Knotted Baby Hat

Hello readers! It’s been quite some time. With last year’s busy holiday season and all the crazy life happenings of my household (yes, even during a pandemic things get busy here!), I’ve hardly had a second to sit down and work up patterns and focus on this blog. I do have some fun patterns coming up though and all of them have a theme. They’ll be baby patterns! Why you might ask? It’s a very exciting time in my family and we’ll be introducing our third child later this year! Yep! I’m pregnant! And so what does a pregnant crocheter do? Come up with patterns for their new addition of course! Over the next few blog entries I’ll be sharing what I come up with.

The first thing I worked up was this universal knotted baby hat. I’ve seen a few versions here and there, but this one I’ve come up with uses an assortment of stitches to give it a truly unique look and great texture. What I love about this hat style is that it is truly gender neutral and if you’re like me, the minute you find out you’re pregnant, you just want to create, create, create! By the time the gender reveal comes around, I’ve already had several projects made up and waiting for baby so the more things I can make in a gender neutral way, the better! But really, any color looks wonderful! I have included sizes from newborn to 12 months in here so you can make any amount in any color you choose!

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The Ollie Hat

My friend recently had a baby and as any good crocheter friend will do, I opted to make her little guy a hat for the cooler days that have now arrived. I found Lion Brand’s Touch of Alpaca and just knew I needed to make a fun pom pom hat. This yarn is so soft and perfect for tiny heads! If you can’t find it though, any worsted weight yarn will do.

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Cozy Bear Hat

Now that the cooler fall days are here I find myself wanting to use the heavier, warmer yarns and one of my favorites is always Bernat’s Blanket Yarn. I love this yarn because not only does it feel extra soft and cozy in my hands as I’m working it up, but also it makes for fast projects.

The Cozy Bear Hat came to life when I realized I had made everything with Bernat Blanket Yarn except for a hat. I know it’s not the most traditional type of yarn so a hat needed to have a little creativity to it and instantly I thought of a bear hat. With this yarn’s texture and warmth, it just works! The ears stick straight up and its form never collapses making it an ideal addition to any bear costume you might be dreaming up this Halloween! It’s also great for little ones who need to stay cozy in the cooler months. But I opted not to just limit it to babies and children because honestly it’s just so cute who wouldn’t want one for themselves?

Enjoy!
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Pumpkin Applique

September is one of my favorite months, not only because it’s my birthday month, but also because it’s the month we begin to see pumpkins everywhere! If you’re a crazy fall fanatic like myself, you cannot wait to dive into Halloween and fall decorating. A big part of that is pumpkins, of course. Over the years I’ve designed various crocheted pumpkins. Velvet pumpkins, a pumpkin doll, pumpkin hats, but this year I thought I’d keep it simple and straight to the point. A pumpkin applique. Perfect for clothing pieces, hats, scarves, you name it! And right in time for fall.

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Fall Leaf Appliqués

Ah… Fall is in the air. As I sit beside my open window during this cooler September evening, I smell the crispness of the season entering my home. Leaves. It’s the smell of the season. They’ll be dropping soon and while many loathe the idea of cleaning gutters and raking up leaf piles, I simply cannot wait! Our last home never really had enough tall trees to necessitate raking. It’ll be the first fall where our whole family can have fun and fill those silly pumpkin shaped plastic bags and line our yard. I used to love those as a kid and find it so endearing that my own kids now become excited by the idea of using them for our own yard. We moved to an area with an abundance of giant oaks and maples and I look forward to all the Autumn colors that will soon surround us. Oh so many happy memories involve falling leaves. Memories of the crunching sound under my tiny feet as I trick or treated at a much younger age. Memories of the giant maple leaf piles I fell asleep in at my grandpa’s so long ago. Memories of the sun shining through the trees onto my new babies as we visited our beloved pumpkin farms and again, that same golden sunlight shining through onto them as they grew and climbed pumpkins in later years at those same farms. I’m a fall fanatic and oh how I wish the season could last all year! For now though, I’ll leave you with a couple of fall leaf appliques that can last a little bit longer than the actual season.

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Mermaid and Lightsaber Ice Pop Holders

Ah… Summer. A time of sunshine, swimming, relaxation, and vacation. It was my absolute favorite time as a kid and as I watch my kids grow I can see it’s a time that they look forward to each year as well. One thing that always stands out about summer are those extra hot days. The 90+ degree days. The eternal heatwave stretch of summer. I’ve found that the best solution for those days is the classic ice pop. Not just any popsicle, but the ice pop aka freeze pop aka otter pop style. I can still recall those moments of coming into the house after a long day of running and playing in my grandpa’s backyard feeling as though I’d never cool down. Not even the coldest a/c could put a dent in summertime overheating! But always my grandpa would find the solution with that glorious ice pop and within seconds I’d feel better than ever. There’s just something about overly sugary flavored ice. It just hits the spot (especially the red and green ones, my favorite!).

As I mentioned in the previous posts, I’ve recently gone through a move. Currently I’m setting up my office and trying to get my work space in order and throughout all of my organizing I’ve come across many old photos and patterns. I happened upon a couple of ice pop holder patterns from when my kids were a lot smaller and it just warmed my heart looking back at the photos. Back in the days when their little hands became too cold holding their ice pops. They loved them so much, but it always sent such a chill to their tiny little bodies! I knew then I needed to come up with a solution for them to have a better, more comfortable grip of the popsicles because I wanted them to be able to enjoy them as much as I did when I was little! My solution was a popsicle holder. Of course, my girls being entirely opposite of one another, I had to make them in a way to appeal to each child. My oldest was huge into Star Wars at the time so I treated her to a lightsaber holder style. My youngest was into everything princess and mermaids so we settled on a mermaid fin style. It was great fun coming up with the designs and they were well loved that whole entire summer! So loved, in fact, that I ended up selling more of them at my local farmers market for all the other kids in town to enjoy as well. They were a hit!

