crochetcollection

Last year at the Mary Maxim tent sale, I went with a list of patterns and the wool I would need, including three from this book. I ended up purchasing enough for just one of the projects, the Special Occasions Coat.

I ended up with Lion brand Basic Stitch in the colour Steel Blue. I could have used wool instead of an acrylic blend and I might do so if I ever make it again but I was thinking of cost and also the likelihood of a child being able to maintain a wool coat. The worst would be if the child is like my gramma, who gets itchy just looking at wool.

The pattern is relatively straightforward, comprised of alternating single and treble crochet stitch to make these lovely little bobbles! The body is a simple 2sc,sk1 repeated.

I started with the Tam, which refuses to photograph well but was finished first.

I then moved to the coat which was fun as it was mostly just a rectangle.

It gave me a bit of a hard time in the body after this first part.

The sleeves were easy enough as they were standard shaped. The right and left fronts were more difficult as I couldn't quite sort out the shape? I didn't realize until later that the pattern wanted the yoke to be crocheted straight onto the body and thus the right and left fronts didn't need to be the same height as the back. The right and front lefts had some weird decreases too that i sorted out as well as I could so I could at least have the right number of stitches.

Then I put it down for 5 months as I had some competing projects. But I've gotten tired of looking at the big thing (which will be my largest completed wearable!) And it's in a huge bag, so I thought I may as well finish it to make room for some other pieces!

Luckily when I pulled it out I realized that I had just gotten to the sewing portion and so it wasn't far off from being done.

I took it to my craft circle, where I sewed up the bottom sleeve seams. Then I brought it home, on a roll, sewed the sleeve to the body. And I started the yoke! Thrilled, I told my partner that I was nearly done, looking at the pattern I noticed the final line:

"Fold up cuffs at markers".

...

What markers?

And then I realized.

I had wondered about the odd shaped sleeve (top) but assumed it was some sort of bell sleeve. Upon rereading the pattern I realized the sleeve was actually comprised of a cuff with bobble pattern (wrong side) that folded over into the cuffed chunky sleeve you see here (bottom).

I had sewn the sleeves inside out. To fix it, I had to undo the row of yoke, cut the sleeves off the body, and then cut the sleeve seams and redo the whole thing. What a pain!

I took my time doing it but I could at least see the end in sight.

So once I had completed the coat and hat I realized I still had almost two whole balls of yarn left. In the interest of finishing a fibre arts bingo square, I made a little purse to match from a combination of the bobble stitch in the coat and my own brain.

It all turned out very cute and I'm quite proud of it! I still have one ball of the wool and I may make a pair of mittens or a little dolly to go with the set but for now I'm setting it aside.

You also may notice the buttons aren't attached yet! This is partially bc I don't love attaching buttons and partially bc I found the perfect buttons! .... but the store only had 4 total buttons and I need 8 (7 for the coat, 1 for the purse).

I am going to check some other stores to see if I can find some suitable alternatives/the same buttons, but if not, 2 of the buttons are up quite high in the collar fold over so those could be plain possibly, leaving me with 5 for the coat and 1 for the purse which only leaves me 2 short. We will have to see what I can find in the mean time.

I've selected the following wool, and I've already started it and swapped out the yellow for the green.

I can't say I love this yarn, it's slippery and seems prone to splitting but it is soft and shiny (and was cheap) which I do like.

I also was quickly charmed by the xsc the pattern calls for as I think it looks pretty and works up very flat.

I've selected the following wool, and I've already started it and swapped out the yellow for the green.

I can't say I love this yarn, it's slippery and seems prone to splitting but it is soft and shiny (and was cheap) which I do like.

I also was quickly charmed by the xsc the pattern calls for as I think it looks pretty and works up very flat.

Fair warning the page is full of ads and isn't very clear as far as patterns go, but it is cute and I took it and ran with it

I bought the yarn, which was on sale and is all Bernat Premium. I don't love using acrylic always but this needs to hold up and also hold up to use for a baby.

The pattern itself is pretty basic, but I didn't buy enough of the main blue and despite being a "no dye lot" ball it was a very different colour than the original ball which is pretty evident in the final product unfortunately

I got to eyeball the edge a bit and took sample pictures as I went

Once I'd finished the main part of the blanket, I had to sort out the bee pattern. I went through a bunch of free options but I wanted the bees to look very particular and cute!

Eventually I decided to shell out as I found the perfect pattern in Scattiecrochet over on Etsy!

It's so cute and definitely turned out the best! I could not initially sort out the French knot for the eye but I eventually figured it out even if I still don't understand how it works haha

I spent a solid evening trimming up all the edges, sewing the buttons on and finishing it up.

