Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family, friends, and food. Don't forget to use your time off wisely and make good use of knitting/crochet projects! I know I will (try)!

"A Girl's Christmas" Spiral Crochet Hat Pattern

Okay, so the title says this hat is for Christmas, but we all know how versatile a pattern can be. Because of that, it really can be created in a much less tacky way than the holidays allow - but I like tacky, so here we go.

Materials:

• Your favorite DK-weight yarn. I used Red Heart Designer Sport in colors by Candi Jensen in pink, white, and bright green. I love them so much. And the lighter yarn makes for a nicer fabric in crochet. I think I'm done with Simply Soft. Travesty, I know.


• 4mm (G) crochet hook.


• Large-eyed needle for weaving in ends.

Abbreviations (in order of appearance):

• ch: chain
• sc: single crochet
• PM: place marker
• inc: 2sc in st
• BLO: back loop only

Pattern:

With white, ch3, join.

• R1: 4sc into loop; with green: 4sc into loop; with pink: 4sc into loop, PM; DO NOT JOIN.
• R2: inc (4x); with white: inc (4x); with green: inc (4x); DO NOT JOIN.
• R3: (2sc, inc) 2x, 2sc; with pink: (inc, 2sc) 2x, inc, sc; with white: sc, inc, (2sc, inc) 2x; DO NOT JOIN.
• R4: (3sc, inc) 2x, 2sc; with green: sc, inc, (3sc, in) 2x, sc; with pink: 2sc, inc, (3sc, inc) 2x; DO NOT JOIN.
• R5: (4sc, inc) 2x, 2sc; with white: 2sc, inc, (4sc, inc) 2x, sc; with green: 3sc, inc, (4sc, inc) 2x; DO NOT JOIN.
• R5: (5sc, inc) 2x, 2sc; with pink: 3sc, inc, (5sc, inc) 2x, sc; with white: 4sc, inc, (5sc, inc) 2x; DO NOT JOIN.
• R6: (6sc, inc) 2x, 2sc; with green: 4sc, inc, (6sc, inc) 2x; with pink: 5sc, inc, (6sc, inc) 2x; DO NOT JOIN.
• R7: (7sc, inc) 2x, 2sc; with white: 5sc, inc, (7sc, inc) 2x; with green: 6sc, inc, (7sc, inc) 2x; DO NOT JOIN.
• R8: (8sc, inc) 2x, 2sc; with pink: 6sc, inc, (8sc, inc) 2x; with white: 7sc, inc, (8sc, inc) 2x; DO NOT JOIN.
• R9: (9sc, inc) 2x, 2sc; with green: 7sc, inc, (9sc, inc) 2x; with pink: 8sc, inc, (9sc, inc) 2x; DO NOT JOIN.
• R10-30: work even, continuing spiral, pausing at the end of your last pink row;
• R31: with your pink color, sc around in all the other colors, joining to first pink sc in row.

DO NOT BIND OFF.

Ribbing:

• R1: Ch 7
• R2: Sc in 2nd st from hook, sc in next 5 sts (6 sc), sl st into next st on hat, turn.
• R3: 6 sl sts across in BLO, ch1, turn.
• R4: 6 sl sts across in BLO, sl st into next st on hat, turn.
• Repeat R3-R4 around hat; join with sl sts.

BIND OFF. Weave in ends.

Word of Caution:
Make sure to keep track of your yarn, as it's easy for them to get tangled during this whole process. I wasn't paying attention for the first good half of the project and then wasted 15 minutes untangling everything - it's really not a good use of time. Spare the three seconds it takes to move the balls around when switching colors and save yourself many hassles :)

Bella Swan La Push Crochet Hat Pattern from Twilight Movie (2008)

I decided to use my amazing Google skills to see if anyone had made the crocheted hat Bella Swan wears during the Twilight movie's La Push scene (where she goes with her friends to the beach and learns about werewolves and vampires from Jacob). I can't say I was crazy about the hat, but I remembered looking at it and thinking it looked simple enough to make and still pretty cool (not all neat things need to be difficult).






Materials:

• 1 skein Caron Simply Soft in grey (or whatever color you prefer, but Bella's is grey)
• 5.5mm crochet hook
• 1 large-eyed needle (for weaving in ends)

Some pre-pattern info:I imagine you can use most worsted-weights single-stranded and accomplish the same feat; however, most of us know that Caron is not your typical worsted weight, so I double-stranded the whole thing. It's not a bad result at all. Just play around with the yarn until you're able to get the proper size to fit over your head :)

To make it look more like Bella's hat, you would use a thinner yarn and more rows in between the BPdc's, adding more length as you go. I kind of like the chunkier look.

