All days should be this great . . .

The first truly warm day of 2012 in Portland and it was spectacular.  Woke up early with crochet inspiration for a Nordic style toboggan hat.  Allright, so my inspiration is not always on track with the seasons . . . but oh well.  Got my yarn ready and took Laney to swim lessons.  I love swim lessons because I get to sit on the pool deck and relax with my crochet and every once in awhile look up and smile and give a thumbs up to little Laney as she blows bubbles for 5 seconds in a row with her nose or whatever.  Progress made on the hat . . . got the ribbing done.

After swim lessons I got a huge cup of coffee and some scones on the way home at the drive through Starbucks.  Mmmmmm . . . . scones. . . . coffee.  At home kids played outside while I fiddled with the hat pattern . . . coming along.  Picnic lunch, more play, bubbles and then . . .  Nap time! Yeah!!!  Nap time = crochet time in my house.

After naps we went to the Willamette river beach to bask and play in the sun. 

The kids had a ball checking out the ducks, throwing rocks in the water, filling buckets with sand.  The kids were busy!  I just love that feeling of the kids being so entertained by their natural surroundings, just busy busy busy, breaking only for a quick snack.  This beautiful park is a 5 minute drive from my house.  This park is a blessing I count often.

What was I doing?  You guessed it, working on the hat.

The hat features my favorite stitch . . . the granite stitch [sc, ch 1, sk next st] and has the appearance of a complicated color work pattern.  If you know my work, you know I don't do complicated . . . easy only please!  Wanna see it?  Drum roll please . . . .

Ta dah!!! The ribbing is hdc in blo, I'll probably change that to sc in blo so it's a little stretchier.  But otherwise it's just getting the sizing and testing done and I think it's a go!  Maybe someday my creativity will coincide with the correct season . . . one step at a time.

New Patterns!

My fingers have been crocheting furiously for the past few weeks in order to publish a couple more patterns.  The first one is a super duper easy peasy Fair Isle style cardigan that I made when I found that there are really very few options for cute boys crochet clothes.  This sweater is constructed very much like my Easy Peasy Toddler Dress but with some simple color work. 

Photo credit

Can you say instant gratification? This pattern takes me two evenings to whip up.  There is only one color per row.  For realsies!  I know it looks like I changed color every stitch, but I didn't.  This is when I like to say "knitting is for suckas !!!"  (J/K) The Fairly Iselish cardigan pattern comes in sizes newborn to kids 6 and is now available in my Ravelry and Etsy shops for $4.

The next one are these adorable felted newborn bootie pattern.  I have been selling the finished booties in my Etsy shop for awhile now but didn't feel like the pattern was ready for prime time until now.  I finally figured out how to make sure that the tab is in the exact same place on both sides and thanks to my pattern testers, I finally figured out how to explain where to join the contrasting yarn in a way that you can't mess up.  So I can officially call these booties EASY, which is really what I strive for in all my patterns. 

Every time I make a pair of these I think to myself, "OMG, I can't believe I just made these!!!"  It's so amazing to me that I can take a few yards of wool yarn and in a few short hours have these heirloom quality booties!  Woah dude, trippy.  This is my go to project for every baby shower these days.  This pattern is available in my Ravelry and Etsy shops for $2.50.  What a bargain, you really can't beat that!