Baby Blanket for my 1st Niece

I’m super excited to announce that I became an auntie this week! My niece arrived on Monday and I couldn’t be happier. I’m also excited to share the gift I made for her. It is by far the biggest project I’ve completed.

The blanket is a little bit bigger than a standard full size blanket, so I have it split into two pictures. Those who follow my Instagram account have already seen it in pieces along the way.

My niece’s nursery has jungle theme with an emphasis on tigers, so when I saw the tiger pattern from 1dogwoof‘s zoodiac collection I knew it would be perfect. I used the tiger and monkey designs from her original collection.

I was also lucky to find some redesigns that let me keep with the jungle theme. Alli Palli Creations was working on a similar baby blanket while I made this one and was kind enough to send me the graphs she was using for hers. That added the zebra, cheetah, hippo, and giraffe. I also found a blanket done with some additional animals by Semiha Atak Yenidünya, and that added the panda and lion.

Inspired by these wonderful ladies I did a few recolors of 1dogwoof’s tiger and monkey desgins to create the white tiger, panther, and lemur. Lastly I made the elephant design to get me up to 12 animals for the blanket. I’ve included the graphs for the ones I’ve added below. You can check out additional pictures of the blanket on my Instagram and Facebook.

This was my first project using corner to corner (C2C) crochet and I’m in love with the stitch. The only thing I would recommend is not using ombre yarn. It looks awesome, but it makes weaving in ends absolutely miserable. Lesson learned. I used a size J crochet hook and full details for yarn colors used are listed below:

(Red Heart Super Saver abbreviated RHSS)

Edging: RHSS Grey Heather

Zebra Square
Background: RHSS Ombré Violet
Fur: RHSS White and Charcoal
Eyes: RHSS Ombré Scuba

Monkey Square
Background: RHSS Ombré Sea Coral
Fur: RHSS Warm Brown and Buff
Eyes: RHSS Charcoal
Inner Ears: Baby Pink

Cheetah Square
Background: RHSS Ombré Spearmint
Fur: RHSS Saffron, White, and Charcoal

Panther Square
Background: RHSS Ombré Scuba
Fur: RHSS Charcoal and Grey Heather
Inner Ears and Nose: Black
Eyes: RHSS Saffron

Panda Square
Background: RHSS Ombré Violet
Fur: RHSS Charcoal and White
Eyes: RHSS Ombré Scuba

Hippo Square
Background: RHSS Ombré Sea Coral
Base: Big Twist Premium Medium Denim
Snout and Tail: RHSS Light Blue
Inner Ears and Nose: RHSS Baby Pink
Teeth: RHSS White

Lion Square
Background: RHSS Ombré Spearmint
Fur: RHSS Saffron and Buff
Mane, Nose, Feet: RHSS Coffee

Tiger Square
Background: RHSS Ombré Scuba
Fur: RHSS Pumpkin, Charcoal, and White

Lemur Square
Background: RHSS Ombré Violet
Fur: RHSS Dusty Grey, Charcoal, and White
Eyes: RHSS Saffron

Elephant Square:
Background: RHSS Ombré Sea Coral
Base: Dusty Grey and Grey Heather
Eyes: RHSS Charcoal

Giraffe Square
Background: RHSS Ombré Spearmint
Fur: RHSS Saffron and Warm Brown
Feet and Ossicones: RHSS Coffee

White Tiger Square
Background: RHSS Ombré Scuba
Fur: RHSS White and Charcoal
Inner Ears and Nose: RHSS Baby Pink
Eyes: RHSS Spring Green

Thanks so much for reading. If you have any questions feel free to comment below!

Easy Breezy Potholders

My bestie loves to cook and her birthday was the perfect opportunity for me to whip up some potholders. It was one of the first things I learned to crochet and is wonderfully simple, yet fun.

To finish up her gift I picked up a Blue Q oven mitt from Copper Pony. The mitt is sassy, fun, and matches the potholders perfectly. I also found a fantastic card that matched my color scheme. If you are in the St. Cloud area I definitely recommend checking out the store. There are tons of fun goodies, the shop smells amazing, and the owner is phenomenal. I was also lured in buy the close-out sale at Herberger’s and found a cute spatula to round out the gift.

 

 

 

 

I used the Red Heart Super Saver yarn in Retro Stripe and the recommended hook size I-9 (5.5mm) from Boye. I love using the stripes yarn because the color change motivates me to keep working on my project. I picked up mine at Joann so I could use the 5% cashback from Ibotta. I also picked up a few skeins of Big Twist yarn to test out because they had some great deals for it,

I hope you enjoyed seeing how I made the handmade portion of my gift!

– Breezy Bee

 

Happy (Belated) New Year!

Anxiety and depression are the worst. They got the better of me by a long shot and I’ve been neglecting a lot of things, especially my blog. It is a new year and I did manage to get in a post before the Chinese New Year, so I’m calling it a win.

I’ve never really done the big new year resolution thing, but I want to try a few simple goals for this year. I’m hoping that putting it down in writing may help push me to work harder to achieve things this year.

First of in my personal life is a new job. I get so overwhelmed by the job search and not finding what I want, even though I don’t really know what that is. At this point I just need to pick something to pay the bills. However, if you’re reading this and you know me and like my work feel free to send me an email (breezybeeblog@gmail.com) or message me on Facebook to request a custom crochet job. I’m pretty willing to try to work with requests. I’ve also become pretty good at corner to corner crochet, so I can make blankets/scarves with pixilated images which are really fun.

