I’ve been in love with Crochet Today’s Stuffable Stockings ever since Erin made her red and white ones a few years ago. I never felt a strong desire to make a stocking for myself when I lived alone, though, because the ones my grandmother made for me and my siblings way back when are pretty much the most perfect ones ever.

But once I moved in with Dan this summer, having our own stockings seemed a lot more important. I originally planned to knit striped ones, since the idea is to knit the fair isle ones for future children, and I like when the mom and dad stockings don’t match perfectly with the kids’ ones. (I overthink things a bit. Just a tiny bit.) ANYWAY. I couldn’t pick one, and wasn’t sure about my knitting abilities.. and really, I just wanted to crochet. Hexagons and the contrast with the white borders just seemed so perfect.

Making the hexagons was really easy, and I ended up going with a forest green and lime for Dan’s stocking (he asked that the forest green be the dominant color) and maroon and bright red for mine, just so they’d go with each other.

Stitching them all together, six sides times seventeen hexagons, was not really all that fun. For the red one, which I made second, I was completely flummoxed by the diagram (even though I had already done it successfully with the green one). I finally figured it out, of course, and hung them on the mantle-less fireplace on Monday night.

I think they turned out pretty fantastically.

We found out a few months ago that Dan’s youngest sister was pregnant, expecting their parents’ first grandchild. (A momentous occasion that I’m sure makes my own parents jealous.) Anyway, I knew that I wanted to make something for this future baby, just because it’s also going to be Dan’s first niece or nephew. I waited until we found out she was expecting a boy to plan my craft, and decided to make a small stroller-size blanket and hat to match.

Jeanette’s baby shower was this past weekend, and I finally got around to starting this project during the hurricane, and finished it over Labor Day weekend.

The hat is one I’ve now made a few times, and it always goes over so well that it’s hard to stop making it. I was hoping this one would end up more newborn-sized, but it’s probably going to fit Future Baby D when he’s a few months old. I added in the blue to the tassels to make it more of a set.

The braided tassels were mirrored in the blanket’s border. The blanket is from the Happy Hooker book and was simple and easy, but I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

And giving a handmade gift at a party where they make a big fuss out of the present-opening? Is pretty enjoyable. But mostly, I’m excited for Dan’s soon-to-arrive nephew and have already volunteered him to babysit, just so I can snuggle as often as I can.

Guys, I finished the granny hexagon afghan yesterday! And I am SO HAPPY with how it  came out. I’ve been working on it on and off since last November, as best I can figure, and the past few weeks have been a flurry of weaving in ends, stitching all 95 hexagons together, weaving in more ends, and crocheting the scalloped border. While this afghan will go to my parents with the orange couch it was made to match, I’m really glad I finished it a few months before moving day, because it means that I can enjoy it, too.

I decided to join the granny squares with slip stitches rather than the recommended whip stitch, just because I can work faster with the crochet hook. It’s a nitpicky process, but I like how it looks, with the seams only visible from the back of the blanket.

This is the largest item that I have ever crocheted, which is noteworthy since I’ve been crocheting for at least 15 years and have never finished a blanket (other than the baby-sized one I made last summer, which was what got me itching to make a full-sized one).

Yay!

So I obviously didn’t post anything last week, but I was and have been hard at work on my hexagons. Last week, I finished the final color combination and weaved in a million, billion yarn ends.

Then, thanks to a few days at jury duty, I started in on the fourth color on each hexagon. (And thanks to Erin‘s suggestion, I smuggled in a nail clipper to cut the yarn, since I was pretty sure scissors would be frowned on at the courthouse.)

This week, I’ve been continuing with the gray rounds, and as of this writing, have added the final color to all 95 hexagons! Next up: more ends. And then stitching the hexes together! The pattern suggests whip stitch, but I think I might go with the slip stitch method described here, which I used when I made my famous granny square blanket last year. (How did I never blog about that? I SO wish I had recorded the pattern I ended up cobbling together from various other places. Since I will, eventually, one day, make another blanket like that.)

Crochet Today had a pattern for a giant afghan made out of hexagon granny squares about a year ago, and I knew I had to make it, simply because the photos in the magazine feature an orange couch very much like mine. I started collecting the yarn for this afghan last summer, and I already owned quite a few of the colors thanks to all of those Gryffindor scarves I made way back when. I am not sure when I started making this officially, but it was in the late fall; I’d bring the yarn for one color combination out to Dan’s for the weekend and crochet while he and his brother played video games. And while trying to keep poor Bluecat away. (I did end up crocheting him a few circles with extra long tails, because they do make pretty perfect cat toys. And I felt bad for having to keep him away from something so enticing.)

And then Handmade52 started, and the great baby hat factory went into business… and the yarn and already made hexagons sat on my coffee table for quite a long time. Until recently, when out of nowhere, the urge to crochet became too big to ignore. So I picked this project back up, and have been making pretty solid progress over the last few weeks.

There were, of course, a million loose yarn ends to weave in from the hexagons I had already finished…

And then a few more color combinations to work on. I’m now working on the last color combination, and next up will be adding the gray rounds to all 95 hexagons. And then, of course, stitching them all together and adding a border. I’m pretty excited.

Of course, this week I realized that my parents asked if they could maybe, possibly, if-you’re-sure-you’re-okay-with-it have the Great Orange Couch and Chair back, because they’d fit so nicely into their most recently-remodeled room, aka the grownups’ rec room, aka the room my sister and I shared growing up, but that has now been turned into the treadmill-sewing machine-and extra tv room. So when I move this summer, the orange couch will no longer be mine. And I’ve been making this afghan specifically to go with the orange couch. So my parents are now getting what will soon be a pretty spectacular hexagon afghan. Which means I can make another one for me. (Maybe.)

This Handmade52 project sometimes feels like the Hats All The Time project, but I can’t help it if they are easy and so giftable. Dan’s very good friends had a baby last year, and I wanted to be able to make something for Dan (and me) to give to Oskar to honor his first birthday, which was at the beginning of April. I’ve clearly been hoarding hat patterns since the fall, but when Craft linked to a pattern for a gnome hat from Lorajean’s Magazine, I wanted to make it IMMEDIATELY.

I have made a lot of baby hats in the last eight months or so, and I might have to go ahead and say it: this gnome hat may be the winner in terms of easiness plus cute factor. Poor Oskar doesn’t really like hats right now, so I couldn’t get a photo of him in the hat, but it was just the right size and to-die-for cute. (Seriously, click through to the pattern to see it on the head of a baby. Adorable.)

I have been wanting to make these cabled mitts from Crochet Today ever since Erin posted about them a few months ago. And once I got past a few days of being completely disinterested in crafts at all last week, I started on these. I was a bit nervous, just because these included a few crochet skills that I haven’t ever used (the cabling, and crocheting only in the back loops) but everything seemed to be going okay at first. But as I was working on them last night, I had to admit that something had gone wrong somewhere, and I’m still not sure what it was. It’s especially frustrating, because as far as I can tell, the cables (the part I was most worried about) seem fine. This is supposed to be the left, but it’s clearly the right, and there’s no way it’s big enough (I stopped with only a few rows to go in the pattern) to wrap around my wrist. I figure I’ll have to start these from the beginning, either with different yarn or a bigger hook. Sigh.