Elle

Look at me, all crafty lately. hah I made this card for a friend who is due in the next couple of weeks. She's having a little girl and has already picked her name, but I always worry people will change their minds once their baby is born, so instead of using her name I just put congrats on the card.

Recipe:

Stampin' Up Paper - Whisper White, Pretty in Pink, Pink Pirouette, Amethyst, Lavender and Lace

Designer paper - Enchanted (I forget by who!)

Inks: Pretty in Pink, Lavender and Lace

Ribbon: Pink Pirouette

Cricut Cartridges: Sugar and Spice (Lite), Birthday Bash (Font)

Embossing: Cuttlebug Swirls

I hope it's a boy!

I saw this sweet card over on Flutter by Atomicbutterfly and just had to case it for another expectant friend whose due at the end of this month. The only difference between her card and mine is I left off the button and the stitching. Love the paper (good thing I have 2 pkgs of it!), layout, stamps, everything! It's a super sweet card.

This is the 5th boy card I've made in the past week. I have 2 others I've completed but I have to wait to share them as the ppl they are for read this blog. :p

And with this card, I think it's my last baby card. I just have to finish up a birthday card for a little boy and have a girl card left to make. I have one done, but I'm not sure I want to use it.

Ingredients; Paper: Whisper White, Delicate Dots. Stamps: Nursery Necessities. Ink: Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Bashful Blue. Accessories: Scallop/Square Nestabilities, Certainly Celery ribbon, scallop edger punch.

Blanket by Bev Ireland

My original intentions when I saw this pattern were to make it for a friend who is due in March. My plans soon changed when I started having so much trouble with it and also ran into some 'issues' that required I do some unravelling as well as having problems with the edging. I think in an earlier post I explained how I originally decided the pattern was incorrect and that 23.5" was not wide enough, so I decided to make it wider, then half way through decided it was too wide on top of the fact that I started with the incorrect colour, as well as it curling downwards at the bottom bc I did not make my chain row loose enough.

So I unravelled it all and started over again. My second attempt faired much better, but when it came to doing the edging, I had a few issues, and then when it was time for the braiding, I got one braid done, ran out of the "wood" colour and could not justify spending another $6 for 3 strands of Yarn so it only has the braid on the bottom. After all that, of what I would call a rather simple pattern, I decided to keep it for myself. You can see in the photos that the edging is 'curling'. My husband does not think it's a huge deal but it annoys me. It matches well with my stroller which was not my intent when I picked out the yarn, I just really liked the red and brown together.

Project Name: Seija Set by Bev Ireland (I did not do the matching hat)
Pattern: Found in Stitch N' Bitch - The Happy Hooker
Yarns: Lion Brand Wool-ease Wood/Cranberry and Fisherman
Number of Skiens: 2 Skiens of Wood and Fisherman, about half of a 3rd Skien of the Cranberry due to the border.
Started & Finished: I can't remember, I think between all the unravelling I spent about 2 week-ish working on it?
Level of Difficulty: Easy. The entire blanket is all DC and changing yarn is super easy. The only thing that I found hard was doing the edge down the sides, since there are no perfect "Vs" to slip your hook into, you have to sort of guess and space them evenly, which as you can see I was not able to.

I had "planned" to work on a cross stitch block next, but I got invited to a baby shower for Feb. 10th so I started a hooded baby blanket from a book I have "Learn to Crochet". I'm about half done and have no idea if I'll complete it before Sunday.

Unravelling...

A little over a week ago, after finishing Luke in a Dinosaur Suit, I was feeling rather confident and decided to try a baby blanket from my Stitch 'n Bitch Crochet - The Happy Hooker book. I went to Michaels and after debating over yarn colours for what my husband felt was an eternity, I chose Wood, Cranberry and Fisherman. I happily started my project, was half way done (24 rows) before I sat down and unraveled each and every row.

The first thing I found that was wrong with it, I sort of was like "Meh whatever, it's for me, I can live with that, but then I saw another and then a final 3rd one encouraged me that I should just start all over again because the perfectionist part of me was going to see every single one of these errors and it was going to drive me looney.

First mistake - I decided that the pattern width was not wide enough. They always seem to make receiving blankets and other items too small, so I decided I'm add an additional 3" to the width. It was not until row 24 (why oh why did it take me that long to really notice?) that I decided it was definitely too wide. That coupled with the fact that when I asked my dear Husband "Honey you do not think this is to wide do you?" and he answered "No not at all, how many more rows are you adding to the width?". Ummm no the width is this way, not vertical. oiy

My next mistake was tension. I chained on 90ish chains and made them a bit too tight. When I then added on each additional row, the bottom part of the blanket started to arch downward and would not lay flat. Slightly frustrating. I pulled to try and straighten it out, to no avail. This is the mistake I felt I would just live with since hey, it's for me after all right?

My final mistake was that I started my first row with Cranberry, when it would have been Wood. I wanted to do the border in Cranberry, so by starting with cranberry, that meant I could not do it that way, or I'd have 2 double rows of red together and it'd just look funny. My excuse not to unravel when I realized this was "Oh I'll just do the border in Wood instead, even though I really wanted it in Red.

So I've re-started the blanket, this time only chaining 76 st like the pattern says, I started with Wood instead of Cranberry and I made nice loose chains so that my blanket is not arching downward. So far, so good. I'm however, only on row two, so there is still lots of time to flub it up again. :p