Other craft projects from recent months

I've been doing some crocheting recently...baby blankets and some hats. 
Brian's nephew and his wife had twins in March. A little boy and a little girl!  I had a little boy blanket all finished up :), and I made this cute little "newsie" hat to go wtih it. Then I had to make a little girl blanket and hat, too.

I tried a new ripple wave pattern for the little girl's blanket and it came out cute...I adapted a ruffle hat to make it tinier for her.

Here are some other projects I've done over the past few months, knit, crochet and sewing:

At church they were collecting hats and scarves for various charities this spring...I knit this one with two strands of yarn...my first adult hat.

This is a game I found on someone's blog...probably via pinterest. Using scraps of fabric, make squares, back them with some batting between the two layers and make a matching game. Grace loves this.  Especially when she recognzies fabrics from other things (like her butterfly dress).

This was just a fun scarf that I knit with a "fun" yarn (black, purple blue and turquoise) and a regular turquoise yarn...I loved it, but have enough scarves...so it went into my finshed bag for gift or craft fair. I ended up sending it to a friend from my MTC district whose husband has Crohn's like Brian and had to have a major emergency resection in March. I couldn't give her a hug in person, so I sent her a scarf instead :)

This is a crocheted scarf...or actually three scarves - each a different pattern. Then you braid them together and attach the ends with pom-poms. This was fun!!  It went into the bag for a craft fair or something in the fall. I want to do one in the high school colors, and other variations too, when I get a chance.

This was my big Christmas project this year - a crocheted floor checkerboard for the boys. And I managed to do it without either of them having a clue...I was up late finishing the last few checkers, but it was done and under the tree Christmas morning and they love it...though Joshua has put in a request for chess pieces. I found a pattern on line for crocheting those...as well as patterns for making them out of felt...I think I'll be opting for the felt ones :)

This was Nathaniel's Christmas present. He wanted a knit scarf in his favorite color like Joshua has. Joshua's was made by one of his great-grandma's. I tried to replicated the pattern, but didn't do so well (this was while Brian was in the hospital), so I ripped it all out and did a different pattern that I'd done before and was easy. He also insisted it have a fringe, like Joshua's has...the pattern didn't call for it, but I added it. I started it in July, but pushed it aside to do some other projects...but it did get finished for Christmas too.

This was Grace's present for her 2nd birthday...it was from a pattern my mom has had since the early 80s. It turned out cute...but not as durable as I'd hoped...but she can't use it to climb up on to get into other things like she'd be able to do with my old wooden doll cradle that is waiting to get refurbished for her down the road :)

I started this awhile back...my first cable knit project...loved doing cables! It is also two strands...two different shades of purple. This one is mine! It's very soft...but a little too wide. I was making a matching hat, but ripped it out because honestly, I never wear hats.

This is Maggie's blanket. Maggie is a baby cabbage patch doll that Grace got from her Great-Uncle Brian and Great-Aunt Linda at Christmas. We were down visiting and were able to see them and she was so excited. But problem was, she hadn't really taken any other "babies" and didn't have a blanket for her! So I found this yarn at Michaels, thought it looked fun, adapted a dishcloth pattern to make it big enough and had this finished shortly after we got home. Maggie loves this blanket ;)

And lastly, Grace's stocking. I'd made the boys stockings by their first Christmases, or second at least. Well, this was Grace's third one, but I finally got it done. On hers I added a little bit of lace on the pocket and around the top...so it was a little girlier :)

This is Grace's butterfly dress. I saw this on pinterest and so wanted to make it for her. I had the fabric...the hardest thing was finding the right buttons! I had to enlarge the pattern (it was a hand drawn one that I downloaded from the internet) and tweak things here and there a bit to fit her...the shoulders are still a little too wide, but there wasn't much else I could do with it. I decided that "sew alongs" on people's blogs are not my cup of anything, but the Grace loves the dress :)

This is the Buttefly hat...I found the pattern on pinterest...so fast and easy!!  I made this for Grace out this wonderful yarn from my grandma...and then I made two more a little bigger for two girls in Nathaniel's class that were having a combined birthday party...one of of this yarn and the other out of a sparkly fuschia yarn.

This was my first attempt at a headband and a big flower...Grace is not the most willing model...plus she doesn't like things in her hair or on her head for the most part. The flower came out a little larger than I'd planned :) This went into the gift/craft fair bag too.

This cute little green hat was a baby gift, too, for someone on the Trixie Belden board...this is the side view, the bow goes on the side. The actual pattern from Crochet World magazine has you use a scarf for the tie, but I've just crocheted "strings" for the two ruffle hats I've done. This one I down sized for a baby head.

This was my first ruffle hat...Grace was not happy modeling it that day...then a day or so later when I had the "string" made, she was a little more happy to try it on :)