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[kedibonye]

Braided Ear Warmer

I used a pattern I found online (linked below!) with a similar theme for reference, but modified to match the yarn I had:

Row 1: 60 foundation half-double crochet (fhdc)

Row 2: 60 half-double crochet (hdc)

Repeated x4 to make four strands.

The next steps more-or-less followed the pattern, with 2 rows single crochet (12 sc/row, 3 per strand) to connect the strands at one end.

Then, braided together; connected with single crochets on the other end; and whip stitched the two ends together.

The yarn I used:

(Size 5 - super bulky - with 8mm hook)

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Mountain Ridges Hat

I had a lot of yarn left after making that shawl, so I made a hat using a pattern I found online (linked below!)

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Triangle shawl project from everyday crochet book!

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Leftover yarn from the blanket, and my first stab at surface crochet. A gift for Percy's mama 💕

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Percy's* Baby Blanket

(September - October)

My biggest project to date!

I started off with three Lion Brand Mandala yarn cakes in the (discontinued) Hades colorway:

(Spoiler alert: this was not enough yarn. I had to buy more... Multiple times.)

There's no specific pattern for this one--after no small amount of overthinking, I went with the blanket stitch and then repeated that a couple thousand times.

Here it is after finishing the final rows:

And after adding the border:

This was my first time blocking a project, and it definitely made a difference! (Though, again, not the best at estimating how many pins and blocks I would need.)

Some other fun facts about the construction:

The bands of color change in thickness based on the Fibonacci sequence for row count: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8...

I made a game of bringing this project to be worked on at different beaches or cafes. Distinct locations where at least one row was finished? 9!

Here it is in it's final form and home, warming the tiny human it was made for:

(Said tiny human blurred in above photo in principle.)

*Tiny human pseudonymized as Percy. If dad would've gone for it, mom might have named her Persephone. This made the Hades color palette even funnier in hindsight, though aside from just liking the colors, I absolutely knew my friend would find the naming highly amusing.

[kedibonye]

September: Washcloth (Mini-project)

Technically this is me backtracking to practice project #1 from Everyday Crochet, but mostly I just wanted to try out a new stitch (moss stitch) and use up more of the extra cotton yarn I have.

(I still have more of both yarn skeins, so debatable success on that front.)

Also, cotton is really soft and what I'd been using up to now was a cheap, half-decade-old washcloth that was quite past its retirement date...

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September: Coaster Set

This is the last already-completed project from my backlog. From here posts will be based on when I finish projects, living up to the promise of sporadic and haphazard posting in the blog description.

Anyway, practice project #4 from "Everyday Crochet".

One of the multicolor coasters came first, but I wasn't a huge fan of the effect, so I switched to the light blue.

Except, y'know. Then I made a couple of the solid coasters and couldn't have just one multicolor coaster all on its lonesome...

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September: Triangle Bunting

Practice project #3 from "Everyday Crochet", meant to give practice with increase and decrease stitches -- depending on which end of the triangle you start from.

The pink yarns I got from a thrift store for $3-4 total; the lighter pink is an acrylic and linen 50/50 blend, while the fluffier, darker ones are polyester.

Most of the challenge here came from the yarn choices themselves - the linen has these periodic yarn beads, whereas the polyester was just... really fluffy, and counting stitches was just objectively not possible most of the time.

Another fun project that worked up satisfyingly quickly.

[kedibonye]

September: Colorblock Potholder

So I went to a local bookshop and bought "Everyday Crochet: the complete beginner's guide" by June Gilbank.

I may not be a complete beginner at this point, but I figured it was time to do a comprehensive review of the fundamentals now that I have a few projects under my belt and was fully committed to picking this up as a hobby.

This is the second recommended practice project in the book, for getting comfortable doing color changes. It was my first time purchasing and crocheting with 100% cotton yarn, because acrylic is not high-temperature-compatible.

It's also probably the most "square" project I've managed to date! (Ok technically earlier projects were attempted rectangles, but still.)

Here's the back view, since the project is made by seaming two square panels together:

Other notable techniques and tips picked up from the book that were used here: (1) crocheting into the "back bump" of the foundation chain (2) slip knots -- turns out I'd been making an adjustable slip knot the entire time, which explained a lot about some of the issues I've had with the knot coming undone on some of my older projects...

More fun facts: this book is actually how I learned that the pattern I used for the NICU blanket has a name -- it's included as one of the easy stitch patterns to try.

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August: Triangle Net

At some point, I realized the top of a single shelf was no longer going to work for me as the yarn storage solution of choice. This is what I landed on.

I watched a few different videos while working on this, but the main pattern I ended up following for the final design was based on Laura Brian's toy hammock pattern.

