Preemie Crochet Blanket to Match Dress

Remember this dress?

Here is the blanket to go with it.

Just one giant granny square.

Crochet Mug Cozies

 For my sister Julie's birthday, I purchased a set of 12 plain white mugs, knowing she would like those best, and made colorful cozies for them.  

 I had no pattern for these, but it wasn't too hard to come up with one on my own.

I used a comfy, worsted weight, cotton blend yarn that I found on knitpicks.com, that I really like.  It comes in little skeins (109 yards), but is fairly affordable, so really worth it!  Plus the colors are fantastic! :)  Here are some examples from their website.

 I had a lot of fun with this project.  Working with the buttons was fun, and is sort of a new thing for me.  I feel like I want to use buttons on everything now. :)

 The reason I wanted to do 12 mugs is that my sister and her husband have 9 beautiful kids.  I wanted there to be enough for everyone, and have a spare, in case there is another child in their future.  

I really like wood buttons for my sister, and the subtle leaves on them, I thought, were a really nice touch.  

Preemie Crochet Dress

A friend of mine, her sister recently had a baby quite early.  She weighs less than two pounds I'm told, and is fighting hard.  My friend wanted to get her a dress, and was having trouble finding one.  I offered to help her out, and this is what I came up with.  I designed it myself, I think it's pretty darling.

 My friend really wanted it done in a mint color.

 No, I'm not crazy.  The spoon is in the picture so you can really see the size of the dress, and how small it is.

 I really like the white scallop trim along the bottom of the dress.

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I thought the pink and white would be nice little accents.  The buttons turned out very cute. :)  I will be making a blanket to go along with it, and I'm thinking some bloomers as well.  I'll post more photos as I have them.

Jameson in His Sweater, Part II

My sister, Julie, sent me a few more photos of Jameson in the sweater I crocheted.

Enjoy the cuteness! :)

 

Crochet Baby Blanket

Ladies and Gents, it's here!  It's done, and has been brought into existence!!!!  

I hope you enjoy the very hard fruits of my labor, because I couldn't be more pleased with it. 

I made this blanket for Autumn, my friend Alisa's darling daughter.  I started it when she was born in January 2014.  So she just turned a year, and my procrastinating self finally pulled it together and finished this beauty up.  After all, I didn't want Autumn to be in High School by the time it was done...  

 I made this blanket using Lily Sugar 'N Cream cotton yarn, which is a favorite of mine to work with.

 I know there are a lot of photos, but it's hard not to post them, just for the detail work.  

 Autumn's nursery theme is Winnie the Pooh, which I really wanted to tie into the blanket somehow.  I found this really cute ribbon online. :) 

 Once I was done with the blocks, it must have taken me five or more hours just to figure out what order I wanted them to go in.  It drove me nuts, because nothing felt like the flow was totally perfect.  I like what I ended up with, but might have planned it slightly differently had I the foresight of the block placement problem I had.  

This is the book that I used for square patterns.  I used my own color scheme, of course.  I picked 10 squares, and made two of each, in a different color scheme from the other.  So, there are 20 blocks in total, and it's a little bigger than crib size.  Altogether, it took between 90 and 100 hours to complete.

 Here's the little lady, Autumn, enjoying the blanket. She certainly knew it was for her, and she seemed to like it. :)

Love you Alisa!  I am SO happy for you and Canyon both.  Autumn is lovely!

Jameson in His Sweater!

He's here, and beautifully modeling the sweater I made him!  The blanket in the background was made by my Mom, Jennie.  Good job Mom!

Crochet Baby Sweater

I have a new nephew!  Jameson is his name, and I made this sweater for him.

I found this really cute book at the library, and can really recommend it.

I adapted the sweater from the pattern for this sweater.  

 I really love how it turned out!  I left slits in the cuffs on purpose, and think they turned out quite nice.  I also did the blue around the edges and neck of the sweater myself.  I liked my own way of doing it just slightly better.

 The only thing I'd like to learn to do better is the connecting of the sleeves to the body of the sweater.

 I used Bernat Baby Sport yarn, which was such a pleasure to work with!

 I quite like the texture of this stitch.  I've seen it called Citrus Peal in other places.  It's a simple pattern of double stitch, single stitch, double, single, etc...  Then in the next row, you do a double in every single stitch, and a single in every double.  

This is the first time I've worked with buttons and button holes, and think they are by far the nicest feature of the sweater.

I will post pictures of the little guy in the sweater as soon as I get some from my lovely sister.  :)