge it with 1 round SC followed by 1 round RSC. But if I keep this to be a poncho, I’ll end with 1 round SC before sewing the panels together.

Basic Pint Jar Cozy free pattern

I sometimes like to have cold overnight oatmeal in a pint jar for breakfast, but my hand gets so cold holding the jar while I’m eating. I needed a quick, basic jar cozy to insulate my hand from the cold, so I whipped up this design before breakfast this morning. The lavender yarn is even color-coordinated with the blueberries in my oatmeal. 😍

This quick, basic cozy will fit most pint-size canning jars but can also be easily adjusted to fit other jar sizes. Just try the cozy on your jar as you crochet and adjust the stitch and row count for a custom fit.

Row 1: In magic ring, ch 2 (ch 2 doesn’t count as a stitch throughout), DC 10. Sl to top of 1st DC to join. (10 DC)

Row 2: Ch 2, 2 DC in each DC around. Sl to top of 1st DC to join. (20 DC)

Row 3: Ch 2, 2 DC in 1st st, 1 DC in next st. Work 2 DC in next st followed by 1 DC in the st after that around. Sl to top of 1st DC to join. (30 DC)

Row 4: Ch 2, DC in each st around. Sl to top of 1st DC to join. (30 DC)

Repeat row 4 four more times. You can customize the height of your cozy to fit the jar the way you want it to. Just try the cozy on your jar as you complete each round until you like the way it looks. For my jar, a total of 8 rounds of DC looked best, followed by two finishing rounds, as follows:

Finishing row 1: Ch 1. HDC in each st around. Sl to top of 1st HDC to join. (30 HDC)

Finishing row 2: Ch 1. SC in third loop of each HDC from previous round. Sl to top of 1st SC to join. (30 SC)

Break yarn, weave in ends, and enjoy your cold breakfast in a jar without freezing your hands! 🥄

Here’s my recipe for easy (keto-ish) overnight blueberry oatmeal:

3/4 cup Greek yogurt (I use whole 5% fat)
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup steel-cut oats (I use Bob’s Red Mill Irish style)
1 tablespoon agave liquid sweetener (or whatever liquid sweetener you prefer, to taste)
Frozen whole blueberries, approximately 3/4 cup

Place all ingredients except blueberries in a pint jar and stir until well combined. Add frozen blueberries to fill remaining space in jar and stir carefully until blueberries are incorporated. (The berries will thaw in the jar overnight.) Cap jar and place in refrigerator overnight (for at least 8 hours). The next morning, remove jar from refrigerator, slip on your newly made crochet jar cozy (this step is VERY important!! LOL), and enjoy a healthy breakfast.

Not the scissors

A good laugh, sent by my friend Terri. 😂

Quick baby girl gift idea: Angel Popover Dress free pattern

Gosh, I know I should post here more often, I really do, and I apologize for being so random and infrequent about posting. At least I do a better job at keeping my Ravelry project notebook up to date. Sigh!

We got a surprise phone call on Saturday afternoon from great-granddaughter Lilliana’s dad saying he has a couple of vacation days coming up soon and he wanted to bring his family down for a quick visit. Activating excited great-grandma mode in 3 … 2 … 1!!!

I needed a quick pattern to make Lilliana (now 16 months old) a sweet little dress to celebrate getting to meet her in person for the first time, and the Angel Popover Dress (free pattern) filled that need quite nicely. This size 2T version worked up in just a few hours of work over two evenings.

I threaded a 3/8-inch pink satin ribbon between the stitches of the first row and tied a bow in the center front, added a pink tank top and miniskirt from the store as a liner beneath the lacy white crochet dress, and voila!

Honeydripper Boomerang Scarf free pattern

I’m living with a lot of stress right now, so I needed a project that could not only use up some of my yarn stash but also was relatively simple to execute without needing a lot of concentration.

I enjoyed seeing all the various shawls people created during Marly Bird’s 2019 Tournament of Stitches, so I decided to adopt the boomerang shape used for that project, but instead of incorporating the mosaic sections I decided to keep it simple by working the entire piece in a two-color garter stitch stripe.

The two yarns I used here are both vintage skeins that date back to my mother’s stash. She very likely purchased these before I was even born. Even though the colors aren’t my favorite, I think they work well together and hopefully will result in a nice-looking scarf that my daughter will enjoy wearing.

My plan was just to keep knitting until I was about to run out of yarn, then cast off. I figured the two full skeins of yarn ought to produce a nice-sized scarf when it was all finished.

Just to mix things up a bit and make the long stretches of garter stitch more interesting toward the end (as well as to add visual interest on one side of the triangle in keeping with the scarf’s Honeydripper theme), when my yarn was about 75% gone I started working occasional honeycomb lace rows. This did add an additional level of detail to the process, but it was easy enough for me to read my knitting and see when it was time to work the lace rows, so I didn’t think this would be too much for my overtaxed brain to cope with.

Continuing with the increases/decreases on every RS row and alternating stripes of color as established, every sixth row (always a WS return row) I would work in honeycomb lace. Placing the lace rows this way ensured that the lace rows would be produced in alternating yarn colors, helping to keep the overall usage of each color as even as possible.

I think I can hear what you’re wondering: Why didn’t I work the whole scarf with the lovely honeycomb lace, or if not the whole scarf, why didn’t I at least start working the lace sooner - like around the halfway point? My only reply to this is: I just did it this way. End of story. If you want to copy my idea you can work as much lace (or as little) as you like. 😊

After finishing the scarf (wingspan is about 78 inches) I ended up with a bit more of the darker Inca Gold yarn left than the lighter gold. I decided to see if it was enough to crochet a coordinating Chic Aran Headband to go with the scarf. 😁

Well, I didn’t have quite enough Inca Gold to do the entire headband, and I didn’t have enough of the pale gold to do an entire stripe, so I subbed in some aran white for the center rows 6, 3, 4, and 5. That left me enough Inca Gold to finish the headband, and I embroidered a simple chain stitch as an accent down the center of the white stripe with the pale gold to add a touch of that color to the headband as well. Yay!