Thursday, March 13, 2014

Da Bears Fingerless Gloves



Da Bears fingerless gloves

Size H Crochet Hook
Knitting worsted – a little over one ounce of brown, about half an ounce of blue, and scraps of white and black
Two small black buttons
Yarn needle

With blue yarn, chain 26. Join with slip stitch.
Each round begins with a Chain 3 or a standing starting double crochet and ends joining with a slip stitch.
Round 1:  Double Crochet (DC) in each stitch around. Join.
Round 2: Alternate DC and Front Post Double Crochet (FPDC) (rather than making your DC in the top of the stitch, you draw your yarn up from around the “post” of the stitch.
Rounds 3 & 4: Repeat round 2. You will be making your FPDC around the FPDC in the row below, forming the “ribbing” ridges.

Round 5: Change to brown. DC in each stitch around
Round 6 (Left glove): DC in first 4 stitches, chain 4, skip 4 stitches, DC in each remaining stitch around.
Round 6 (Right glove): DC in first 18 stitches, chain 4, skip 4 stitches, DC in each remaining stitch around.
Round 7: DC in each stitch/chain around (26 stitches)
Round 8-9: DC in each stitch.
 If you would like your glove a little longer, you can add another row of DC. Or, you could add a row or two before the thumb opening in row six to make the cuff longer.
If the ear placement (next row) seems confusing, you can just put the glove on and put stitch markers for the 3 stitches where you want each ear to be located. You slip stitch up to the stitch before the marker, do your 7 DC in the center stitch, and slip stitch again in the stitch after the other marker.
Ears / Round 10 (left glove) : Slip stitch in first 6 stitches. Skip 1 stitch, make 7 DC in next stitch. Skip a stitch, slip stitch in next 4 stitches. 7 DC in next stitch, skip a stitch, slip stitch. End off and tuck in ends.
Ears / Round 10 (right glove) : Slip stitch in first 9 stitches. Skip 1 stitch, make 7 DC in next stitch. Skip a stitch, slip stitch in next 4 stitches. 7 DC in next stitch, skip a stitch, slip stitch. End off and tuck in ends.


Snout: With white yarn, chain 5. Single Crochet (SC) in second stitch from hook and next two chains. 3 SC in last chain. SC in back side of chain for two stitches, then make 2 more SC in same chain as beginning SC. End off, leaving tail to sew to glove.

Nose: With black, chain 3.
Do a Single Crochet Decrease over 2nd & 3rd chains from hook. End off, leaving a long tail to sew on and embroider mouth.

Sew on black buttons as eyes, as pictured.

Friday, March 7, 2014

Girl Minion Hat



Yes, I'm still stuck in Minionland... After my success with a girl hand puppet and scarf, I decided to see how it would look in a hat...I took a basic double crochet beanie, and did some orange for the hair, a bit of yellow, a black strip for the goggles, some more yellow, and then three rows of green with some white clusters. Then I added the eye, a mouth, and some pony-tails, and here she is!




Pattern?
For all of my basic beanies, I pull up one of the patterns from Repeat Crafter Me. She has a wonderful assortment of patterns in loads of sizes. I made up the chart below for this hat, and laminated it to go into my pattern notebook, so I can make this up in any size.

Size H Hook
Knitting Worsted in Orange, yellow, brown, white, black, silver/gray, and green
Sew-on gemstone or small black button

Basically, you start out with worsted weight yarn and a size H hook. For all sizes, the first four rounds are the same:
Round 1: 11 DC in a magic ring.
Round 2: 2 DC in each stitch (shown in chart as 0 stitches between increases)
Round 3: 2 DC in first stitch, DC in next stitch, repeat around <shown in chart as 1 (33)>
Round 4: 2 DC in first stitch, DC in next two stitches, repeat around. (44 stitches)

Keep going with increases/color changes as shown in the chart for the size you wish.

For the skirt, the pattern is 3 DC in green, then a white cluster (with white yarn, *YO, draw up loop, pull through two loops* three times <you're making 3 DC without doing the last part of each stitch>, pull yarn through 4 loops.

For the next row, you'll start out the row with two green DC, then a cluster, so your white cluster is centered between those in the row below. Third row of skirt is the same as the first. Then I finished off with a row of SC in green.

