- Tessa Blair Leave a comment

Amethyst headband

Brrr! This cold weather we’ve been having in Colorado has called for lots of bundling up. And lots of bundling up means lots of hats, scarves, and headbands! That’s why this week I decided to make this super fast and cute headband pattern. The entire project took me less than the time of a movie to complete, but the product is so cozy and cute!

So if you want to whip up this headband during your next Netflix binge session, check out the pattern below!

Materials:

  • Premier Yarns Spice Shop, color: Amethyst (or any bulky weight yarn)
  • K (6.5mm) crochet hook
  • Scissors
  • Tapestry needle for weaving in ends

This is the yarn I used for this project. I really love the way the colors came out with the stitch; it gives the headband a cool, marble-y look. The skein in the photo is very large but I only used a tiny bit of it for this project, so don’t worry about getting the value size!

Gauge:

  • Gauge isn’t super important on this project because you can make the headband as thick and as long as you want. But for my headband, the gauge was: 9 rows = 3” and 11 sts = 3”

Abbreviations:

  • Ch – chain
  • St – Stitch
  • Sc – Single crochet

Pattern:

Ch 15 (or any odd number)

Row 1: 2 sc in third ch from hook. *Skip 1 ch, 2 sc in next ch; repeat from * to end of row. Turn. (14 st)

Row 2: Ch 2, skip first sc, 2 sc in next sc, *skip next sc, 2 sc in next sc; repeat from * to end of row. Turn.

Row 3-60 (or however many rows to reach desired length): Repeat row 2.

Fasten off, leaving a long tail for sewing.

Fold in half and whip stitch the ends together to make a circular band. Weave in ends.

Enjoy your warm, new headband!

- Tessa Blair Leave a comment

Rainbow granny blanket!

This comfy and colorful blanket was one of the very first large projects I ever made, and I just love how it came out! Don’t those colors just make you happy??

Granny square projects are also some of my favorite projects because they are portable and easy to work with on the go. That means if you bring your yarn along, you can be working on a big project almost anywhere! And this little blanket is perfect for a lap blanket, baby blanket, or dog blanket! (You can see pictures of my dog Luna making herself extra cozy in this one.) You can also increase the number of granny squares to make the blanket bigger.

Have I sold you on how great this blanket is yet? If I did, then you’ve come to the right place! I’m going to tell you how you can make this blanket for yourself. And don’t worry, it’s easy.

Let’s make a blanket!

So this isn’t really a pattern, but more of an explanation of how I organized and put this blanket together. The actual crocheting part of the blanket is mostly just making a lot of granny squares (80 to be exact). Bella Coco has a great video tutorial on how to make a granny square here.  For a written pattern from Craftsy, click here. Once you know how to make a granny square, this blanket will be easy peasy!

Yarn:

The hardest part of this blanket is probably getting all the yarn you’ll need! For my blanket, I had 7 main colors with 3 “sub” colors for each. If you look closely at each individual square in my blanket, you can see I have a light shade in the center, a darker shade surrounding it, and an even darker shade for the border. Plus, I got two black skeins to attach the squares and make the border. That comes out to 23 skeins! But luckily, you’ll have some left over for future projects.

The yarn I used was Stylecraft Special DK which you can buy here (affiliate link). There are A LOT of color choices you can choose from. For mine, since I wanted it to be rainbow-colored, I chose three shades of each of the following colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and pink. To make the same color pattern as I did, you can use this graph as a reference:

As you can see, I ended up making 18 orange squares, 14 yellow, 12 red, 12 green, 10 blue, 8 purple, and 6 pink.

If you’d like to make your own color creation, I recommend making a graph like I did so that you can visualize what your blanket will look like and so you know how many squares of each color to make. It’s a lot of yarn to keep track of!

Assembly:

After you’ve made all of your granny squares, the next step is to put them together! In order to minimize the chance of making a mistake, I recommend laying out all your squares in the pattern you want them to be in before joining them to make sure everything is in place.

