Search: blanket

The Gender Neutral Baby Blanket

by tatiana on August 12, 2014

For those of you who are familiar with my work, you know that I haven’t made many items for babies. Besides this blanket, I’ve made one other for my cousin, and a cardigan/booties set for a coworker (which was SO ADORABLE — babies are ridiculously tiny, if you weren’t already aware of that fact). That being said, when making things for babies, there’s a desire to make the thing baby appropriate, but also to make sure it’s something I would want to own if I were a baby. Does that make sense?

My good friend decided to have a “gender reveal” at her baby shower, which I think is a fun idea. My friend is also awesome and shares my feelings about the idea that “pink is for girls, blue is for boys” is a bunch of hooey, so I was extra stoked about the blanket I was already making.

After perusing Ravelry, I found this pattern. The pattern is fairly simple and it was a great pattern to work on whilst marathoning Friday Night Lights.

The blanket crocheted up pretty quickly and I love the shape. The scalloped edges are dainty and Victorian and I love how they frame the blanket.

Just for fun, I decided to photograph this blanket with some of my childhood stuffed animals! My mom sent these guys up with my sisters the last time they came to visit. I’ve had them since I was a baby, and I’m happy my mom held onto them.

As it turns out, my friend is having a girl! I’m stoked to meet the little nugget and hope she knows that this was a labor of love made by Auntie Tati, and if I’m lucky it’ll end up in one of her blog posts in 30 years as a beloved relic of her childhood. Or, maybe it’ll end up covered in vomit? We’ll see what happens.

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The Granny Stripe Birthday Blanket

by tatiana on January 9, 2014

So, maybe my friend’s birthday was in August… but who doesn’t enjoy a birthday gift four months after their birthday? This birthday blanket slowly turned into a birthday/Hanukkah blanket, which is how the cookie crumbles sometimes. When it comes to ambitious crochet projects, I tend to underestimate how long they’ll take, but I’m still learning! Next time I’ll give myself a good 3 months… or more, instead of starting a month before my friend’s birthday. Sometimes, you can’t just make it work!

Even though this didn’t get to my friend on time to enjoy in August… it kind of worked out that she received it in December. This crocheted behemoth is a pretty heavy blanket for the summer months. I didn’t use a pattern, and I forgot to measure it before I handed it over, but I think it’s around 5′ x 6′ — large enough to drape over a full sized bed.

My friend is really into wine, so I wanted to use a deep purple that I knew she’d dig. I used my trusty go-to yarn for large projects – Vanna’s Choice, in Eggplant and Linen. I used about 10 skeins of each color for this project. I highly recommend purchasing yarn from either Jo-Ann Fabrics (especially if you have a coupon, and the yarn is often on sale — it happens about every other month and is totally worth the wait), or Knitting Warehouse, who tend to have pretty good deals.

Since I made my own pattern, I just kept crocheting until the blanket felt large enough, then I crocheted a border using an HDC stitch. I went around once with the linen color and twice with the eggplant color. It made for a nice edge.

This is the 7th blanket I’ve crocheted! That’s a lot of warmth and love, y’all. To see some of the other blankets I’ve made (and had a chance to blog about), click here, here, here or here. So what’s next? Well, like I mentioned in the past, I really want to make another quilt. I’m really feeling this triangular look: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/52917364343973085/. I have a half-completed quilt that I need to buckle down and finally finish first. Fingers crossed that happens sooner than later!

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The Scalloped Birthday Blanket

by tatiana on May 19, 2013

I’m not sure if it’s obvious or not, but one of my goals over the next year (or three) is to slowly (but surely!) make a blanket for all of my favorite people in life. It might be a quilt, or a crocheted piece or MAYBE a knitted blanket (I have to REALLY like you to spend that much time on a blanket)… but this is my goal. Blankets are comforting and time consuming, but they’re a fun challenge.

This blanket was made for my good friend Brianna (you can read about some of my adventures with Bri here and here). We’ve been buddies since high school and she is basically the Ron Swanson to my Leslie Knope. We are pretty opposite, but at the same time have SO MUCH in common. It’s a great friendship. Having said that, I wanted to make her a rad blanket that would compliment the decor in her house and be a fun enough keep my interest whilst crocheting it for hours (upon hours, upon hours). Also, Bri’s mom is an avid sewer and quilter, so I had a lot to live up to as far as decorative blankets go in that house! (Bri’s mom – your quilts can never be topped!)

Ok, I’ll stop sucking up now. I found the pattern for this blanket in this book. The square crochets up pretty quickly, which was great. It helped that I was using 5 different colors for this blanket, so my eyes never got bored looking at the same color. This is important! When I get bored during a project, I lose motivation to finish it and then it’ll sit around for a few months. No bueno!

