Teacher Appreciation Blankets 2017/18

So I haven't really been knitting and crocheting much over the past year, so there hasn't been much to update. I'm going to start trying to get into it again, though. I just finished this year's teacher appreciation blankets and am getting ready to start a sweater that my dad has requested, so I'll try to remember to blog about that. Obviously I'm an awful blogger, though, so no promises. But anyways, teacher appreciation blankets:

My son's teacher's favorite colors are blues and greens, so I dug through the yarns I have in my stash and came up with this color palate (yarn details here) and flipped through one of my favorite crochet block pattern books to find a block I thought would look nice. Here's what I came up with:

Block #35, "Tricolor Square," from the book
"200 Crochet Blocks for Blankets, Throws and Afghans."

My daughter's teacher this year was obsessed with Star Wars. He has a whole room in his house dedicated to his Star Wars obsession, in fact. I spent a long time trying to figure out his favorite movies, characters, etc and designing his blanket based on that. Here's what I came up with for him:

Some graphs from here, and some from here.

Teacher Appreciation Afghans

Sorry it's been so long since I posted! I'm not the world's best blogger, obviously. But, if you're open to excuses, I was on bed rest for 15 weeks, then had a baby in February, and then had to deal with colic for a couple of months after that... all while finishing my Associate's Degree and starting my Bachelor's Degree... so I'm just now getting to a point where life feels a little "normal" again. During that time period I did manage to work on an afghan for my daughter's teacher, which is something I did for her Kindergarten teacher as well and seems to be becoming a bit of a tradition. Last year I made a St. Louis Cardinals "graphgan" because her teacher was a big Cards fan.

This graph was from Loopaghans --message

her for a list of graphs she has available.

(Sorry the picture is such poor quality!)

This year her teacher was really girly, so I tried to go with something girly without being so girly that her husband wouldn't want it used on their bed or as a throw in the living room. It took a little trial and error to get the colors figured out, and I made a huge mistake on the second row by messing up every single hexagon... which led to me having to go with sort of a "striped" effect alternating the way the hexagons are meant to be and how I messed them up in the second row, but it ended up working out ok. And, if you're still open to excuses, I did have a lot going on that made it hard to concentrate on crocheting. I was pretty happy with the finished product though and do plan to make more hexagon afghans in the future using the same pattern, but it will probably be a while before I forget just how long this one took me. I made the teacher cry because she loved it so much though --she called it an "heirloom"-- so all the work was definitely worth it in the end!

I used a pattern by Lucy of Attic24 for the hexagons, and border #16 from

the book "Around the Corner Crochet Borders" (with an extra round).

Knitted Wild Animals

I love pattern books. I know you can get a lot of patterns on-line, and I do; I print them out and fill binders with them ... but there's just something about all the pictures and colors in a pattern book that I love.  I have a wishlist about a mile long. One I picked up a while ago is "Knitted Wild Animals: 15 Adorable, Easy to Knit Toys" by Sarah Keen. I knit the Hippo about a year ago for a friend, but haven't had a reason to make any of the other animals since.

There are patterns for a crocodile, elephant, giant panda, Giraffe (although I think the giraffe is kind of ugly, which says a lot because giraffes are my favorite), hippo, koala, lion, monkey, moose, penguin, rhino, snake, tiger, warthog, and zebra. The patterns are knit in pieces and then sewn together, which I'm not a fan of. I followed the instructions step-by-step while doing the hippo, which means I knit all the individual pieces and then sewed them all together at the end ... and that one time was enough for me. Too many pieces, too much sewing.

Next I made the elephant, which I knit in the round except for the base and ears. You can also add tusks, but I figured a pink ballerina elephant probably wouldn't have tusks, and left them off. The head was a little hard to convert from straight needles to dpn's, but I got it figured out. I knit in the round until I got to the decreases for the trunk, and then I knit back and forth for a few rows until I got into the repeating stitches of the trunk, where I started knitting in the round again. That left a small hole for stuffing as well, and that little 1-1.5 inch hole was completely covered when I attached the head to the body.

The book doesn't add any embellishments besides embroidering features, but I thought the little tutu's and bows really add that extra little "something".

The patterns call for DK yarn and size 3 needles ... but I used worsted and size 6 needles, which produced a very snuggly and large stuffed animal. I compared her to Scout above to show her size. Definitely a great size for cuddling with!

I'm not sure which I'll do next. Maybe the monkey. Or I might try the giraffe in some sort of self-patterning yarn and see if it's cuter like that. I'm excited to see how the other animals work up!