My Version of the Mile-A-Minute Baby Afghan

I finished my first Mile-A-Minute baby blanket and I love the concept.  Not only is it a great way to use up yarn, it's a beautifully polished finished project.  Because of the way its put together, you can combine yarns of different colours, brands and makes still present a very unified project.

I posted an "I'm finished" picture on the Facebook group, Crochet Addict.  Less than 24 hours later, it had 1000 likes and repeated requests for the pattern, so I decided to blog my version of the pattern here below, rather than try to respond to so many people individually.

Apologies for the pictures.  This is what you get when you take pictures on a cloudy/rainy late afternoon with your iphone.

The pattern is below.  Scroll down to find it!  On your way, check out some of the crochet eye candy in the photos.

This is how much white yarn I had left over.  Nothing makes a yarncrafter happier than using leftovers all up!

One of my favourite things about this pattern are the ridges created by joining the strips together.  I placed my strips backsides-together and used single crochets in the back loops only to get this look.  The ridges also keep the blanket nice and square and make it very easy to fold neatly.

A few of the edges look curled up in this photo.  This is a hasty and slightly deceptive shot.  I really should try to take some better pictures.  One of the best things about this blanket was how evenly the ends turned out.  Check out the symmetrical ends in some of the photos above.

Pattern Instructions - My Version:

The inspiration for this pattern is available through Ravelry.  Search for "Mile A Minute Baby Afghan (archived)" if you would like to see that version.  The Ravelry version links to this pattern.  My version is slightly different, so I'm writing it out below.

Materials:

This blanket was made with sport-weight (#3) yarn.  I used leftovers from my yarn bin so the amounts are a best guess, but here's what I used:

- For the colourful strips: Bernat Satin Sport - 3 colours, less than one skein each (this yarn is discontinued; a good substitute would be Caron Simply Soft Light; it's skeins are much bigger, so you would require significantly less)

- For the white edging: I used a combination of Bernat Satin Sport in "Aran" (discontinued) and Bernat Softee Baby in "Antique White."  I used approximately 1.5 skeins of the Bernat Satin Sport and 1 full skein of Softee Baby, so 2 full skeins of Softee Baby should be enough to do the trick!

- Because it was sport-weight yarn, I chose a G hook

- Keep your yarn needle and scissors handy; this blanket works out best when you work in the ends as you go (i.e., as you finish each strip)

Timeline:

I consider myself to be a medium-speed crocheter.  At my humble pace, each strip took one hour to complete, including working in the ends.  Time to join the strips and add the border was a bit extra.

To Crochet A Strip:

You'll use one of your colour choices make the inside of the strip first.  Then you'll add a white border around it.

Foundation: Ch 7. Join with sl in 1st ch to make a loop.  (Note: A magic ring will not work for this pattern.  Stick with the ch 7 option!)

Row 1: Ch 3, 2 dc in foundation loop.  Ch 3.  3 dc in foundation loop.

Rows 2-49*: Ch 3, turn.  3 dc in ch 3 space from previous row.  Ch 3.  3 more dc in space from previous row.  1 dc in top of ch 3 chain from the row below.

* = make the strip however long you'd like.  I found 50 worked well for sport-weight yarn and a baby blanket.  Different blanket and yarn sizes might work better with more or less rows.  Just make sure all your strips are the same.

Row 50: Ch 3, turn.  3 dc in ch 3 space from previous row.  Ch 5.  3 more dc in space from previous row.  1 dc in top of ch 3 chain from the row below.  Fasten off your yarn.

Now for the strip border:

Note: There is not really a "right side" or "wrong side" to the colour strip, since you've been crocheting back and forth, back and forth.

Join the border yarn with a slip stitch in any of the spaces along the side of the strip created by either the ch 3 or the lone dc.  Ch 3.  2 additional dc in this space.  Work 3 dc in each of the spaces created by the ch 3 or lone dc's along the side of the strip.  

When you get to the loop at either end,  work 12 tc into the loop, then continue up the other side with 3 dc in each space.  Join your last dc to the top of the starting ch3 and fasten off.

