Sunflower Hat and Blanket

(Topic: Knitting, NICU donations)

Hi Friends!

This is a project I made at some point in the last three years, while I was in a knitting group that made blankets and hats for babies in the local NICU. I knitted quite a few, and I don't think I've posted this one before! This is one I had fun inventing, particularly the hat.

The hat  with petals! It has a crocheted border. This is before I added extra "leaves" to the green part.

The blanket is crocheted, but has a similar laciness to the hat.

Extra crocheted loops on the hat for "leaves". Some people still didn't recognize it as a flower, but it was intended to be reminiscent of Mary Cecil's flower fairies or Ann Geddes' photos, and I think of it as a sunflower.

The hat tied to the blanket with a ribbon so they don't get separated in the donation process.

 Donated blankets and hats are often basic so they're quick to knit, and I appreciate that, but I really get bored with that after a while. This one was fun because I mixed it up and invented as I went!


Yours,

Sarah

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Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Pan Handle Potholder

(Topic: Crochet, sewing, cooking)

Hi Friends!

Recently we noticed that our cast iron pans with bare handles (as opposed to wooden handles) are easier to pick up when we have a dedicated potholder shaped like the handle rather than just wrapping one around it.

I figured, that would be something easy to make! So I crocheted one, using cotton yarn:

Crocheted exactly to the specs of our pan handles!

Added a loop so I can hang it up with our other potholders on the kitchen wall!

I also lined it with a double layer of cotton flannel for extra heat protection, stitched along the bottom edge to prevent slippage. It works really well!!


Yours,

Sarah

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Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Pot Scrubber

(Topic: Crocheting)

Hi Friends!

Here's a little thing I threw together recently. One of my sisters bought a pot-scrubbie at a store for a dollar or two, but I realized that it would probably be easy to make and wanted to try my hand at it.

I took a plastic net from a bag of oranges, and cut it into one long (zig-zaggy) strip about an inch wide. Using that as my "yarn", I started crocheting in a circle. I stopped when I ran out of "yarn" and ended up with about a 2.5" or 3" scrubbie!

Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Links to posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them! Nothing else gets emailed.

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Crocheted stripey scrap blanket

(Topic: Crocheting)

Hi Friends,

This is a project I've been doing for a long time (as in, many years).
It started with some scrap cotton yarn I had, starting with a red stripe. Then I unraveled the (not stretchy non-wearable) socks, and those blues and yellows came next. Then I added some whole balls of cotton yarn I had, and simply added by whim from there!

I consider the red stripe to be the bottom of the blanket. This will hopefully be for a twin or queen (I haven't checked dimensions yet).

The full stripe set so far! Next is a medium blue, then a light blue. Note that for much of the center, I put a narrow stripe of green between each color, but I'm going to change up whether or not I do it, depending on what colors I do.

Literally all of the blanket is single crochet - on purpose, so that this remains a simple and easy project to pick up when I need a break from knitting lacy things!

No idea when I'll actually finish it, but I assure you that you will see pictures when I do!

Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Links to posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them! Nothing else gets emailed.

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Potholders

(topic: crochet)

Hi Friends!

This was a Christmas gift, so although I finished it about a month ago, I couldn't post till now!! I'm a potholder fan, and my hubby is an oven mitt guy, so I looked for a compromise. There are options out there, but I like making things myself. I have made a pair like this for us, and we liked it so much that when we realized my sister needed to equip her apartment kitchen a bit more, this seemed like the perfect thing! I picked 2 colors I know she likes, in a cotton yarn (non-flammable, much. Other options would be 100% wool. Both char more than burning or melting - non-natural fibers melt, which is dangerous if it gets on your skin). These are all single crochets: 2 squares, and just edged together using more single crochets!

The colors, and the cast on!

Finished products - front (I like reversing the colors in the second potholder. Fun!)

Finished products - back

They're fairly fast to make, and it's fun to pick out the color combinations! The single crochet, if done tightly, has no holes for fingers to get burned through, and is thick enough for normal work - but if grabbed from the outside (instead of used as a mitt) can be a double layer for super hot things!


Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Links to posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them! Nothing else gets emailed.

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Pookie's red crocheted hat and shoes

(Topic: Crocheting! Specifically for the dimensions of my weighted bear)

Hi Friends!

As mentioned a few posts ago, when I was talking about Pookie's shoes, I realized that his crocheted hat and shoes - my first attempt at either, for him - had not yet made it into this blog!

