Diaper Covers

Last week when I posted some of my hats to my Facebook page, a woman I went to high school with made the comment that if I made diaper covers we’d be in business. She’s a photographer as a side job & does some great pictures. She wanted them to use when she photographs babies, so I decided it sounded like a good challenge.

I looked around online to try to find a good pattern I thought I could handle (I still consider myself a beginner!), and wasn’t too excited about what I was finding. They were cute patterns, don’t get me wrong, but they all worked “in the round,” making a pull up diaper cover. I prefer to work on flat projects & am only just starting to get the hang of simple hats. Plus I didn’t want to have to mess around with elastic or ribbon for the waist. Then I found this pattern. I loved the button, and it looked MUCH simpler than the other patterns I saw. From the picture, I was able to figure out the basic shape of the pattern, but had no idea what size to make it, so I went ahead and bought the pattern. I’m so glad I did! She uses a different stitch I didn’t know before (but had inadvertently used, remember my first post about crochet when I thought I’d made up some random stitch? Turns out it was hdc. Who knew?!), which makes a nice tight pattern without being as small as a single crochet.

I got the pattern Tuesday & started working on it over my lunch break. I was amazed at how quick I was able to work it once I got the hdc stitch figured out. I got about half way through it over lunch & finished it up waiting for Nick to get out of work. I had to raid my sewing box at home to find a button for it, and it probably wouldn’t be my first choice, but it turned out pretty cute.



I’m not crazy about this yarn (90% acrylic, 10% nylon), it’s not quite as soft as I’d like, but it’s okay. I ordered a bunch of cotton yarn yesterday, so I’m excited for that to get in so I can get working with it.

For the second one, I switched yarn (100% acrylic) to do a pink one & decided I’d like to try to put ruffles on the back of it. I just got a hat pattern that had a ruffle around the rim, so I used that part of the pattern to add ruffles to the back of the diaper cover. The ruffles took just about as long to make as the rest of the cover, but I think it’s totally worth it – they’re so adorable! I had been thinking about using a different color for the ruffles, and I still can’t decide if it would look good or not. They would be easy to take off if it looks bad, but I don’t want to lose all the time it takes to make them! It’s probably worth it thought just to see how it looks, so I’ll try it out with some of the yarn I’ve got sitting around at home before I try it with the good cotton.




When I told Nick last night about selling the covers he couldn’t believe how much I was asking for them (not that much, I swear! Much less than I've seen them on Etsy) and said I should quit my job and “knit for a living.” I didn’t point out to him (for the 100th time, I swear) that I crochet, not knit, but did agree that I would love to be able to do that. For now, I’m happy being able to donate the majority of what I make to charity, and make a few bucks on the side to pay for my yarn obsession. :)

Hopefully McKenzie, the photographer, will share some of her pictures with me so I can post them here.

Until next time…

TWT - MoBay Sunset

This is my desktop photo at work right now & it makes me feel so warm & sunny when I see it.  Of course, considering all the rain & crappy weather we’ve had the past few days, I would MUCH rather be there right now than where I am, so it’s kind of sad too. 

From our sunset cruise in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Until next time…

 

 

Ribbed Hat

I was all ready to post how this was a "non-hat" because it took forever for the sides to finally pull down. But once they did, I think it turned out really cute! I'm thinking about using the pattern up to the point just before they do pull down to make some sort of a blanket, but that will have to wait a while at this point.

I'm all about learning new stitches lately & am not passing up patterns just because they use anything more than the basic sc & dc I was sticking to before. This mindset has opened all kinds of doors for me! This hat uses a frontpost double crochet & I love the ribbed effect. I also realized this is probably the stitch my Grdma used to make one of my favorite blankets, so I'm anxious to see if I can figure out the rest of the pattern now because unfortunately she won't be able to tell me how she made it.

This hat will go along with the rest to Marine Corps Kids, and I think I've got my box just about full enough to ship out. I think I'm going to try to figure out how to size this hat up so I can make one for a friend's daughter, assuming of course I don't find another I like better in the meantime. :)

Until next time...

Addison's Blanket

I’m doing this one a little out of order, but since I just finished it up, it makes sense to go ahead & post it while it’s still fresh in my mind.

This is my second blanket using the 90° angle, the first was Emma’s Blanket, which I’m sure I’ll get around to posting one of these days. ;) They are both based off this Fiesta pattern from Red Heart.

For Addie’s blanket I played around with the color pattern to make sure the lines matched up when I rotated the squares. I love the way the lines flow through the blanket & am pretty happy with how the seams came out. They still show up a little more than I would like, but it’s not too bad. I made sure to leave decent tails on the rows as I was going, then just used those to sew the blanket together. For this blanket I didn’t do any edging, just a simple single crochet border to finish the edges. Partly because the blanket is sort of busy & I thought a nice simple edge went well, and partly just because I got sort of lazy. :)

I’ve got a lot more ideas now that I can do this 90° angle & am really excited to try out some new stuff. Unfortunately I’m kind of “blanketed out” right now, and don’t think I’m going to do the other one I wanted to do before June. I just don’t have the time like I do in the winter, and it’s just too darn warm most nights (Or at least it should be! This week has been an exception, and I’m not happy about it) to have a blanket on my lap while I’m sewing the squares together or edging. I suppose that’s probably another reason I chose not to do more of an edge on Addie’s blanket.

