Figuring out sizing for baby gear is kind of important.

During the pandemic it turns out a bunch of my friends ended up expecting their first little sprogs! Excited for them and also house bound I couldn't resist the urge to start making things for them. 

It has spiralled and I have made a few more bits here and there. But one of this challenging things with babies is how big are they? and how quickly will they grow out of it?

I really loved the idea of making a Blanket, but my mum is queen of granny squares so I knew she'd beat me to it. (and she did with a vengeance). So I started to think outside the box. 

My friend Cristina, absolutely loves bunnies and she has a little troop of adorable house bunnies. The baby would probably be kicked out the home before the bunnies. But maybe I could make her a disguise? 

I found this super cute baby Bunny Jacket pattern that I just couldn't resist by YouCrochetPatterns.

You can also get awesome super soft baby yarn - I still mourn my baby yarn blanket that eventually fell apart as a child. I like to fondle my yarns anyways as I am a bit of a wench for softness. Baby yarns always sucker me in. 

I went for Women's Institute Soft and Chunky Yarn in both pale grey and dusty pink. This was such a delight to work with because it was so super chunky. 

The other thing to think about is sizing. Because I wasn't sure how long this garment would take me, I decided to go for the bigger size just in case I over ran (which I did) and also to allow baby to get more than one wear out of it. I went for the size for age 2+. 

I picked up some matching pink buttons from Hobbycraft and attached them to finish the look. She loved it :)

Now on the flip side, here's an example if you don't think about the above. 

Another friend, had a very big baby. For his first birthday I found this super cute Aviator hat pattern by Repeat Crafter Me and as his dad loves his motorbikes so I was sure it would go down well. I followed the pattern to the T and adjusted where I needed to. Going for the size larger like I had done before. 

I used a very fluffy yarn for the edging. WHICH WAS AWFUL. It was so unforgiving if you had to undo a stitch as it would immediately knot.

You can still get a chance at receiving one of these little guys by filling out this form.

Before I have mentioned the wonderful beginner friendly book for Whimsical Stitches. 



By this time I was getting quite good at making little balls thanks to this book. Most crochet patterns seem to start with roughly this shape if you want to make toys! 

It was still covid and we were still going in and out of the office as new mini breakouts happened. Our work place was pretty awesome with the freebies. We got lots of activities planned online to keep the social scene going, lots of take out vouchers, and even little care packages. 

One of many little goodie bags that were sent to our doorstep from work.

There were a few members at work who were really on the ball for looking after the teams mental health. Shout out here to my dear friend Sam Sinclair who really helped me out loads when I first started there! It was through our fantastic Ops team we got little care packages of tea, biscuits and other pampered awesomeness (I still gloat about my home spa kit I received once). These might not seem terribly exciting to some but these little reminders in the post to look after yourself and take a moment to sit back and just be were well received!

Another superstar individual was the lovely Sarah Hammond,  Sarah had this fantastic idea to do a subscription box for mental health. In fact she launched the Better Brain Campaign! and was gathering all sorts of bits and pieces to put into this box. Mental Health advice, journaling prompts, emergency tea and chocolate. You name it! 

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I wanted to help, I thought it was a great idea. But what could I do? CROCHET OF COURSE! We came up with the idea of cute little crochet stress balls. I was inspired by the above book and went to work. The plan was to start with 50 boxes and see how it went from there. 50 little stress balls was a lot for me at the time so I hooked in my friend Naomi to help. She also thought these boxes were a fab idea. 



We started off making a variety to keep ourselves entertained. Little coffee mugs, cupcakes, blueberries, strawberries. All from this amazing little book. Naomi also did a lot of experimentation as she was using up old yarn she had laying around. She also had this ingenious idea of eco friendly stuffing and used beans and shells. For a stress ball this makes a great texture to play with. 

This journey is about shawls, hats and gloves!

In my early days of learning I was thinking about a) what would be fun to make and b) what would be a usable make. I didn't want to be inundated with random useless stuff. I was also still learning and wanted to learn new stitches that I could then have in my repertoire for other things. 

I get chilly in my office but not cold enough to warrant a hoodie or other jumper. Knit wear can be insanely warm and I've not had to wear those thick jumpers since I returned from living in Canada. Apparently I have been hardened to the colder climates! 

In my beginners book mentioned in my first crochet post Crochet for Mental Health

They had a shawl that looked like something I could use. The beauty of this stitch is that it works up quite quickly, so for an impatient newbie like me this was a great project to start with. 

I was a frequent visitor to hobbycraft for yarn by this point. Buying cheap and affordable yarn just in case I packed in this hobby as I got tired of it. (har har har!). This time I was just going by feel. Which meant I purchased some Wendy Lavnder Supreme DK it was so so soft. 

But.... I am always drawn to those beautiful ombre multicolour yarn skeins.... Today I fell in love with this beautiful mermaid like ocean coloured yarn. It was beautiful, magical and whimsical.. Perfect. James C Brett Evening Sky Shhh DK

Little did I know this Yarn Skein was very unforgiving as the fibres just wanted to felt if I ever needed to undo (frog) my work! However I persevered! 

Truth be told, I'm not sure how long I spent working on this but the dog was very happy to have cuddles under an ever increasing blanket.

But it was done! And essentially looked like a giant mermaid net... I'm ok with this.

By the end I still had some yarn left over. TIME FOR A HAT! The most simple and straight forward things to do when you are starting out. Its great how quickly these come up! This was just essentially a double crochet slowly increasing until it was big enough to fit my crown. Then double crochet down to the desired length. I loved how the fancy yarn just came out stripey for this one. 

And finally I still had more yarn. I have insanely small hands for an adult... in fact they are the same size as an average 8 year olds. With this in mind I can never find gloves that fit me so always opt for fingerless gloves. This is rather practical with todays touch screen gadgets so I just like to think I'm ahead of the curve. 

I found this particular pattern on etsy again I have mentioned this in my previous blog. But lets take a deeper dive into this. "Shell We Dance" Fingerless Glove Pattern
The pattern was perfect I was learn another new stitch. The shell stitch. This is a great stitch to use to frill-a-fy some edging and it creates a very cool scale effect. Perfect for my mermaid combo I had been working on! 

I later revisited this pattern with less chunky yarn and low and behold... it fits better... on my partners hands anyways!

What were the lessons I learned from this? Dear god pay attention to the type of yarn those patterns suggest! These gloves yes I still wear but they do make me look like a mole woman. The yarn despite beautiful was just too chunky for this pattern. I was also still figuring out my tension so one gloves is bigger than the other (annoying!!) however modelled on my partners hand who is lovely slender man hands... they look quite good. Just on my tiny hands they do get swallowed by all that yarn.

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However I am still pleased with this ensemble. And it was a great opt to have a photoshoot with the partner and the dog. I still wear these garments as well :) SUCCESS!