This is the hat, on him. It's the only hat I own for him that lets his ears out. Other companies make hats that do, but too small for him.

Hat, not on his head! I started in the center and worked outward, and really just tested as I went to shape it, rather than following a premade pattern.

From within. The ear holes are slightly arced, and slightly forward of the center line.

The shoes were also fit as I went! Unfortunately this means that, as the cotton stretched, they've become a bit large on him. You can even see (on his right shoe, left in the picture) that I've rubberbanded the strap to shorten it so it stays on better.

Side view. You can see on the toe that I added a stripe, which had to do with the angles that I was using to fill the center to create the shape.

Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Links to posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them! Nothing else gets emailed.

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Prayer Shawl 1, and a Sunflower

Dear Friends,

One of the knitting groups I'm in, which meets at a church, makes prayer shawls/lap blankets for the VA hospital in a nearby city. I've been in that group for close to 2 years, but somehow that project somehow rarely seemed to be on the top of my pile. Well! Yesterday I finally finished it!

It is made from yarns donated to the group, but there is enough yarn on hand I was able to select the colors I wanted to work with. You can probably tell that getting enough of the same gray was difficult, but working with several different balls of yarn, and even double-stranding at one point to make it knit to the right scale and tension, I was able to create the striping pattern I had in mind.

Also, one of my sisters helped me for a bit! She did several rows in the middle boring gray part.

The loose portion on the lower right is because I discovered we'd made a hole by accidentally picking up a stitch. That is easily fixable by just dropping the same stitch, but because I found it many rows too late, dropping the stitch made a long ladder of looseness down to where the hole was. I evened it out quite a bit, but some of it will need some time to settle down and even out.

Close-up of the loose section and the inadvertent gray-shade color changes. Not perfect, but warm and cuddly.

The sunflower on top of the shawl is a crocheted wall decoration, made by request for a friend. It's all cotton yarn.

Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them!

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Valentine's Day Baby Blanket

Valentine's Day Baby Blanket

For donation

Last week, I finished this baby blanket I've been working on since Christmas. Planning ahead, I knew that Valentine's Day is the next holiday that many people do, so I picked out a red and a white acrylic yarn that was soft and pretty.

The pattern is simple (and I made it up as I went along). Knit for a while in stockinette, make a small stripe of the other color, make a section that is the opposite of stockinette, with all the purl bumps toward the front, go back to stockinette, and right before the half way, do a stripe of the opposite color. Then, switch main colors and finish by reversing all of that! I also made the hearts by purling those sections in a heart shape, then stitching around the edge as a surface embroidery so the hearts would stand out. Then I crocheted a picot edging around it, using opposite colors.

Here it is being shown at my knitting group. Then it will be taken to the NICU for the little ones who need some extra warm snuggles.

Yours, Sarah


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 Resource list: www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Color-Pooled Scarf

 

Color-Pooled Scarf

Hi Friends!

I have completed another project that has been in my bag for a while now. It is a scarf, warm and pretty!

Here it is while still under construction:

The next picture is the center, which is the first part I did. This is the part with "Planned Color Pooling", which is when I take the variegated yarn, which has color sections of about 12" each, and as I crocheted, I made sure that I paid attention to 2 rows before, and made sure the colors were offset by 1 stitch. When I paid attention like this, the colors stacked themselves into an argyle!

Once I had that section fairly far along, I got tired of the concentration it took to keep everything lined up. So I decided to switch approaches. I tried putting white next, but the yarn I had was thick and looked very strange. But I found a nice solid blue that matched, and split my ball in half, and used half on the still going end to make a stripe, and saved the other half of the ball. Then I took the remainder of the variegated and split it into two balls as well. Using the first half, I just continued the single crochet/slip stitch pattern I'd been doing, but didn't care about matching up the colors at all. Here's what happened:

It formed a sort of argyle on its own! I was pretty happy with this, so I turned my work to the other end of my middle section, added the plain blue, and then pulled out the last ball of my variegated. I was hoping it would do an argyle too, to match, but no such luck. At first, it formed a column of dark blue down the center, which looked really weird next to the other sections (I didn't get a picture of that). So I ripped it out, and started over.

With variegated yarns, the width of what you are doing, the stitch you use, the tension of your stitching, and how much you pay attention, as well as how exact the lengths of color are in the yarn, all affect how the colors come together in a completed piece.

