Some more projects

Well, I wanted to add some more of my projects on here.  If anyone is interested in working on the same project, I am happy to link you to the place that I got the pattern.  Because they are not my own I wont share them on here, but I will be happy to send you directly to where I got them from.

Without further ado, these were my next few projects.  I quickly decided that, in part because of the fact that I have been broke for 2 years+ (I'm a graduate student) I would make items for everyone for Christmas.

I have a friend who is obsessed with everything cow related.  I found this pattern online and I knew it would be perfect for him.  I did change the eyes from the original pattern - these have more of an eyeball than the others did, and I liked them better.

My niece, who is now 10 months old, was the reason that I started to knit and crochet.  So many, many of the items that I have made have been for her.  This is a super simple but very cute hat.  This is crochet, like the cow above, and it worked up in probably less than an hour.

This is the eggplant/grape/other purple veggie/fruit hat.  I think it is cute for little ones!  I learned intarsia with this, a very simple version of it, but it wasn't hard and I am sure I could do more intricate patterns now that I know how to go about it.  This is also the pattern that I am using for the baby hats that I am going to send with my sister for Doctors Without Borders.  I am not going to use the two colors, mostly because those types of things that we think are cute often don't translate across continents.  So I am just doing nice, bright, little hats in the same pattern, but a single solid color.  It is something super simple that I can do without looking, until the top portion of the hat, but it keeps little baby heads warm!

This hat is a little newsboy cap that I made for a very good friend of mine for his 2 year old son.  Super duper cute little newsboy cap.  I was very happy with how it turned out.  The one I made for my brother wasn't quite as fabulous, I am not sure what I did wrong with that.  But this one was just super sweet.

I'm not positive if you can see this one clearly or not.  This is a washcloth with a Harry Potter Sorting Hat on it.  It is made by using purl stitches to make the hat stand out against all of the knit stitches.  It wasn't perfect, but I learned a LOT - from reading charts, to how to work stockinette stitch on a flat item, to seed stitch, and a variety of other things.  I made three other washclothes, with different objects on them, and the rest after this turned out much better because I had learned from my earlier mistakes.

This hat I made for the 5 year old brother of the 2 year old of my good friend.  I spent a really long time on this.  You can't tell from this picture, but the face of Thomas comes out from the hat itself by about 1/2 an inch.  This little boy absolutely adores Thomas the Tank Engine, and when I found this pattern I knew it would be perfect.  He was so, so happy with it.  He wants to wear it to school, but isn't allowed to because his dad is afraid he'll lose it.  But, little guy loves to wear it.

I have a 15 year old nephew who I began teaching how to crochet while we were out of state for a family member's wedding.  He asked if I could make him something and he asked for a tie in colors similar to this.  I said I could see what I could do.  This was actually really difficult because of the color changes.  Each time I changed color I had to get that end to be hidden away, which is difficult on a tie that doesn't have an actual front or back side to it.  In the end I got more than enough length for the front side of the tie in these three colors, then finished off the rest of it in just black.  So around the collar and the skinny part of the tie are all black, but it gives it a cool look to see a pure black knot on top of this multi-colored tie.  My nephew was really happy with it, and that is all I need.

This was still a work in progress when I took this picture.  This went to the momma of my new niece.  It is an infinity scarf that has no beginning or end and kind of curls around on itself.  I really liked the colors in this yarn, very bright and fun.  This is only about half, or less, of the finished width, but it is a very very simple pattern.  I plan to make more of these types of scarves at some point.

And finally for today, I decided that my niece needed some little Santa booties.  I made her a Santa hat, too, that didn't turn out how I wanted it to.  But these booties and the hat, both, would be cute for any little one.  Fairly quick and fun!

I will stop there for today.  If you haven't noticed I tend to have more items that are crocheted than knitted.  Crochet allows for more versatility in the items that I have been interested in making so far.  I am sure that as I become a better and faster knitter that I will use that more often.  But when making appliques (such as the Thomas face and the cow features) it is infinitely easier to crochet those than to try to knit them.  That is why most, not all, but most knitters have at least some basic crochet ability, too.  If you want a flower to put on an item it is much less time consuming to crochet one than it would be to knit one.  It also tends to be more forgiving than knitting.

That being said, I really want to be an amazing knitter.  I will continue to work on crochet, but I will also work on my knitting as well.  I don't have a favorite, though I do find crochet easier in a lot of cases.  I want to be really good at both, and so I continue to make things in both.  Plus, by having both skills when people ask me for an item I have a better chance of being able to say yes, I can make that.  It has been a lot of fun learning these skills - even if my family does make fun of me for being a 95 year old grandma.  They say that until they want me to make then something!  Ha!