free pattern

The honeycomb blanket (free pattern)

/ Christine Pennylegion / 2 Comments

This blanket made it safely through the mail to its recipient, so I can finally blog about it!

Dear friends of ours are expecting their third child very soon, and since the sex is a surprise I thought a nice neutral like yellow would work well. This is Lion Brand Scarfie yarn in the colourway “cream/mustard” which reminded me very strongly of bees and honey — and so the honeycomb blanket was born! I’d never used Scarfie before, but it’s a delightful wool-acrylic blend, warm and very soft, that I would be happy to crochet with again.

The construction of this blanket is relatively simple. If you can crochet a granny square, you can crochet a granny hexagon, as the principle is exactly the same. Once you have the basic pattern down it’s easy to just keep repeating until you’ve achieved the desired size. In this case, I used almost four skeins of yarn for a toddler-sized blanket.

Start with a magic circle (or if you’re rather not punish yourself, ch 4 and sl st to join).

Chain 3 to serve as your first dc, 1 dc — this is your first granny cluster (six sides requires only 2 dcs per cluster as opposed to the regular 3). Ch 1, and repeat until you have 6 clusters joined with a chain stitch in between each. Slip stitch to close the round and move over to a chain space.

Ch 3 to serve as your first dc, 1 dc, ch 1, 2 dc — this is the first corner cluster of your second round. Repeat pattern in each chain space around; you will have 12 dc granny clusters, with a chain space in between every second cluster. The chain spaces will be the corners of your hexagon (although it can be a little hard to discern them in the early rows this will become very obvious soon). Slip stitch to close the round and move over to a chain space (corner).

Repeat the general cluster pattern, doing two clusters joined with a chain in each corner of the previous rounds, and a single cluster in between each non-corner cluster. Go until your hexagon is as big as you want it, then sc around for a nice finish.

Happy crocheting!

Pattern: Easy Child’s Crocheted Ruffle Scarf

/ Christine Pennylegion / 2 Comments

This is an easy scarf for the child in your life who loves all things ruffled! It was inspired by the “Mindless Mandala Scarf” from Trifles & Treasures; the biggest difference is that with my pattern you’re only working on one side of the starting chain, which gives a spiral effect.

This works up quickly. I used some Lion Brand Mandala in “Thunderbird” that I had left over after finishing Anselm’s afghan, and I love the effect of the long bands of colour. Between the shape and the stripes, this scarf made me think of turkey tail mushrooms the whole time I was making it.

Anyway, here’s the pattern!

Child’s Crocheted Ruffle Scarf

Abbreviations used:

  • ch = chain
  • sc = single crochet
  • hdc = half-double crochet
  • dc = double crochet
  • st = stitch

Materials: Any 4-weight (worsted) yarn with its suggested hook size; adjust as needed if you’d like a longer or wider scarf.

Foundation: Ch 150.

Row 1: Ch 1, turn, 1 hdc in each ch across

Row 2: Ch 1, turn, 2 hdc in each st across

Row 3: Ch 1, turn, 1 dc in each st across

Row 4: Ch 2, turn, [2 dc in first st, 1 dc in next st], continue across

Row 5: Ch 1, turn, 1 hdc in each st across

Row 6: Ch 1, turn, [2 hdc in first st, 1 hdc in next st], continue across

Row 7: Ch 2, turn, 1 dc in each st across

Row 8: Repeat row 7

Row 9: Ch 1, turn, 1 sc in each st across, fasten off

Happy crocheting!

Virus baby blanket

/ Christine Pennylegion / 7 Comments
I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy to finish a crochet project in my life.

 

This is a “virus” pattern baby blanket made for a baby girl at church, due to make her arrival next month. I like the pattern ok; it’s identical to a virus shawl except for the setup rounds, so it took very little concentration. I like the colours ok; they remind me of a soft summer sunrise. But I am never, never, never using this yarn again.

This was made with Lion Brand’s Big Scoop yarn in the colourway “Parfait” and it was infuriating. I should have remembered that, because this is actually the third project I started with the same skein (the first two got frogged). Nearly every time I pulled a length of yarn, I got a tangled mess of yarn barf from the middle. Some of the tangles were so bad I actually had to cut the yarn (three times!!) because I couldn’t get them undone. ALSDKFGDLFKJGFDLJGSDFG.

 

One thing I am pleased with is the little flower I self-drafted to embellish the centre. It was just pale blue mass, so I thought I needed a little something. Here is the pattern for anyone who is interested:

Quick Crochet Flower

Chain 4, join with slip stitch to make round. Single crochet 7x in the round. Join with slip stitch, chain 1, turn.

2 single crochets in each single crochet below (14 stitches total). Join with slip stitch.

Chain 5, turn. Skip stitch, join with slip stitch to following single crochet below. Chain 5, skip stitch, join to following stitch as above. Repeat until end of round, join with slip stitch to first stitch (7 petals).

Turn. Slip stitch into next empty single crochet below. Chain 7, skip stitch, join to following single crochet below. Since you’re working on the back of the existing petals, you’ll want to watch that your yarn doesn’t grab any of them. Repeat until end of round, slip stitch to join (14 petals) and fasten off.