When I re-did it, this is what I got:

While this is not an argyle to match the middle an the other end, it does at least have the colors spread around, and I'm happy with how it looks. Here's the completed scarf, marked with which order I worked the sections in, and in what direction:

Thanks for reading!! I'll be posting again on St. Valentine's Day, so keep an eye out for that!!! :)

Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them!

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Our Tiger Cub's Blanket

Dear Friends,

In my previous post about Dolly Parton, I mentioned that I had made a blanket, and that working on it helped me in my grief journey. This post is sharing that blanket!!

It is a cotton blanket, crocheted with just single crochet. The interest is in the variegated yarns and which colors I put where. I knitted a few things while pregnant, and started crocheting this blanket relatively later in the course of things. It was not yet done when we passed Charlie's due date, and it still wasn't done when we found out his heart had stopped, when he was born, and when he was buried.

The day we came home from the hospital, we sent the empty car seat home with my parents (I can imagine this must have been rough on them. I'm so grateful they were willing to take it out of my sight, though). Later, that day and over the next few days, I shoved some things in boxes, including a few unfinished projects, yarn, pattern books, and everything I had with them. Shoved them in, not really looking, knowing that going through it right then, or working on it, would hurt hurt hurt so much.

When we moved (about a month after his funeral), we took back the car seat and boxes, since we had a basement to stow them in. And months later, I don't remember what I was looking for... maybe a crochet hook or knitting needles that had been shoved in the box with everything else, or maybe I was cleaning up odd corners... I rediscovered these projects. And it was sad, and hard, but at this point I could at least look at the projects. I hadn't knitted, sewed, or crocheted anything in those months.

Looking into the box, the blanket spoke to me, and I felt like I should work on it. And picking that up, and deciding to finish the blanket for Charlie, woke my fingers back up to the soothing rhythm of handwork.

This is the blanket as it appeared before I packed it up, roughly at the spot where I stopped:

The red stripe was intended to be the midpoint. In fact, starting this blanket again, and finishing it, led me to do many more projects, attempt an Etsy shop, and join a knitting group that donates baby blankets to the local NICU.

This is the blanket, finished except for weaving in the ends:

The blanket is now stored in the box of Charlie's things, which includes a blanket made in his memory by someone in my knitting group, photos, papers, the funeral guest book, things with tigers on them, and many many other things that remind me of Charlie. Much of the clothing we bought and toys we got while I was pregnant I have set aside for possible future kids, as hand-me-downs from their older brother. I may discover that some of them remind me too much of my boy and need to be tucked away, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Here is a picture of the final, finished blanket:

Yours,
Sarah

P.S. Always feel free to pass along the link to the spreadsheet (www.tinyurl.com/infantloss) or tell people about this blog, if you think it will help them.

Learning and Growing

This is a tree in the cemetery. I don't know what kind it is.

Dear friends,

I recently learned a phrase that I find beautiful, and really hits the nail on the head.

Have you ever noticed how, in English, we have no real, common word for a parent who has lost a child? We might call them a a loss parent, maybe. I suppose bereaved parent is pretty good.

However, in German, they can be called Verwaiste Eltern. This means orphaned parents. Sometimes I really feel this way - but instead of someone missing who should be caring for me, I feel like the missing person is one I should be caring for.
One of my German aunts told me this word. I'm really glad she did. I am more comfortable expressing myself in English - I have a better grasp of nuance - but every once in a while there is a word or phrase that just encapsulates an idea perfectly.

Edited to add: my mom pointed out there is an English book called "Orphan Mother" and that it's a phrase. Which is cool! I'd never heard that before. I like it.

The azalea by our front step.

I noticed I have started looking at things differently now. Maybe not majorly, but little things. I notice flowers more, and their details, so I started doing more photography and learning how to capture light and color and texture.
I notice nice phrases of how to say things related to loss. I notice everyday bits of language that I never before noticed could be harsh (Click here for my post about what not to say), and so I blog about them so you can also access my insights if you are interested.

One of the crocuses I planted at Charlie's grave.

I'm also learning new skills, and coming back to old skills. For instance, since I wanted Charlie's grave to be beautiful, and the cemetery allows us to plant (within a certain distance from the headstone), I am now learning to garden. I've even expanded this: Charlie has the potted garden on our front step as well, and I have a veggie garden out back, too! The beans are going to do well, and maybe the peas, spinach, and kale. Not as sure about the others, yet! I'd helped my mom garden when I was a kid, so I know how to plant, weed, and harvest, but I don't have a lot of the knowledge about timing or what to do if a plant is poorly.

