Being Wonder Mommy: Crochet

I have newly been introduced to crochet... and it is awesome! There are so many things you can make for you, your kids and as gifts. Here are things that i've made so far and what they were made for. I am still at the beginner stage so most of these are easy to do.

Rainbow Baby Sorting Balls and Nesting Bowls in a Drawstring Bag.

I made this for a friend who is having a baby soon. Most of the pattern in not of my own creation. I can only claim the bag for myself. I used a pattern from Seriously Daisies that I found on Pinterest ( obsession). You can find the original pattern on the site here for the nesting bowls and here for the sorting balls. I made 1-6 in the different colors for the balls so later this can be used for learning to count too. To keep it all together I made the bag that can also expand into a play mat. I pretty much made a flat circle kept increasing and changing colors every three rows. On the last row I skipped every other stitch and made a long change to weave in and draw the bag together.

Peekaboo Knits

My friend who has been teaching me to crochet makes some amazing things! She has a Facebook page with a lot of her work that's available for purchase. I commissioned her to make fancy booties and a head band for a baby shower. Here is the picture:

You can see more or request things on her facebook: Peekaboo Knits

Crochet bowl

We pretty much stuck to the pattern from crochethealingandraymond.wordpress.com revisiting-the-granny-mandala. We stopped at row 9 for this size of a bowl. To make it stiff we used an at home recipe from justcraftyenough.com crocheted-bowls. This site has the directions but I'll put them here.
We used Lily Sugar and Cream variegated cotton yarn and a G hook. Once the crochet circle was made ( it should lay flat) we covered a plastic bowl of the size we liked with cling wrap. Next we dipped the crochet circle in a sugar water recipe:

Sugar water recipe
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup water
Cook on high heat but don't let it boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved then remove from heat.

We dipped our circle in the mixture until it was completely saturated and rung out the excess. Next we draped the crochet circle over our covered plastic bowl and formed it to our design. Let it sit on the bowl for 3 days and you got a bowl!

Faux Doily or Table Cloth / Cover

Some background first... I am not ready to try making doilies. The hook and yarn are just too small for me, I've only been crocheting for 2 months. But! I really wanted something to go on my antique hall table. So... I used the smallest hook I am comfortable with ( G ) and some thinnish yarn (Caron Simply Soft Party in silver sparkle) and a half doily pattern and made a table cover thing!
Here it is on the table:

...And closer look at the stitch...

I'm super happy with it and excited to eventually make doilies. I'm adding the pattern I used. It was the first time I used a chart versus written instructions.

Here is the pattern and a link for it:

Crochet Half Mandala - Chart ❥ 4U // hf by Chrisssiem

http://indulgy.com/post/6dHBnFpyF2/crochet-half-mandala-chart-u-hf
Also Craftsy.com has a great article about reading these charts and a good symbol chart. Follow the link here .

Scarves

We are big American football people. As practice in my crochet I made team scarves for myself, my husband, and my dad. I used a different stitch for each one to get the most practice. Guess our teams!
All scarves were made with Red Heart Team Spirit worsted yarn and an I hook.

I am a Tampa Bay Buccaneers Fan, my color yarn was Red/Black and my stitch was a shell pattern I followed from www.examiner.com/article/easy-one-skein-scarf-to-crochet.

Close up of stitch:

My husband is a Chicago Bears fan. For his scarf I also followed a pattern for a granite stitch from

capedcrocheter.wordpress.com

Close up of the stitch:

The last one is for dad, he is a LSU alumni so purple/gold for him. I used a textured single crochet stitch as follows:

Chain a multiple of 2 the add 3.

Row 1: 1 sc in 3rd chain from hook, *skip 1 ch, 2 sc into next ch, rep from * to last 2 ch, skip 1 ch, 1 sc into last ch, turn.

Row 2: Ch 1 ( counts as first sc), 1 sc in first sc, * skip 1 sc, 2 sc into nect sc, rep from * to last 2 sts, skip 1 sc, 1 sc in top of thr turning ch, turn.

Repeat row 2 for pattern