Crochet Acorns

It’s September and that means it’s the non-official official start of fall for me as well as many other fall lovers out there! Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year. I love everything from fall festivals to pumpkin spice to Halloween and pumpkin farms galore! The beautiful color changing leaves and cooler weather are also part of the amazing package deal that is this lovely season. I could spend hours in any craft store just smelling all the different fall scented candles and eyeing up newly added seasonal decor. As much as I say I won’t buy something, I always do because there are so many cute pieces that will add that perfect fall flare to my home…

This year I decided to be a bit more creative and avoid too many outings, as I’m home most of the time with my brand new baby. Obviously since I’m a crocheter I wanted to make something out of yarn, but what? I found myself inspired by my husband’s love for oak trees and acorns. I recall many early Octobers when he would obsessively seek out the perfect oak tree for us to gather acorns from in hopes of growing our very own white oak tree. A few years ago we actually did grow quite a few seedlings and upon moving into our new home, planted the perfect oak tree in our yard which has done quite nicely with growing this past year! And so obviously with his love for oak trees I thought that making something out of actual real acorns would be fantastic and a great touch of fall in our home. These crocheted acorns are perfect for center pieces or accents and work up so fast you wouldn’t believe it!

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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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Velvet Rabbit

It’s been awhile since I posted and I do apologize! Since the beginning of the year my house has been in a constant state of chaos in preparation for moving. This includes all sorts of fun home repair projects, packing up house, realtor visits, the works! I was also presented with an amazing opportunity that I’ll expand upon next post with a specifically inspired project! So stay tuned… Still though, with Easter around the corner, I did find time to make up this adorable velvet rabbit pattern and I wanted to share it with all of you!

I had in the past made up a bunny pattern from the thicker blanket yarn, but since seeing velvet yarns all around craft stores, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to make up a new pattern featuring this perfect yarn. Thoughts of the old childhood story Velveteen Rabbit came to mind while making her up and of course I just had to share it!

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Skelly Beanie

I am loving this fall weather! It’s the perfect time to crochet and with Halloween being around the corner, my absolute favorite time to create patterns! I love everything spooky and each year I try to come up with some new fun designs. This year my kids requested new Halloween hats. In my previous post I talked about my youngest daughter’s Frankenstein Hat. This time it was my oldest daughter’s turn to pick a hat and she chose a skeleton beanie! I thought long and hard about a way to design one wanting to skip the traditional Jack Skellington style and maybe take on a more comical variety of skeleton. And here’s what I came up with!

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Frankenstein Season!

Now that fall weather is FINALLY upon us, I couldn’t resist the urge to dive into more spooky creations! Each and every year, the cooler months begin my busy season for Etsy orders and craft fairs. I find myself with very little time to sit down and design patterns, which is shame because Halloween-Christmas are also the times I feel most inspired to design things! I promised myself that each and every year I’d at least make time to design one fun Halloween toy and I’ve been true to that promise for the past three years now! My first year was Peter Pumpkinhead inspired by my oldest daughter’s love of pumpkins. Last year was Witchy the Witch created entirely off of a description my youngest daughter gave to me of her favorite imaginary friend, a little magical, friendly witch. And this year? Meet Frankie Frankenstein!

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Dish Scrubbie (New Version)

It’s that time of year when craft fairs are popping up left and right. As posted in the past, I’ve mentioned my dish scrubbies and even offered a free pattern found here: Dish Scrubbies These dish scrubbies always go fast at any farmers market or craft fair I participate it. So many people tie memories to these scrubbies from their own past, often times citing older family members having had made them and long since past. They’re always delighted to see them pop up and often times I’ll find repeat customers! So this year, as craft fair season is upon us, I find myself busy working up many more dish scrubbies to sell at my booths. While the old version using tulle is fantastic and something I still highly recommend, I couldn’t help but fall in love with Yarn Bee’s Scrub-Ology Scrub It! yarn (found here:Yarn Bee Scrub-Ology Scrub It! ) the first time I saw it at Hobby Lobby a few weeks back. I’ve admittedly been avoiding the scrubbie yarns, as I feel that nylon tulle is the best texture for dish scrubbers and most are made of cotton and thinner in appearance. This yarn was way different than most you’ll find, however. The moment I saw this new yarn I just had to give it a try! The texture was perfect and even better, it was made of nylon. So I rushed home with a couple of skeins and tried my hand at it. My findings were quite pleasant and so great that I decided to rework my dish scrubbie pattern entirely!
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Tiffany Turtle

