I Made This: Spring Bunny

So, I'm working backwards here. I just finished this painfully cute amigurumi bunny that was featured in CRAFT Magazine a few weeks ago. As I mentioned, we welcomed a new addition to our family last fall. He is also painfully cute.

 
This will be his first Easter, so I made him this.

I used some leftover, fabulously soft yarn from a shrug I made myself last year (was it just last year? I can't remember... I don't think I blogged about it since I couldn't bear to expose my back fat for a photo of the shrug), so this little guy is super soft on top of being unbearably cute. It's a pretty easy pattern to follow. I really appreciated the part where they show you how to make the nose and where to position the eyes/nose; it makes all the difference in the cuteness factor.

Tiny Hearts

I found this great little pattern for crocheted hearts. I made a couple and put them on snappy barrettes for Z's hair. They're so cute and she loves them. I made a couple slight modifications to the pattern. I sized down the yarn & hook and instead of the half double crochet, chain 1, half double crochet to make the point of the heart, I did a little picot (chain 3, slip stitch in the first chain) instead of the chain 1. Makes a pointier end.

Super fast little project.

Halloween Costume

I made a couple things for my daughter's Halloween costume this year. Only one of them was made specifically for Halloween and that's this lovely tutu.

Such a sassy little pose.

I made it using this tutorial from Grosgrain. It required almost no sewing. I made it using an Ikea Lill Curtains. The beauty of these curtains is that there is 5 square metres of fabric for only $7! Super sweet deal. I even left the little hem on the bottom since I thought it gave an interesting look to it. You'll notice that Z is indeed dressed for a Canadian Halloween, wearing multiple layers and warmness. It is definitely difficult to do cute girly costumes that are warm enough to wear outside. We had a relatively mild Halloween again this year, but you just never know what the weather is going to be like when you're planning. And now with class dress up parties, you almost need 2 separate costumes: one for wearing to school and one for going out in.

So, the one of the other things I made was the sweater (though not originally intending it for a costume), made from this pattern. I am kicking myself now for not printing this pattern out when I made it for my daughter (I'd just refer to the pattern on the computer). It was free then. It wasn't in Z's size, so I did have to re-size it which, now that she is selling it, the pattern creator has done. I'm pretty sure I could figure out what I did from examining the garment and from memory.

The striping was created from this random stripe generator which is SOOO sweet. The geek in me is kind of excited by the math and programming involved in this. I don't indulge my inner math/programming geek much, instead I just enjoy this little tool and play with all the different possibilities.

The last thing I made was this crown, made from this pattern by Midknight Knitter. I made it with a slight variation, sewing elastic in at the back and crocheting over it, so it would fit a bit better. I had also made this earlier, after one too many cheap plastic crowns broke from being stepped on or otherwise misused. I decided a crocheted crown would solve the broken crown problem, and it has. I made this one in January and it has lasted us until now, it pretty good condition, other than some stretching in the elastic.

Lace Beret

This is a beret I made at the end of last year/beginning of this year. It was my Christmas break project. The lace pattern was a little bit addictive, so it only took me about 3 days. Of course, I have children and a husband and all that, so it wasn't really 3 days, but I do remember putting in a little more than just evenings. It was a mystery knit along pattern called "Meret" found on Ravelry. I didn't knit along, because the knit along was finished by the time I found the pattern.

Here it is being blocked. That's a charger plate it's being blocked on! I was a little worried this would stretch it out too much, but it's bounced back a little bit since and looks quite good. If you could see the other side of the charger plate, you would see that the brim of the hat comes almost to the middle of the plate, so blocking it on the charger plate did not stretch out the brim which is really important. I made 2 extra lace pattern repeats since I wanted a slouchy beret and I had read quite a few reviews that recommended doing 2 extra repeats before finishing off.

This is a great pattern for introducing lace knitting, since it's a pretty easily memorized pattern and fairly easy to see where you are in the pattern. It became quite addictive. I recommend it!

Wrist Warmers

I love free patterns. If you are getting in the mood to make Christmas presents, now that it is mid-November, you should get on it. These cute wrist warmers would make a lovely little present. I can imagine wearing them in my office where my hands sometimes gets cold. I made some fingerless mittens which go halfway up my arms and I just couldn't figure out where I would wear them or what I would wear them with. They were super cute, but I'm just not sure I own anything funky enough to wear with them. Anyway, Creative Yarn has a free pattern for wrist warmers that are small and cute and would probably come together in a couple of evenings.

I thought of spoiling my daughter's pre-school teacher with a pair, though that might be a tad ambitious with the other gifts I am making this year.

I made this: Owl Toque

I made this toque (winter hat for non-Canadians) last winter from some leftover yarn I had. I was going to make S's knit pants with stripes along the side, but I made a pair like that and I wasn't especially happy with them and they took a LONG time to make and were generally frustrating. So, this was going to be the stripe colour. And now it's a hat.

