Jamie’s having two showers so I made two sets of booties. These are both from Precious Baby Booties which has patterns that look good, use sport weight yarn, and work up quickly. This is my favorite bootie book.

These are for the granddaughter of a co-worker and are from a little booklet I got somewhere. The booklet must have been written for a UK audience originally because the first time I tried to make a pair of booties from it they came out ginormous. It took a while to figure out that TC meant DC and DC meant SC and so on. Now I’ve written it into the instructions so I’ll remember. I wonder how, when, and why the UK and US got to using different terms for the same stitches.

Here’s my baby in the hat and scarf I made for him. He’s very proud of the hat and wears it everywhere, but he says the scarf is too short. I told him if it were any longer it’d brush his knees when he unwraps it.

Kiana’s brother got basketball shoes for baby booties so her parents wanted ballet slippers to continue the theme. This was a basic pattern from Precious Baby Booties with some extra ribbons sewn on and some tissue stuffed in the toe.

I had trouble with the zipper (the zipper foot doesn’t guide so well over multiple layers of fleece) and I didn’t finish off the seams, but this is a cute sleeper from a pattern. It seems kind of big for a newborn to me but I don’t have a newborn to try it on. The way you put the elastic in for the booties is kind of ingenuous but I had a lot of trouble reading this pattern and did a ridiculous amount of ripping things out. I don’t know if the pattern was worded badly or if it was just that I’m rusty. I’m also still not liking the new sewing machine but if I tape certain parts into place it does its job.

I made these three scarves from the same yarn – a chunky homespun for the body and then a feathered edge. Well, two have a feathered edge. One is for a boy. I made them for the techies for a show I was acting in. It’s pretty hard to see any detail in this photo, unfortunately, but the yarn worked up really nicely.

These are for my third nephew, yet to be born (or named).

This is a Christmas present for my step-mother, Rosemary. It was crocheted from Moda Dea Dream in the Pecan color from the Quick & Easy Ponchos leaflet. It’s the second photo on that page. Their model was made with Moda Dea Zing but I thought the Dream yarn would suit my step-mother better. The pattern calls for sport weight yarn but Moda Dea Dream is worsted weight and my gauge came out fine.

This is a simple, forgiving pattern. The yarn is a pleasure to work with because it’s so soft and with such a simple pattern, where you only work into spaces, not stitches, I didn’t have a problem with its overall fuziness. It doesn’t frog very well, of course, but luckily I didn’t need to do much of that. The only thing I didn’t like about this yarn was how often I had to change skeins because each skein is so small. This open work poncho took seven skeins.

Here’s a close-up of the yarn and pattern.

Here’s a cute hat for a little boy, in shades of blue and green. Bright and fun! Wish I were better at making pom poms. I can never get them completely round. But then I try to remember that no one besides me is staring at it so hard.

This is a hood with a scarf attached for a woman, made out of the leftover yarn from my friend Sheila’s afghan.

This is supposed to be a frog’s head, for a little boy. It really smeared the makeup on my mannequin head. I should get a child sized one but I don’t know if they make them. Children don’t usually wear wigs.

The pattern didn’t call for two colors but I ran out of the blue yarn. You can see what colors I was using up, can’t you?

There are supposed to be 3D clowns on the ears. I made all the pieces and assembled one clown and it was hideous. I don’t assemble things very well but the main trouble was that I didn’t have all the required colors and kept substituting. Like I was using baby yellow and pink instead of bright yellow and red. I wasn’t going to buy six skeins of yarn to make clowns. The whole purpose of making small things like hats and scarves is to use up yarn, not go out and buy more. Turns out clowns look stupid in pastels.

I like the hat (headbad, ear-warmer, whatever you call it). It was my first time crocheting with beads. I didn’t want to spoil it with demented clowns, so I tossed them and the hat is going standalone. These beads have a beautiful irridescent shimmer and without silly clowns on the ears it makes a bright, sophisticated headpiece for an older girl.