Pink Monkey Pattern

With Baby Guendie coming to us in a little under 4 months, I have a list of lots of projects I want to work on for her.  With one afghan out of the way, I thought it was time to make a little stuffed animal for her.  I really wanted to make this, since Marvin and I want to take monthly pictures of our baby with a stuffed animal to see how much she grows each month (and if it's something I've made I feel it will be more special.)

After picking out a monkey theme for her room I found this pattern on pinterest and knew I'd have to make it for her.  Overall I really enjoyed this pattern, it was clear and easy to follow.  Using only single crochets, slip stitches, and decreased single crochets.  I was just about to post that my mouth didn't turn out as pictured in the pattern, but this could have been fixed by easily adding a few extra rows to make it bigger.  Now after I re-read the pattern I see that I actually WAS supposed to do that... whoops!  At the time I saw it was smaller, but thought that a monkey's mouth can look like that... sort of like Curious George, so I decided on assembling the mouth to the head as is.

Guendie's little pink monkey.

I promised my little niece that I'd make her one in blue, so I'll have to do that in a couple months after I get all these baby things done. 

Baby Blanket & Headband

Imagine a baby where the bear is.

A few months ago I rented a book from my local library called Oh Baby, Crochet!, and there were lots of cute patterns in there.  I rented this book so I could stockpile some baby blankets for when my friends started having babies.  Turns out the day this book came in was the day I found out my brother and his wife were expecting a baby, followed by a cousin just a few weeks later!  I immediately flagged one of that patterns titled “Merry Go ‘Round the Block” since it had a neat 3 dimensional look, (using mostly a dc and a modified dc stitch), and made one for my  brother.  It was such a quick and simple pattern I decided to also make one for our cousin, since I knew it looked like a nice quality blanket. 

It's great when a cute pattern is easy!

I had some leftover yarn from that blanket and knew I wanted to make a little matching headband with a nice big flower on it.  I was keeping my eye open on pinterest for things that might pop out as a cute flower pattern, and finally I found a real cute pattern, only thing it was in Russian. Luckily the Google Translate button translated most of the words and there were picture diagrams to make sure I was making the correct stitches.  After I made this flower I decided to just crochet a single crochet band with about 4 rows to attach the flower to, and added a jeweled button to the center of the flower to give it more baby pizzazz!

Isn't this just pizzazz-y?

At the end of this month I'll be posting another blog about the stuff I made for the other future baby, as I'm waiting to have their shower.

Wedding Garter + Baby Headband

Earlier this month, a fellow HDHer got married, and I had the delight pleasure of being her Matron of Honor. Her wedding colors were navy with a touch of orange, so I had the perfect idea for her... crochet her a navy and orange garter, which would also be her something blue. It was a quick pattern I just put together and it couldn't have turned out better.

Doesn't the garter look nice on this model?

While I was finishing up on this project at the HDH meeting three days before her wedding, we discussed how this Wedding Garter would also make for a perfect baby headband. I personally think this is a great idea, to be able to reuse your own wedding garter for the next generation. What do you think?

A perfect 2-in-1 project for any bride!