Easy Headband

My daughter has really fine hair that doesn't stay up in her ponytails and can get kind of wild. I try to keep it out of her face by using barrettes, but she doesn't like them and is always pulling them out. I decided to try out a headband and see if she would like that better than barrettes.

I found an easy headband tutorial at KT and the Squid and tried it out last night.

I liked that it used a rubber band in the back.

This was the thicker version of the pattern. I think I would try the thinner one next time. I would also pay more attention to making sure that the braid doesn't twist when I'm putting it together. It has purple, though, which is my daughter's current favorite color, so she's in love with it.

Baby Boy Flip-Flops

I have some friends having babies this summer, so I thought it would be fun to make some sandals. I made these flip-flops using a pattern by Two Girls Patterns. I would have had my baby boy model them for a picture but his feet are too big!

The soles don't lay as flat as I would like them to and they don't look as nice as the ones on the website. I think it's mostly because I'm still learning, and also maybe because of the kind of yarn I used. They turned out okay, but I obviously need to keep practicing.

Waffle Stitch Scarf

After making a blanket for my 4-year-old's birthday, I knew that I would need to make a blanket for my son when his third birthday comes around. I had seen blankets using the waffle stitch and I really liked the look, so I planned on making him a blue and gray waffle stitch blanket.

After looking through a few tutorials, I finally figured out how to do the waffle stitch. The instructions that I found the easiest to follow were from Crochet Geek. I started on my blanket and I was a few rows in when I realized that it was a lot shorter than I wanted it to be. I showed it to my husband and told him that I was just going to rip it out and start again (I really hadn't been working on it for long), but he suggested that I just turn it into a scarf and he would use it. So I finished it up as a scarf.

If I were to make another scarf, I would make it longer than this one. I do like the texture of the waffle stitch, though.

Now that I've made something with the waffle stitch, though, I might want to try something different for my son's blanket. I have a hard time making myself do the same thing twice. I have been working on some baby sandals and once I make up the first sandal, I have a hard time making myself finish up the other one!

Bow Tie

After spending so many hours on the blanket, I was ready for a quick project that I could do in one sitting. I found a pattern for a bow tie at Mollie Makes and made it in about 45 minutes!

My First Blanket

I decided that I wanted to be more productive with my free time, so I thought that I would try out crochet. I bought some hooks and yarn around two years ago with plans to learn, but about a week later, we started the process of buying a house and suddenly packing and moving took over and I forgot about crochet until a couple of months ago.

I saw come fun crochet projects on Pinterest and my motivation to learn came back. The simplest project I could think of to start with was a blanket (although maybe I should have started smaller with a dishcloth). My sister taught me how to do a single crochet stitch, and knowing only that, I started making a blanket. I was several hours into it when I realized that I had a big problem with the sides not being straight. I tried to make up for it, but was unsuccessful. At one point, my blanket looked like this:

After deciding that it was beyond repair, I gave up and started again and focused on not making my stitches too tight. I decided to do my second attempt using double crochet, which helped it go faster, too. 

My almost 4-year-old daughter was so excited about the blanket that I was making that she drew up a little schematic of what she thought it should look like. She would tell me over and over how much she loved the blanket, and since her birthday was coming up soon,  I decided to make it for her as a surprise gift.

It's not perfect, but she loves it!