Bouquet of Booties

This is a project done bb (before blogging) that I wanted to document for uniqueness. It's a baby shower centerpiece of booties folded to form flowers which are secured with floral tape to wire and leaves.

The pattern and idea was in the July 2003 issue of Crochet! Magazine. There are four different cuff patterns and the foot is the same pattern for all the booties. I worked them using Herrschners Afghan and Apparel Yarn which is a 2 ply, 100% acrylic, fingering weight yarn.

There were no problems with the patterns and they were easy to follow. It was my first exposure to the reverse single crochet (also know as the crab stitch)and I am happy to report that I was able to execute the stitch without fuss, although it is not on "my favorites" list. The only difficulty I had was making myself stop crocheting them --I think I made well over a dozen pairs before I managed to apply the brakes!

My Ravelry project page for Bouquet of Booties.

Bunny Blanket Buddy

This darling toy has been knit and in my work basket for THREE YEARS!! Why? Because I have a face phobia. Whenever I make something that entails putting a face on it -- I freeze. I have no sense of proportion or spacing when it comes to placing eyes, noses and mouths and that's in addition to the technical difficulties of embroidering circles on knit or crochet items. *sigh* I always need help from my daughters or my husband to verify that I have a pleasant looking face (eyes placed too close together produce a rather creepy look). A couple of days ago I had a bout of "face confidence" and managed to finish this cute little toy!

Bunny Blanket Buddy is a free pattern from Lion Brand Yarns and available here.

Notes:

I substituted Red Heart Baby Teri for the Lion Brand Velvetspun. Apologies to Lion Brand Yarns for not using their yarn with their pattern but, in my opinion, Velvetspun sucks and it really is an awful choice for a baby toy. The Baby Teri is a much better yarn for this project.

I worked with two strands of the Baby Teri.

I used size 6 needles for the head (instead of the size 8 recommended for the Velvetspun)

Wrap the first stitch of each row tightly when doing the double knitting of the head so that the ends do not gap.

Thanks to my Hubby for designing a face that I liked and one that was easy to embroider.

My Ravelry project page for Bunny Blanket Buddy.

Thousand Ends Lapghan

I love to challenge myself but sometimes I have brain farts and wind up being appallingly stupid. This lapghan was meant to be a nice way to use up scrap yarn. Instead, it was tedious and boring and ended up surpassing the Endless Ends Afghan for the number of ends that needed to be woven in.


The afghan is a combination of yo-yo's and Priscilla Hewitt's flat braid joining. It's cute, I love it and I'm going to keep it for myself but when am I going to learn??

There are 389 yo-yo's (made from scrap yarn)

Joined together with Red Heart Super Saver Aran Fleck using the flat brain join.

The border is a row of three single crochets in each of the unattached loops around the edge.

The afghan measures 44" x 35"

There were 1558 ends. 778 (389*2) for each yo-yo + 778 (389*2) for each flat braid join + 2 ends for the border = 1558.

My Ravelry project page for Thousand Ends Lapghan.

I really can't complain too much about this afghan because it did inspire the design of the adorable Romi-Yo!