This was another Christmas make and possibly my favourite:
Made in Rico Essentials Mega Wool chunky in Saffron (shade 21) on a 7mm hook. The pattern is the Baby Hoodie by Adele Uyan and I made the 6-12 month size. It took just over 200g to make the hoodie, and the only modification I made was to put an extra row on the ears to make them a little larger. It’s a really well written pattern, and a quick project and I would happily make another.
A couple of people have been into the Knitters shop recently looking for baby booties, so I thought I would have a go at making some:
They are based on the pattern by SarahMaker, and made in Sirdar Country Classic dk on a 4mm hook. The colour is duck egg blue (864). A pair of booties took 25g of yarn.
It’s a well-written pattern and includes this useful size chart with the sole size (in inches) for each age. Mine came out at 3.25 inches so are definitely in the new-born range.
Thanks to those of you who volunteered to pattern-test this, I now have an easy and free pattern to make a top-knot baby hat in three sizes (premature, new-born and 0-3 months).
Top knot hat crochet pattern JH
You are welcome to make and sell as many top-knot hats as you wish. You may also pass on the pattern to other people, but please leave the link to my blog on the pattern.
Mine are made in Scheepjes merino soft Copely (634) Waterhouse (649) and Titian (647), Rowan baby merino silk Teal (677), Iceberg (699) and Rose (678 – discontinued), and an odd ball of King Cole baby alpaca plum (509), and weigh approximately 40g for the 0-3 month size.
Having seen a few ‘top-knot’ hats on line, like this one by Annelies Baes, I thought I would have a go at making one myself:
Mine is made in Drops cotton merino dk in Lavender (23) on a 4.5mm hook. I actually started off with a free pattern by Justbehappylife, but ended up modifying it rather a lot, to make it in UK double crochet. I did scribble down what I was doing, so when I have had a chance to make another one I will share the pattern with you.
This one is for Molly Drew.
Remember ages ago I made a little toddler cardigan in aran cables? The back of the cardigan was a lovely textured stitch with alternating double and treble crochet and I recently found a hat pattern in the same stitch. The stitch is called ‘up and down’ and there is a chart of it here by Dedri at ‘Look at What I made’ who used it to make a dishcloth! In the hat the stitch is worked in the round.
The pattern is by Expression Fibre Arts and is called Jaxon I used Rowan baby merino silk in Teal (677) and Rose (678) and it took 35g of yarn per hat. I used a 4.5mm hook for the main body of the hat and 4mm for the edging. They are really rather sweet, and the baby merino silk is just as soft as a baby hat should be…
Things have been somewhat quiet on my blog of late – not due to a lack of crochet activity. but due to a distinct lack of success in my crochet activity. However I have persevered and I finally have a finished item to show you.
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Made in Drops cotton merino dk, medium grey, ice blue and jeans blue. It weighs 420g, and measures 40cm across the chest and 45cm shoulder to hem. Hopefully this one will fit!
I had some yarn left over from the cable cardigan, and wanted to make a little hat along the same lines. A quick search of Ravelry came up with this:
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This project has been some time in the making, but I think it has been worth the wait. Do you remember way back in March I had these?
Well now I have this:
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Isn’t it lovely to spend an evening making something quick and simple?
Last night I made a hat for a new baby, and everything I needed was in my stash!
Made in Drops baby merino ‘Old pink’ 4 ply on a 4mm hook.
I found the flower chart on Pinterest, but I mis-read it as my flower has 7 petals and not 5!
Stash score = minus1!
I have been ‘back to school’ to learn some new stitches at a local crochet class. It is such a pleasure to spend a morning sitting with like-minded folk learning something new.
I have already shown you a little peak of the back of this cardigan:
And here is the beginning of the front panels.
I know myself that they are not perfect but from a distance they look fine (!) and my confidence is growing the more that I do.
Our next class will start on the sleeves. Watch this space….
So here is a sneaky peek at another of my ‘winter blues’ projects. It is a toddler cardigan in a rather lovely cable pattern that I am being taught by Keira at our local craft centre.
Is it too short? No – I think I have stopped just in time to start decreasing for the sleeves. However I have decided that life is too short to spend my time crocheting with yarns that I don’t like, just because they happen to be cheap. So even though this is the first time I have tried this pattern, and it is definitely stepping out of my comfort zone, I am making it in a merino wool cotton mix.
Hopefully at the end of the process I will have an item to be proud of. If not I will have learned a lot by doing it, and no oil deposits will have been damaged during its creation!
So I have finally finished crocheting round in circles to make the sleeves of this lovely hoody:
The hood itself was very straightforward, and only needed a couple of rows removing to fit the neck-line exactly:
I made it in Drops cotton merino dk medium grey, jeans blue and ice blue. It is made using half treble crochet throughout and I used a 4.5mm hook. If I did it again I might try and make the sleeve opening a bit more generous….. but I’ll get some feedback from a baby owner first!
I watched an excellent youtube video on making mistakes recently, and I have been applying the principles to all sorts of learning situations, including my crochet.
The video is called ‘Why you need to fail’ by Derek Sivers. It says in essence that if you aren’t making mistakes then you are not learning (you are just practicing what you can already do)
The most interesting part for me was a time-lapse sequence of Picasso’s painting of the ‘Bullfighting scene’ in which he changes his mind time after time about his composition, and simply paints over his last version and modifies it. One of the points that Sivers makes is how much more we can learn from other peoples mistakes, then by simply observing the finished article.