Now is the time to work in your ends.  Trust me, it's easier to do it now than when the blanket is all joined together!

Voila!  One strip complete!

It's your choice as to whether you'd like to stockpile all of your strips and join them together at the end, or join them as you go. It makes no difference either way.

Hold two finished strips with the backsides together.  (Look at the white border to determine which is the front and which is the back.)  At this point the strips also have a top and a bottom, thanks to the v-shape created by the colourful middle of each strip.  Make sure the Vs are pointing the same way before you start joining!

(Here is where I may need to add pictures.)

Using your border colour, and starting in the back loops of the 10th tc on the arched ends of the strip, join the 2 strips together with a sl.  Crocheting in the back loops only, work your way down the strip, beginning with the 11th tc, then the 12th tc, then each of the dcs, using sc to join the strips together.  Fasten off once you reach the 3rd tc of the arch at the other end of the strip.  Work in your ends.

Finishing:

To firm up the edges of the blanket, complete a round of sc around the entire blanket.  I used one sc in each dc around.  In order to keep the arched/scalloped edges curvy, I stitched 2sc into most of the tc stitches on the ends of the blanket.  (I'll post a diagram later to show what I mean.)

If you have any questions about the instructions, please leave a comment below and I'll do my best to clear it up for you!  Enjoy!

Free Ruffly Flower Headband Pattern

This is my 150th post on this blog!  Wow.  Since I started keeping track of all most of my crafty fun in February 2011, it seems that my love of making things has grown.  I'm sure my blog has fed my passion and my passion has fed my blog.  Plus it's totally cool to look back and see what I've learned to do with yarn and other crafty bits in the past few years.

I digress.

A 150th anything calls for a celebration!  So I'm sharing a free (and easy) pattern with you.

Ruffly Flower Baby Headband

You will need:
- a small amount of worsted weight yarn (I used Red Heart Soft)
- a small amount of Red Heart Boutique Sashay yarn
- an H hook
- a nickel-sized button that matches your worsted weight yarn
- a sewing needle and thread that matches your worsted weight yarn

To Make The Headband:
1.  Using your worsted weight yarn, make a row of chain stitches long enough to wrap around the circumference of baby's head.  Then add three extra chains to your row.
2.  Skip the first three chains in your row, and then make one double crochet stitch in each chain stitch across.
3.  Fasten off and work in the ends.
4.  Use the needle and thread to securely stitch your button near one end of the headband.

The gaps between the double crochet stitches work as button holes, so that the headband is completely adjustable.

To Make The Flower Base:
1.  Begin with your worsted weight yarn.  Make a magic ring, chain 2, and work 9 half-double crochet stitches into your loop.  Join with a slip stitch at the top of your first half-double crochet stitch to make a circle.  Pull the magic loop closed.
2.  Round 2: Chain 2. 2 half-double crochets in the joining stitch and in each remaining stitch around.  (18 hdc.)  Join with a slip stitch at the top of your first half-double crochet stitch to complete the round.
3.  Round 3: Chain 2.  2 half-double crochets in the joining stitch, one half-double crochet in the next stitch.  Continue the pattern of 2 hdc, 1 hdc around the circle for a total of 27 hdc.  Join with a slip stitch at the top of your first half-double crochet stitch to complete the round.
4.  Round 4: Chain 1.  2sc in in joining stitch, one sc in each of the next two stitches.  Continue the pattern of 2sc, sc, sc around the circle for a total of 36 sc.  Join with a slip stitch at the top of your first sc stitch to complete the round.  Fasten off your yarn.  Don't work in the ends just yet.  Leave them for attaching the finished flower to the band.

To Make The Ruffly Flower:
Pause here for a minute and check out the helpful video tutorial ("How To Apply Sashay Yarn To Projects") from The Crochet Crowd on working with Sashay yarn.

(Start at 9:41 to get the idea for working in circles and an understanding of why you must start from the outside of the circle.)

1. Affix the sashay yarn to the backside outer edge of your flower base.
2. Working in a spiral, join the sashay yarn with slip stitches to your flower base.  I slip-stitched in every 3rd loop of the sashay mesh to get a nice, poufy flower.
3.  After you have slip stitched into the centre of your flower base, fasten off and affix the yarn to the back side of your flower base.

