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

Polar Bear Hat, Part 2

I did the base for this hat months ago, and I finally got around to finishing it. I found the pattern here, and I absolutely love all of the patterns by this author. They are wonderfully written and don't take long to work up (if I don't take a four-month break from them).

First I crocheted the base, then the eyes and ears, then the muzzle:

I used all Red Heart Super Saver Solids yarn, and I sewed the parts on using a yarn needle. 

Time on this project: 1 hour and 30 minutes

Time total: 26 hours and 5 minutes

Little Bitty Noggin Cap

I found some gorgeous DK weight yarn on sale at Hobby Lobby, and I finally found a pattern to use it with! Here's the Little Bitty Noggin Cap by Andee Graves. I didn't fall in love with this pattern per se, but it was well written and only took a few hours to work up. However, I did like the border of front and back post double crochet, since that finished the cap nicely.

To increase the size of the cap slightly, I increased one more row and added another row of half-double crochet.

Time for this project: 3 hours

Total time: 24 hours and 55 minutes

Cuffed Cutie Hat

I made this hat for one of my 4 year-old cousins last Christmas, and she loved it! I had lots of the yarn left from it, so I decided to make another one for Safe Harbor. Since I knew the pattern, it only took me a couple hours to complete. The only adjustment I made to the original pattern (Red Heart's Cuffed Cutie Hat) was using a J hook instead of a K hook so it would fit a child better. This pattern would work with any worsted weight yarn - I used Red Heart brand.

Time for this project: 2 hours

Total time: 21 hours and 55 minutes

Easy baby blanket

Finals are over! This means that I will have much, much more time to crochet than during the school year, especially until I start my research job in a couple weeks. That being said, I finished a baby blanket that I had started months ago. I think it turned out pretty well. I used Red Heart's One Ball Baby Blanket Pattern and light blue I Love This Yarn from Hobby Lobby. While I generally really like the pattern, there were a couple of changes that had to be made to it:

1) It took almost two skeins of yarn from start to finish.
2) For Row 2, the "dc in first dc" should actually be "dc in chain 2". This was confusing until I realized the mistake.

Time for this project: 11 hours and 45 minutes
Total time: 19 hours and 55 minutes

Trial dishcloths

I've knitted dozens of dishcloths before (literally), and they were always a huge hit with my aunts and grandmothers. I've never crocheted any though, so I decided that crocheted dishcloths would be a good experiment. Hopefully the women at Safe Harbor will love them as much as my relatives did.

I loosely based my pattern after Lion Brand's "Dorothea Dishtowels", but I essentially only kept the base pattern of alternating single and double crochet stitches. I chained 25, and crocheted in rows until it made an even square,

then did a row of single crochet around the border to give it a more finished look.

For these, I used skeins of Lily Sugar n' Cream yarn. It's a really nice, 100% cotton yarn. I was able to use one skein to make two dishcloths, so each dishcloth came out to about a dollar to make.

These were experimental, so I alternated the base yarn and border colors to see how it would look. My plan is to donate them to Safe Harbor as a set. I liked how it turned out, so I think I'll do a variation of it next.

I've had trouble making my chains too tight, so for these I chained in a J hook, and then finished the pattern in an H hook. This helped a ton, and made my chain row just as long as my last row. I've had issues with that for so long that it was extremely satisfying to finally work this out!

Overall I was very pleased with these.

Time for each dishcloth: 1.5 hours

Time for all three: 4.5 hours

Total time: 8 hours and 10 minutes