Newsboy Hats and Beanies

A friend of mine asked me to make some hats for her little one and how could I refuse when she was asking me to make a hat as cute as these little newsboy hats...
I was surprised at how fast they worked up.


Oh my, I know I'm partial...but he is adorable handsome! I didn't actually make this hat for my L1, (he just happened to be the model), so it's a little snug on him.





Another newsboy hat in blue.


And three beanies to complete the order.

Finished just in the nick of time...

Sunday was the day to turn in all submissions for the State Fair. In addition to the baby dress and booties I made, I had picked out a pattern for a baby blanket that I liked and felt like I could finish up in time.

Nevertheless, I still found myself in a bit of a pickle on Saturday. I still had an overwhelming amount of the blanket left to do, but had invested enough time in it that I didn't want to call it quits. I gave it my best push, and literally finished it JUST in time to drive to the fairgrounds on Sunday and enter my submissions.

After snapping a few quick photos of course...

State Fair and A Baby Shower

It was almost one year ago that Chad and I rounded up the kids, picked up my dad and stepmom and headed to the state fair. In order to get discounted tickets, and just for the fun of it I had submitted a couple of photographs I had taken and so had my stepmom. We were all excited to see them displayed and I was especially excited to visit the crochet exhibit. I wanted to get a good look at it, because I knew I wanted to make some entries this year.



However, things didn't go quite as planned.



Our little Baby L was due in just three short weeks and I had been having some contractions here and there all morning. That was not at all unusual for me. Nevertheless by the time we walked around the fair, I was beginning to feel quite uncomfortable. Chad and my parents wanted to visit some other booths while I looked at the crochet. But by the time I got to it, I could barely walk. I found a bench and prayed that Chad would get back to me soon. An eternity later (ie about 20 minutes) he did and we left and went straight to the hospital. That was just the beginning, as I was admitted and in labor for about 30 more hours before Levi was born!



Thankfully, this year I expect my visit to the crochet exhibit at our state fair to be less painful.



And I'm even going to enter a couple things...despite not getting a close observation of the competition last year.



I just finished these cute little cowboy booties which I'll be entering into the baby booties division...

They are made from 100% wool and the white is alpaca.


E3 has told me that he would like a pair of these as well and with the most serious expression said, "without a snake inside". That's a Toy Story reference..you know, "There's a snake in my boot!"
I'm also entering this baby dress I made for my friend when she had her little one. And finally, I'm working on a baby blanket to enter. That's all I'll have time for as the deadline is this weekend.

...Speaking of baby blankets, I just went to another friend's baby shower this weekend. I gave her a baby blanket and hat for our sweet little one. He's due right around the fair time as well...maybe I should warn her.

Two blankets and a Pitiful attempt at Amigurami

I'm singing praises that we have finally collected enough blankets for the NICU service project. I'll be wrapping them up and getting them to the NICU in just a couple of weeks.

Here are the last two blankets I made:

And here is my pitiful attempts at amigurami.... First, I tried to make a quick frog for a birthday gift. It didn't turn out the way I wanted at all, but Baby L loves chewing on it. G9 watched as I searched online for amigurami patterns and begged me to make the bom-bomb from Mario. After I finished it, E3 wanted a blue bom-bomb and E6 wanted a Mario star (not pictured).






I think I'll stick with baby blankets.

Grannies for Babies

I've got two new preemie blankets to show you. It's so much fun to see the blankets adding up. They're so pretty stacked on top of one another.
For this blanket I used two different square patterns.


The border was fun because I tried an 'x' stitch that I had never done before.


A cute little knotted cord adds a bit of fun to the hat.


I think the large granny square blanket works up the fastest, but the last few rows always seem like they last forever.


I've been wanted to try a bonnet pattern, and this one was really easy.