A Crochet Dress, Sweater, and Blanket

Thank you so much for all your kind comments on Saturday’s post! I so appreciate your sweet well-wishes. I don’t know what it is about having ONE boy that makes me think I am only capable of producing boys, but it was quite a surprise to hear the doctor say there was a little girl brewing in there. And of course, a girl must mean girly projects!

I’ve worked on 2.5 projects for the little Miss so far, and they have been so fun to put together. First up, a little dress I crocheted . . . before we knew she was a girl. It was a bit of a gamble, but I couldn’t resist. (Pardon the cell phone pictures—these are all from my Instagram, and I’m too lazy to retake ‘real’ photos.)

I’ve had my eye on this pattern for a while—it’s called the Angel Wings Pinafore, and you can find it free HERE. I used worsted weight yarn, which really is too heavy for this dress, but it was a last-minute naptime project so I had to just work with what I had on hand. It came out very cute anyway.

I also worked up this little sweater recently:

And I love how it came out. The pattern is called Picot and Lace Sweater Set, and you can find it HERE.  I struggled a bit with this pattern—it’s definitely not the most crystal-clear, well-written pattern I’ve ever encountered, but if you’re fairly confident that you can piece together the things it leaves out or doesn’t spell out very clearly, it does make a cute little sweater with only a few swear words uttered in the process. I used Caron Simply Soft yarn in Pistachio for this one—overall, Simply Soft is far from being my favorite yarn, but the weight and feel of it are perfect for a baby item. It came out so sweet, and since it was another naptime project and I have NO patience for leaving a project unfinished when it’s thiiiis close to being done, I used a ribbon woven through the stitches to tie it shut instead of waiting to buy buttons for it. I think it’s kind of a cute touch.

My final project only counts halfway as being made for the girly-poo, because I didn’t start it with the intention of keeping it, and I’m still not 100% sure whether I’ll keep it for her or sell it.

I used the Bold Stripe Blanket pattern (another free one!) from Baby Love Brand to make this, and I love the gradient purples mixed with that silvery gray. The colors are a bit distorted in these pictures, but I used a very light lavender, a pinky-‘orchid’ purple, and a deep jewel-tone purple along with the gray. It was a fairly quick blanket to make, and works up so fast thanks to using two strands of yarn at a time, making for a super-thick, super-chunky, super-warm finished blanket with a lot of great texture in the stitches.

I made it more of a throw size than a typical baby blanket, inspired by my buddy Kim of Newly Woodwards’ baby blanket . . . when I worked on her little Henry’s blanket (which you can see in this post), she requested it be big enough for mom and baby to cuddle in at the same time, and I don’t know why I’ve never thought before that it would sure be nice to BOTH be warm while cuddling under a baby blankie, not to mention that it can eventually be upgraded to a toddler blanket or a throw blanket when baby outgrows it. So a big’un it is. 

Make sure to stop by again on Wednesday—I’ve got a great giveaway that you’re going to love!