Learning to Crochet & Knit

I've gotten a lot of positive feedback recently on my new hobby! I'm really loving it and I'm so happy that I'm not only not losing interest, but my projects are inspiring others to want to learn! :)

I thought it might be a good idea to write a post that has all my favorite links/guides/tutorials so I can send anyone here and they can learn the same way I did. 

This lady is kind of odd ha but this is a good starting video :)

& one for the magic ring:

If you're using a pattern and it's all stuff like sc, dc, hdc and you have no clue what that means, here's a list of the abbreviations that explain everything. Then you can look those up on youtube to learn how to do it. 

Staying organized is pretty important when you are doing any craft. I try to keep my basket as clean as possible, but occasionally it gets pretty messy.. Also, I love using Evernote and Pinterest to collect all my inspiration, ideas, patterns and tutorials. These are both so great because I can access both from my computer and phone and they are always synced & ready to go. Although I find most of patterns & inspiration on pinterest, I have also used Ravelry quite a bit for patterns! It's probably the best site for knitters & crocheters in my opinion.

First project- Betsey's kitty.

I ended up letting Betsey keep the ball, since I made it before I learned about the magic ring, which really helped with my amigurumi. :) Honestly I should have started with some smaller projects before jumping right in, but I guess it was a good lesson! I really learned what I could do with this kitty.

 

  

Second project: Coaster found on pinterest! Here's the tutorial!

Third project: Octopus!

Google translate helped a lot with this one! I've found that many of the best tutorials aren't even in english ha.. Some on my pinned tutorials on seamless color switching also helped a lot!

 

Finally got to use my amigurumi safety eyes!

 Fourth project: kitty #2

As you can see, it doesn't take long to learn! My fourth project looks nothing like the first haha.. I'm kind of proud of it. :)
I used this awesome video to help learn how to attach the head, ears & skirt waaaay better this time.

My fifth project: Beverly's newborn beanie.
Here is the hat pattern I used for Beverly's newborn & 3 mo. beanie. :) It is suuuper fast and simple to make, once you know how to do the stuff mentioned in the pattern. (magic ring, dc..)

Here's an awesome video tutorial on how to double crochet. 

 

 

 This is the same pattern, I just didn't add the earflaps and added the bear ears. I'm going to add some wooden beads inside once I get a chance to stop at Michaels or Joanns..

Since I took this picture, I've added an adorable wooden button to the middle of the flower. :) I'd take a picture of it but Betsey's on my lap watching Mickey Mouse calmly, I don't really want to interrupt if she's being quiet & letting me do my thing on here!

 

I usually have a few projects going at once, like I think most crafters do ha.. so right now even though I have a crochet doll waiting to be finished, I am also working on a knit infinity scarf for myself, and a knit beanie for Jorge. Here are some tutorials for learning how to knit. It's not as fast or easy in my opinion as crochet, but it's still fun and you can make different things with each, so I think it's nice to know both. :)

 Probably one of the best videos out there for knitting basics.

 

A video tutorial for increasing and decreasing.

Here are some great websites:

Ravelry patterns, boards, knitting and crochet, it's awesome!

One Sheepish Girl I love this girl's blog! She's adorable.

Wool and the Gang great video tutorials for knitting.
Purl Bee beautiful pictures & free patterns!
Lion Brand Yarn has lots of tutorials for getting started on knitting and crocheting, plus tons of free patterns.


If I think of anything else, I'll add it later! This stuff should be more than enough to get you started. Good luck! :)

36 weeks today!!

Here are some recent pictures from the last week or so.. :)

 We love matching!

Nicole came over & took some maternity pictures one night :)

 

 This was just a few days ago.. She's growing!

mustard & pink

So I'm on a tiny bit of a mustard & pink kick right now.. :)
Between cleaning & finding new homes for betsey's old baby things today (preparation for Beverly's arrival in approximately 29 days is in high gear!), I'll be crocheting Betsey's winter beanie!
Can't wait to see how it comes out!

crochet crazy.

I've been quite a bit crochet crazy lately.

I now have a huge board on Pinterest filled with future projects and tutorials. I'm sure my regular followers are getting a little sick of seeing so much yarn on their feeds, but I don't really care ha I refer back to that board sooo much everyday while crocheting! I use that & Evernote mostly now to collect all of my project ideas. I never realized before I started crocheting just how awesome Evernote is! Definitely one of my top apps now.

Anyway I'm super happy I'm doing this. I hope I stick with it. A few people have asked to buy some of my stuff, I think they will definitely keep me doing this if anything else slows me down. I could really use the extra money.. Especially once Beverly comes along. I don't know how I'll find the time to crochet with two little ones, but I know there's no way I can afford to put them both in day care so I'm going to have to think of something creative!!

 Finished the octopus yesterday!! :) yaaayyyy

 

Mommy & Betsey were trying to match today. This was the best we could do.. 

Made myself a cute coaster for my desk using this tutorial! I made it a little bigger than the ones on their site.. I looove it! 

What's on the hook tonight- the beginning of another kitty. I'm using a smaller hook this time & wool instead of cotton. I am definitely liking the smaller hook better (size E), but cotton was way easier to work with! The wool does feel good though.. I like how soft it is crocheted all tight. Ha woaaah...... :O

My crochet kit ♥

long update..

Well it's definitely September over here. We're still up in the 100's of course, but we're definitely thinking about fall! I have a lot to look forward to this next few months, and it's all been rushing around my mind lately.

