Donation day!

Yesterday I took most of my items to the Safe Harbor resale shop to donate! The resale shop is very similar to Goodwill in terms of merchandise for sale and prices, although the shop lets Safe Harbor clients and their children shop for free. Furthermore, most of the employees are volunteers and all of the shop profits go to benefit the Safe Harbor organization. If you're interested, more information can be found at their website. 

I packed a box with two baby blankets, five child hats, three dishcloths, a scarf, a cowl, and a pair of baby booties. Since all donations to Safe Harbor are tax-deductible, they gave me a receipt for my donation. I have several items still sitting at school that I didn't have room to bring home, and I'm planning to donate those over spring break or during the summer. I really enjoyed bringing my donations to the store; the employee I talked to was very happy to get them. It feels like I'm really making a difference to this organization. 

Martha Cowl

I found the pattern for this Martha Cowl scarf on Ravelry. I crocheted it using navy blue yarn from Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn brand. The pattern was wonderful - very simple and elegant, especially with the eyelet stitches - although I followed users' comments from Ravelry to make a few changes. I chained 201 stitches for the first round instead of 150 to account for using a thinner weight yarn. In addition, the flower in the pattern was difficult for me to work out, so I used the flower from this Cozy Flowered Headband instead. Overall, I really loved this pattern and definitely plan on making it again!

Time on this project: 5 hours, 30 minutes
Time total: 57 hours, 50 minutes

Brrr Baby Beanie

Winter break has proven to be an excellent time to get some crocheting done! I used the Brrr Baby Beanie pattern, a magic loop, and some more stash yarn I found laying around at home to make this beanie. I'm not too fond of how the yarn worked up but the pattern turned out nice and simple. I'll probably make this pattern again sometime with different yarn.

Time on this project: 2 hours, 5 minutes

Time total: 52 hours, 20 minutes

Rib-wrapped Kid Cap

I found the pattern for this Rib-wrapped Kid Cap on Ravelry a couple of years ago and used some stash yarn I had at home to finally make it. I really liked the pattern! The only adjustments I made to it were to crochet it in the round and start with a magic loop. Magic loops are my new favorite technique; they make it so much easier to tighten the top of hats.

Time on this project: 2 hours, 40 minutes

Time total: 50 hours, 15 minutes

Softee Baby Hat

Using this Softee Baby Hat pattern, I made this hat in a little over an hour. I used some DK stash yarn and an H hook. Overall, I really liked the pattern. I followed the directions for an 18 month old, and the only change I made to the pattern was to crochet it in a round instead of rows.

Time on this project: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Time total: 47 hours and 35 minutes

Bellflower Scarf

It's been a long time! My sophomore year was incredibly busy, stressful, wonderful, and rewarding. Unfortunately, my classes were much more difficult and time-consuming than I thought they would be (looking at you, organic chemistry), so I had very little time to crochet. This resulted in a scarf that took about seven months to finish.

I crocheted the Bellflower Infinity Scarf from Caron Yarns, found here. The main alteration I made to the pattern was omitting the process of slip stitching the ends together to form a circular (aka infinity) scarf. I added fringe to the ends to make the scarf more decorative and less plain. To make each individual fringe, I cut five lengths of yarn (about 8-9 inches long) and looped them through the edge of the scarf using a crochet hook. I also did an initial chain 25 stitches instead of 32 to decrease the width since it wasn't an infinity scarf. I used the "passion" color of Caron Simply Soft yarn and an H hook.

Time on this project: 7 hours
Time total: 46 hours and 20 minutes

Sunshine Baby Blanket

This pattern was very tricky for me to read, so once I figured out that it's essentially a giant granny square, I improvised the rest of the blanket.

I do love the pattern itself, though. The border is particularly nice, although I left off the last row because I was running out of yarn and I didn't want to buy a whole extra skein for one row. In retrospect, I actually think I like the border better without the last row since it's not as frivolous.

I found the pattern here. 

Time on this project: 13 hours and 15 minutes

Time total: 39 hours and 20 minutes