For My Sister and Her Husband For Christmas

I am soooooo far behind in getting all my crochet projects for Christmas gifts all posted! And now it's time to wish everyone a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!




Today I am showing you the gifts I made for my sister and brother-in-law. I used the same yarn for both, but in different colours.

FOR MY SISTER

As you can see in the photo below, I made a hat, ear band, mittens & scarf.

The hat pattern I got from 'Love Crochet' by Yarnspirations.

It was an easy pattern and one I would do again.
Below is the twisted ear band or head band, which I did not use a pattern for. I used the Elizabeth stitch which looks a little different when using a #5 yarn versus a #3 or 4.

Here are the mittens. You notice that they are the same as the ones I made for everyone else. A simple pattern that I now know off by heart! These too are from 'Love Crochet' by Yarnspirations.

I believe this is the first time I crocheted a scarf the length, instead of the traditional width. This way you can have a nice vertical pattern down the side edges.

The close ups changed the colour of the yarn.

FOR HER HUSBAND - MY BROTHER-IN-LAW

I made the same scarf, and mittens, but there wasn't enough yarn for the ear band as more was used in the making of his toque. The colours of this yarn lends itself better for a masculine set.

This stitch, the Step Stitch, is the first for me and was delighted at how easy it was to create. My brother-in-law, loved this toque and wore it for 2 days after receiving it. He even wore it in the house!

Scarf - same as my sister's...

Well, that's it for this posting. Hope you enjoyed the two sets. I wish I could find more yarn like this. it is so soft and easy to work with.

Happy crocheting!

For my 22 Year Old Step-Grand-Daughter at Christmas

I ran into difficulties with this project. I ran out of the colour of yarn I wanted to use! I went to the store to get more, and they no longer had it available! Yikes! I hope I am better prepared next time. I ended up using three different colours of yarn. I hope she doesn't mind. Just the other day I went to the same store and saw that they had more of the colour I needed in stock again. Boy, was I frustrated with that. I had finished the project a few weeks ago and it is all wrapped up and under the tree for Christmas.

Any way, I made her a pair of mittens, an ear band, and a nice thick cowl. I hope she will use it for when she goes snowboarding.

So here we go.

You can see the two different colours of grey used in this photo. I love the arrow stitch in the ear band, which I got from this YouTube video  -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf2sOt0rSZU

Again, because I did not have a chunky yearn I used a double strand of a soft #4 yarn. I did that for both the ear band and the cowl.

I made the cowl last, which is where I ran into the problem of running out of the colour of yarn I was using, and had to find something in the same yarn that would go well with the grey and still be light in colour. That is why I chose a very light lilac colour since they did not have white in the same yarn.

I liked the Arrow stitch so much that I designed my own cowl pattern to go with the ear band.

Here is the cowl from one side...

...And here it is from the other side.

If I had a model, I could show you better what it looks like on. But I did kind of shape it a bit as iff it was around someone's neck, below.

And, here are the basic, plain mittens. I may try to make some mittens next year that are a little more fancy.

I also made for her half a dozen scrunchies for her hair, but I forgot to take photos of those. But I did use the pattern form this video. Love how easy it is and how quickly they come together.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMmJKlZ4uvo

If you would like for me to write out the pattern for the cowl, just request it in a comment below.

Happy crocheting!

Mittens & Ear Bands for the Grandchildren at Christmas

With Christmas less than a week away, things are pretty busy here, as I am sure it is at your household too. Not only have I been trying to finish up my crocheting of Christmas gifts, but I have started a bit of a freelance design job designing layouts and cards to be made up as kits for Scrapbook Parade. So I have been very, very busy (the reason for not having posted these sooner). I also realized that I have wrapped some projects already, without having taken some photos of them.

Anyway, lets get on with the post of the mittens and ear bands.

Both of these grand-daughters like pink, but the younger of the two often gets purple so that they can't get their things mixed up. So I decided to give a little more pink in this gift by adding just a touch of purple. So one gets pink with blue accents (12 years old), and the other pink with purple accents (10 years old). And my 14 year old grandson gets brown.

All the ear bands are done in a double #4 strand, since I did not have a chunky yarn, and the mittens are done in a single #4 strand.

I ran out of pink when making the ear band so added a mix of purple & white to the ear band. The coloured flowers on the mittens, will help the girls tell their mittens from the other's.

Here is the 12 year old's set, with blue accents.

...And the set for my 14 year old grandson.

I was surprised at how large I had to make his mittens. I did not realize his hands are the size of a small adults!

I hope that they will wear these, because they have those thin little gloves, and usually wear their parka hoods. We shall see what happens.

These have been wrapped up for a while now, and are already under the tree, I noticed that they have been looking at the tags...laugh out loud.

Hoping that you are not racing to complete your crochet projects, like am.

Happy crocheting!

Infinity Scarf, Touque & Mittens For A Woman

While working on my projects for donation, I was thinking that maybe I should make something more feminine as well. So this is what I came up with.

I had some red, white & black yarn from what I inherited from my mom. I might make this again for myself.

Do you notice how each wavy row seams to sit on top of the previous row? That's because of crocheting in the back loop one row, and then the front loop, the next row, and repeating. It espcially looks great when the row colour changes.

The mittens are from the Daisy Farm Crafts site.

Sorry that you can't see the details very well, but it is hard to photograph black. They look great though! And if you check out the link to the Daisy Farm Crafts site, you can see what the cable pattern on the mittens looks like.

And lastly, the toque.

Once again, I can't remember where I got this pattern from. But if I find it, I will put the link in latter.

Well, this is not a very wordy post like some of my others, but I hope you don't mind not having to read too much. Just mainly sharing the photos this time. Busy day today.

Happy Crocheting!

Basket Weave Scarf, Sherpa Hat & Mittens

I have always felt that the design of a Sherpa hat, was a good one for the cold weather. I could never find a pattern that I really liked, so I thought to myself, "you should have enough experience under you belt to just try making one". So I did. I used my 14 year old grandson's head, who is taller than I am, for sizing.

But let's begin by looking at the whole set that I made. This beautiful green coloured yarn came from my grandmothers blanket I told you about in previous posts. There were also some unused balls of the same yarn, so that allowed me to make a really nice long scarf, nearly 5 1/2 feet long.

 Do you like the colours as much as I do?

Let's look at the Sherpa hat first.

I love using the Half Double Crochet stitch over the Single Crochet as it fills spaces that the Single Crochet leaves. It looks nicer too, and depending on where you insert your hook, you can give it a different look.

Now, for the scarf.

I did not keep with the Half Double crochet, but opted for the Basket Weave which comprises of a series of Double Crochet Front and Back Posts. I did this because it gives the scarf a nice thickness that I think would be great to have in being outside in the winter for a homeless person. I added the same colours at each end to match the hat.

And here are the mittens, also done in Half Double Crochet with Ribbing at the wrist.

So that's it for this set. This one is hard to give away because I like it so much. But what would I do with it? I don't need it as I have my own that match my coats.

Thank you for joining me today and sharing in my enjoyment of crocheting.