Baby Stuff & More

Only one more week until we're in Boulder. I can hardly wait to meet my granddaughter and see my little grandson again.  My daughter sent some lovely photos but it's the hugs and cuddles I'm so looking forward to while we're there. 

Granddaughter and Grandson - Can't wait to cuddle.

Today I finished a nice assortment of baby headbands. There are 13 in total varying in size from 14" to 16".  The on-line sizing chart suggested 12" for newborn, 13" for 3-6 months and 14" for 6-12 months.  Luckily I checked with my daughter before cutting the elastic as this baby started out with a 14" head. I also made a simple banner to be used as a photo prop. I toyed with the idea of adding crochet flowers but decided simple was better. 

Crochet headbands (4 total)

Assorted elastic headbands (8) and simple banner (sage and grey)

Elastic headband with layered crochet flower

We went shopping recently and bought a few girly baby clothes. We've also been collecting a nice pile of gifts to take. I have a pink snowsuit from a friend at work, something from GG and other GG and a gift from our neighbour. I brought the large suitcase upstairs today and it's already half filled. There is still plenty of room for my clothes so no worries.

Dress with 2 pair of tights

Dresses - so cute

Onesies - 2 different sizes

Sports shirt for our grandson

Snowsuit from friend - never worn

Gifts from GG and Other GG for both kiddies

Gift from our neighbour - Wonder what it is?

This week I also decided to reduce clutter in the house. I read a few 'simple living' blogs to get motivated and started with clothes. I had collected a couple bags of clothes over the winter and with one more sweep of my closet and my son's closet ended up with three big garbage bags full of items for Goodwill. It felt great to get them out of the house. 

I then decided to go through my book cabinet and get rid of books I do not plan to read again. I had four boxes full of books, one box full of paper for recycling plus another box of old text books. Today we took the books to two different used bookstores. The Book Addict and Basically Books went through the boxes, selected what they wanted and paid in cash. At the end of the day, I was down 2 1/2 boxes of books and up $66 cash. In case you're wondering, they give 10% of the cover price listed on the books.

Book Purging Party

There are many, many more books in our library. I plan to go through them and visit a couple other book shops in town before donating the rest at either Goodwill or Value Village. The text books are good for recycling only. We were told to remove the covers and put 'guts' out with our weekly paper collection. My husband is now on board with getting rid of book clutter, although I did have to pry him away from looking at Basically Books. He almost bought a used book on car repair until I reminded him we were there to purge not acquire.

The last thing we cleared out today was an old TV from our son's room. It had been unplugged and piled in our spare room for months. Staples recycles electronics so that's where we dropped it off today. I think there are more electronics in the house that should be gotten rid of but I'll leave those for another day. I am very happy with the progress I've made this week. In fact it feels so wonderful that I'm totally motivated to keep at it. 

Old TV - finally gone

Now I just have to come up with my next crochet project. There are so many options, it's tough to pick just one. 

Baby Headbands & Yarn Shopping

This morning after my morning cappuccino, I started working on a crochet baby headband. I wanted it to be stretchy and stay put so I decided to incorporate a hair elastic into the design. My daughter prefers headbands that are on the 'skinny' side without huge embellishments. I really like the way this one turned out so will make more in a variety of colours. 

Baby Headband

Instructions to make baby headband (14" to 15" circumference):

Band - Bernat Satin in White
Flower - Bernat Softee Baby in Flannel
Hook size - 3.25 mm
Button (from my stash)
Hair Elastic

Attach yarn with a slip stitch (ss) to a hair elastic
Chain 1 and single crochet (sc) around to cover the elastic 
Chain 40 and attach with ss to sc on opposite side of elastic being careful to not twist the chain loop (increase number of chains for larger finished size)
Chain 1, turn and sc into back bump of chain stitches until back at the beginning sc
Join with a ss to beginning sc on hair elastic and finish off leaving long tail ends
Weave in tail ends under sc around the hair elastic and join sides at middle of elastic to form a figure 8 (this will be used to attach the flower and button)

I made the flower following a free pattern from blogger Crochet With Raymond here. I used just one colour for the flower since I planned to cover the middle with a big, bright button. Doesn't it look cute on the teddy bear? I think it will look adorable on our granddaughter as well.

Fits 14"-15" comfortably

Following a productive morning of crochet and cappuccino, my husband and I decided to head to the gym to get some much needed exercise. On the way, we stopped at the local Len's Mill Store to pick up a couple things. As usual, I got carried away in the yarn department. I LoVe shopping for yarn. Check out my purchases in the photo below. I ended up buying 12 balls in assorted colours and 5 yards of 5 different decorative elastics. I have so many creative crochet projects in my head, I can hardly wait to get started. 

Yarn shopping LoVe

But first I want to finish a few more headbands. It's so much fun having a new baby to decorate. I'll make a couple more like the one I made this morning then I'd like to make a few using this lovely decorative elastic. Since I have 5 different kinds, I can make a nice selection in different sizes. I think my daughter will love them. I know I'm excited to see how they turn out. I plan to crochet a variety of flowers and I'm certain they will be super cute. I've got a little less than 2 weeks before we leave which should be plenty of time. I'll be sure to post some photos once they are finished. 

Variety of decorative elastics  for Baby Headbands

Be the first to comment - click on No comments: below.