Bird House Set

I like making various kinds of crochet project! Today, I'm going to introduce a crochet home decor. 

I got two free patterns, Felted tweety birds and Crochet keepers, and came up with this bird house set.

Wool yarn is required for the Felted tweety birds pattern, because it turns to felt after washing in a washing machine. However I don't like felted yarn. You know that wool is expensive yarn and there is a craft called felting. The largest feature of crochet and knitting is the stitch. If I felt the yarn, the stitches will disappear. That's why I didn't felt my project.

When I found Crochet keepers pattern, I thought that I can change the pattern into a bird house. I added the heart-shaped entrance, and decorated it with a flower and vine.

I named this project Bird house set, so I'd like you to look inside the bird house.

The bird house set includes their nest and three eggs!! I put cotton and thin branches in the nest. These branches are came from my garden. I love gardening same as crochet. 

I came up the bird house set idea before last fall. When I was clearing up my garden last fall, I noticed that my Japanese basil shrub had completely dried up. I cut branches about 10 inches long, and saved them for the project. The branches color is dark red-brown, and smells of basil even though the branches have dried up. 

I gave the first bird house set to my mother-in-law as a birthday present. She loves blue birds, so she liked it. 

I made Goldfinch for mine. 

Stitches that I used in the project.

Chain, slip stitch, single crochet, half double crochet, double crochet, treble crochet.

Yarn that I used in the project.

• Caron Simply Soft : Country Blue, Sunshine, Persimmon
• Yarn Bee Snow Flake Wool Blend : Limelight
• Lily Sugar'n Cream : Landscape

Tube Scarf

I'm going to introduce a spring project today. I got a free pattern, Paradores Infinity Scarf, from Naturally caron .com. The pattern looks nice, but I didn't like how to connect three panels together, so I changed the pattern a little. The pattern is composed of three panels, but I made only two panels, because I want to use the scarf as long as I can whether the season in hot or cold. The scarf can be used underneath a jacket as neck warmer during cold season.

It can be also used as stole or scarf during spring and summer.

I always need stole whenever I go shopping during summer, because the air conditioner inside U.S. buildings  is really cold for me, so the stole should be light, small and easy to carry with me, that's why I didn't make third panel of the pattern. 

I used a super fine yarn for the project. The pattern suggests using light yarn, so I figured out how much stitches my scarf needed. The super fine yarn is very elastic, so it's good yarn to make tube shaped project. The yarn is suggests a 3.25mm/USA size D hook, but I used a 4.00mm/USA size 6 hook, because I wanted to use the elastic yarn effectively. I love the elastic yarn, so I'm working on this project with different colored yarn again. However, the yarn is a little expensive.

I worked on the long bottom edge of upper panel with glory pattern, which forms flower shapes. I used shell stitches on the long top edge of the lower panel.  I connected the lower panel to the flowers of the upper panel with slip stitches.

 

I also made the corsage for the scarf. I really loved the flower that I used for the napkin holder, so I used the flower this time as well. To make corsage, I crocheted with a Vanilla colored cotton yarn and white colored crochet thread placed 24 pink beads together. I recommend that you use cotton yarn when you make solid project without stuffing, because cotton yarn holds it's shape. I needed to add something to the flower, so I tried adding a crochet leaf and corkscrew, but these didn't add good effects. After that, I came up with a idea, which used a crochet motif as flower leaf!

 

Since I liked the flower, I'm planing to make hair accessories with the flower as well!

Stitches that I used for the project.

Chain, slip stitches, single crochet, double crochet, 2 treble crochet cluster, shell stitch.

Yarn that I used for the project.

• Patons Stretch Socks : Nougat
• Red Heart Eco-Cotton : Vanilla (corsage)
• Lily Sugar'n Cream : Country Green (corsage)

Snow Flake

I made crochet snowflakes as Christmas decoration, and hung them from curtain rail in the living room. 

I got this pattern form Patons free pattern site, here. 

I used cotton yarn, which suggested a crochet hook (USA size 4/E) for the snowflakes, but it made them larger than I expected. I tried crochet thread with a thread hook (USA size 7) next time, and it made just right. I hung smaller sized snowflakes from Christmas lights on the kitchen cabinet. 

I used crochet thread for the first time, so I tried to make some different crochet motifs with the thread.

 I made a crochet neck lace too! It's really easy necklace, but it's cute for winter.

I just used purple leather for the necklace and a yarn flower with eight beads.

While using the crochet thread, I came up with some new ideas, so I look forward to introducing my new projects to you soon. I also want to use different colors of crochet thread.

Yarn and thread that I used for these crochet motifs.

• Red Heart Knit-Cro-Sheen : White
• OMEGA Sinfonia : Blanco

Witch Hat

I have made the witch hat for this Halloween as my costume! I found a cute free witch hat pattern on Red Heart.com, but the patter is for child, so I needed to figure out my size as usual. 

Bewitching Hat

I tried a few ways to make a lager hat than the pattern showed, and finally found easiest way. The easiest way is to crochet with two strands of yarn and a thicker crochet hook. I wanted to use my left-over yarn from making the spider for pumpkin hat that I introduced in this blog before, so I used 6mm (USA size 10/J) crochet hook. The black yarn generally recommends using 5mm (USA size 8/H). This way really worked for my size! The hat was just right for me.

My idea this time was to add purple flowers! The pattern says to change the yarn color from black to purple to make ribbon around the hat, and crochet same as hat. However, I used black yarn on purple ribbon part. I made thirteen purple flowers, and attached to the hat instead. I also made the brim of the hat longer than the pattern. I just worked one more row.

You can adjust length of the gray hair as you like. Since my hair got really long, I made the gray hair same length as my hair. I would tie up my hair when I would wear the hat, but I noticed that looks good if I wear the hat with my long hair.

Yarn that I used for the witch hat:

•  I Love This Yarn Sport Weight: Black (Hat)
• I Love This Yarn Sport Weight: Ivory (Hair)
• I Love This Wool Super Soft: Ple Gray (Hair)
• Patons Grace: Amethyst (Flower)

Happy Halloween! 

Hood Vest

I enjoy using free patterns from web sites too, but I usually add my ideas to them. I'm going to introduce an example!

I made the Hood vest with a pattern from Lion Brand Yarn Company, which is one of my favorite web sites. The pattern is for a baby, so I needed to figure out my size. Wee Vest  

I used one of my jackets to match sizes for all the parts.  I decided the foundation size of the back of the vest first. However I added popcorn stitch on the bottom of the back, so I adjusted the foundation to fit the popcorn stitch. After that, I split the foundation size into right front and left front. I worked the arm and neck holes the same as the pattern. It worked well for my size.

The hardest part was to know the hood's size. The hood foundation size must be the same amount of chain around neck, so I sewed together the back, right front and left front first, and then I just counted chains. However, I needed to arrange popcorn stitches on it again. 

I made the hood the same length as from the bottom of the vest to the bottom of the arm hole.

 I also added a different color along the edge with single crochet. This red yarn is left over yarn from my bolero which I made with other free pattern. I worked on the vest with half double crochet.

If you have any questions about the vest, please don't hesitate to ask me. I will be happy to answer. Have a wonderful time with crochet♪

 Yarn that I used for the vest.

•  Red Heart Super Saver : Aran
• Loin Brand Yarn Homespun : Wild Fire