Tangled in Knots

I've been waiting for someone I know to have a baby girl so I could try making this pattern for little baby sandals, and finally my friend's sister is expecting a baby girl.  I'm excited to see how they fit the baby and see them on her feet.

Instead of making the little sandals in two colors as the pattern suggested, I decided to make the sandals in a soft baby pink.  I originally planned to use some cute flower buttons that I had, but I opted for the little crocheted flowers instead because it would be softer on the baby's feet and easier to stitch on.

To personalize these sandals you could easily add cute buttons or crochet stars or other flowers.  This was a relatively simple pattern to follow and it only took me about an hour to make them.

In keeping with Christmas tradition, I created another animal themed gift for my family's gift exchange.  This time I created a pig scarf, hoping that my pig-loving aunt would end up with this gift.  Because everyone knew she wanted the scarf, a game of keep away started making this Christmas's gift exchange even more memorable that last year.  And luckily everyone was nice enough to let her have it in the end.

I got my inspiration from this pattern available on Etsy, but I designed the scarf on my own and I'm not sure that I could recreate one that looks just like it.  I also followed the advice from this blog post in making a curly tail.  The scarf is made completely out of half double crochet and a soft pink yarn.  The most complicated part was making the nose look realistic.  I used small black buttons for the eyes and gave the pig two 3-D ears and four legs.

I typically go through phases in my crocheting where I make as many items of the same kind that I can until I find a new item to obsess over.  And about 4 years ago I went through a tote and purse phase where I made quite a few totes and purses for several of my friends.

I made this pink tote for my friend Becca to match her bright pink scarf. Unfortunately, I lost the pattern for this tote a long time ago.  I remember it being a pretty simple design where you crochet the front piece and the back piece.  And then creating a large loop for the handle and sides.  Finally all three pieces were sewn together.  I found two patterns to create a similar tote that could be modified to look like this one just by changing the stitches to single crochet: Shopaholics Shopper Tote and Eco-Friendly Tote.

I made a second scarf for Becca 3-4 years ago when I was a bored graduate student and I found this beautiful pink yarn.  This scarf is made entirely out of double crochet and crocheted widthwise.

Lately, I've been running out of crochet projects to make as I have made all of my friends and family members multiple crochet gifts.  Luckily one of my friends decided to start crocheting, so it gave me the opportunity to make her a crochet needle case.  Following my new rule of using only yarn that I already own, I finally found the perfect use for this dark purple, light pink, and bright pink yarn.  I altered the pattern slightly so that the ripple pattern was more visible.  Instead of changing colors every row, I changed colors after every fourth row.