Eye: With brown, 8  HDC in magic ring. Pull right and join.
Round 2: With white, 2 HDC in each stitch around. (16)
Round 3: With white, 2 HDC in first stitch, HDC in next, repeat around (24)
Round 4: With gray or silver (I used two stands of Vanna White's metallic yarn, 2 HDC in first stitch, HDC in next 3 stitches, repeat around. End off, leaving long tail to sew on. Sew a sew-on gemstone or small black button to the center.

For a smaller size hat, I do the silver for round 3 rather than 4, to make the eye smaller.

Mouth: With black yarn, chain 10. End off, leaving long tail to sew on.

Hair: Cut 12 strands of orange yarn about 20" long. Thread through hat at side of rows 3 & 4 (I did three strands in row 3 & 3 strands in row 4). Pull through evenly and braid tightly (since you're doubling it, you will have 12 strands of yarn to braid.) Tie tightly.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Frenchie Minion Hat


Minions are such fun... I love the Despicable Me movies. I printed out a picture of "Phil" dressed in his French Maid costume and made a hand puppet... (still needs a little tweaking before I publish that pattern). Encouraged by how well that turned out, I tried converting it to a hat... and here are the results! It was actually pretty easy to make. The hardest part for me was sewing on the very curly top frill in a straight line.




Size H hook
Worsted weight yarn – bright yellow, black, brown, white, silver or gray (I use a double strand of Vanna's Choice metallic silver yarn, since it's a lighter yarn. I like the metallic look.)
Small black sew-on gemstones (or small black buttons)

I begin all my double crochet rows with a chainless starting  double crochet rather than a chain 3. Here is a tutorial on how to do it:Chainless Starting Double Crochet

With bright yellow:
Round 1: Make magic ring, chain 2. 8 DC in ring. Pull tight, join.
Round 2:  2 DC in each stitch around (16)
Round 3: 2 DC in stitch, DC in next, repeat around (24)
Round 4: 2 DC in stitch, DC in next two stitches, repeat around (32)
Round 5: 2 DC in stitch, DC in next three stitches, repeat around (40). Change to black.
Round 6: 2 DC in stitch, DC in next four stitches, repeat around (48). Change to yellow.
Round 7: 2 DC in stitch, DC in next five stitches, repeat around (54).
Round 8: 2 DC in stitch, DC in next six stitches, repeat around (62)
Rounds 9 & 10: work even (DC) in yellow. Change to black
Rounds 11-16: work even (DC) in black. Change to white
Row 17: Chain 1, sc in first stitch. *Chain 3, sc in next stitch.* Repeat around. 


Top frill:
With white, make a chain long enough to reach from the top of one goggle band over the top center and down to the other goggle band. I think my chain was about 100 stitches, but I lost count and just worked by measuring it against the hat.  Make a DC in the third chain from the hook, then a treble crochet and another double crochet in the same stitch. Continue down the chain, making DC/TR/DC in each chain. Leave a long tail for sewing on. With your joining seam at the center back, lay hat flat and sew frill from the top of one goggle band to the top of the other, working through the bottom of your original chain.

 Hair:
Cut 5-6 strands of black yarn 3" long. Randomly tie them on rounds 2 & 3 at the front of the hat.
 
Eyes:
With white, make 8 hdc in magic ring.
Round 2: 2 hdc in each stitch (16)
Round 3: With gray/silver,  hdc in each stitch (16). (Working this row even makes the edge curl in a bit, giving it more of a “goggle” appearance. End off, leaving a long tail to sew on.
Sew a small gemstone to the center of each eye. Sew eyes on center, over black goggle strap.

Mouth: With black, chain 10. Leave a long tail to sew on.

Bow:
With white, chain 10. Make hdc in 2nd chain from hook and each chain across (9 hdc)
Row 2: chain 2, hdc in each stitch. End off and tuck in yarn ends.
Tightly wind yarn around the center of the bow about 10 times. Tie off at the back and sew at the center of the black “skirt”. 

Apron:
With white, chain 100.
HDC in 2nd chain from hook and next 14 stitches.
Rows 1-4: Turn, chain 2, work a decrease over the next two stitches. HDC to within 2 stitches of the end, work a decrease.
Slip stitch back up to beginning chain. Work  *SC, chain 3* in each stitch around the apron. Chain 85 for other apron string. Sew apron to front of skirt. Tie apron strings in back, tacking them down so they don’t come untied.