This is all a rather long winded way of explaining todays post, which is an update on Vicarno’s hoodie. Not a finished article by any means, but a picture of my trials with the sleeves, which you will remember were not in the original pattern.
So I have resorted to: a paper pattern of the sleeve shape I want, masking tape to secure all my loose ends well away from the working area, and (yes) obsessive counting of stitches and rows to keep both sleeves the same.
I will let you know if it works out eventually!
Those of you who saw my blog yesterday might have guessed that the open rectangle of crochet was the beginning of a cardigan. It is a pattern by ‘Vicarno’s mama’ for a colourful baby vest, and it is free on Ravelry
The pattern itself is a delight – very cleverly thought out with simple but effective styling. You start at the neck and work down making the increases for the little raglan sleeves as you go. It is made in half treble crochet, by stitching into the space between two stitches, and so has no right and wrong side to the fabric. The original pattern changes colour every row, but I used one row each of three different colours which gives the overall effect of stripes with hardly any ends to sew in.
As the name suggests the original pattern is for a short-sleeved vest but I got a bit carried away and decided to see if I could turn it into a long-sleeved hoodie. Here’s how I am getting on so far:
Not as colourful as the original but still quite cute!
Now I just have to keep my wits about me to manage doing the sleeves in stripes in the round, decreasing as I go!
My crochet nest (a small corner of the living room) is covered in blue yarn at the moment. No less than three WIP’s all with colour schemes of blues, greys and neutrals, and none that I seem to be able to quite finish off.
I’ll give you a glimpse of one, and I wonder if you can guess what it is the beginning of?
These slippers have been a long time in the making. You may remember that a while ago I posted a blog of the foot part:
and asked for advice about whether to add the crocodile stitch top or not. Well a couple of you very kindly replied, and armed with your encouragement I went for it. It is only fair to say that I had several hiccups along the way:
Including my very own version of parallel crocodile scales (produced entirely by accident). But today with the help of Kiera at Kiki’s Craft corner, I have finally (I am going to say that again) FINALLY finished them!
Made in Sylecraft ‘Life’ DK on a 5mm hook. I was taught the pattern by Kiera, but I believe the original is here
I have now finished the little shell cardigan, adapted from Nicki Trench’s ‘Cute and easy crocheted baby clothes’
I had to alter the stitch numbers for the sleeves as I had some problems with the pattern from the book (see previous post). I also chose a different stitch for the body of the cardigan – it is called ‘Arcade’ and I found it in ‘200 crochet stitches’ by Sarah Hazell:
It is a great book with charts, written instructions and photos given for every stitch.
The cardigan is made in Drops Baby merino 4 ply ‘old rose’ on a 4mm hook. It combines a lovely soft feel with really good stitch definition, and it was a pleasure to work with. Not to mention being considerably cheaper than other wools of the same quality.
It took less than 100g to make the 0-3 month size cardigan (Compared to 200g suggested in the book for the original shell stitch).
Overall I am pleased – and Nicki Trench has offered to send my queries to her pattern checker over the summer….
Spurred on by my new-found enthusiasm for making baby clothes I am working on a project from this lovely book:
I won’t tell you which pattern it is (yet!) but suffice to say that it is proving to be much more straightforward than the boy’s hoodie pattern, and I am hopeful that I will be able to finish this one without recourse to newspaper and sellotape!
Nicki Trench – Cute and easy crocheted baby clothes.
I have recently made a foray into the process of garment making, and have discovered that I have a lot to learn!
Here is a step by step guide to what I did, including all my mistakes!
Step one – purchase a crochet pattern for a hoodie:
Step two – realise that I have neither the patience nor the skill to work from the crochet pattern, give said pattern to a friend who has more of both.
Step three – search the internet for a hoodie pattern with dimensions – eureka moment! http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/90344AD.html
This is a knitting pattern, it is available free on Ravelry as ‘Jonah’s hoodie’ and there are lots of pictures of one’s that people have already made. The dimensions are also here:
Jonah’s hoodie pics
Step four -start crocheting. I did alternate rows of double and treble crochet, which gave a striped effect with a bit of texture, plus I wanted to keep things simple! Practice neat turning rows and colour changes (see previous post)
Step five – have crisis of confidence re: the hood. Make newspaper cut-out of pattern and fold to see how it fits onto garment (my friends will not be surprised by this step!)
Step six – assemble pieces:
Step seven – add button band, sew on buttons and sew ends in. Tah dah!
So what have I learned from making this?
Firstly most crochet patterns are written for people who have the faith to follow written instructions without necessarily knowing where they are leading to, I like to have a picture in my mind of where I am going, and where each step fits in to the overall journey. This is clearly going to be a disadvantage as far as reading traditional patterns goes, but I am determined to get round it.
Secondly good finishing skills are the key to making a garment to be proud of, I guess most of us can make nice neat rows of crochet, but I think the really professional look comes from good turning, colour changing and edging techniques. I am not there yet, but this was my first try!
Made in Rico baby classic dk Blue and Ice blue on a 5mm hook.
Simply hooked 