This fun project is brought to you by my newest discovery of Bernat’s Velvet yarn line. Oh my goodness, I can’t resist a soft yarn (as you probably noted from prior posts!) and this yarn line is irresistible! I had bought some originally for velvet pumpkins (check out my real stem pumpkin post to try your hand at some: Real Stem Pumpkins ) and had a bit leftover. I immediately thought of a turtle shell due to the natural green color. I’m always a fan of something huggable, and while turtles themselves aren’t very huggable, this one sure is! Meet Tiffany the turtle. She’ll make the perfect best friend for anyone you know who loves turtles!

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Face Scrubbies/Pads

Need a quick gift idea and want to keep it handmade? Face scrubbies are perfect! These work up so fast and are a great addition to any gift bag or basket. All it takes is a few minutes and 100% cotton yarn!

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Cactus Hat

For as long as I can remember I have always been terrible at plant upkeep. I love the idea of gardens and flowers blooming in my yard and I’m amazed at the beauty of houseplants, but such never came to be for my own home due to my lack of green thumb. Everything I touch seems to die despite countless research, advice, and plant enthusiasts in my corner. However, something finally changed this year. I’m not sure why this summer has been any different, but I’ve been able to keep cacti and succulents alive! Even in the past, despite being told how easy those two types of plants were to care for, I’d never get them past a season. Maybe there is a shade of green showing on this thumb of mine after all? Whatever the change may be, I’m just happy that I can finally have a little army of succulents and cacti on my window sill to happily greet me every day. So naturally, I’ve had cacti on my mind and to celebrate, why not make a hat? I couldn’t resist!

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Baxter The Squirrel

Back in the days of renting my husband and I found ourselves in an older home built in the late 1800s. It was a cozy little place with all of the cute little nooks and crannies that often times bring charm to older homes. As with many rental homes, however, came quirks as well. One of those quirks were hidden holes in our walls leading to outside, as our landlord had failed to repair portions of the house before we moved in. Much to our surprise, we quickly discovered that we were not the only tenants of the house, but rather, a wild squirrel had previously claimed ownership of the place! That squirrel was quite the character with a big attitude and seemingly large annoyance with us being his new roommates. The squirrel became so much a part of living at that house that we affectionately named him “Baxter”.  Every now and then we’d hear a scurrying sound in our attic or walls. We knew it was Baxter.  Occasionally he would pop up from the outside of our house and hit our windows as if to say, “Hey! Get out! I was here first!” and always came a big startle from such occurrence! It was crazy how much this squirrel really began to test our limits. If ever I put a plant outside, he’d quickly dig it up. Every single morning while my husband left for work there would be a chatter from the trees above. My husband would look up and there Baxter would be, angrily waiting and throwing nuts at him! Sometimes he even hit him!

Despite numerous calls and complaints to our landlord, no fix ever came to keep this squirrel out of our living space. The last straw came when we arrived home and found our loyal orange tabby cat staring a hole into our kitchen cabinets. No matter what we did, he refused to leave the strange stare down he was having. Soon we figured out why. There was a crash from inside one of the cabinets and in no time it was very apparent that Baxter had found another way into our house! Luckily, we moved out a week later and gave up the house to Baxter, opting to buy and thoroughly inspect a new home instead. While at the time it was a very stressful and frustrating situation, we can now look back and it all and laugh at how ridiculous it was. Because of this outlandish tale, the inspiration of a new creation came to be. So I present to you Baxter the Squirrel.  Continue reading Baxter The Squirrel