And so, let me share with you, my two ice pop holder patterns.

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Basic Bear Security Blanket

Is there anything better than crocheting a gift for a soon to be born baby? One of my very good friends is due to have her very first child this September and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on some new crochet projects for the occasion! Of course I bookmarked dozens of cute baby patterns I found online and I scoured my crochet books repeatedly for the exact right idea. Nothing felt right though. I really wanted to make her baby something special  with a nice classic feel. I thought of my own two children and those early baby years, drawing on experience to bring back memories of what their little hands and hearts cherished in those days. Then it hit me. A security blanket! My oldest daughter could not leave the house without her beloved pink crochet blanket. For years and years we traveled with this mangled, falling apart, shredded crocheted  blanket. God forbid we forget it! Tears fell like waterfalls from her eyes in those instances. A great amount of comfort came upon her every time she snuggled or wrapped herself up in the blanket. Instant soothing. It always warmed my heart to see how much joy that blanket gave to her, but sadly because of how large it was and all the years of extra love, it eventually succumbed to its wounds and could not be saved. I remember thinking then that I wished her baby blanket would have been smaller and more easily transportable. It would have avoided us a great amount of sadness. These days, of course, she is just fine and the days of longing for her beloved pink blanket are far gone and out of the mind of a big 10 year old, but the sentimental side of me really would have loved to have been able to keep that blanket for her.

And so I opted to design a security blanket pattern to make up a gift for my friend. I designed the blanket portion of this pattern off of the exact cluster stitch that my daughter’s blanket used to have (again, the sentimental side of me is showing), and off of a classic teddy bear for easy cuddles and gripping. With cotton yarn, you can’t go wrong, and with the finished size of this piece, it’ll be sure to have many years of love ahead of it! Little hands are going to love this one!

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Dish Scrubbie Set # 3

Hello again to all my readers! I hope that during these crazy times you are staying happy and healthy and that with all the extra time at home due to the COVID outbreak you are able to find some extra time to enjoy crafting and crochet. Since the beginning of March I’ve been keeping busy with my own yarn stash and I’m happy to report that a handful of patterns did develop in my mind! I will be sharing all of them in this blog soon I hope. I do apologize for the lack of updates and patterns. I always say I’m going to focus on sharing them more, but unfortunately life things do happen. In this case, my family and I have been insanely busy selling our house! We’ve found what we hope to be our forever home in a town we’ve longed to live in for years. We are very excited to start this new chapter in our lives and I hope with it comes new ideas and inspiration to share with you here! The house has what I find to be the perfect craft room/office, and I absolutely cannot wait to get back to work once it’s set up! I will be sure to share more patterns after that occurs, so be on the look out!

For now though, I’d like to share one last pattern before moving and unpacking chaos takes over my life. Another dish scrubbie pattern! Okay, I know… I have two others on this blog too, but hear me out! Everyone has their own preferences for dish scrubbies! It’s all about the texture. Some like a spongier feel, others like the rougher, more abrasive scrubbies. With all the different types of scrubbie yarns out there nowadays, how can you resist trying them out and seeing what works best? Or… Maybe I’m just obsessed. I do like clean dishes!

Anyway, I have been seeing the Red Heart Sparkle yarn line on the shelves and couldn’t resist. It’s a lot thinner of a yarn than the tulle and Hobby Lobby Scrubology yarn line that I’ve used in the past, so be sure to keep that in mind. These do still work up quite quickly though! In total it took me about 20-30 minutes to complete each scrubbie. So without further ado…
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Velvet Hair Scrunchies

Can anyone feel that? It’s the 90s and they’re back full speed in the fashion world. Seriously!!! I’m seeing remnants of my childhood all over the place. Movie reboots, Planter’s cheese balls, choker necklaces, mom jeans, denim everything… And then there are scrunchies. I never thought I’d see the day and there’s a part of me screaming in glee over this. I LOVED scrunchies! They were so comfortable to wear and I couldn’t get enough of all of the styles. I’ll never forget the day one of the girls in my class told me that “scrunchies are out” and the dismay I felt. But here we are and they’ve come back in full swing, and what better way to celebrate this moment than to share a pattern?

Velvet hair scrunchies are especially popular right now and with all of the velvet-textured yarns out there, I couldn’t resist trying my hand at it! This pattern is so quick to work up and will make a great gift for any other scrunchie enthusiast in your life. Seriously guys, this is a 20 minute at most project! You could make a set of these in an hour if you wanted to. So what are you waiting for? Keep the 90s alive with this velvet scrunchie pattern!
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Breakfast Play Set

If there’s one thing being a mom of nearly 10 years has taught me it’s that kids LOVE play food. The amount of play food we’ve gone through over the years is countless! My kids had a great play kitchen equip with pots and pans for cooking their beloved play meals where countless hours were spent pretending to be masterful chefs. Now that they’re older, the kitchen is gone as are most of their plastic play foods, but one thing that’s always remained are the crocheted fruits and vegetables I made for them many years ago. My youngest cherishes them the most, and while she may be becoming a bigger kid these days, I can still peek into her bedroom at any given time and find her hard at play with those well worn play foods.

And that is exactly what inspired me to create a crocheted breakfast play set! My daughter absolutely loves breakfast. One day she approached me and being the keeper of the BEST ideas ever, she threw this one my way. “Mom, why not make a crocheted breakfast set?” Naturally, it had to be done! And so we brainstormed together our favorite breakfast foods and what truly would complete this fantastic set and here it is for me to share with you. I hope you and the littlest people in your lives enjoy it as much as we have!

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