Finishing:
1.  Use a yarn/darning needle and the loose ends of your flower base to firmly stitch the flower onto the headband.
2.  Use the regular needle and thread to firmly stitch the button to one end of the headband.  (See picture.)

Dreamt it, did it! (A "deer" little project.)

It's pretty satisfying: I am getting to the point with crochet where I can imagine something and then work it up.  It rarely works out the first time, but when I finally get it right, all the ripped out stitches don't matter!

Here is a gift from my nephew Mason's shower, earlier this summer.  (I should add that his dad is an avid hunter.)

A deer antler ear flap hat!!!

I made this in sportweight acrylic yarn.  I was going to stuff the antlers, but the crochet was tight enough that they just stood up on their own.

No pattern for this one (yet).  But if I have occasion to make another, I will definitely write down the steps this time. ;)

He loves it!

No such thing as too much ruffles?!?

All the way back in May, I posted a Facebook link to Baby's First Gown from The Crochet Crowd and offered to make it for the first responder.  My darling Kimiko was quickest on the draw and chose the colours and sizes for her darling, Willow Mei.

It took me until summer holidays to get started on this project, but once I did, it was hard to put down!  The pattern calls for RedHeart mini sashay, but we took it to the next level with RedHeart regular Sashay yarn (bigger ruffles and more colour options).

First, you crochet a full dress from the top down.  Then, you add on the ruffles, working from the bottom up in a corkscrew pattern.

Watching this project come together was like watching some kind of science experiment grow...

...and grow...until it overflowed the project bowl!

Here is the finished project.  I didn't track time, but I'm guessing it took me between 12 and 15 hours to put this sweet little dress together.

The best part?  It's soft.  And squishy.  Willow Mei is going to be extra huggable in this thing!

Finishing detail: a sparkly black button on the back!

I will need a bit of a rest from this pattern, before I try making it again, but I am willing to do custom orders on this one.  It requires $25.00-$30.00 of yarn.  Based on the time and technique it took to put this one together, this one comes with a $70.00 price tag.  (And sorry: it's for kids only! It's available in sizes 6 months to 2 years.)

Stay tuned....
...for a freebie pattern to make a matching flower headband!

Things Are Looking Bright!

I have something awesome that I want everybody to see....

Ta-DA!

Don't you just love it?  (Can you tell that I do?)  It's like a bag of Skittles popped open...and somehow serendipitously arranged themselves into orderly rows of colour.

This is a simple granny stripe.  If you want to know more about what's involved with the pattern, you should check out Attic 24, my go-to web space for all things granny.

It takes 15 minutes to make a stripe.  Multiply that times 27 rows and you've got 405 minutes.  Divide that by 60 and you'll know that I've sunk 6.75 hours into this blanket already.   Oh, and I started it yesterday.  (I should mention that I learned I could watch full episodes from HGTV online yesterday, too. That may have had something to do with it.)

It's not quite finished yet.  There's the whole deal of working in ends.  (The yucky part.)  And I'm going to put a border on it.  I still have lots of the berry colour left, so the border will be mostly in that shade.

It just feels so good.  It's crocheted in mercerized cotton so it has a nice weight to it and it's cool and silky to the touch.

Some baby girl needs this blanket.  And it's going to be for sale.  Stay tuned.

Another Finished Project!

It's done!  This is the baby blanket/play mat I started as a distraction during report cards.  I didn't get very far with it until summer vacation started, but it was a great project to bring for a cottage weekend with family.  Mindless, repetitive crochet was a great addition to the weekend.

The blanket measures about 30" by 30."

This was a "just because" blanket.  I had a big ball of yarn and it needed to be made into something beautiful.  Now, some "just because" fancy shots.

I made this blanket last year in creamy white for a friend's little guy.  She says he still loves it...loves running his fingers over the texture of it.  She also informs me it washes up well (washer and dryer friendly).  From what I know about baby things, that's important. ;)

I have another big ball of sunny yellow and another big ball of creamy white.  Anybody want a blanket? I would do a custom order for $40.00.