I’m still sorting out how to get each angle to be a perfect square. My stitches seem to be taller than they are wide (or the other way around, I can’t remember for sure right now), so it’s not quite perfectly square. When they are sewn together, it’s not too bad, but you can tell the corners are a little stretched looking, even though they really aren’t. I should have taken a picture of one of the individual squares to show what it’s doing, but of course I didn’t think of that until just now. The first blanket I did like this, I used a J hook & it was even more off square. For this one I switched to a K hook & it’s definitely better, so I think for the next one I’ll try to move up one more size. I don’t want to get too big, but I’d really like to get things better lined up. I don’t know if going smaller would help or not, I’m definitely no expert when it comes to all this! I did forget to measure Emma’s blanket before I gave it away, but Addie’s blanket is about 31x48 inches, so I’ll have to measure the next one & see if it’s much different with the bigger hook. The original pattern says the finished blanket will be approx. 39x58 inches. I never bother gauging, but I suppose I should.

I showed the blanket to a woman here at work & she said she’d like to have the pattern to make one of her own, so I guess I should get busy writing it out. Since it’s based on the Fiesta pattern it won’t be too hard, but I did change a few things so I’ll have to find the pattern I made for myself & see what I can come up with. I’m not expert at writing patterns by any means, but I’m willing to give it a go. I did write out the pattern for hat #3 yesterday, and it seems to be okay, so maybe it won’t be as bad as I think. Hopefully. :)

Until next time…

Hooked on Hats!

Here are hats 3 & 4. I tried to make these ones a little more “open” so they’ll be cooler for the summer babies.

The first one actually came out pretty nice considering I was just playing around & adjusting as I went. I’m pretty proud of it.


The second it a little different story. I tried to make this one completely “open” without any solid rounds. As you can see, I wasn’t able to, and the shape is kind of off. I guess it’ll just have to be for a conehead baby. ;)

I picked up a couple more skeins of baby weight yarn at Wal-Mart last night & made sure I got good patterns on each. I’m looking forward to trying out the little ruffled hat pattern that came on one of them. Hopefully I can finish up the hat I’m on & try that out next.

I was looking online for some other hat patterns & found just a ton, but it was almost so much that it was overwhelming. I need to get a few more of these simple pattern ones done & sent to Delia so I can have her tell me if I’m okay on my sizing. Then I’ll try out some different patterns. Delia posts pictures of most of the stuff she gets & mine are going to be so plain & boring compared to the others she’s getting! I’ve got to get my skill level up so I can make some more fun stuff.

Until next time…

TWT - Termites

Oh the joys of home ownership.

This is what Nick found when he pulled down more drywall in the basement last night. Not a pretty sight.

Until next time…

My first hats!

I decided last week when I was home on Friday that I would take a little time in the morning to crochet before I got started on the entryway. I found some crochet patterns my Nana had given me a while back & tucked in was a hat pattern from my friend Delia. I looked it over & it sounded fairly easy so I decided to give it a try.

The pattern called for “baby weight” yarn, something I knew I didn’t have around. I figured I’d just start out with some of my Caron Super Soft, knowing it might be a little more difficult to work with & would end up a little heavier than I needed. But, at least it was a start!

The first one took me a little under two hours, which I didn’t think was too bad. I had a little issue with my seam showing, but I think I’ve got that figured out now. I was also confused on working back vs. front loops, since it didn’t come out looking like the photo I had. I think it would depend on whether you’re working from the inside or the outside of the hat. I was switching back & forth, and decided it didn’t matter too much because it could just be turned inside out to whichever side looked better. :)

When I did what was supposed to be a border, the bottom row didn’t want to stay flat, so I decided to just fold it up & sew it in place (hence the x’s), and I really like how it turned out. Unfortunately, I should have done the x’s on the other side, because the border (now the very bottom of the hat) shows up better from the inside, but the x’s don’t look so great from that side. Oh well, I didn’t think it was too shabby for my first try!

You can't really see the lavender stripe

on the bottom of the hat in this picture,

but I promise it's there!

See, there it is!

Second try, I still didn’t have baby weight yarn, so I decided to make one in the opposite colors of the first. I was careful to pay close attention to which side of the first hat I liked better when it came to my back vs. front loops, and made sure I sewed the edge up so the border looks right. I didn’t feel like doing the x’s on this one, so I just stuck with the one row of stitching. The seam on this one is worse than the first because I didn’t figure out how to fix it until the third hat, and somehow I must have kept adding a stitch every row because it doesn’t even go straight. To help offset the horrible seam, I decided to do a little flower on the opposite side. Stupid flower was harder to figure out than it should have been, but once I got smart, it was super easy to make & attach. I (of course) was trying to make it WAY more difficult than it needed to be!


I finished up hat 3 on my way in to work this morning (while Nick drove, of course!), and it’s definitely much better than the first two in the seam department. I played with the pattern a little bit, and really like how it turned out. I also picked up some baby weight yarn this weekend, and it’s MUCH easier to work with, and I really like the weight of the finished hat a lot better. With the more open pattern, it will be a much better hat for those summer babies. (Photos to come of this one, since I finished it up on the way in this morning)

All these hats will be donated to Marine Corps Kids, but I’ve already got a request from a friend to make one for her daughter. I love making them since they are quick & rewarding, and don’t leave me sitting with a huge blanket on my lap when the days are getting warmer! I do need to finish up a border for a blanket, but after that, I think I’m going to take a break from blankets for the summer. I know I said I wanted to get another done before June, and maybe I still will, but for now, it’s hats!

Until next time…