(Pro tip: if they say you can make a project in a weekend they are lying to you)

nonetheless I was instantly enamored with this little set, but also needed to find a yarn locally with which to make it (insert here my usual rant about cotton baby weight yarn)

Aren't they cute??

After some online investigation I made my selection of Rowan Summerlite DK, a 100% cotton that was available in the next town over! I bought the blue/orange/white but sadly they didn't have any yellow. Seeing as the yellow is the key to this project, this presented a conundrum.

Never fear! I said to myself, I will order the yellow online! And I did ! I ordered a beautiful yellow called sunshine for the ducks!

The package was finally delivered ! I ripped open the box! ... to see the ugliest shade of baby poop yellow green I've ever seen in my life

I liked it bc it came in a smaller package which is all I really needed. I decided I would dye 2 of the 3 skeins of white I had, and I unwound the balls into loosely tied hanks so the dye would permeate evenly.

I used a yellow hard sided grocery bin and filled it with the requisite hot water/dye as per the directions. The yarn immediately tangled once it was in the water but at least it dyed very evenly.

It ended up maybe a wee bit paler than I maybe would have liked but it still is pretty and matches up nice to the rest of the wool.

The plain blue row was easy peasy but I didn't like how the two ducks looked on the top (facing the same way) and decided to make them face one another instead. This was about when I found out that in order for the ducks to look anything like what they were supposed to, the orange "beak" stitch had to be on the "right" side of the garment as you need to be able to see a particular side of the half double crochet.

I cannot tell you how many times I redid this particular duck before I managed to get them where I wanted to, but the opposite side worked up much quicker as a consequence.

Or more specifically, I had to learn how to purl, which I only did after much trial, many error, and a minor case of wrist strain.

At the same time, I was also doing the booties which didn't take nearly as much time.

I spent a whole evening pretty much just weaving in the various ends, taking these as small breaks from doing the knitting which, once again, was killing my hands. I also did not get a lot of pictures as I was literally knitting and finishing up this project on Monday, with baby due on Friday.

I struggled quite a lot with the collar of the garment as it called for a huge number of stitches to be picked up, nearly twice as many as crochet stitches were available. I'm realizing now I could have treated these as yarn over increases but cannot emphasize enough, learning as I went. The collar thus turned out a bit small but I managed to get some weird increases in that I think made it work a little better. (Who knew increases in a 1x1 rib would be hard!)

I swapped the ties on the booties from blue to orange (which I had so much more of). I also changed the shape of the bottoms to be a bit more oval and they did turn out delightfully chunky.

The mum to be was quite thrilled! By the time this is posted, he will hopefully have arrived!

I did not attach buttons, those will come later as I need to pick up the perfect pack (I'm thinking orange?) I increased the total number of button holes from 3 to 5 as well.

I have more than enough yellow and orange left and I think I'm going to make a little duck toy from the same book. I have some time before the baby figures out he has hands, and some time before he figures out how to work said hands though so I should be alright.

(Pro tip: if they say you can make a project in a weekend they are lying to you)

nonetheless I was instantly enamored with this little set, but also needed to find a yarn locally with which to make it (insert here my usual rant about cotton baby weight yarn)

Aren't they cute??

After some online investigation I made my selection of Rowan Summerlite DK, a 100% cotton that was available in the next town over! I bought the blue/orange/white but sadly they didn't have any yellow. Seeing as the yellow is the key to this project, this presented a conundrum.

Never fear! I said to myself, I will order the yellow online! And I did ! I ordered a beautiful yellow called sunshine for the ducks!

The package was finally delivered ! I ripped open the box! ... to see the ugliest shade of baby poop yellow green I've ever seen in my life

I liked it bc it came in a smaller package which is all I really needed. I decided I would dye 2 of the 3 skeins of white I had, and I unwound the balls into loosely tied hanks so the dye would permeate evenly.

I used a yellow hard sided grocery bin and filled it with the requisite hot water/dye as per the directions. The yarn immediately tangled once it was in the water but at least it dyed very evenly.

It ended up maybe a wee bit paler than I maybe would have liked but it still is pretty and matches up nice to the rest of the wool.

The plain blue row was easy peasy but I didn't like how the two ducks looked on the top (facing the same way) and decided to make them face one another instead. This was about when I found out that in order for the ducks to look anything like what they were supposed to, the orange "beak" stitch had to be on the "right" side of the garment as you need to be able to see a particular side of the half double crochet.

I cannot tell you how many times I redid this particular duck before I managed to get them where I wanted to, but the opposite side worked up much quicker as a consequence.