It took me a while to get those buttons. I had a hard time finding just what I wanted. You know when you get something in your head that has to be just right and you figure it's simple enough so it shouldn't be too difficult to find? That's what happened to those. I thought that orange irridescent buttons would be perfect, but they were not easy to come by. I eventually ordered them off Etsy for a pretty good price. Using the motif from this sweater, I figured out how many owls I would need to go around my head, made sure the stitches needed for that many owls was divisible by 4 (for 2x2 ribbing... I may have had to decrease a few stitches and increase after the ribbing) and cast on. It was actually a pretty easy pattern to create out of the sweater pattern. The ravelry pattern download is available here.

If I were to make it again, I think I would make a ribbing that would better suit the owls, so that the knit stitches matched up perfectly with the owls' feet. And I would do something different about the way I finished it because it has a pointy-ish top that I don't like so much. All in all, not so bad.

In which I fail at knitting mittens

So, I was going to knit Z some mittens to match her new hat, which conveniently matches her coat. I'm new to knitting mittens. I knit myself a pair and they're falling apart because I just tried to get away with tying the yarns together and cutting them instead of weaving in all the ends. That was dumb.

Anyway, this is a brand new fail. I tried to knit these mittens on 2 needles and just seam up the sides. I can totally do this in crochet, but I like knit mittens because they use less yarn and they're not as holey as crochet mittens, so they can be a little warmer. Look how nasty the seam on the side is. Yuck. And they don't have a nice cute shape or anything. Now that I have one mitten, I have no desire to make the other one equally as ugly.

Incidentally, I used this basic mitten pattern formula. I do not think it's the fault of the pattern formula at all. Perhaps it was just the combination of yarn and size of mitten and my newbie mitten knitting skills and not knitting it in the round...

(sigh) What do I do now? Crochet a pair?

I made these: wool pants

Here are the pants (or longies) I made for S a year or more ago. They're wool so once they are properly lanolized (coated with lanolin), then they act as a great breathable, water-resistant, natural diaper cover. He's been wearing them since I made them and as you can see in the picture above, they're a bit long on him there, but since the stockinette bottoms roll up a bit, they worked on him then and they still fit him now.

They're actually really lovely to knit. The pattern is so easy I don't even have to look at my hands, which makes it a great project for my Stitch & Chat group or watching TV. And they're so cute. I modified the pattern slightly, increasing a stitch down the pant legs every 5 or 6 rows which added an extra inch or so to the leg width to make them a little wider legged. D asked how many balls of yarn it would take to make a pair big enough for him. When asked he said he didn't want a pair, but I don't believe him.

Here are the wool shorties I made for Simon. These were made before the wool pants above. They were great for summer (last summer, but I can still squeeze him into them) They're cargo shorts, a little tighter than I'd like, maybe, but I really like them anyway.

This was taken before I added the drawstring.

S modeling the shorties with the drawstring.
I think it makes them look kind of beach-y.

My handsome boy.

I made this: Olivia's Butterfly

I made this super cute and super easy and super fast crocheted butterfly hat. I'm all about free patterns and Vallieskids has them in spades. She's also got a super generous policy with her patterns, which I love. The true spirit of craft generosity. I made this in about an hour (? I don't usually look at the clock while I crochet). Her instructions are really simple to follow and the simply beautiful design is just lovely. I increased to a chunky yarn and kept the hook size the same, which increased the size enough to fit my big-headed daughter without modifying the pattern.

That's my beautiful girl up there. Wow. I still can't get over how gorgeous she is.

I'm also going to take this opportunity to tell you about Ravelry, which is all kinds of awesome. "Ravelry is a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration." I mostly use it for searching for patterns and to keep track of the patterns that I want to make or look at again. I think you still need to request an invitation and it takes a day or two to get your invitation, but it's free and it's a great resource. I recommend it.

To make list: Crocheted Racetrack Rug

I found this great pattern a little while ago for a Crocheted Race Track. It's super sweet. I think my boy is getting old enough to be interested in it and I think it will make a good Christmas gift. It's hard to find good handmade ideas for boys! And I know: I have 7 nephews (and no nieces) and trying to keep costs down by going handmade is always a challenge.

Spring Chickens - Free Pattern from roman sock

I'm very eager for spring to arrive. There have been far too many cold winter days in March for my liking. I realize most of March is technically winter anyway, but it's supposed to be the end of winter and I'm just not prepared for such cold temperatures prevailing the whole month.


When I saw these cute crocheted chicks on roman sock, I thought they looked super easy and cute. They promise to stitch up quickly, just in time for Easter.

Spring. Good news indeed. Link.

Edit to add: I made a couple of these, too!  Here is my version. I thought he looked cute with a little tuft of hair on the top of his cube head.

Here he is with his buddy and the egg bunnies I made, all posing in front of the children's Easter baskets.

He looks a lot greener under the late night lights.