Crafty Gifts

Tiny gifts are the most fun to make.  My homemade Christmas gifts to my parents and our sisters were in jars this time--plum products I'd bottled in July.  It would have felt like cheating if the actual wrapping hadn't been such a challenge.  But a new member of the family needed some little crocheted things that I was happy to whip up.

For this tiny sweater, I used The Bailey Easy Top Down Sweater pattern.  It is a fun pattern, and very quick in the newborn size.  As I went along, I found that I preferred the zigzag look of the "wrong" side of the Herringbone Double Crochet stitch.  So I made it the right side of this little sweater, and put the buttons on the left shoulder instead of the right.

Here's LaBeq, trying it on for size, as baby TL was still on the way.  Her husband was enchanted with the little sweater.  It's so cute when guys get excited about baby clothes.  

TL has since made his debut.  He's a tiny little one, so maybe he'll fit the sweater for more than a day.

I also made him this Baby Owl Blanket, with a Polka Dot Border.  This is the first time I've used the Corner-to-Corner (C2C) method, and I enjoyed it.  I was able to use yarn I already had for everything but the background.  Some of the yarn was left over from this afghan I crocheted for the proud parents' wedding:

Oh, my goodness!  I never shared it here.  It's the Blue Lagoon Throw, and I had a great time crocheting it a few years ago.  

I also sewed some musical pajamas for Rollo,

embroidered a blue raven on a white shirt for the Caterpillar,

and appliquéd a kitten in a teacup for D2.  Kittens in teacups and other vessels appear surprisingly frequently in D2's and Rollo's drawings.  When I ran across this pattern in Grandma O's collection, I knew he'd love it.  And he does!