Hurricane FO: A Pair of Birdie Rattles

After making my Lions on Saturday night, I had to get situated for another project on Sunday night (when the worst part of the storm passed through). When packing my yarn, I deliberately chose colors that I could use on multiple projects for multiple babies. Next up were a couple of birdies!

This is the Sweet Tweeter! pattern from Modern Baby Crochet by Stacey Trock of Fresh Stitches. I just love her books, and I love this pattern. It's so simple (and quick) to make, but babies seem to love the shape and they make for a fun opportunity to use bright colors. This one is for a particular little girl, so having already made a pink one I wanted to make this different and chose purple. I used I Love This Yarn in the hGrape colorway for the body and Red Heart With Love in Daffodil for the beak.

And of course I added a rattle :) Rattle all the things! I haven't seen the baby this one is intended for in a while, but I'm hoping she likes it.

Since the storm was still raging, I settled in to make my second bird rattle of the night. This is where I had to do a lot of starting and stopping as well as crochet by candle light and/or flashlight, lol. Our power kept going on and off while I was making the body of this birdy, but I was undeterred.

This is another bird intended for a baby girl, and I just love this color so I try to fit it into projects wherever possible. I used Red Heart With Love in Jade for the body and the same Daffodil for the beak.

And this has a rattle as well :) Don't you just love their little faces? I used 10 mm safety eyes for both birds, and I like to put them a little closer together then the pattern calls for.

And here are both birds just after I finished them :) This picture was taken by candle light and with my camera flash, lol. I hope the little ladies I made these for like them and have as much fun shaking them as I do!

FO: A Rattling Shadow

I had a baby shower to attend a few weeks ago for the daughter of a coworker of mine. I've known their family since I was a kid, particularly their love of horses. They have a few horses of their own and used to let us come and ride them as kids. We always loved to visit :) One of their horses in particular is their oldest and he was the soon-to-be-mother's horse, so I knew exactly what would be the perfect gift to make: a small version of her horse, Shadow.

My youngest sister still visits their horses once a week, so I started by asking her for pictures of Shadow. He's 29 years old, and getting a bit gray. He's mostly all black but with some gray-ish splotches on his legs and face. I decided to use the Giddy-Up pattern by Monster's Toy Box since it's just so cute.

The yarn was a hard choice. I couldn't recreate those little spots in crochet like I could with knitting, but I didn't have time to knit the horse. I had popped in a local thrift store the previous week, and randomly bought a mystery ball of black-ish yarn not knowing what I would use it for (I mean, you can't pass up 50¢ yarn, right?!) and it just happened to be the PERFECT yarn for this project. It's mostly black with little flecks of white and gray throughout. I couldn't have found better if I trolled the craft stores (which I wasn't able to do). I used the whole 80 gram skein of this yarn, so talk about this being meant to be! The only draw back to this yarn is that it's definitely some type of wool, and it shed quite a lot. Oh well, it looks great so I had to use it.

I used come Vanna's Choice in black for the hooves and hair. I also had to use a tiny bit of the black on the base of the ears since I just barely ran out of the body yarn. The black hair covers this part of the ears anyway, so no one will know. I embroidered little nostrils with the black as well, but it's incredibly difficult to see, lol.

I put a rattle piece inside Shadow's belly, just since it's for a baby and I figured it would be extra cute that way. My only regret is that I didn't weight the hooves with something since he's a bit top heavy and wants to tip forward if you don't get him standing just right. Other than that, he came out super cute :) I even made baby safe eyes.

To add to the adorable-ness, I made up a little "Hello My Name Is.. " tag and printed the washing instructions on the back. I tied it on with pink yarn since it's for a baby girl (in case you couldn't tell, lol).

Here he is with the mommy to be! He was a big hit :) She even carried him around the party for a while afterward. My coworker even told me that my gift was the best (sshhh... don't tell the other party guests!) I love that it was a meaningful gift and they liked it so much. Now this new baby can have a Shadow of her own just like her mom did.

Crochet Update: The Mushroom Rattle

After I made up all the new pieces for the Mystery Crochet Along on Wednesday night, I wanted another animal to keep my hands busy for the evening. I had just finished my other animal projects so I needed a new one and I had a sudden epiphany on what I should make. Thus, this mushroom came to be :)

This is the Mushroom Softies pattern from Amigurumi Two by Ana Paula Rimoli, one of the books Justin bought me for my birthday. When I showed my sister the book, this was the pattern she commented about most - she loves Mario style mushrooms. She even made big mushroom top hats for herself and her husband one year for Halloween. Add my nephew's love of the color red to the family's mushroom obsession and this baby was meant to be.

I used Everyday Soft Worsted yarn in Really Red and Snow White along with white and black felt and embroidery floss. Luckily I had all the items I needed on hand. Since I knew this was going to my nephew (who loves to chew my crocheted toys), I cut out teeny tiny circles of felt for the eyes and sewed them on. Confession: I originally tried to embroider satin stitch eyes - they looked awful. It's very difficult to embroider an even shape on a bumpy surface. So I just put the felt over the bad looking embroidered eyes - victory!

The only thing that bugs me about using the 4 white felt pieces on the mushroom top is that the red yarn left red fuzz on the embroidery floss as I pulled it through, so it's a little red at the stitches. Hopefully that eventually wears off with excessive chewing.

I think this pattern is cute, but it's very difficult to keep it the shape shown in the book once you stuff it. I like that you can choose which size mushroom you want (there are directions for small, medium and large), the final "put everything together" stage could be described a little better. I think I stuffed my top too much because it just won't curl over the base like the example photo does. Oh well, I still think it's super cute. Also, I have an ace in the hole for this to be an extremely successful toy for my nephew.

It has a rattle! I put it in the lower part of the top just before I sewed it up, so it's very cushioned and he can't get to it. I think I get just as much enjoyment out of the rattle pieces as the kids they go to :)

Crochet Update: Nina the Butterfly - My First Rattle!

I purchased this pattern a few weeks ago - as soon as it was released - and I've been saving it for something special. Meet Nina the Butterfly!

Isn't she cute?! I was a very quick pattern - I think it took about 2.5 hours all in all. I made her using the Muriel the Butterfly pattern from FreshStitches. Just like all her other patterns, this one is very well written and comes together easily. I used Red Heart With Love yarn in Hawaii Blue for the wings, with Everyday Worsted in black for the body and white for the eyes with a small scrap of yellow for the mouth.

Getting those wings on straight was trickier than I anticipated and I ended up having to unpick them 3 times, but I prevailed and I'm so happy with the results :) The best part is the little surprise she has inside. As I was adding the stuffing before crocheting her closed, I inserted a little something special...

It's a rattle! My husband got me a whole bunch of these inserts for my birthday - they just came a little late. And since she makes noise, here is a video to prove it:

lol I'm sure anyone who happens on my YouTube page must think I'm crazy - all my videos are of amigurumi :) But I had to prove she was a rattle!

Anyway, I love this quick little pattern and I see many more rattles in my future :)