Crochet – Page 2 – Gracefully Crafting

I currently have so many projects on the go that I feel guilty wanting to start more. I just need small projects I can do at work so I don’t go out of my mind when I have nothing to do. I’ve been bringing my squares for the Stormtrooper blanket with me but I’ve finished all of those so now it’s onto beanies. I’m thinking I might start the Nuts About Squares CAL so I can do 1 square per day or something. I have the yarn kit at home already so that would work I guess.

I added a calender of all the CALs I want to do this year on the menu and I moved my yarn stash menu item to the top menu too. I want to add more to my site but I’m at a loss as to what to add! Any suggestions?

The Stormtrooper blanket is coming along nicely. I’ve started sewing the squares into strips and then some strips are being sewn together. My mom sews in my ends for me and she requested I don’t sew all the strips together right away so she can sew in ends easier. So I’ve done 2 or 3 strips together and taken them upstairs for her to start on whenever. I’ll sew those together once she’s done and it’ll be less ends at the end of the project. I had to get more yarn (who knew 5 skeins of white & 4 skeins of black wasn’t enough?!) so my mom went to Michaels yesterday and got me some using her seniors discount (TIP: Anyone over the age of 55 gets a seniors discount EVERYDAY at Michaels [doesn’t combine with any % off total purchase coupons]). I’m not winding the yarn into cakes though because I don’t know how much more I’ll actually need to use so I’m just pulling from the center on the new skeins. I also started taking some squares to work to sew together in sections so when I get home I can easily put them together faster.

I’m almost done the 3rd braid beanie hat I’ve started. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t really need to look at the pattern anymore. Except for the decreases, I’ll have to look at the pattern for those lol. I’ve been using the Loops & Threads Charisma yarn for this beanie and the last one I made and I love this yarn. It’s so soft!! And it knits up nicely. There has been a few splits but that was my fault for not paying attention to what I was doing lol. I only have 1 repeat left and then the decreases and I’ll be finished this one 🙂

I have to start getting ready for the craft retreat that’s the first weekend in February. I need to make some card kits to take with me (I also have 5 kits to take), plus get all my crochet projects that I want to do sorted out into a bin. I’m going to take the Bunny graphghan for sure, and possibly Stormtrooper depending on how far along I am on that one. I might bring Nuts About Squares with me as well to start that one or just bring Rosslyn and the Geezaghan to finish them up. Also beanies!! I’m going to bring enough yarn for 3 beanies just in case that’s all I want to work on lol.

So two weeks ago I was thinking about what I could do with my crochet skills for charity or some kind of donation, since I have SO MUCH stash yarn that’s just sitting there doing nothing (extra skeins from projects, random yarn people gave me that I can’t do anything with, etc). The first thing that came to mind was making baby hats for the hospitals NicU. I spent 2.5 months in the NicU as a newborn because I was 2.5 months early, same with my sister she was 2 months early. We’re proud preemie baby-adults now but we know what a struggle it was for my parents to go through 2 sill births then having to have your newborns in the hospital for the first bit of their lives.

So I talked to my friend Rachel who volunteers at the hospital to see who I had to talk to to get this hats donated. I hadn’t started crocheting anything yet because I wanted to make sure there was a need for them first. She said to just give them to her since she volunteers in that ward and that preemie hats are the ones that are most needed right now, that a group of ladies does the regular newborn hats already. Perfect! I started that day! I’m up to 29 hats right now and I plan on getting as many done by my birthday (July 23) as possible. I might also make a few blankets and angel gowns (for stillborn & miscarried babies), although I’m not sure, depends on how much yarn I have left over after I have a significant number of hats done.

I went through my stash and came up with a rubber maid tub full of yarn. I still have TONS of yarn left in my stash but I didn’t want to use up project yarn unless I had to. I’m always willing to buy more yarn 😛 so it’s not really an issue for me. I will probably have to buy the baby soft yarn from Red heart or Bernat but that’s fine. There’s always sales at Michaels and these hats are going to a good place. The angel gowns will use a different weight of yarn (hats are using worsted), so I’ll definitely have to buy yarn for those if I get to making them.

I put it out on my Facebook that I’m willing to accept any stash yarn leftovers people have, but so far no donations. I don’t need the donated yarn, I just wanted to put it out there in case anyone had some. I’m just looking for worsted weight for the hats and DK/Fingering weight for the gowns. I probably will only make 10-20 gowns, depending on the pattern I find to use and how easy it is.

Here are the hats I’ve done so far:

Category Archives: Crochet

So Many Projects!

Operation Preemie!