An up-close shot of the texture (with slightly skewed colour).

Simple tweed-stitch border, finished off with a slip-stitch edge.

Also, just because, I had a great shopping trip to the big Ten Thousand Villages in New Hamburg yesterday.  Check out this beautiful basket I got for our attic hangout space. ($29.00 AND fair trade!)
It's meant to hold blankets, the remote and the cases from whatever DVDs we happen to be watching lately.

Our Christmas afghan became an everyday afghan.  It's just the right colour for our (mostly beige) upper floor.

Basket detail: it's wrapped in recycled sari fabric.

Complements my crafty pillow pretty nicely, don't you think?

Baby Shower Cupcakes

This is my newest nephew, Mason.  

He was born in mid-June and I attended a baby shower in his honour at my sister's house last week.  When I saw these rainbow-coloured facecloths on my sister's registry, I knew exactly what I wanted to gift him...

...onesie/washcloth cupcakes!

Want to see how to make them?  (They're way easier than actual cupcakes, I promise!)

These cupcakes are not a completely original idea.  It's based on something I found on Pinterest.  If you need a fussier tutorial, look it up on Youtube.  You'll find tons of videos on how to make them...some involving glue, pins, etc.  These are way easier...I promise...but the other methods are worth googling.

Today's tutorial will be presided over by Mr. Monk...the cookie jar that sits in our kitchen (and is never full of cookies, but usually full of dark chocolate).

Hey there, Mr. Monk.

 First, you fold the washcloth.

Fold in the sides to meet the middle...

...and then fold it up like a hotdog.  This hides the washcloth seams.

Then just roll the hotdog on up to get the swirly "icing" part that looks something like this.

 Next, you fold the onesie.  I used Carter's brand size 6-month onesies.  They came in 3-packs at Target and were the boldest and most wide-ranging colours I could find.  (Why are most little boy things blue and green?  Other colours are fun too, you know!)

Tuck the sleeves in, then fold both sides of the onesie in to meet in the middle.

 I missed a picture of the next step, but it's similar to the washcloth.  Just fold it one more time like a hotdog.

Then you're ready to start rolling the "cupcake" around the "icing."  Make sure the icing is sticking out the top a little bit.  It makes the top a bit rounded and the bottom a bit narrow, which is how you get that cupcake-y shape.

These little dishes worked way better than the cupcake papers / mini coffee filters I tried.  I bought them at Dollarama.  They're BPA-free so they're usable as baby dishes or bath toys afterwards.  They come in sets of 4 (blue, pink, yellow, green) with 4 matching little spoons.

Plunk the washcloth and onesie into the cup.  Fluff it or play with it a bit if you need to.  They don't always look great on the first try.

Et voila.  You've got yourself a nifty gift.

Worth noting: the wrapping materials cost about $4.00 ($1.00 for the tray; $2.50 for 2 sets of ice-cream bowls; 50 cents for 1/2 roll of cellophane).  It's really no more than the cost of a cutesy gift bag or some paper and a bow...and they're reusable!

Look What I'm Making Now!

Here's my latest work in progress. It's report card time, so I needed something repetitive and mindless to get my hands busy when my brain starts to slow down. Nothing like a few rows of crochet to make you feel like:
(a) you're accomplishing something and
(b) there's a steady rhythm to life

Both if these are great feelings when report cards begin to feel like a never-ending job that's taking way longer than you thought it should!  (Side note:  It always takes longer than I think it should.  About twice as long, in fact.  But there is comfort in the fact that I won't be writing these again for a while.)

This is a return to an old pattern. It's not my pattern, but you can find it online for free. You can also check out my previous adventures with this pattern from June 2013 and December 2012 in my blog archives. And, hey, if you're lucky, you can come back and view the finished product on my blog in a couple of weeks...or maybe less. Crochet progress is typically inversely proportional to progress with everything else in life.

Revisiting An Old Make

Today I dug out a tote of yarn from the basement.  It contains an afghan that I started two summers ago and have yet to finish.  I managed to add about 8" to it today, and set the goal of finishing it by Christmas.  I've decided that I like having several projects on the go so that I can break up the monotony of row-on-row-on-row stitches.

