Ravelry Pattern Hodgepodge Butterfly Afghan

   When I heard that my cousin and his wife were going to decorate their nursery with butterflies I began "favorite-ing" oodles of butterfly patterns on Ravelry... I LOVE butterflies, and I wish more parents would use them in their daughter's nursery theme.

     When I first saw the pattern for this afghan (which is made up of squares) I knew that it would be perfect (granted I would do some tweaking). I decided to only make 25 square (instead of the 35 the pattern called for...16 of square #1 and 9 of square #2)) since the time before the baby shower was running out.

     I also used a different butterfly pattern because I couldn't get the one from the afghan pattern to lay flat.

     After I saw this edging the scallops would not do. Somehow I couldn't get the butterfly edging to look right (so either I was doing something wrong or there was a slight error in the pattern) so I edited so that it reads as follows:

dc cluster = ch 3, yo, insert, draw up, yo, draw through 2, yo, insert in same st, draw up, yo, draw through 2, yo draw through all,

Tr cluster = ch 3, (yo 2, insert in same st, draw up, yo, draw through 2, yo, draw through 2) 3 times, yo draw through all, ch 4, sl st in same st

Antenna st = ch 5 tightly, ch 1 loosely (later you will cut this ch), ch 5 tightly, sl st in same st,

Butterfly= dc cluster, ch 1, tr cluster in last ch, antenna st in same st, ch 1, tr cluster in same st, dc cluster in the same st, sk 4 st in round 1 and sl st in 4th st

Notes: In between each of the butterflies you sc 10... Of course I had to tweak this too, instead leaving it basic I repeated this in between the butterflies:
(sl st, ch 2, sc in same st, sc 1)

 I guess I can't be perfectly happy with anything because after the first couple of squares I changed the pattern so that I would finish the first corner at the beginning of the round instead of doing half at the beginning and the other half at the end, which caused the corner to stretch out and look uneven. (like the upper left corner of the square above)

I even sewed the squares together differently than the usual whip stitch. Instead I used the flat braid join method that I found here and I used the tips from here.

One Day, One Skein Scarfs

A while back I started crocheting these one day one skein scarves...nothing elaborate just an opportunity to use up some variegated yarn. Somehow I'm always behind the seasons, I began making this scarf in early December... just as fall was coming to an end.

For the first three here I used Red Heart Super Saver Yarn (The one with 244yds on it.)

To begin ch 17-20 (whatever you feel like)
Row 1: dc in 3rd ch from hook, dc across
The rest of the rows: ch 2, dc across
Fasten off at the end of a row when you have 12-16yds of yarn left, depending on you long you want the fringe. If you don't want a fringe just work until don't have enough yarn to complete a row.

On this one I used scs instead of dcs and I forgot to save yarn for the fringe so I've been trying to find a solid yarn that will match one of the colors of blue. Blues are so hard to match.

For these last two I used Lion Brand Holiday Homespun which has a gold thread twisted into it, and  Lion Brand Homespun yarn.

One thing I particularly like about the variegated Homespun yarn is how gradually the color changes.

Crazy Sock Earrings

A couple years back, when the annual "crazy sock night" at the local Awana club was coming up, I decided that I should whip up a pair of crochet sock earrings.

Unfortunately, I did not write down the pattern for the shaping, but for the texture I crocheted in the back loops only.

Making them into earrings was simple. I just opened the eye of the earring piece and put it through the corner of the sock.

Inline Crochet Hooks

For the longest time I was unaware of the differences in crochet hooks, the only thing I really cared about was whether it was medal/aluminum or plastic... And even then I'm not sure I payed that much attention. But when I started making the fleece blankets with crochet edge I noticed that the inline hooks  were easier to push through the slits in the fleece. Of course at the time I did not know the different names. Since doing the fleece blankets, I've found that the inline hooks make working with "fluffy"/"fuzzy" (such as Red Heart Baby Clouds) yarn a lot easier. The inline hooks also eliminates part of the "twist" required to keep the yarn on the hook when you pull it through other loops.

      Inline     Out of line

Sorry the pictures are a little blurry, it is hard to get clear images of shiny objects.

KB Adjustable Sock Knitting Loom

A few Christmases ago I received this neat adjustable sock knitting loom by KB. It is really easy to use and very compact. The hardest part to knit is the sliding section because you have to work around all the pegs that you're not using.

 I decided that it would be best to start with something small, so the first project I did was these cute little baby socks. The pattern was on the DVD that came with the loom. It used 30 pegs and I decided to put 1x1 rib at the top.

 The thing about socks is that you have to make two matching ones. After I finished the first one I began to wish that humans only had one foot because it seemed like an impossible task to make one exactly the same. Turns out that it really wasn't that hard, since it was easier to count the stitches of the first one once it was off the loom. I'm not sure if I did the same amount of rows on each sock but I think I got pretty close. :)