I haven’t been posting to my blog very frequently because a lot of the things Jay and I are working on currently are going to be Christmas gifts. If I know that the recipients don’t typically read my blog then I can post about the gifts. However, a lot of what we’ve done are for friends and family who meander over here now and again to look at what we’ve been doing. The other reason why I haven’t posted is because a lot of what we’ve been doing is related to non-blogging things (cleaning, organizing, scooping the poop, etc). 

I have been making some headway (pun intended) on crocheted hats. I am actually working on #30 right now, but since it’s not done you can only see #27-29.

I have decided that I like this style of hat the best. I think it will best fit a number of guys’ tastes. These particular ones were made using clearance yarn that I bought at Hobby Lobby.

#27 used a roving-style of yarn by Yarn Bee (a Hobby Lobby brand) that actually has a black thread twisted around it.

I looked on their website, but I don’t see anything like it. They must have discontinued the line of yarn and not just the color. It’s a soft acrylic, but it is a heavier #4. It took almost the entire skein to make this one hat. I had to use a regular black out of my stash in order to crochet the last round and the brim. I bought two skeins of this yarn so hat #30 will look exactly like this one.

Hats #28 and 29 use the I Love This Yarn! yarn from Hobby Lobby. The yarn is actually a blue and gray marled color.

It looks like there’s some yellow in there, too. One skein made one entire hat and then most of a second one. I dug into my stash and found a gray that somewhat complimented the colors so that I could do the final round and brim on hat #29.

I’m not sure how many more I’m going to make. I’ve set a deadline of Thanksgiving to make as many hats as I can and then I’ll give them to the substance abuse program by the end of November so that they can be handed out at the Christmas party for the guys in December.

These aren’t the only hats that I’ve been making.

My friend had a baby in August and so I had to figure out what I could make him for Christmas. My friend LOVES minions so I wanted something along those lines. Guess what I found?

Isn’t it adorable? The pattern I found on Etsy was for the newborn size only so I had to figure out how to make an outfit for a baby who would be about 6 month-sized. I actually used a free pattern for a diaper cover that I found on Yarnspirations’ website, I used the Etsy pattern for the suspenders, and then I used the Etsy pattern as a guideline for the hat. I still need to find the perfect buttons for it. The good news is that if it is too small I can easily make a bigger size.

I used Premier’s Ever Soft yarn, which is similar to Caron’s Simply Soft. Herrschner’s was having their big Fall Yarn sale so I snagged this yarn for around $2.50 per skein. It crochets up so nicely! It’s very smooth and I didn’t have problems with it splitting or anything. I bought quite a bit of it because I had purchased another pattern on Etsy for hats.

Aren’t they adorable? I didn’t do a great job on the eyes, but I think my friend will love them. I thought she would like to be able to take a family picture with all of them wearing their minion hats.

The adult hats are by AlenasDesign. Technically her pattern has you crocheting ear flaps and braided pigtails on them, but I didn’t like that style. Instead I crocheted with the blue as far as I thought I should go and then I did a simple reverse sc for the edge. I think they turned out really cute. I wanted to make sure they would look okay on the head, though, so I had my model try one on.

He folded the brim up a bit so that it fit him better, but I think it still looks adorable. 

When I wasn’t crocheting hats I switched over to wash cloths. You see, I was watching Crystal on Bag O’ Day Crochet on YouTube and she had been asked to review a new cotton yarn that Wal-Mart is carrying. She tried it out and said that she thought it was exactly like Hobby Lobby’s I Love This Cotton yarn. We all know that I’m a huge Hobby Lobby fan, so I had to try it out.

I bought one skein of this tan color. It actually made two full wash cloths and about a third of another one. I was trying some patterns I found in an issue of Crochet World magazine (I can’t remember which one and the pattern is downstairs out of reach). 

Crystal was right. The Main Stays cotton (Wal-Mart brand) is surprisingly good! It’s also about $1 cheaper than Hobby Lobby’s brand. The only problem is that it currently only comes in 7 colors whereas the Hobby Lobby brand comes in about 71 (if I counted correctly). This yarn would work nicely for garments or wash cloths that will be used for your body. It’s a soft and supple cotton.

I had a friend email me and ask if I’d ever used a certain type of recycled yarn. I believe it was a cotton/acrylic blend. I hadn’t, but then the poor girl had to read an entire email from me that went on and on about the vast difference there can be in quality from one type of cotton or acrylic to another. I sent her a package and I included a wash cloth made from the Main Stays cotton and one made from Lily’s Sugar ‘n Cream cotton.

I wanted her to feel the difference between the rougher utility cotton (great for dish cloths) on the left and the softer garment-friendly cotton on the right. I made them using the same exact pattern so that it was an apples-to-apples comparison. That’s why I love it when the stores have the knitted samples of yarn hanging by the skeins. It’s one thing to feel it in the skein, but sometimes it looks and feels completely different when it’s stitched into something.

Well, I think that I’ve bored you for long enough with my crochet. Until next time…