There are many choices you have for joining your granny squares. For mine, I used the single crochet method. It is quick and easy, but it leaves a ridge on one side of the blanket. I think the ridge looks cute, but it is up to you! A video tutorial from AllFreeCrochet on how to use the single crochet join method can be found here. If you want to explore other ways to join your granny squares, CraftPassion has a roundup of 12 different ways here. There isn’t any way that is better than another; it just depends on what look you’re going for!

Bordering:

After you’ve joined all of your granny squares, it is time to finish your blanket with a border! I did my border just as if I was making another layer on a granny square. So I made 3dc in each of the ch spaces and 1ch between each group of 3dc. In the corners, I did 3dc, 2ch, 3dc. Once you get all the way around, finish with a slip stitch, fasten off, weave in ends, and you’re done!

Enjoy your new, beautiful blanket!

- Tessa Blair 2 Comments

Quick and easy crochet iPad sleeve

I am very excited to share this iPad sleeve pattern with you! When my brother got an iPad, he wanted something that gave it some protection but wasn’t too cumbersome. Nothing online seemed to fit his needs, or it was too expensive. So, voila! I ended up making this simple, one-skein sleeve, and it has worked great!

So if you’re looking for a little more protection for one of your devices, or if you want to whip up a quick gift for your tech-savvy friend, this is the perfect pattern for you! This pattern is written for a sleeve to fit an iPad Pro, but it can easily be customized to fit any device you have just by shortening or lengthening the number of stitches you make. (Plus, it’s stretchy!) So without further ado, here is the pattern!

 

Finished size: Approximately 9.75” by 7” (can be customized to fit a variety of devices)
Materials:
  • Yarn: One skein, about 109 yds, of I Love This Chunky, Color: 118 Mocha
  • K (6.5mm) crochet hook
  • 35mm button
  • Tapestry needle for sewing sides and weaving in ends
Gauge: 11 hhdc = 4” and 9 rows = 4”
Abbreviations:
  • ch – chain
  • hhdc – herringbone half double crochet
  • st – stitch
  • hhdc2tog – herringbone half double crochet 2 together (decrease)
Notes:
  • The pattern has a nice stretch to it so if your gauge is a little smaller it should still work. However, I used almost EXACTLY one skein of this yarn, so if your gauge is much bigger or you are making this for a larger device, you may need to purchase an additional skein.
  • The ch 2 at the beginning of each row counts as a hhdc. At the end of each row, your last stitch will be into the top chain of the previous row.
  • This pattern uses the Herringbone Half Double Crochet (hhdc) stitch. To do this, yarn over, insert hook into next stitch, yarn over, pull through the stitch and the first loop on your hook, yarn over, pull through all remaining loops.
Pattern:

Ch 40

Row 1: Hhdc in 3rd ch from hook. Hhdc in each stitch across, turn. (38 st)

Row 2-21: Ch 2, hhdc in each stitch across, turn. (38 st)

At this point, you should have a rectangle. Next, we will work on the flap by crocheting across half of the rectangle.

Row 22-23: Ch 2, hhdc in next 18 st, turn. (19 st)

Row 24: Ch 2, hhdc2tog, hhdc in next 15 st, hhdc2tog, turn. (17 st)

Row 25: Ch 2, hhdc2tog, hhdc in next 13 st, hhdc2tog, turn. (15 st)

Row 26: Ch 2, hhdc2tog, hhdc in next 11 st, hhdc2tog, turn. (13 st)

Row 27: Ch 2, hhdc2tog, hhdc in next 9 st, hhdc2tog, turn. (11 st)

Row 28: Ch 2, hhdc2tog, hhdc in next 7 st, hhdc2tog, turn. (9 st)

Fasten off.

Fold the sleeve so that the flap is on one side and whip stitch the bottom and side of the iPad sleeve closed (don’t sew the triangle flap, just sew the bottom and side of the rectangle), turn inside out.

Attach button in desired position on the front of the iPad sleeve, tying a sturdy knot on the inside. My button is attached on row 16.

To make button loop: Make a slip knot and attach yarn to 4th st in row 28. Chain 5 (or however many needed to fit the size of your button), slip stitch into 6th st.       

Fasten off and weave in ends.

Enjoy your new iPad sleeve!