Freebie Friday Moroccan Tile Scarf

For this Freebie Friday, I want to show you this awesome stitch I came across in one of the newsletters I get from Moogly. I saw the stitch on the pic above and fell in love with it. They have the pattern for this on their site for free and can be found here. My goal was to learn how to do it so I could make a scarf (recall I had more scarf ideas after I finished my niece’s scarf).

They have the pattern for an afghan in this stitch and I thought it would serve me better  for making my scarf.

To my delight, the pattern for the afghan has a video tutorial link that shows you how to make it. The video shows you the stitch using a swatch the size of a scarf! It was perfect. I practiced it on my niece’s scarf with that chunky yarn she gave me but it just wasn’t working. I couldn’t really see what I was doing so I finished her scarf with a different stitch pattern and then came back to this one and practiced with Caron Simply Soft yarn. The Caron was perfect for learning. It did take me a few tries to figure the repeating pattern but once I did, it was smooth sailing. The pattern can be found here and I recommend you check out their video tutorial. I thought it was pretty great.

My scarf took on a life of its own. I started with the Moroccan stitch, then switched to a few rows of single crochet, alternating the colors, and then reversed the colors on the Moroccan stitch. I finished both edges with more rows with the stitch pattern I used on my niece’s scarf and the final edge had a picot stitch. I was worried I was making the scarf too busy but my sis-in-law and niece both loved it so I guess it worked out. 🙂 Below are some quick snap shots of it. My niece said it looked like a mermaid. I didn’t even see that but I have to agree. I would definitely love to make another mermaid skirt/costume using this stitch.

Hope everyone finds wonderful things to make with this stitch!

I am not affiliated with any websites nor do I make any money from these sites. They are simply patterns I like or would like to try myself.

Minecraft Steve Doll Pattern Progress

Someone asked me if I had written the pattern for the Minecraft Steve Doll I had made and posted in a previous post. It’s been a crazy busy year and I got side tracked. I had every intention to get this out a lot sooner but you know what they say about good intentions and all :-).

As I’ve mentioned before, I can read patterns and am passable at writing them (which is why it’s taken me so long to get this out). I had hoped to make another doll and force myself to write down what I did as I went but I just haven’t had the time to make one. So I’ve started a new one recently and my goal was to finish the doll with the changes I wanted to make to the last doll and post the pattern the last two Fridays. The first Friday, I realized there was no way I was going to finish the doll and it’s pattern by my deadline. Instead, I thought I could give a tutorial on what I did so that people could make it from that and I would still have a post for Freebie Friday and I would finish the doll by the following Friday and I would have an actual pattern.

Freebie Friday – Scarf and Doily

Awhile ago, my niece asked me if I could make a small doily for a dreamcatcher she wanted to make. Doilies are NOT my thing but I thought I had some my mom made and was going to give her one of those. My intention was to find it right away but time got away from me and I never got around to it. She asked again and I forgot again. Recently, she asked again (I’m a bad auntie) so I actually looked this time but couldn’t find the ones I was thinking of so I decided to go ahead and make one for her.

She requested something simple but as usual, I went on a Pinterest binge and started looking up all the doilies under the sun. Then I found out she needed a tiny doily so that set me off on a different quest because size changed everything! The type of yarn I needed, the pattern for something small like that, etc.

I found this (below) before I knew it needed to be small but I just followed the pattern until I got the size she needed. The pattern can be found here.

Here’s how far I got for the palm sized doily she wanted (below).

My niece liked it so I had to make her another one that she didn’t ask for in case she didn’t like the first one. Did I mention she already liked the photo of the first one? I whipped up a second one that I made up, just to give her choices. 🙂 Sadly, I didn’t take pictures of that one but it was cute.

And then, she asked if I could make her a scarf with some yarn she bought. I love making scarves. I don’t wear scarves that often so I don’t get the chance to create them for myself so I agreed. And you can guess what happened. Pinterest! I searched thousands of pictures (yes! thousands!) and then found out it was chunky yarn. Well, that lead me on a different search for scarves made with chunky yarn. When I finally got ahold of the yarn, I tried different pattens on it but I didn’t like how they were coming out. I changed gears and went for something more simple. In my slippers post, I mentioned that I made some flowers from a pattern that I saw on the Knit and Crochet Show on PBS. The flowers were for a headband that I didn’t care to make at the time but I liked the stitch pattern so I adapted it for my niece’s scarf and it worked out. I used the left over yarn to make those same flowers.

I did the scarf from memory from the stitch I saw on the show. Here is the link to the headband pattern (you need to register to download it but I like this site and would recommend it).

Even though I was going from memory, I coincidentally used the exact same stitch count as the headband pattern but because I used a very chunky yarn, it came out much larger  🙂 and I obviously did many more rows than they did. Do as many rows as you need to get the desired length.

I did something slightly different on the ends of my scarf that are not in the original pattern. I started the scarf with a row of double crochet followed by a row of single crochet and then I followed the pattern. When I reached the length I liked, I did a row of single crochet followed by a row double crochet to finish it off. I also changed colors. I had less of the pink colored yarn than the white so I did four rows of pink and six rows of cream and repeated that until the end. My niece was pretty happy with the end result.

You might be wondering if I stopped at one scarf and it probably won’t surprise you to know that I did NOT stop at one scarf. I made another because I was on a roll. Recall I looked at THOUSANDS (this might be a slight exaggeration) of pictures so I had a lot of ideas rattling in my head but that’s a blog post for another day!

I am not affiliated with any websites nor do I make any money from these sites. They are simply patterns I like or would like to try myself.

 

Freebie Friday- Peppermint Coasters

 

I know Christmas is over but I thought these peppermint coasters were so awesome that I wanted to share them. Here is the YouTube video.

I made some as gifts for Christmas but I don’t think they are restricted to the holiday. I’m envisioning them in different colors and used in all kinds of items. Wouldn’t they look great as a scarf? Maybe a round table cover? An airy hat perhaps? I don’t know what I’m going to make with them yet but I’m excited to find out. 🙂

 

 

I am not affiliated with any websites nor do I make any money from these sites. They are simply patterns I like or would like to try myself.

Funny crochet slippers

Now that winter is here, I found myself wanting  some warm slippers. My mom used to make slippers for everyone in the family but now that she’s gone, I don’t have that luxury so I decided to have a go at it.

Traditionally, I don’t have a great track record with crochet slippers. I can make the heck out of one slipper but the second one tends to be a little more elusive. Either it comes out too small or too big, even when I do the exact same thing (at least that’s what I tell myself). Inevitably, I try to match the size of one of the slippers but instead, I end up with a craft bag full of different sized slippers. Lol  Well no more, I told myself! I was going to make myself a pair of slippers. And they would match!

Freebie Friday – Spiral Crochet Dolls

Although this holiday season has been very busy, I somehow managed to get some crochet done. I worked on small projects I could finish quickly but that still brought me much joy.

I wanted to crochet some gifts for some friends but I needed to whip them up quickly, like due the next day kind of quick! As always when I am in a crunch, I scoured the internet for some speedy ideas. I found these cuties on Pinterest and knew I could make them fast and without a pattern.

Here is the one I made below:

The hat wasn’t exactly right but I liked it anyway.