A friend of mine recently had a baby. This is not an unusual occurrence in this stage of my life. But she had kept her pregnancy off of social media, so while I knew about it, I had no idea when she was due. There was a blanket that I saw that was perfect for her, so I decided to get in touch. Here’s how the conversation went:
Me: So, should I make you the llama blanket? Congrats, btw. Do you know what you’re having?
Friend: Sure! 🙂 But I’m not pregnant…
Me: *cringing and horrified at the faux pas I’d just committed*
Friend: *sends me a picture of her newborn baby*
After I got over the shock and joy of the little guy’s arrival, I set out to order the yarn needed. It was a lot of yarn.
The Llama and Cactus Afghan is a free pattern by Tamara Kelly of Mooglyblog.com and is available here. (You’ve heard me talk a lot about Moogly because of the Crochet Along I’ve been doing.)
What this blanket is not, is a baby-sized blanket. It is nearly 5 foot square. Well, he’ll have something to grow into.
The only change I made was to the border of the blanket. I did two rounds with a picot in the middle of the 3 double crochet groups on round two,
After I finished the blanket, I was reticent to store away the leftover yarn. I had almost an entire skein left of some colors of the Red Heart with Love yarn that I had used, so I decided to see how far that $70 worth of yarn would get me. The llama blanket had been Project 1.
Project 2 was the Winter Sunrise Scarf also by Tamara Kelly at Mooglyblog.com. It was a fun easy pattern. It definitely needed to be blocked when it was done, but it sold quickly. It used up all but a small bit of the pink yarn.
Project 3 was another free pattern: Meandering Paw Prints Scarf by Amy B Stitched. This adorable scarf was easy once I got the pattern down. The instructions on the special stitches were very clear. I even tried my hand at fringe and had just enough of the beige yarn to finish the fringe.
Project 4 would use up a few different colors of my leftover yarn. Unfortunately, my guesstimate on how much yarn I would need was not correct, so I changed some colors and decided to leave a few rows off at the end. I still really like this infinity scarf. I did have to rely on the picture to help me understand all of the instructions. Here is the Across the Sea Crochet Scarf by Country Willow Designs:
Even without the last two rows, the scarf was wide and long enough that I could wrap it around my head—a nice functional for a scarf.
Project 5 was the Coffee Bean Infinity Scarf by Left in Knots. I absolutely loved this pattern, and this scarf might just be my favorite out of the bunch. The bean stitch was a new stitch for me, and I could see myself using it for many things.
Project 6 was another scarf—the Ribs and Ridges Scarf by The Friendly Red Fox. With this scarf, I again did not have enough yarn to complete the pattern, but it is still a lovely scarf. It is definitely long enough to be quite functional and warm.
At this point, I had very little yarn left, but I had just enough yellow for Project 7. I finished my stash with the Divine Hat by Sarah Arnold in the 12 month size.
What started out as yarn for one project netted me enough for seven different projects! All of them were made with free patterns. That averages out to $10/project. That’s pretty amazing!