Lizard

I have been making blankets lately for baby presents but had forgotten to take photos.

This Lizard was made for a baby as I knew they would get lots of blankets etc and the baby's name seemed fitting that they would have a pet lizard.

Pinterest saved me with a pattern. I love the feet on it.

I didn't use safety eyes as it is for a baby and I don't trust that they will stay put also I put the yellow stripes on the top but then my eldest told me I should have put them on the bottom because that would be more accurate. Silly me. Next time!

Such a spin out though that someone's 2012 post has saved me in 2017. Hope my posts get to help someone along the way too.

Pattern: http://cosyagogo.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/free-crochet-gecko-pattern.html

Baby Owl Present and another Fox

The Owls were a hit so I freehanded making this little treat for a baby present. I made the Owl with thick yarn but the little square in fine and soft yarn so it will be nice to snuggle up with.

I also was asked to make another fox very quickly - it was a little smaller but they were popular. It was lovely to be asked to make something for someone. Feeling better about my crochet skills now.

More Owls for presents

I made some more owls from Skapa och Inreda's pattern of the owl. 

This pattern is super quick to learn and now I do not need it anymore to create these. 

Cute presents.

Thanks again!

Crocheted Field Hockey Stick and Ball

So many of our friends are having their first bubs at the moment, some even second and third bubs! 

I know that you get a whole lot of presents from everyone so wanted to make crochet presents that were personalised for each child and/or their family.

This is my latest creation that I made up myself - a field hockey stick and ball. 

The mum of this little lady is a talented field hockey player and joked when she was born that she would get her a mini hockey stick to get her started early. So I thought I would try to make one.

I had mixed success but after trial and error came up with something that I was happy to give as a present. The curl in the stick was the tricky point. I ended up making a diamond to stitch to create the quick bend whilst remaining somewhat flat like the hockey stick.

I have plans to put a pattern together for this as I couldn't find a pattern when I had a look and I have benefited from so many other's patterns they have put online that I thought I would have a crack at it.

When I find the time I will put it together to share.

In the mean time - here are some pics of the present.

What an actual one looks like (and what I based this one on):

Fox for little Fox

A present I made for friends' little baby that they named Fox.

I made up the head as I went along but then I wasn't sure how to do the ears and found this pattern http://icrochetthings.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/free-pattern-sitting-fox-amigurumi.html That I copied the ears from and the head looks super similar.

Then I made the square but made it so that the chest was white and a white tail with two little feet. You can see when it is spread out in the photos below.

The square was just a magic ring with 4sc then 3 inc in each sc and then 3sc in each corner stitch around and sc in the stitches to each corner.

I was thinking of perhaps documenting this as a pattern but was not sure whether people would use it.

Let me know if you do and I can put it together.

Darth Vader Coffee Cup Cozy

My delightful husband and I have our wedding anniversary tomorrow - 7 years. I checked out the traditional gift (as we always give each other a little something that matches the traditional gift) and it turned out the 7 year present is WOOL!

Perfect!

So I decided to combine two of some of his most favourite things - Star Wars and Coffee..... and probably not in that order now that we have 3 little kids to run after!

A Darth Vader Coffee Cup Cozy.

The Darth Vader is probably too big for the side of the smaller regular sized coffee cups I had at home - luckily he enjoys the larger take away coffees!

Also as I had made the Coffee Cozy out of Acrylic, I tied a bit of actual wool inside the back so there is actually some wool included. *Superstitious*

 The Darth Vader was created just by counting stitches across using this graph - Darth Vader Chart.
The style of the Coffee Cozy I made up after checking out this pin on Pinterest - 10 Coffee Cozy Patterns.

I first made the Darth Vader patch and then made an all white patch the same size to cover the back. While I was creating the Darth Vader patch I was very cautious to always make sure that I pulled the yarn to the back side of the patch so that the front would be just stitches. The back, as shown above with the wool tied on, was not so neat so by stitching the white patch over the top it covered these threads nicely and also managed to hide my included real wool.

Then I got two coffee cups we had at home - my chai latte take away cup and our glass homestyle takeaway cup. I chained to the length that would work on both sized cups then did DC across the HDC around the edges to fatten it up. The DC area then worked as lots of little button holes.
Then I chained the length of the part that had the buttons attached and just did the rows of HDC to the fatness I wanted.
Both of these I kept relatively thin so he could use it on a mug if he wanted to and could put it through a mug handle.
I sewed these between the Darth and white patches then did SC the whole way around in the grey to stitch the two patches together and to link all the different elements with a border.
Then I stitched on two buttons I had in my random button drawer and anniversary present done!

I made it adjustable by including the two buttons and by making the button holes (DCs across the middle of the strap) all along so that the buttons can be done up wherever. Many of the Cup Cozy Patterns I saw the button only had the one hole or was just for decoration. I chose to make mine a bit more operational and adjustable for all different cups.

Below are photos of the two sized cups I used. Luckily the cups he gets are usually much taller than these.

 He probably will only use it at home to be polite to me for a few times but it was more the thought and to continue our tradition of the gifts made of the different things.

I think I want to try to get into more of these graph crochet patterns and maybe try a C2C little rug.
I need to finish some other presents before starting a new project though.... otherwise we might not get any more wedding anniversaries. Ha! My Yarn stash and WIP bags are growing too much and threaten to overwhelm my laundry... and husband.

Owl Baby Shower Present

I have a baby shower to attend later today and the Mummy of this lucky little baby loves owls, so I decided to make her baby one. (I bought a present for them too.)

Crochet Owl

I didn't get the V's on the tummy balanced and the black eye stitches could have been straighter but still think it looks very cute.

It was based on Skapa och Inreda's pattern but modified it to my own needs. I used Google Translate to read the blog.

I created a circle as the base to the diameter that I wanted the owl to be then worked sc up to the point where wings would be attached. I then quartered the amount of stitches in the round and used that as the chain length to start each wing. I used the same ball of yarn but just pulled out the other end and did the wings from the other end. I used variegated yarn for the owl so wanted a solid colour for the edging of the wings to make them more defined. I used the same colour to do the Vs on the tummy area to break up the colour just as Skapa och Inreda did in their pictures. Then I did another round and sc'ed in the wings where I wanted them. Then sc up to the height I wanted the head to be. I did the two white circles and made the eyes closed because I thought that looked really cute. On Skapa och Inreda they have suggestions for an open eye and a closed eye. I thought my next one might look cute winking. (Friends have a lot of babies being born at the moment - with hopefully even more coming.)
Then I stuffed it and sc the top. Sewed on the eyes and beak. I thought about doing feet but I thought they probably were not necessary.

So thank you to Skapa och Inreda and I am sharing lots of shots below so you can see how it was constructed.