 

 

To finish this off, I added a quick border to the last set of virus shells consisting of four rows of moss stitch. Overall I am pretty pleased with how it all came together, but my gosh, Big Scoop — you’re the worst.

 

Lotus Flower Blanket

/ Christine Pennylegion

This doesn’t happen to me often, but when I saw the Lotus Flower Blanket pattern on Hooked by Robin, I knew I had to make it. Eventually. I first saw it not long before we moved, which didn’t seem like the right time to start something so intricate — and the yarn it calls for, Scheepjes Whirl, is expensive enough to fall into the “splurge” category for me (especially when you add the shipping to Canada as there are very few retailers here who carry it). But thanks to a goodbye note with an amazon gift-card tucked inside I decided to go for it, and my Whirl was waiting in the mailbox of our new place when we picked up the keys.As it turns out, the pattern is actually a lot easier than it initially appeared, especially after getting through the first ten “set-up” rounds. It wasn’t long before I memorized it and could crochet while listening to a podcast or watching TV, just checking in once in a while to make sure I was counting the increases correctly. I didn’t get all the way through the pattern — I must crochet a bit loose compared to the pattern writer — and so stopped at row 46 instead of going to 50. From there I just did a row of single crochet all the way around to give it a bit of a finished edge. And it’s a good thing I did, because I would have absolutely run out of yarn otherwise!The yarn was Scheepjes Whirl in the colourway Sherbet Rainbow, and I worked it all up using a G/6/4.25mm hook. I can’t get over the beautiful gradient of this yarn: it’s one continuous piece, a whole thousand metres (about 1100 yards), and the colour changes one tiny strand at a time.I will definitely make this pattern again; it’s a lot of fun, deceptively simple, and I’d love to see how it works up in different colourways — or even the same one, but working the yarn in the opposite direction, so that it would be blue in the middle and pink on the edge. But not for a while. After making 800+ shells/petals I am ready to work on something more… straightforward. Ba-dum tscha.

Flat-worked crochet Christmas stocking

/ Christine Pennylegion / 1 Comment

Last night I finished a project that has been the bane of my existence for probably about two months now. Behold, my new Christmas stocking, made to match the family set:

There are… so many things wrong with this project I’m not sure I even want to list them. I had to start the whole thing over when I was 85% finished because I realized that a) I had used too small a hook and would never be able to get the letters on, and b) I had forgotten to make the heel. That involved ripping everything out because I was low enough on white yarn that I wouldn’t be able to make a second stocking without cannibalizing the first. I had to do the top red muff section twice because the first time I was accidentally increasing on each round instead of staying true to size. When I was joining the two white sides together it ended up wrinkly because one of them was shorter — but only on one side. Don’t ask me how because I know very well that’s impossible. Because I was using frogged and re-balled yarn it was super kinky and I was constantly fighting splits. My letter spacing is all sorts of wonky and my ‘S’ is upside-down.

And you know what? I don’t even care. It’s FINISHED.

The big problem, I think, was just my own hubris: this is a pattern I created, and I’ve made it three times before. I relied far too much on my (faulty) memory of how it went, instead of digging out the actual pattern, with the above results. Ah, well… a lesson learned, I supposed.

Assuming that you’re making it correctly, this is actually a very easy pattern. The entire thing is worked flat and then joined, and only uses single crochet (with, optionally, some double crochet at the top just to make it go faster). I used a 4-weight yarn (good old Red Heart) and a G hook for this:

  1. Chain 31, turn. Single crochet across (30 stitches). Chain 1, turn.
  2. Repeat until you have 50 rows.
  3. On the turn, skip a stitch (to decrease) and then sc across. Ch 1, turn.
  4. On the return, skip the stitch right before you last one. Ch 1, turn.
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you have 11 rows in your decreasing section; this forms the heel. (On step 3 you will work 29 stitches across, on step 4 you will work 28 stitches, and so on.)
  6. Rotate your work 90 degrees. Single crochet 20 across. Ch 1, turn. Repeat 10 times.
  7. Decrease 2 stitches per row (one on each edge) to form the toe. Repeat six times or until your top row is 8 stitches across. Tie off, weave in end.
  8. Repeat steps 1-7 to make second half of stocking.
  9. If you are going to be adding letters or any other embellishment, do those now. I used surface crochet to add my letters, but you could also do yarn embroidery, sew on felt, etc.
  10. Join the two halves together with a contrasting colour by single-crocheting around the edges.
  11. Make the cuff: single or double crochet around, joining your rows with a chain stitch and turning so that you’re alternating working the inside and the outside of the stocking (this prevents you from creating a spiral which will look uneven). When it’s long enough for your taste, form a chain of 20-30 loops to create a hanger. Join the bottom of your chain to the inside of your stocking near its beginning, tie off, and weave in ends.

And there you have it. I’ve not added dimensions because — to be perfectly forthright — I’ve made four of these and they’re all different sizes. A lot will depend on your hook size (I recommend a G but you may want to size up or down), yarn weight, tension, etc. If you’re not sure, make a swatch and see how you feel about it (ie: be cleverer than me!).