My mom's 47th birthday was a few days ago.. We celebrated by getting food and having Jorge barbeque carne asada for dinner. :) Everyone loved it, except Betsey & I who ate quesadillas ha.. Bob came and surprisingly didn't give us much crap for our vegetarian ways. I think he finally gets that it's not just a two month phase for us.

In a few more days in Jorge's dad's birthday. I'm not sure on the exact date yet or what we'll be doing to celebrate, but I'm sure it'll be fun! 

 

I've been going to tons and tons of dr's appointments lately to make sure this baby is healthy and growing well. Two nst's a week, plus seeing my regular obgyn every two weeks. Yikes! I've even seen a extra doctors in the last couple weeks and all these appointments are starting to make my head spin. I can't wait to start maternity leave at the beginning of the month. I didn't work one SINGLE day last period, and I'm ready to start getting some money coming in again!

I'm still crocheting as much as possible! I'm definitely not getting as much done as I would like. It's not easy with a wild 15 month old running around & climbing all over everything all day! She's really getting crazy, this morning she made her way to sitting on my desk!! Thank God she didn't fall off or pull my computer off the shelf. :/ I'm really appreciating that baby gate now! Only thing I still need to do is install those annoying things that will keep the drawers and cabinets closed. Her favorite thing to do when I put her in her room is pull all the clothes out of her dresser. :/ The insides of her drawers are just piles of clothes that have been tossed back in 20 or more times now. Haha..

  

My little Cisco is on day 3 of his cast and e-collar. He got into a little fight with my mom's dog (Buddy) on her birthday, and we had to put Cisco out on the porch for a while to separate them. Soon we found blood all over some pillows my mom had on her chairs outside, and when I checked Cisco out, he was bleeding quite a bit from his right paw. I left him on the porch for a little while since the bleeding wouldn't stop, then brought him home to stay in the kennel. 3 days later he started limping again on his right leg and was really lethargic. He would follow me around and just lay there, but when I would call him to come to me he'd just look at me. It was sad! I could tell there was something wrong, so after calling a few vets, my mom & I took him in. He got x-rays and we found out he had at least two fractures. :( Luckily he now has a cast, antibiotics and pain meds and is pretty much back to normal, other than his silly hopping around! The saddest part about all of this is that my mom decided that it was best to get rid of Buddy. I felt really bad at first, but it was actually a good idea in the end. Not only does he stay home in the kennel way too long everyday, but he has been in a few fights with Cisco already; we didn't want to risk this happening to one of the babies! It worked out well though, my mom's friend who is a dog trainer ended up taking him home and told her he'd keep him at least two weeks to try to train him himself before taking him to a shelter. We think he really liked him and wanted to keep him. :) 

Today marks 33 weeks and 2 days of this pregnancy. I seriously can't believe I'm going to have another baby soon! I have been thinking about this so much the last few days. In the last week I organized all off Betsey's old clothes and divided them by size, bought a pretty much new Chicco Keyfit 30 car seat and the Ergo infant insert off of Craigslist, & totally reorganized everything in the garage and brought some things up to clean that I'll be using with the baby (swing cover/breast pump).

I took lots of pictures while I was down there of things I'd like to sell. I can't believe how much I have down there that I could get rid of. I really want to have a garage sale, but being in an apartment makes it kind of hard. I think I'll be posting a lot to craigslist in the next week and hopefully get some sales. I really have my heart set on getting the Baby Jogger City Select double stroller, but it's $659 and I just can't get anyone to agree with me that I need it. So maybe after raising some money I'll feel better about my purchase. :)

I know I can't spend too much though, with how fast these past months have gone, I'm sure Christmas will be here any day!! I'm planning to crochet most, if not all gifts this year. Hopefully that will not only make shopping easier, but I'll save $$ and use up some of this ridiculous yarn stash!

 

Betsey admiring her new tattoo at a pizza place the other day. :) 

The first time we played with these blocks, she absolutely HAD to knock down every tower I made. It was kind of funny to build one then try to hold her back from destroying it. The second time we built towers though, she loved it and did an amazing job helping me stack even the little blocks on top of each other at the top of the tower! I was really impressed! My mom was there and we kept cheering her on, she loved it.

My silly girl yelling, not saying, "Bye! bye! bye!" to every car they drove by and every person that walked in and out of Starbucks today. I was cracking up at first, it was seriously the cutest thing ever. After like 45 minutes of it though, I was pretty used to it and was just enjoying all the nice comments from other people about how cute my kid is. And maybe I got a little irritated at the ones that blew her off... Can't help being a protective mother sometimes!

 Betsey's grandparents day cards for my parents. She's such an artist.

Yes, I do want to get this as a tattoo one day. I want it in prettier, thinner writing and in a small space that is easy to hide. My only hope is that I do ever get it, I don't have any more kids later on!! haha..

Hanging out with (climbing all over) mommy. :)

 

Yikes. That was 3 hours of fun, not.

  

My octopus a few days ago..

As you can see not much has been done in the last few days. I have decided to put some pipe cleaners in the legs though, to make them movable! I've been collecting tons and tons of pictures of things I want to make, patterns and tutorials. I found a picture of someone crocheting a pipe cleaner into the sides of bunny ears and I thought, hey! that's a good freakin idea. & here we are now, haha.

Here is a picture of the original octopuses ..octopi, from the pattern. I wish I could find the blog I got it from but I can't find it! I had saved everything onto one note on Evernote, so I didn't keep the page. Now I know for next time.

♥