Moving on from that personal train wreck that I struggle to think about…

Crochet/Knit Goals:

1. Learn at least 5 new stitches this year.
2. Make baby blanket(s) for my newest nibling.
3. Actually use some of the knit looms I have! I’ve tested one out, but need to make better use of them.
4. Yarn Jar! I follow @KnotAnotherProject on Instagram, and loved her idea to collect all of your project ends in a jar for the year. I’ve already started and I’m excited to see the colors of all my projects together at the end of the year.

Journal Goals:

1. Make use of my Happy Planner and incorporate bullet journal ideas. (I can’t seem to keep a bullet journal, so this is my happy medium)
2. Try not to fall behind on my line a day journal, but if I do fill it in with fun doodles so that each day still has something fun.
3. Get out of my comfort zone (aka rut) and do more so that I have more fun filling in my list a day journal.
4. Finish my Wreck This Journal: Now In Color! and start my Harry Potter themed Wreck This Journal.

Others:

1. READ! Books, comics, web comics, ANYTHING. I haven’t been doing this enough and I miss being a person who read all the time. I’ve recently become obsessed with a few web comics, so I’m hoping that the weekly updates will get me in the habit of reading more again. (I ended up downloading the Webtoon app and I’m completely in love with Lore Olympus and Let’s Play)
2. PLAY! I am not a gamer, but one of my besties is and I’m going to have her show me how. So many of my friends adore video games and I really want to be able to contribute something beyond “oh, that sounds cool,” when they talk about their faves. We may end up streaming, so if it becomes a thing I’ll definitely post about it.
3. LISTEN! Podcasts are awesome and wonderful and lovely… and I never take the time to listen to them. I have a major list of recommended ones that I need to start on, especially now that a couple of my friends started their own pod cast. It is #1 on my list: Two Rambling Sisters, and they just added it to Google Play so I have no excuse not to get listening.
4. SHARE! I am a major fan girl about a lot of things, but never think to share it. I’m hoping to start reviewing things (like books and podcasts) to share my interests and support the works I love.

Final goal: write posts for this blog. I didn’t do a great job last year, but I’m going to make more of an effort this year. On the plus I already started a few projects this year and gave a few of the gifts that I’ve been holding off sharing.

Thanks for bearing with my absolute lack of blogging and I will have lots of updates coming soon. Happy 2019!

Wreck This Journey Wednesdays #4

Better late than never! I was planning to switch to every other week, but I was busy babysitting all last week and didn’t get a chance to write up a post.

The good news? I worked on quite a few things in my journal, including adding a TON of stickers. If you follow my Instagram you’ll have seen a few of the pics already.

Since this one is (EXTREMELY) late, I’ll get right to the pics!

Another update for Color This Page Red!

Rolled a 3 for Roll a Die to Find Out What Color This Page Will Be. So glad I didn’t get another red, but I’m nervous to work with black.

Completed make a paper chain, and you can see the start of Collect Fruit Stickers here.

I’m especially proud of A Page for Four-Letter Words.

And I added some Harry Potter magic to Hide a Secret Message Somewhere in This Book.

And here’s the sticker rampage. These pages aren’t done yet, but I added some stickers to jazz them up a bit.

That’s all for now. Feel free to add questions about any of the pages or stickers in the comments below. You can also check out my Facebook or Instagram page!

 

-Breezy Bee

Wreck This Journey Wednesday #3

I felt pretty crummy after skipping last week, so I tackled a fun page this week. I also have a few pages in the works and added to my Color This Page Red On Purpose.

First up: Collect Your Pocket Lint. This prompt was a bit of a challenge because I don’t always have pockets (women’s clothing is sad) and I don’t have much lint in the pockets I do have. I thought about it for a while and realized I could use the lint from the dryer when I did my laundry!

The lint I collected had a blue-tint, so I decided to go for an undersea sort of look. Or maybe a stormy sky? It’s up for interpretation. I kind of like the result, but it may have an upgrade with my next round of laundry.

Next I started working on Randomly Cut Out Some Colors From a Magazine. I got a lot of color on the page, but didn’t finish up yet. I had a little trouble finding colors that stood out to me, but I did find a hamster in a wonderfully colorful hat.

On the plus side, going through magazines I found an add for Redd’s Apple Ale, and cut out RED to add to my Color This Page Red On Purpose. It was super fun to paint the page, but I love the idea of adding different red elements to it.

Lastly, I pulled out the color pages at the end of the book. They are used for a few of the prompts that I’m hoping to work on soon.

– Breezy Bee

Wreck This Journey Wednesdays #2

This week isn’t the most exciting chapter in Wreck This Journey, but it took forever. I went through and numbered all of the pages. It led to some major hand cramping.

I did add some color to my journal though. The “materials” and “ADD YOUR OWN PAGE NUMBERS” pages got a rainbow makeover. It was super fun updating from black and white to a color explosion.

I also updated my “INSTRUCTIONS” page. I tried out a zentangle doodle I found on Pinterest and add some color to the instructions using my Kaiser Craft gel pens from Crafter’s Haven Ltd,I got them a while back, but they are still one of my faves!

Numbering all of my pages did give me a chance to check out all of the prompts in my journal. I can’t wait to get started on a few of these. I also might have found a way to get around the prompt that scares me, so keep an eye out for that.

I also went a little journal crazy when I went to Barnes & Noble with my mom. I got a bullet journal by Peter Pauper Press that matches my address book perfectly. That was all I planned to get, but I also picked up One Line A Day and One List A Day journals by Chronicle Books. They were just too fun not to get and it justifies my B&N membership!

If you want to check out see some more of my new journals check out my Instagram. You can also scope out my Pinterest boards to see what’s inspiring my upcoming posts.

–  Breezy Bee