Posts Tagged ‘handmade’

Chick with a Stick – Learning Crochet

18
Mar

I recently learned to crochet with less than $5 to start, a few YouTube videos and a great book from the library. I decided that I needed something productive to do while nursing, mainly because I was feeling too attached to my iPhone but also because I had an itch to make something. I hadn’t been getting much studio time so my creative juice ducts were starting to plug, rather than develop an bad case of artist mastitis I picked up a crochet hook.

Inspired by a buddy of mine, thank you knit goddess Marilyn, who knit a beautiful sweater for Kahlan, I chose to delve into the wonderful word of yarn. Since my goal was to craft while breastfeeding I chose crochet for the blunt hook and less pieces. I figure there’s less chance of damaging the munchkin this way. I was also drawn to the organic nature of the work, and admittedly I was entranced with Amigurumi, the Japanese art of crocheting little critters. Too cute!

I started with a $3 pack of cheapo plastic crochet hooks and $2 of clearance #4 sport weight yarn. Using the recommended G size hook I started working a test square of Single Crochet to learn the ropes. About five rows in I got itchy. This is easy, do I really need an entire square? Nope. Hence the love of crochet being organic, I jumped right into Half Double Crochet on the next row. So on and so forth I worked my way through all of the major stitches:
Chain, Slip Stitch, Single Crochet, Half Double Crochet, Double Crochet and finally Treble Crochet. This is what I ended up with at the end of two weeks of dabbling:

How did I learn? I’m a self starter by nature so I googled crochet and found a ton of great resources. Lion Brand Yarn has an excellent reference library as well as a series of YouTube tutorials that I found the simplest and straight forward for each stitch. I fell in love with The Chicks with Sticks Guide to Crochet, and miss it terribly now that it’s back at the library. That book was my primary resource and helped me cement my foundation stitches while loading me up with hip modern pattern inspiration. That being said, my first non-practice square creation ended up being this little blue tree spirit from the Hiyou Miyazaki film My Neighbor Totoro. He began as a practice piece for crochet in the round initially intended to be a ball for the cat. I kept going though and he started lengthening and forming until I recognized him. A bit of cross stitching detail finished him up and he now has new purpose as a baby toy!

For my next project, I’m going to crochet a belt out of hemp since those 30 missing pounds are making it really hard to keep my pants up…

Tags: Crafts, handmade, Totoro, Toys

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Handmade Gifts – Can’t Buy Me Love

09
Mar

While anyone can buy a gift, and there are certainly plenty of things a new baby needs, there is a specialness to handmade items that just can’t be purchased. When someone chooses a gift it can be with little thought, but to make something takes a dedication of time that is priceless. Though we are grateful for everything we were given, these handmade pieces have a special place reserved in our baby memory box. They may even be passed on one day to our grandchildren and become heirlooom pieces for the next generation:
1. Crochet Cupcake hat from Uncle Alex.
2. Crochet baby gown made for Grama Diana by her Grama and now passed down five generations.
3. Knit button up sweater with matching booties from my buddy Marilyn.
4. Patchwork Baby Quilt from Matt at Bullseye and family.
5. Wood and Fabric wall art for the nursery from Uncle Alex and Katherine.