Donations for Touching Little Lives

The group we belong to online, AC4C, donated items to Touching Little Lives during the month of September. These items are going into the mail tomorrow morning for the babies this wonderful group helps.
Hilary made the yellow set, as well as the hat and booties for the variegated set. I made that sweater and the 43 squares. The hats and the squares are patterns from my wonderful cousin, Deb and are on her great blog! I will update with the pattern for the variegated when I have time, I played with a bunch of different patterns and mish-mashed it into a sweater/jacket type thing. It seems like it will be nice and warm. I will have Hilary let us all know which sweater pattern she used as soon as she is well from her kidney infection!!

Sugar Bunny

I know I said I would post again in a few days last time, but it's been over a week! I'll have to try harder this time. :-P

Anyway, this is Hilary again, with yet another cute little stuffed animal to share! This time it's a bunny. When I happened upon the Baby Snow Bunny pattern from Darncat Crochet, I just had to try it. I love how it's a realistic-looking bunny, since most of the crocheted bunnies I've seen look more like toys, with teddy bear-like bodies. Then again, I made this one in pink, so that pretty much threw the whole realism thing out the window! The recipient of the bunny loves the color pink though, so she was very pleased with it.


The pattern calls for a worsted yarn, but I love the way crocheted stuffed animals/amigurumi look when they're made with textured yarns. Here I used Red Heart Baby Clouds, a super-bulky boucle, in Sugar Multi. It's so pink and fluffy that it reminds me of cotton candy! I had to use a larger hook - an E hook was just too small for such a heavy yarn - but I compensated for the differences in both the hook and yarn by halving the number of stitches called for, more or less. The pattern is fairly straightforward if you're used to working in rounds, so I didn't make too many precise calculations in resizing... I just stopped increasing when I thought the parts looked big enough. I think I kept the spirit of the pattern though - and most importantly, the bunny's new owner loved her. :-)

That's all for today, but I promise I'll be back soon! (I mean it this time, really!)

Hello!

Wow, it's been way too long since we've had an update here, hasn't it? This is Hilary, Marie's daughter, writing, and over the next several days I'm going to update my mom's blog with some of the projects we've finished lately. I even have a few new patterns of my own to share with everyone.

Today though, I'm going to keep things simple and just share a cute little baby harp seal amigurumi I made recently as a gift for my brother's girlfriend.


I don't think the photos do her enough justice - she's so soft and adorable in person! She was crocheted with Caron Bliss in Snow, which is a very soft, fuzzy, bulky weight yarn that's great to work with. It's a discontinued yarn, but if you can find any I highly recommend it. I used the Baby Seal pattern from SociallySkilled.

That's all for today, but I'll be back soon! Until next time, happy crocheting. :-)

Sweater Sets for Bundles of Love

I did these four sets for Bundles of Love, the group that AC4C donated to this past March. Links and patterns will be posted shortly, a few are Hilary's a few are Deb's (her link is in an earlier post), and I have to sort out my bookmarks and notes for the others. I will work it out between appointments this week.

Edit to add: Here are the patterns!

The patterns for the blue/brown variegated set are Bella Bambina's Cardigan for Babies, the hat from Deb's Crafts Newborn Sweater Set, and a bootie pattern designed by Hilary. (She'll be posting the pattern here later - keep an eye out for it!) The hat and booties for the pastel variegated set were also made using Deb's Newborn Sweater Set. The lime green set was made using Crotiques' 1-Hour Baby Sweater, 1-Hour Hat, and 1-Hour Booties. The light blue set was made using Lion Brand's Simple Baby Set. Happy crocheting! :-)

Hilary's sweaters for charity....

Hilary did these three sweater sets for last month's charity, Bundles of Love. The group we belong to donated to them for March. Links and patterns will be posted in the next few days!

Edit to add: Here are all the patterns Hilary used! Some of them Hilary designed herself, and she'll post them on our blog sometime soon! The pink variegated kimono sweater is from Crochet Me, but Hilary resized the pattern for a newborn. The hat is from Deb's Crafts Newborn Sweater Set with a couple crocheted flowers sewn on, and the booties are her own pattern. The green variegated set was made using Deb's Amy's Newborn Cardigan, and Hilary's own bonnet and bootie patterns. The yellow and white set was made with Bella Bambina's Cardigan for Babies, the same hat as in the pink set, and once again Hilary's own booties.

A gift for Jer

Hilary loves to make gifts for her family along with her charity work. This Jiggly Puff was made for the youngest in our family,it was his favorite Pokemon when he was around 5. He was so pleasantly surprised by his sister's thoughtfulness. As Hilary gets the hang of crocheting a little more and gets quicker at it she hopes to make toys for charities to go along with the other items we have already been doing. The pattern can be found here.

Orion and Lotto

Lotto (Hilary's cat) has a new friend named Orion. Hilary made this adorable dragon. I will post a more detailed picture and a link for the pattern in the next day or two...so pop back in and take a look.