Anyone know what this is? I planted it at his grave, but threw out the bag. They are bulbs.

After Charlie was born, I took a long break from crafts of all kinds. I'd been excitedly working on a baby blanket for him, and so I put it in a box for several months and didn't touch anything. However, finishing that blanket brought life back to my hands, and that's when I started my Etsy store. I knit and crochet a lot now, though I haven't done as much sewing yet. Some of what I do, I do for the store, some for myself, and some for a local group that donates baby blankets to the local NICU.

A forget-me-not bloom, from his potted garden. On my jeans.

I'm also rediscovering my love of drawing. I took part (am taking part - I'm not actually done) in a creative healing workshop. It was conducted exclusively online, and allowed me to participate at my own pace, though the structure was one creative expression per day. I primarily chose drawing. If you haven't been seeing my posts on Facebook, search for #MWAH2017 or #MAYWEALLHEAL. If you're not on Facebook, let me know in the comments if this is something you would like to see me post about, or if you know me personally, ask to see my sketchbook!

A double narcissus, from his grave. Post-rainstorm.

I've also picked math tutoring back up, and am generally exploring who I am. I'd planned to be a diaper-changing mama. Being a memory-keeping mama is taking some adjustment and exploration. I still have days where I don't function well. But I also have days (or moments) when the beauty breaks through the clouds and lights up my world.

Most sincerely yours,
~ Sarah

Infant loss resource document: www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Rose Baby Hat

Dear friends,

So, it seems I know many babies. A friend asked me to design and make a hat that looked like a rose, for an infant friend of hers. It came out looking more like a species rose (which has flat petals around a middle) more than a double rose (the kind you're used to seeing), but I still think it came out pretty cute! I'm contemplating making a toddler dress in the same style.

Garment Data:
- Type: Knitted hat
- Date made: December 2016
- Pattern: Made up as I went!
- Fabric/Materials: 100% acrylic yarn
- Trim: same, but crocheted
- Time to finish: a few days, mostly because I was figuring out the pattern, and also because as the leaves overlap the petals, I was doing a lot of color switching.

I had to finish each petal point separately, so there was a lot of string floating around! Looked a bit like a jellyfish at this point! Don't worry, it gets better. Based on other patterns I've seen, it's unusual but not unheard of to work top-down like I'm doing.

From the inside! You can see I had a little bit of a tension issue with the green pulling the pink tighter than I meant it to be. The bottom border is crocheted on.

Finished! I left the points of the petals to float out above the border, so the border becomes the "inside" petals of the flower, around the baby's head.

I also need to refine which stitch to switch colors on, so I get a cleaner edge between leaves and petals. If I do a dress, I will actually do the green separately and layer it on top of the pink.

Top view.

Most sincerely yours,
~ Sarah

Rose Baby Blanket

Hi Friends!

Did I warn you I'd be knitting like a fiend, or did I warn you?? :)
This blanket has been most of what I've been working on for the last 10 days or so... and I loved it!

Garment Data:
- Type: Baby blanket for a crib
- Date made: December 2016
- Pattern: My own, invented as I went. 25"x36", or so.
- Fabric/Materials: 100% acrylic yarn. Fairly soft.
- Trim: More of the same yarn
- Time to finish: About a week and a half

First I crocheted a rose. This was by request, since it's for a baby girl. I then used white to make it square, and then picket up stitches along one side, increased, and started knitting. This became the top edge of the blanket.

Here you can see the finished top edge. To complete it and even out the sizing and shaping, I crocheted around the whole thing once, and then picked up stitches to create the side that would become the rest of the blanket. I went for plain knit, but added purled stripes accenting the stripe of color, and then went back to plain knit. I'm using a size 10 (6mm) round knitting needle. I prefer knitting on round needles even for flat items, because the needles are smaller and you don't get as much bunching of the project.

Mostly done. I added a 3-wide, 4-long square checker pattern toward the bottom. This visually balances the sideways top edge of the blanket. Then I added a pink border, including scallops. This picture is in progress on the scallops, as I worked with crochet to adjust sizing and shaping again.

Finished, but I still have some stray yarn tails, and it's got some weird rippling going on that will disappear once I block it.

The completed blanket, pinned out for blocking (after washing the blanket, you pin it down in the right shape and dimensions while it's still damp. Then it dries in the right shape). The crocheted scalloped border is complete.

I'll be posting projects I complete to sell, as well as those I make for myself and my friends, so watch my Etsy page if there's something you like!

Most sincerely yours,
~ Sarah