I digress.

In the box I found a print-out of the pattern I used to make this sweet baby blanket for my niece back in the Spring of 2011.  

I just love the rainbow of colours!  Red, yellow, blue, green, orange and purple makes a gender-neutral afghan.

Yes...a print-out from my pre-iPad days when I carried around my patterns on on pieces of paper.  This is exciting because the pattern is no longer available online and I have had some fellow crafters ask me for it.  Here's one more close-up of the blanket, and then I'll post the gist of the pattern below.

Brick Crochet Afghan/Blanket Pattern:

Foundation Row: Chain 131 with your main colour.  Make one double crochet in the 4th chain from the hook and in each chain thereafter (128 dcs).  Join colour A and turn.

Row 1: With colour A, chain 1.  Make 1 sc in each of the first 4 dc.  *Ch 1, miss 1 dc, 1 sc in each of the next 9 dc*  Repeat from * until you get to the last 5 dc.  ch 1 and miss 1 dc, then finish the row with 1 sc in each of the last 4 dc. Turn.

Rows 2-4: Ch 1.  1 sc in each st to the end of the row (In row 2, this includes the gap made by your ch 1 from row 1).  At the end of row 4, join your main colour again.

An ingenious stitch into the row of black a few centimetres below creates the funky brick pattern in this blanket.

Row 5: (This is the exciting one!)  With your main colour, ch 1, 1 sc in first 4 stitches, then *1 tc in the skipped sc 4 rows below.  No sc in the stitch behind the tc.  1 sc in each of the next 9 stitches.  Repeat from * to the last 4 stitches.   Then 1 tc in the skipped stitch 4 rows below and 4 sc to finish out the row. Turn.

Row 6: Ch 3 (counts as dc).  1 dc in each stitch across the entire row.

Row 7: This is like Row 1 again, except in order to get the brick look, you're going to make 1 sc in each of the first 9 stitches, then ch 1, skip 1 dc and keep going with the same pattern (1 sc in each of next 9 dc, ch 1, skip 1 dc and repeat, repeat, repeat).

Rows 8-10 are like Rows 2-4, etc., etc., etc.,

Another shot of the brick-like afghan.

For edging, the pattern recommends one round of sc all the way around (with 3 sc in each corner), then two rows of the tweed stitch.  It looks like I was having so much fun with the brick/window pane look that I used that for the border as well. :)

For a brick/window pane blanket border:

Round 1: Using main colour, sc evenly around the entire blanket, with 3 scs in each corner.
Round 2: Using an alternate colour, 2 sc, ch 1, skip one sc all the way around the blanket, working 3 scs into each corner
Round 3: Using main colour, crochet 1 dc into the sc stitch below the skipped stitch and 2 sc into the next 2 scs.  (Repeat, still workng 3 scs into each corner.)
Round 4: Finish with a round of slip stitches in your main colour.

Baby Blanket With Texture

The baby boom continues.  Malachi James Giles was born in May 2013.  His proud parents are good friends of mine from university.  When we visited Ottawa in early June, we made a quick stop to meet this little fellow

and drop off this gift:

The blanket is inspired by the Polka Dots & Frills pattern I have used previously.  I don't know if I just crochet loosely, but I find that I like to reduce the stitches in this pattern, turning triple crochets into doubles, etc. for a tighter weave that still has enough drape.  Using the old version of Bernat Chunky, it works up a nice, plush blanket that doubles as a play mat.  Since the Bernat Chunky is acrylic, it's safe to put it in the washer and dryer as well.

I love the plush texture!  It's so fun to run your fingers over.

This blankie is a one-skein wonder.  Yep, the entire thing is made with one big ball of yarn.  To make the blanket a little more masculine (and to reduce the amount of yarn it used, since I only had one big ball), I ditched the ruffles and added a wide border of tweed stitches with a final round of slip stitches to give a nice finished edge.

Simple blanket border using 1 round sc, 5 rounds of the tweed stitch, and 1 final round of slip stitches.