This blanket took about 2 months. I would have finished it sooner if I didn’t feel so intimidated/lazy about sewing the squares together. Eventually, the work got done (with RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars on in the background, of course).

I’m really happy with the outcome of this blanket. The colors are very vintage, but the pattern feels updated. This is another blanket that I thought about keeping (much like this one).

Are you working on a blanket project? Have you made blankets (knit, crochet, quilted) in the past? What was your biggest challenge? My next blanket is going to be a quilt… so keep your eyes peeled for that post in about… oh, 2 to 3 months. (wink)

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The Chevron Birthday Blanket

by tatiana on February 18, 2013

2012 felt like the year of the blankets for me. I made four total! (Including this one.) This particular blanket is one of my favorites I’ve made to date. I found the pattern for this beauty over on Etsy. The pattern makes a crib-sized blanket, but since this was for my adult-sized friend, I doubled the pattern length-wise. I don’t remember exactly how long my chain was, but it worked out!

When ordering yarn for blanket projects, I almost always go with Vanna’s Choice because 1.) the yarn is really soft, 2.) the line has a large color selection, and 3.) it’s affordable (about $3/skein). This project called for about 12 skeins of yarn total.

My friend’s sense of style is very specific and always ahead of current trends, so I wanted to use colors and a pattern that would look chic FOREVER – I knew I wanted to use black and white. I thought a pop of color would be fun, so I gave her the choice of lime green or bright yellow, and I’m so happy she went with yellow. I think this blanket would look great with any pop of color (mint would look really great as well).

I’m not gonna lie… when I finished this blanket (which took about 3 months — I ended up having to give it to her as a Christmas gift!), I secretly wanted to keep it. This probably means I need to make one for myself soon. One can never have too many handmade blankets, amirite?

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The Not-So-Scrappy Scrap Yarn Blanket

by tatiana on April 14, 2012

This past year I did A LOT of crocheting for Babushka Designs. When prototyping new products, one tends to accumulate a lot of yarn… as I did. I finally got tired of looking at the two massive mountains o’ yarn in my apartment (a yarn Twin Peaks, if you will) and decided to turn it into a nice, warm, and crazy colorful blanket.

While I was working on it, I kept thinking that it was going to be super ugly because the colors that I had so much of were not colors I’d typically use in a blanket… and it was a little difficult when I ran out of certain colors and had to substitute with similar hues. This blanket took about 3 months to complete– I worked on it mostly while watching Dance Moms and The Bachelor. Good things come out of watching bad television, right?

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The Graduation Blanket

by tatiana on August 18, 2011

Two months ago, around the time I temporarily fell off of the blogosphere, my baby sister graduated from high school! Gah, I feel old. Anyway, it’s an important milestone, so I decided that a thoughtless gift like a Betsey Johnson handbag would not do the trick (although I’m sure she’d have no qualms about receiving that), so I decided to make her a special afghan. [click to continue…]

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WIP Wednesday: 09.23.15

by tatiana on September 24, 2015

Yesterday, two things happened. 1.) I decided to cave in and give The Voice a whirl. I’ve never seen the show but everyone seems to love it, so I figured, why not. I quickly realized that it would take up two hours of my life, so then 2.) I decided to start a knitting project. I haven’t worked on a knit/crochet project since earlier this year. It felt great to pick up those needles again. I’m working on a blanket, which if you know me, blankets have become one of my favorite things to make.

A couple weekends ago while at Ikea, I stumbled upon this really great, thick, striped canvas fabric.

The in-store price was $5.99/yd, it was a steal! The quality feels canvas-y and heavy – a lot more expensive than $5.99. I’ve been eyeing this leather Baggu tote for a while and thought that I’d try recreating the shape of that bag with this fabric. I think I’ll also put a couple pockets on the inside and include a zipper at the top if that makes sense. I feel like this would be cute to carry around Paris when I’m there in two weeks, but I’m also wary of pickpockets, hence the zipper.

Lastly, it’s September — almost October! To someone who likes to make handmade gifts, this is crunch time! I have about four handmade Christmas gifts in mind that I want to make this year. One of which is a belated birthday gift that is now a birthday/Christmas hybrid gift. I’m about 40% done with that, which is good news. I have yet to start on the other three. Two of them are cross stitch projects, and if I learned anything from my first and only other cross stitch project, it’ll take way longer to complete than I think, I’m sure. Fingers crossed I get everything done. The two cross stitch pieces I’ll be working on are from this awesome book:

Are you working on any projects right now? Have some cross stitch tips for this newbie? Let me know!

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Links of the Week: April 8, 2011

by tatiana on April 8, 2011

It’s images like this that get me through the day sometimes. Image found via galadarling.

