Toddler Pom Pom beanie

It's getting cold here now, winter is setting in! And I have realised that my daughter has outgrown most of her hats! 

I came across a lovely looking hat on All About Ami's blog called bear Pom beanie. If you haven't checked her blog out I suggest you do! She's amazing and gives you her patterns for free! 

This hat is lovely and thick once complete and although at first it seems a bit complicated for a beginner it really isn't! I chose to put just one Pom Pom on the top in the centre because where I closed the hat it looked a little scruffy so I thought the Pom Pom could cover that up! Which it did quite nicely! 

Now obviously for the Pom Pom a Pom Pom maker would be very useful and really an ideal item to have in your crochet kit so that you can make lots of cute things with Pom poms on! 

You can find the pattern for this hat at 

http://www.allaboutami.com/post/130273729766/bearpombeanie

It's in American terms and she gives you links to individual tutorials for each technique from various other crochet bloggers to help you out, that really helped me out! 

I am so chuffed with how it turned out! I am still such a learner with crochet so to finish a project and for it to actually turn out well is such a lovely achievement! 

Let me know how you get on and post pics in the comments! 

Easy toddler hat

Easy pretty toddler hat 

I decided I needed to have a go at making a hat for my little girl for the winter. I have made a few hats for friends babies and the problem I keep coming across is that my stitching comes up a bit tighter and smaller than in the patterns I have so far followed! This ends with the hats I have made being too small for the person I am making it for! 

So with this pattern I had to have a bit of trial and error to get the size right for my little girl and I will take you through that process in the article so that if you have a similar problem you can solve the issue fairly easily. 

The pattern I used is actually from red heart, it's a free pattern and available as a pdf download. You can find it Here.

It's easy to follow and the hat is almost entirely made with double crochet (U.S. Terms) and single crochet. You do need to know how to do a magic circle but there are a whole bunch of tutorials on how to do that on you tube and is something every crocheter should have in their basic skill set. 

The pattern starts with a magic circle and increasing rows of double crochet. 

The pattern has an option of four sizes ranging from small to extra large. I chose the large size because of my issue of things coming up smaller than they should. In total before starting the ear flaps for the large size it calls for 12 rows. I found at 12 rows it did not look long enough to fit my daughters head so I ended up doing 3 extra rows to give the length I thought looked right. If you have a similar problem to me you can do this visually until it looks right, just keep repeating the final row around until you are happy with it.

I decided not to add the ears on this hat so to finish off I just the ear flaps, the single crochet edging, the flower and the braided tails. I found the ear flaps were not as big as I would have liked them to be so if I make this hat again I will try to edit them for a better look. Here is the finished product:

C2C baby blanket

So last week I talked about corner to corner. I learnt this stitch because I thought it would make a lovely baby blanket for my sister in law. See my last post for links to some good tutorials on this.

I completed my blanket (yay!) and I have to admit it is my favourite project so far! For mine I used a 5mm hook and three different colours of Aran (worsted weight) wool. My sister in law is having a girl so I went for pink, grey and white. I also then presented It in a nice keepsake box I found in store twenty one. I used three whole skeins (one of each colour) plus a little extra for the last few rows for this blanket. Size wise, I just kept going until I was happy with the width and length then started decreasing.

I think c2c is a great stitch to learn and works up fast once you get the hang of it, it isn't very difficult.  It makes a lovely gift for someone too! Happy Sunday!

Corner to corner (C2C)

Happy Sunday!

This week I wank to talk about corner to corner (also known as c2c). I came across this stitch quite recently as it seems to be trending at the moment. It's a great stitch for beginners as it is simple to learn and works up quickly.

I decided to make a baby blanket using c2c for my sister in laws baby, which is due next month! It makes a beautiful blanket and you can freestyle this stitch, there isn't really any counting to do you just keep going until you are happy with the size then decrease.

It's called corner to corner because you begin at the corner and it works up as an upside down triangle until you are at the size you want. When you start decreasing it becomes a square or rectangle depending on what you want it to be and how you decrease it. I know that probably all sounds a bit complicated but it really isn't once you know how!

I used you tube again as I quite often do after finding inspiration on Pinterest. First I watched Stitchin Stacy's tutorial which you can find here: http://youtu.be/D-CNLEtrSLs
This tutorial explains and shows you how to do this stitch and is suitable for beginners. I found it really helpful.

Once I had made good progress on my blanket I decided I wanted to make it rectangular rather than square. To learn this technique I used a tutorial by the crochet crowd on you tube which you can find here: http://youtu.be/sNrS4s5C8vc
This tutorial is quite short and really helps with how to make your piece rectangular. I had to play the relevant section quite a few times to remind myself though!

This blanket has so far been my favourite project since beginning crochet, I'm really pleased with it and it's very nearly finished!!!

 

New to crochet

This year I decided to get myself a hobby. I decided on crochet (to much amusement to my friends!) because it has a practical outcome. So far I have learnt the basic stitches using YouTube and Pinterest to guide me and completed a few little projects!

The very first tutorial I used was from epicabundance on YouTube and was a fantastic tutorial for a complete beginner. You can find this tutorial here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdK-WWdHCQU
She teaches you the very basic beginnings for crochet including how to do a slip knot and a foundation chain then the single crochet stitch.

I bought a basic set of crochet hooks from ebay for about four pounds (see picture below of what they looked like) and borrowed some wool from my mum (really must give her that back...) to get started on practising my first stitches.

Turns out there was so much to learn about just wool let alone anything else! I was using something called Double knit (DK) wool but for most basic crochet patterns it recommends worsted weight wool. At first I had no idea what this meant so more research was definitely needed! Eventually I figured out that worsted weight wool was the American term and that here in the UK it is called Aran wool. I also figured out that the stitches have different names across the pond but since pretty much all the tutorials and patterns I have been using have been American anyway this hasn't been much of an issue, although something to bear in mind for sure! For your information below is a quick conversion chart for wool weights.

I think if your contemplating learning to crochet you should make sure your fully aquainted with Pinterest and YouTube as they are both invaluable! There are some fantastic people to subscribe to on YouTube such as The Crochet Crowd which you can find here: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCVbbBdiTKMCx5VII4IKDU7A
and Stitchinstacy which you can find here:
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCF-INaYuj0qJxm1zsWgT3Fw
just to name a couple and there are so many patterns available on Pinterest you won't know where to start!

If you would like to check out my Pinterest boards feel free, I have lots of boards but I have a few dedicated just to crochet! https://www.pinterest.com/OliviasOwl/