As always, please let me know if you find any errors in my pattern :)

Special Stitches:
FPtr: Yarn over twice, insert hook around the post (from the front side of your work) of the stitch indicated; yo and draw up a lp (4 lps on hk); yo and draw through two lps (3 lps on hk); yo and draw through two lps (2 lps on hk); yo and draw through two lps (1 lp on hk)
BPdc: Yarn over, insert hook from the back side of the work right to left around the post of the indicated stitch on a previous row; yo and pull up a loop (3 lps on hk); yo and draw through two lps (2 lps on hk); yo and draw through two lps (1 lp on hk)

Pattern:
Ch 3, join

• R1: Ch3 (counts as 1st dc), 11dc's into loop, join. (12dc)
• R2: Ch3, dc in same st (inc made), 2FPtr, [2dc in next st, 2FPtr] 3x, join.
• R3: Ch3, dc in same st (inc made), dc in next st, 2FPtr, [2dc in next st, dc, 2FPtr] 3x, join.
• R4: Ch3, dc in same st (inc made), dc in next 2 sts, 2FPtr, [2dc in next st, 2dc, 2FPtr] 3x, join.
• R5: Ch3, dc in same st (inc made), dc in next 2 sts, 2dc in next st, 2FPtr, [2dc in next st, 2dc, 2dc in next st, 2FPtr] 3x, join.
• R6: Ch3, dc in same st (inc made), dc in next 4 sts, 2dc in next st, 2FPtr, [2dc in next st, 4dc, 2dc in next st, 2FPtr] 3x, join.
• R7: Ch3, dc in same st (inc made), dc in next 6 sts, 2dc in next st, 2FPtr, [2dc in next st, 6dc, 2dc in next st, 2FPtr] 3x, join.
• R8: Ch3, dc in same st (inc made), dc in next 8 sts, 2dc in next st, 2FPtr, [2dc in next st, 8dc, 2dc in next st, 2FPtr] 3x, join.
• R9-R12: Ch3, 11dc, 2FPtr, [12dc, 2FPtr] 3x (work even), join.
• R13: Ch3, 11BPdc, 2FPtr, [12BPdc, 2FPtr] 3x (work even), join.
• R14-16: work same as R9
• R17: work same as R13
• R18: [Ch1, sl st] around, join.

Bind Off.

Holiday Project Extravaganza

I've been making some headway on Christmas gifts this year. Well, at least I thought I was until I started thinking about it.

I finally finished Baby Sweater #2. I may or may not save this for Christmas, as my friend's baby is due rather soon! But we'll see. If she reads this, I may just have to give it up sooner :P This time around, I cast on an extra 10 stitches so it wasn't so preemie-looking. After that, the patterns was still pretty simple. It took me a long time to make, though, as I grew bored of the pattern. I plan on taking any leftover yarn and making a pair of matching booties. I've never knitted booties, so I'm excited to try something knew.

I also started this knitted hat for Nick's friend's girlfriend. You can't see the detail in the picture to the left, but it's the pattern Foliage from Knitty, which I found on Ravelry (an addiction of mine). This is the third time I've started it, thinking the first time I had messed up the pattern and then couldn't count the second time when I was surrounded by poeple. Frustrating! But now, I'm realizing I was right with the pattern first time around, so I'm going to finally finish it, haha. Of course, this means another trip to ACMoore for more yarn so I can make matching mittens, since I threw away all of my frogs in frustration every time :)

Not to be forgotten are a bunch of crocheted santa faces Nick's mom would like me to make for work gifts. I made a bunch for the holidays two year ago - enough that they lasted me until Christmas the next year. I gave one to his parents in 2007 as a magnet and his mom loved them. I purchase all the supplies a few weeks ago, sans yarn because I think I had enough from the kit, and I'm patiently awaiting working on them. They were so fun to make and whipped up really quickly. Sadly, Mary Maxim no longer sells the kit or pattern, but I had ordered three to make them the first time around and found it a couple months ago. I didn't search through it, so hopefully everything's there, but maybe I could figure it out if I needed to again, haha. The picture is from the first round of Santa Faces I made in 2006.

It's funny how I've always had problems with knitting, even though I started when I was 11 years old. Then I recently realized there were really only two stitches to remember, and now I have no problems counting, reading patterns, or anything.

I ordered a million tunisian crochet hooks (and by a million, I mean five). I'm excited to try my hand at that one. For a practice piece, I'm going to make a cover for the top of our toilet seat in the man's bathroom. Nick is a big fan of keeping that room completely barren and it drives me up a wall. To add some color, I decided to make a black piece for over the top lid, since everything else is so white and there's a black shower curtain. I hope he doesn't mind. If he does, tough cookies. I figured it would be simple enough to practice with - a big rectangle, haha.

I also bought a hairpin lace loom, and I'm anxious to give that a shot. Oh, if only these blasted holiday gifts would be done!