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!

They're Live!

I have my Harry Potter inspired Golden Snitch lovey and my Octopus lovey available in my Ravelry and Etsy stores!

I'm so happy with how they turned out!

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!

Eevee Lovey!!

I just wanted to let everyone know I have a new crochet pattern available in my Ravelry and Etsy stores!

It's an Eevee Lovey! Available for only $2.50!

Eventually, I will have the entire Eeveelution set in Loveys, but for now, Eevee's all I got.

Next up: Vaporeon! (Because it's my favourite ;D)

Finally finishing up some projects!

Seeing as I'm trying to overcome crocheters-block right now, I've decided it's time I get out some of my projects that I started forever ago and actually finish them.

So far, I've been able to complete 2 baby blankets (I am ashamed to say that one of them was started in 2011 and didn't get finished until now) though I still have 2 full sized afghans that need to be finished. Luckily, they're both more than halfway finished so it shouldn't take me more than a month or two. I also need to finish my first full sized sweater that I ever started and a cable-knit hat that I've been putting off because I lost my place in the pattern and I don't know how to continue it.

I'm going to keep working on hats and such to sell at craft sales and online but I'm going to try and hold off starting anymore big projects.

For those of you waiting for new patterns: DO NOT FRET! I'm going to have a little more free time in the next couple weeks to write up some of my patterns and get pictures for the ones already written up.

Hunger Games Afghan COMPLETED!

I DID IT
I FINALLY DID IT
I COMPLETED AN ENTIRE AFGHAN
IT'S ACTUALLY DONE
AND IT DIDN'T TAKE ME 3 YEARS

It doesn't look huge, but it is. And it's heavy. I can't even use it right now because it's too heavy for summer. I tried last night and I ended up waking up sweating like crazy and kicking it off my bed

Now I just have to finish the other two afghans that I started . . .

Spencer blanket done!

Finished my Spencer blanket for if I have any children in the future.

My aunt is due to have a little girl in November so I want to make her one of these. I`ll just wait until the kid has actually been born and named before I start the center portion.

The pattern I used can be found here -> http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/personalized-baby-afghan

I like to plan ahead . . . years ahead

I've known for at least a few years that if I ever have a kid, and that kid turns out to be a girl, I want to name her Jensen. Regardless of my significant other when/if the time comes, it's happening. I will not budge on this.

I also recently added Spencer to my list of names-my-daughters-will-be-named

To make sure that no one can screw with my future life plans, I made this

Whoever I'm dating/involved with/married to at the time will have to go with it because fuck you this took me five fucking days to make and that's a huge amount of commitment for me so get used to the name because this is it.

I already started on one for Spencer, but three-quarters of the way through I decided I hated the colours I had picked (white and burgundy) so I had to take time out of my vacation and go buy some more yarn. I finally decided on pale gold and a dusty pink. 

I'll post pictures when I'm done!

I also plan on making a few of these blankets for my aunt (she already has a daughter and is expecting another little girl in October so I won't be starting on that one until the little one's born and officially named)

The pattern I used can be found here -> http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/personalized-baby-afghan

Districts 8 and 9 complete!

I finally finished these two; District 9 took me quiet a bit of time seeing as I started it before I had to travel to the states twice in the same week (a four hour car ride each way).

That shouldn't really be an excuse seeing as I had about 16 hours driving time, but I get really bad motion sickness in cars if I try to do anything that I have to stare at. Knitting and crocheting makes my head spin and reading . . . I just end up throwing up. Tiny print and constant motion does not sit well with me.

(In general, I get really bad motion sickness. Like flying and fair rides and driving, but the worst is being on a boat. Which fucking sucks because I love the water.)

And I have another trip to the states planned in a few weeks. Awesome.

Hopefully I'll have the entire blanket finished before then, but in case not, here's 8 & 9.

I changed the chart for 9 because I figured if nines official industry is grain, I didn't really get the point of the factory. 

9 down, 3 to go!

In the process of making a Hunger Games blanket . . .

I've been contemplating making this damn blanket for the part year and a half. It's a make-a-square blanket with each square representing each individual District (most of the charts I used can be found here -> Shywalker but the rest I improvised) but I'm really really bad at picking colours (almost as bad as I am at picking names for my stories) so I've put it off

Also, I knew that if I decided to make this blanket, I was going to have to shell out at least $25 for yarn because I didn't have any mass-quantities of any one colour.

I ended up just saying "screw it" and starting with whatever I had (which ended up being this really old glittery pink yarn that I have no idea where it came from and two balls of white bernat premium yarn)

I've finished Districts 1 thru 7 and just started on District 8 (which I'm really excited about because I get to use this cool purple colour)

I only have five squares left (including District 8 which I'm working on right now)

I used all of Shywalkers charts except for Districts 5, 6 and 9. 

I'll upload a completed picture as soon as it's complete!

Quick question: What colour do you think I should boarder the squares with?