Pond Friends Stacking toy

I came across this cute developmental toy on Lion Brand yarn website and loved it.
I made it with acrylic dk yarn and a 3.5mm crochet hook. I stuffed the animal with nylon wool and then made the eyes on the frog slightly bigger. I also added a few warts on his face.
Mia is still a bit young to play with this toy yet, but she loves it nevertheless.

Max's Hexagon Blanket

My friend was pregnant and I promised that I'll make something for her new baby. She found out the gender and already had a name picked.
I came across this blanket pattern in Crochet for Babies and Toddlers by Betty Barnden and I really liked it.
Originally I was going to go for the same colours as in the book, but my friend had a neutral moses basket and asked for a blanket that can go into it, so I went for cream and grey yarn, merino wool in dk, 300g in grey and 100g in cream.
I was sewing the hexagons together as I was making them, the pattern is very easy and there are also diagrams that show how to sew them together.

In the last row I left 3 hexagons blank and made letters "M", "A" and "X" which I then sewed on the shapes, making the blanket more personal and unique.

The blanket was ready just in time for my friend's babies arrival.

Pumpkin hat

I was inspired to make a pumpkin hat for Mia's first Halloween when we received a gift of a little outfit that had a pumpkin on it.

I browsed many designs on different websites until I came across the nicest of all of them.
I started with a stalk that I made out of green merino wool in dk. I first started by making a chain of ten, then I sc into each chain until I had six rows. I then folded the piece so the lower edge was meeting a top edge and sc through both thicknesses making it into a tube. I then made rounds around the end of the tube until I had a proper stalk.
I switched colours and made 10 dc rows in orange dk increasing evenly as I progressed. The ridges were made with front post double crochet. I made the edging with five dtr into the base of the ridge with a chain between them into a base chain, skipped three chains, single crochet, skipped three more chains and made another 5 dtr until the end, fastened off.
I added a final touch by making a little swirly leaf that I attached it to the stalk. I made a chain of 30 and then I made five dc into each chain starting from the second chain from the hook.

The hat is made and now we just have to wait for the Halloween.

Baby Mobile

The next item that I made for my little one was a baby mobile. The idea again came from Natural Crochet for babies and toddles by Tina Barrett. I didn't really like the toys that were in that book, so I decided to come up with my own design. I decided to make some summer bugs and flowers, something very simple but cute.
I wanted to make 5 different toys: a bee, a ladybird, a butterfly, a flower and a sun. For all the designs I googled the images on the Internet and when I found the cutiest ones I tried to create them myself. I used the leftover treads that I had from previous projects for the toys. I also inherited some wool when my friend was moving to another country and she left it with me. The bright warm colours were ideal for making toys.

I stuffed all the toys with nylon wool, glued on plastic eyes and attached them to a chain that I made in yellow colour. My husband made a ring out of a metal coat hanger that I then wound pink wool around. I finished it up with a cute flower and attached all the toys to it.
I bought a second hand mobile arm to hang it above her cot.
My husband also bought a little wind-up device that rotates the mobile while playing the tune "Somewhere over the rainbow".
Mia enjoyed it so much and she loved looking at the spinning toys.

Noah's Ark Blanket

I came across this blanket on Ravelry and loved the idea. You can find the pattern on Ravelry, original design by Michele Wilcox, published in Crochet Magazine, May 2008. I already knew how to do the ripple pattern, so I made a blanket measuring 50x50 cm using dk acrylic. I then made the animals and sewed them onto the blanket.
In the original version there was no lion or octopus, but there were a few blankets on Ravelry that had them and I thought it was a brilliant idea.
I started with the blue sea (about 20cm high) and white sky (about 30cm high), the animals and the ark were made with some leftover wool, I then sewed them all together.
It took me about two weeks to complete the blanket, I was making it in my last stages of pregnancy after coming home from a long day in work.
But finally it was finished and ready for my babies arrival.

Mia's little toy book

Now that my little girl is 6 months old, she likes playing with fabric toys and books. This gave me an idea to make her a little toy book. I started by making 4 rectangular sheets of single crochet stitches. I used some leftover wool that I had left from other projects. I made them 30 cm wide and 15 cm long in different bright colours.

I then made different animals and picture appliqués. There are lots of inspirations on the internet for these. I used a pattern from Baby Blueprint Crochet by Robyn Chachula for the appliqué of a little dinosaur and Crochet for babies and toddlers by Betty Barnden for a little tractor pattern. I came up with a pattern for a littel yellow duck myself and used images on the internet for the others.
I sewed them onto each half of the sheets, so that when I fold the sheet in half the two different pictures would be on different sides. I then sewed together two different sheets, putting some crinkly plastic in between them. Once the pages were ready I stitched them together along the middle. I made a strawberry appliqué for the front cover of the book and embroidered Mia's name below it. I also made two strings for the front and back pages so the book can be closed.
Mia loves her little book and plays with it a lot and it makes it more special that it is personalised with her name.

Mia's Christening Shawl

I have made a shawl for Mia's Christening using the Tiramisu Blanket pattern again.
This time I made it slightly bigger than the other Tiramisu blanket, used white 300g of DK baby wool and I made the middle part in the same pattern as in the previous blanket.
For the edging I started with a row of single crochet to smoothen up the edging and to make it all even. I then made a row of dtr (double treble stitches, done by wrapping yarn around a hook twice), followed by another row of single crochet and another row of dtr.
I then started with five dtr with a chain between them into a base chain, skipped three chains, single crochet, skipped three more chains and made another 5 drt, repeating until the end. This was followed with a row of single crochet with three chains at every gap between dtr of the previous row.
I finished up the shawl with a white satin ribbon that was weaved through the spaces in the second row of dtr.

Mia had her Christening a couple of months ago and wore her special little shawl on that day.

Our little angel got so tired that she fell asleep while we were taking photos.