I’ve yet to write about it, but this past weekend was a boatload of fun, family and, errr… we’ll go with frolicking. My sisters and cousin drove up to visit for the weekend and we had a blast. So this entire week has been like coming down from a really fun party drug (which I promise I know nothing about). My apartment has been TOO quiet and there are a lack of snack foods, giggles, and watching of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. But life goes on… until the next sister/cousin weekend of course!

I almost fell out of my desk chair when I stumbled upon this amazing idea. 1-Up rugs? I am totally making one of these guys, but maybe a throw blanket version.
I’m always down for a smart chuckle.
Rommel breaks down the similarities between comedians and track and field athletes.
Twinkie Chan’s post about her trip to London’s Borough Market made me reeeeeeally miss London. Like, alot.
Lately I’ve been feeling like work – whether it’s my day job, freelance gigs, or projects for my craft biz – has taken over my life. It was nice and reassuring to read this post by Elsie Flannigan.

That’s all for this week! I hope your weekend is as bright and sunny! The weather in San Francisco has been quite pleasant… except for the fact that the temp has dipped down to really effing cold. The sun is deceiving.

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I Heart Yarn

by tatiana on April 21, 2010

(Photo Credit)

Oh my goodness. Hats, hats and more hats are being created from my overflowing basket of yarn these days than in past years. I have Ravelry to thank for that, as lately I’ve become inspired by the plethora of quality patterns available there for affordable prices. I really, really recommend that everyone support independent knit and crochet pattern makers by purchasing your patterns on Ravelry or Etsy instead of seeking out free patterns. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love free patterns, but it’s really important for the DIY movement (and the REVOLUTION) to support our community of crafters, artists and creative thinkers. OK! Having said that, I just wanted to share what I have been working on. Nothing too too crazy or exciting, just new. Here we go! [click to continue…]

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Indie Designer Spotlight: UK Edition

by tatiana on August 11, 2009

Indie Designer Spotlight: Wholly Cow Clothing

In the vast world of fashion, The United Kingdom has always been viewed as being a front runner by constantly bringing a plethora of goodies to the table (or, the runways) by way of designers such as Vivienne Westwood and her no-rules legacy, to the amazing Irregular Choice shoes (which I was addicted to for a while). From Victorian elegance to the arrival of the miniskirt on Carnaby Street, the UK has always served as a capital for the new and timeless and an inspiration for those of us looking to bring elegance back in new and interesting ways.

UKthenandnow

left: 1777 English Satire on tight lacing (found here) right: Irregular Choice

Now that we’ve had a look into the past, let’s venture into the future! Today’s spotlight is Wholly Cow Clothing.

Their first collection launched 3 seasons ago. All of their pieces are designed and hand crafted in the North East of England. They most recently launched the Green label, which is an ethical line that was just introduced last season and uses completely recycled fabrics (e.g. curtains, blankets, clothes, etc).

The Pink label is Wholly Cow’s main ready to wear line. Although the Pink label isn’t made from recycled material, Wholly Cow still sources their fabrics from as close to home as possible and the items are made nearby by women who work flexibly from their own homes. They strive to make the process as ethical as possible.

Gingham Dress with underskirt in gingham and tulle.
This is my favorite piece. I think gingham will always be in style. I love how effortless this garment looks paired with the red ribbon. It can easily be worn to a birthday party or for a day at the park.

I asked Lisa Germaney of Wholly Cow where she finds inspiration for her designs, and how she came up with the name for her label. “I’d been struggling to find [a name] that smacks you, is unforgettable and reflects the feel of the label then it just came to me. I asked for feedback from girlie friends over a few glasses of fine vino one night and it was all good so that reaffirmed it. I’m very passionate about music, especially live music, the louder the better, it stirs something inside and inspires me as does art so I hope this is reflected in the design of my clothes.”

whollycow2

I feel like Wholly Cow Clothing provides a unique perspective when it comes to the party dress (although they don’t solely make dresses). I appreciate their use of recycled materials and hope that more designers embrace similarly available resources and continue trying to make the process of design more sustainable and eco-friendly. I’m excited to see what Wholly Cow has in store for us in the future!

If you like what you see, you’re in luck, kiddies! Wholly Cow is currently holding a 40% off sale on their website. Their upcoming Autumn/Winter Collection, which they are currently hard at work on, will be available in September. The Spring/Summer 2009 Collection, including the Green label, is currently available on their website and in select boutiques.

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← Previous Entries

Search: blanket

The Gender Neutral Baby Blanket

The Granny Stripe Birthday Blanket

The Scalloped Birthday Blanket

The Chevron Birthday Blanket

The Not-So-Scrappy Scrap Yarn Blanket

The Graduation Blanket

WIP Wednesday: 09.23.15

Links of the Week: April 8, 2011

I Heart Yarn

Indie Designer Spotlight: UK Edition

Let’s Become Acquainted

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