Ombre Chevron Crochet Baby Blanket

Wow, I know I keep promising that I will get back to blogging, but can I just say that I am not one of those awesome women who can balance everything! 

 
Adding little Dragon to my family has been incredible, but difficult. I'm figuring out how to be the mother of a stubborn kindergartener, independant "I'll do it by MYSELF" toddler, and a (I'll be honest) ridiculously easy-going baby. He may be easy going, but he is still a baby that demands a lot of time and effort.

With the 3 kids, I've been a bit overwhelmed and while I love blogging, it has taken the back seat for a while. I still make no promises about any regular blogging, but I will pop in to share something as the mood strikes.

The mood has struck! I made this adorable crochet baby blanket for my sister-in-law who is having her first baby in a few months. She's having a girl, but with it being her first, she and her husband requested something gender neutral.

I love the ombre effect that is so popular right now, so to give the gender neutral a bit of style I wandered around the yarn isles in JoAnn with my best friend for far too long, looking for just the right shades.

In case you want to replicate, here are the yarns we found, starting with the darkest yellow:

1: Vanna's Choice Baby in Duckie
2: Lion Brand Baby Soft in Lemonade ( This is a true baby yarn, and I had to double it, holding two strands together. But there is enough yarn in this skein that you still only need one. I spent the time at the beginning to wind a center pull ball starting with both ends.)
3: Bernat Satin in Banana
4: Vanna's Choice Baby in Lamb
5: Vanna's Choice in White
(Not pictured: I used some heather grey from my stash for the single crochet edging.)

I used this free pattern from Lion Brand Yarns. (The reviews are mixed, but I found it easy and liked the texture it created.) I read the pattern and figured that with my 5 skeins, I needed 9 rows of each color. Oddly enough, the three Vanna's were supposed to be the same amount/length/size skein, but I was a few stitches short with Color 1, more than a few stitches short with Color 4, but had plenty of Color 5. Weirdness. But what's awesome about the ombre fade is I was able to just start the next color to finish up the last row and keep going. If you look carefully at the pictures above, you can see close to the front where Color 2 starts in the last several stitches of the first color, but you only notice if you are really inspecting the blanket.

The mommy-to-be loves it, and I can't wait to meet my new little niece and see her wrapped in this yummy blanket.

The "New" Machine

The day before Christmas, I decide to make Pretty her doll.

I get sewing, and after 2 arms and 1 leg of the doll, my machine starts doing this:

That's right. There was a problem with the tension of the top thread. Meaning there was no tension.

I did all the tricks I knew to fix it.     Nothing.

I read my owner's manual.     Nothing.

I call my mom and tried her tricks.     Nothing.

It just keeps sewing crappy. I called a few places about fixing it, and it's an $70 - $80 repair/cleaning/service (for a machine that cost $100), and they were 2 weeks out!

WHAT ABOUT THE DOLL?!

Luckily, I live in my in-law's basement and my MIL has a sewing machine that she lets me borrow!

I sewed the doll, and I have fallen in love with this 30-year-old awesome machine!

It has exposed thread line, and tension that works.

My favorite thing is the reverse lever. Not sure why, but it makes me smile.

I might not give it back. :o)

Seriously?!

I was about to write a post, sharing the awesomeness that is the baby booties, when a message pops up saying I've run out of storage space for my photos in my Picasa Web Album, so I have to buy more space before I can load more pictures.

First off, I didn't even know I had a Picassa Web Album. Second, what?

After looking around, trying to delete some pictures (which they don't let you do), I gave in a bought some extra storage. $5 per year isn't bad, right? And then it tells me it can take up to 24 hours to process my new storage.

Why?

GRRR. This makes me grumpy. And all I can say is,

"SERIOUSLY?!"

I'm trying to dye. And I'm doing it badly.

I saved basically all of Hero's baby clothes. And after going through them to pull out what I can for Pretty, I look at some of these stained beyond the "that's nasty" point and wonder why I kept it at all. There were some once white onsies I found in the stash that were a gross looking yellow (which doesn't say much for my laundry skills, but that's not the point here). 

I decided, since I was going to try to dye some lace fabric from white to black for my Mad Hatter hat, I would toss these yellowish and stained onsies in the batch and get some black onsies for undershirts for Pretty!

Now, I'm not sure where I went wrong, but they turned out dull and splotchy... Anyone know why that is? Because I don't.

These two are the worst in the bunch:

Do you think if I were to dye them again, it would fix the problem?

And to add to my failure in dyeing, my white lace turned into a very beautiful silver gray. I really like it and can't wait to use it, but it's not what I need for the hat project. So I had to go buy some black stuff.

Isn't is pretty, though?

And the hat is almost done! Just some finishing details and I post it soon!

Hero the Elephant!

Hero has been obsessed with elephants since seeing Jungle Book a few months ago. Those elephants are only two scenes in the entire movie, but Hero would grab his stuffed elephant and march around the house saying, "Hup-two-three-four, Giddi-up! Two-three-four!" and singing the marching song.

So I wasn't too surprised when he said he wanted to be  "ELEPHANT!" (He did add blue elephant, but I'll explain that in a second.)

McCall's 6105

I used a McCall's pattern, but I adjusted it a bit for my liking. The fabric I was lucky to find. It looks so much like elephant skin, right?! My mom and I were shopping for the costume's supplies, and I had picked up a blue suede cloth for the elephant, when she happened to find this in the remnant pile, on sale, in the upholstery fabrics, with just the right amount! SCORE!! It was still a bit more per yard than the suede cloth, but it is soft and thick, so it will be warm! That's when I overruled the blue part of Hero's request. 

With the fabric so thick, I used my walking foot on the entire costume. I love that thing!

But not wanting to let him down completely on the blue, I bought a bit of the suede cloth to make the lining of the hood. 

The first adjustment I needed to make was with the hood. I had it made, without the ears, trunk and tusks on and tried it on Hero's head. . . and it didn't fit! What is with that? Just like the panda of two years ago! The part under his chin wouldn't overlap like it's supposed to, but the edges did meet up just right. The piece with the trunk and tusks was supposed to be placed on the top flap. Instead I made it into the fastener by centering it, securing it to one side and adding Velcro to the other side.

The other part I changed were the feet. I don't know why they would sell a pattern in this size (it's a one size, size 4 pattern) that asks you to cover the the feet on the bottom. Because I'd rather him not walk on the fabric all night, destroying it in the process, I eliminated the bottom and finished the edges. I also added a 3 in long elastic to each foot to hold the costume down while he's walking.

I decided the placement by putting Hero's shoe in side the costume and lining the elastic up with the most narrow point.

Hero loves it! Two costumes down, two to go!

Glitches

I had hoped to have the tutorials for the bugs posted by now. However, I am having difficulties. In addition to documenting the process with pictures, I drew out pattern pieces for the bugs to make it easier for you. The problem I am having is getting the paper scanned in to stay the correct size! I'm working on fixing the problem. In the meantime, please enjoy these cute pictures of my son on his first day of preschool.

I tried my best to recreate every beginning of the school year photo I had growing up. You know, the squinting-as-you-stare-into-the-morning-sun-so-mom-has-good-light shot? But Hero wouldn't cooperate and chose to look at a bug on the ground. Oh well, there are many years to come to get it right.