If I were to do this again (which, like the sleeves, I'm liable to do at some point), I'd probably use a less stretchy yarn than acrylic -- probably cotton like the original design called for, though at the time I was working on this I'd yet to branch out beyond acrylic.

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August: Just Sleeves

This is a fairly popular trend online, presumably because it's easy to make and doesn't require a ton of yarn or time. There's a bunch of different patterns or tutorials with the same concept, but the one in particular I followed was a video by Anna Greene.

The concept in general gets some flak from some corners for its presumed lack of practicality, but as someone who owns a lot of dresses intended for weather a bit warmer and less windy than it typically gets where I am, it's actually really nice!

Way warmer than I expected, though that probably comes down in part to the yarn choice.

Here it is modeled on a bear, though again it does fit a lot better on the person it was designed to be worn by:

I might give this pattern or something similar another go in the future, maybe with a bit more chest coverage or other minor alterations.

Fun fact: I actually bought this yarn at the same time as the blue-purple-black gradient yarn cake, but it was too difficult for me to work with until I had a bit more experience under my belt.

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August: Chair socks

A small project inspired by a Ghost Chair Socks pattern from the "My Fingers Fly" blog. I altered the pattern slightly by using stacked increases to make the socks slightly more square-ish. I made eight, which mostly used up my remaining yarn from the yarn cake used for the arm warmers and laptop sleeve.

I might go back and make a set for the table as well; the main motive here was that the scoots on the bottom of the chairs had worn enough that they were starting to scratch the flooring.

That same issue somewhat applies to the table too, I just move the table a lot less than the chairs as a general rule...

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Late July: Around-the-Post Hat

This pattern came from another library borrow, Crochet One-Skein Wonders by Judith Durant and Edie Eckman.

Admittedly, it's a bit oversized and could almost pass for a pageboy on the bear chosen to model this one, but it fits a Kedibonye-sized head perfectly!

This was my first time crocheting a brim and it turned out a bit ruffly.

You also don't want to know just how many times I had to redo the first 3-4 rows before I finally got the hang of the stitch pattern. (It was several hours spread across a couple weeks, is all I'll say on the matter.)

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Early July: Wrist warmers

Sensing a theme here? I made two pairs of these, one for myself and another as a gift, by following Bella Coco's video tutorial.

The pair for myself I made first; here's how they look now, after three months of fairly heavy use:

(the blue tint is just a byproduct of natural lighting on a sunny day)

The other pair, modeled when brand new by the recipient:

You might recognize the secondary yarn from another project. They're slightly larger than the first set, medium rather than small. Probably a tad more durable, too -- my seaming strategy improved from the first pair to the second.

Note: I've stopped numbering projects as it's around this time it stopped being so obvious to me at a glance or from memory what I made when and there are a couple projects I don't have photographic documentation of that I've since lost and/or disassembled. I might still include general dates and I've tried to keep everything in roughly chronological order.

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#5: NICU Baby Blanket

This was a Knots of Love project made using one of the free patterns available on their site. It took approximately 28 hours, completed sometime in June . The time was tracked on this one because for every hour of documented volunteer time I submit, my employer donates $10 to the volunteer organization as well. (To a certain limit.)

I recently learned the pattern used here is actually called an "up-and-down" stitch, but it's basically just alternating single and double crochet stitches.

This was a good opportunity to practice consistent tension and stitch sizing. Still not perfectly straight-edged, but I'm getting more consistent!

I was questioning the color choices I made on this one initially, but it grew on me once I got a few rows in and could see how it was going to turn out at scale.

Also my first time attending an in-person yarn crafts event, in which I finished this project and handed it off for donation.

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Project #4: Laptop sleeve

This design originated with "The Unraveled Mitten" blog's laptop sleeve pattern.

Some changes had to be made with the seaming due to my inability to crochet in a straight edge. I personally think the finished project came out well enough that it passes as an intentional design choice.

This sleeve is still in use saving my laptop from dastardly dust particles on a daily basis.

It's made with herringbone half-double crochet primarily, a new stitch learned for the project. Also my first time attaching a button, which at the time was really intimidating to me.

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Crochet project #3: Arm Warmers

You might notice there are three of these. No, I don't have three arms.

I am always cold, and honestly this kind of project was behind my original impulse to learn to crochet to begin with.

I bought yarn for the first time, my sole criteria being "is it soft" and "do I like the colors", and checked out a book from the library -- Crochet That Fits by Mary Jane Hall -- for the pattern.

To me, the quality difference between the first and second one I completed was noticeable enough that I made a third one to have a complete "pair" that matched more closely.

I still wear all three on a rotating basis, usually as an additional layer under a windbreaker when I don't want to commit to a sweater or thicker jacket but am still too cold to want to go outside otherwise.