Baby on the way!

I know I haven't posted in my blog in forever, my life just got incredibly busy when school started, but now I'm on break. :) I also have some news, I am about 6 months pregnant. :) So I'm going to share some of the things that I've made for my baby girl. She's due on April 5.

The first thing is a baby blanket. The picture I have is actually the picture of the one I made for my friend's daughter, she just had a baby girl back in October, and I made my daughter an identical one.

Sorry that the lighting is kind of yellow, the lighting in my room just sucks sometimes.
I absolutely love this blanket. It was made with the Bernat Pipsqueaks yarn, and it is so incredibly soft and fuzzy, and will be super warm for baby! The first row crocheting with this yarn is really frustrating, it's hard to see the chains, so I had a really hard time trying to count them to make sure I got the right number, and then the first row was difficult because you can't really see where you're supposed to put the hook through on the chain. I was worried it was going to come out twisted, but it turned out fine, and once you get that first row down it's really easy to feel the stitches.
I'm in the process of making another one that's all white. Honestly, the idea of it sounded boring to me at first, but my mom really wanted me to make her a white blanket, and she bought the yarn for me to make it, so I did, and honestly it looks so beautiful. I can't wait to wrap her up in it!
The pattern for this blanket came with the yarn, it was one of those that is on the paper sleeve around the yarn. There are two different free patterns that come with this yarn, one is for knitting and one is for crochet. I don't know how to knit so I did the crochet one. You can also find the pattern here but you have to have an account with bernat.com to view it. It's the Pipsqueak - blanket (crochet) pattern. However, I wouldn't worry about that because when buying the yarn you will probably get the pattern with the yarn, unless you somehow get only the skeins that have the knitting pattern with them.

The next thing I made are some cute little baby booties.

You can find the free pattern for these booties here. You will need an account with lionbrand.com, but I definitely recommend signing up for one. The account is free, and they also have a ton of other cute patterns, it's a great site for free patterns. I usually don't worry about checking the gauge because I mostly make stuffed animals or blankets, and with those things it usually doesn't matter if they're the right size, but with this I figured matching the gauge was important. I couldn't match the gauge with the yarn that I had, with the K hook (recommended hook) it came out too small and with the L hook it came out too big, so I went out and bought the recommended yarn for this pattern which is the Lion Brand Vanna's Choice yarn. I think this color was Rose Mist. I really like this yarn, but I usually don't buy it just because it's a bit more expensive than some other yarns that I really like. The pattern has four different sizes, baby, and child small, medium, and large. I made the baby size and they turned out quite large. She probably won't be able to wear them until she gets quite a bit older, but that's okay, I still think that they are adorable.
Before I recommend this pattern to you I must warn you, although the pattern is called "Easy Booties" this is not true. Once you get the pattern down they are easy and I could probably whip out a booty in about 20 minutes now, but the first time was extremely frustrating and I made it and remade it 4 times before I figured out what I was doing wrong and finally got it right. The pattern is confusing, I would recommend reading the reviews, some people have good tips, especially the reviewer named K, her review is on page 8 currently, if it's not there, then it probably moved farther down to page 9 or more. Definitely read through the whole pattern and then read her review before starting the booties.

I also decided to try again with the yarn that I was originally trying to use, which is the Caron Simply Soft yarn in Grape. Here is the result:

I'm not sure how well you can tell from the pictures, but these ones are quite a bit smaller and look like they might fit her at about 3-6 months, while the other ones look like they will fit at about 6 months- 1 year. So if you're trying to make them for a small baby I would recommend using this yarn or a similar size yarn instead and the Vanna's Choice for older babies/children.
I'm going to be making a lot more of these in the future, they are very easy (once you get the hang of the pattern) and simple, but cute. A lot of people in the reviews also had ideas of things to add to them to make them less simple, like adding ribbons, buttons, etc. One person had the idea of making the cuff longer, and folding it over, which is what I plan on doing on my next pair of booties.
Happy Crocheting