Christmas and finals and babies, oh my

Between first semester finals and the increase in baby announcements from friends and family, I've been completely swamped. Add to that the fact that I've hardly done any Christmas shopping and I'm a little stressed out right now.

I've been working on a few patterns and I know I promised an updated pattern for my Mermaid costume, but I haven't been able to get any pictures of it yet. It's all written up, just waiting on a baby model for some pictures.

My cousin and his fiancee just recently announced that they are expecting so I was super excited to start working on some new baby stuff (my favourite!).  They're letting the gender be a surprise so they asked for everything to be gender-neutral, and the theme they picked was owls and elephants (not sure how that's gonna work, but I shall deliver).

I decided to use some baby combo yarn I've been saving to make a baby blanket. It's pretty thin yarn and the pattern I'm using makes the rows quite short so it's definitely taken the longest time out of any baby blanket I've ever made.

The way it's working up makes it a pretty dense blanket but it's super soft. I'm excited to see how it turns out. I'm thinking about adding a sc border of yellow once it's done but we'll see.

Since they asked for owls, I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to test out my Hedwig pattern (although I changed the colours). I'm not sure what colour I want to make the blanket part yet (I'm thinking yellow, again, or maybe light green), but so far only the owl is done. I gave it brown wings to make it look more like the owls we have up here.

I've also been commissioned to make baby blankets and such for a few friends and some of my friends family so that will probably be taking up a lot of my Christmas break. Here's hoping that I get everything done on time.

Wish me luck on finals!

Hogwarts House Loveys

The patterns for these cute Harry Potter Hogwarts house inspired loveys are available on my Etsy and Ravelry shops!

I'm a Gryffindor so I'm really happy with how the Gryffindor lovey turned out, but I'm actually really impressed with the Hufflepuff badger! It's pretty cute, not gonna lie.

I also posted the pattern for my Hedwig lovey.

I've been working on these in my spare time (and by spare time, I mean the time when I'm supposed to be studying or doing homework) and they actually came along fairly quickly. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to do in the next few months as I get into Clinical and midterms but I'll keep you all posted!

UPDATE: More Harry Potter inspired Loveys

That's right. More loveys!

I have to admit that I'm obsessed with making loveys at this point. I think they're adorable and they're relatively simple to make so I've been making it my life's goal that, when not studying, I'm working on creating new loveys.

Seeing as my Golden Snitch lovey is my most popular pattern in my Etsy shop, I figured I'd make more inspired by the HP series!

(Left to right: Hedwig, Raven, Lion, Snake, Badger)

(Left to right: Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor)

As posted a while ago, I do have a Sorting Hat lovey in the making but I seem to have misplaced him at the moment. Also, I realize that Ravenclaw's animal is not, in fact, a raven, but it bothers me and I decided to change it.

While these are all in the process to being made into loveys, I had the idea to make them into a mobile for a nursery (how cute would that be?!).

All of the patterns are completed and the blankets are made, I just need to find the time to sew each of these little dudes onto their respective blankets and then post the patterns.

Which one is do you guys like the best? Let me know! (Shayne's favourite is Hedwig even though he doesn't like the series)

New Custom Baby Blanket Graph Pattern NOW FOR SALE!

It's been pretty crazy around my place lately; new jobs, figuring out school, lots of birthdays, and my cousin had his second baby (a boy! The first in our family since 1996).

Whenever people have babies, my favourite thing to make are name blankets. I find so many cute ones that I have trouble deciding which pattern to use. Usually when I pick a pattern though, I keep it in the family. I made one for my cousin Brynn when she was born in 2010 and when her sister, Aubree, was born last year, I used the same pattern but in different colours.

Since the new baby (Lauton; so cute!) is the first boy in the family in a while, I decided I needed something extra special and extra cute and I just wasn't loving any of the patterns I was finding.

So. . .

Ta-da!

A new pattern!

I'm still working on the one for little Lauton so I don't have a sample for the pattern, but once I got the idea I just had to share it with everyone.

Completely personal, completely customizable and completely adorable!

Attack of the Loveys

I have a new-found obsession with making Loveys. I'd never seen one before a couple weeks ago and now I have ideas to make about a hundred different ones!

I know I said the next one I'd be posting would be a Vaporeon Lovey pattern, but I had so many cute ideas, and so I started making others before I even had the chance to pick up yarn to make a Vaporeon one.

I just finished two new designs today, but my indoor lighting is shit right now so I'll be taking pictures of them tomorrow and possibly posting the patterns in my shop later tomorrow evening. One is ocean-themed because I have an obsession with the sea (I am landlocked and the closest ocean is a 12 hour drive) and eventually when I'm ready to have kids, I want to make an ocean/beach-themed nursery. The other Lovey is actually Harry Potter themed because I'm a little bit of a huge HP nerd.

Hopefully I'll have those out tomorrow, so be sure to keep an eye out for them!