This year for Christmas I hand made a number of presents to give to nieces. I taught myself how to crochet earlier this year, so I put my new found skill to work to make these presents!
I crocheted two cowls to give to my nieces Hannah and Emily, who are both in high school, but then I couldn't decide which cowl to give to which niece. So I put both of them into a box and gave it to both of them to share.
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| I made this one using a chunky pinkish yarn I had on hand. It is a cool pattern and looks nice, but I did decide it would probably work better with a smooth variegated yarn. Actually, I made another later with the same yarn I used on my star cowl, and it turned out even nicer. |
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| I like this cowl because it is done in the round, so you don't have to go back and forth and weave in a bunch of ends, and it is crocheted with the twist built in. |
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| I made this cowl using a variegated light-weight yarn. I love it! It is so pretty and light and soft. I also used this same yarn to make another of the butterfly cowls. |
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| This cowl was pretty easy to make, but what I didn't like about it was that you crocheted each individual star, hooking the tips together. Then on each star you had to weave in two ends. There were 60 stars, which meant I had to weave in 120 ends! That is possibly the most tedious job associated with knit/crochet. |
Christmas cards
A few of our nieces/nephews requested getting cash for Christmas instead of a present. We were not able to get together with the Platt side of the family over the Christmas holiday, so I had Laurel paint some cards to send money in through the mail. I drew an outline of a tree, and Laurel finger painted the trees with ornaments and "shooting stars" on top.
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| I'm making a shooting star! |
When I was at World Market with my sisters, Lynn saw a cowl she really liked, and I told her not to buy it because I would crochet one for her! I had a skein of soft fuzzy off-white yarn on hand, and I quick whipped up this cowl for her. We did sew a big wooden button on it, but here I am holding it together with a crochet hook.
Mermaid Blanket
I had seen some crocheted mermaid blanket patterns online, but none of them were exactly what I was looking for. So I decided to make up my own pattern. The only problem is that I don't have a sewing machine, and really, I don't exactly even know how to sew. But I won't let that stop me!
I bought some really soft fleece, and originally intended to make the tail using the same fabric but wrapped in sparkly pink tulle. On Thanksgiving Day I snuck over to my sister's house to use her sewing machine and her sewing know how. We decided that putting on the tulle would be too hard (and messy with sparkles going everywhere), but Lynn had some nice dark purple fabric that we used instead.
I traced out the shape I wanted for the tail, then cut a double layer of it. I sewed the two pieces together, leaving the top open. Then I sewed a few lines up the tail. I stuffed a little bit of filling into each stripe to give the tail extra shape. Then I hemmed all the edges of the fleece and sewed the pieces together.
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| The tail |
Laurel sleeps on top of her comforter at night under a blanket, so I wanted to make the blanket big enough that she would be able to sleep under it. I also wanted it big enough for her to share. At the same time, I wanted it to have a pocket down at the bottom for her to slip her feet into. So the bottom part of the fleece, right above the tail, is sewn together in the back for about 18 inches to make a cylinder. Then the rest is open and hemmed around the edges.
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| Here I am modeling the mermaid blanket! |
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| This picture is fuzzy, but it is the only one I took of Laurel with her blanket. She loved it! And she has slept under it every night since Christmas. |
I had seen some patterns for Princess Elsa hair, and I decided to adapt it to be a Princess Rapunzel crown for my niece who already has a Repunzel dress. I linked the title to the pattern I used, but I adapted the colors. I also looked up a bunch of different patterns for crocheted flowers and attached the flowers and a little braid all over the hair.
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| Laurel is modeling the Princess Rapunzel hair |
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