Crochet Fingerless Gloves

These were a present for Miss Marie (modeling them above) for Christmas and awesome gloves because your digits are free to do things. I realize it is pretty cold outside for some people to expose bare fingers, but I still think these gloves rule.

Materials
Yarn (2 kinds)
Crochet needle (I use the second biggest one because I use fat yarn)

Instructions
Do a single crochet stitch and measure it to your wrist, then loop the end of the yarn around making a circle. Continue to crochet until it gets above the bottom knucles of your fingers.

Then poke your thumb through the stitches and snip a piece of the yarn to make the thumb hole. (This part is tricky, you may have to do some knotting to avoid your whole glove coming undone).

Then around the hole do a single crochet stitch until it goes to the top of your thumb. Go back to the glove (switch colors if desired) and stitch until it is above your second knuckle. To see how to do the flowers check out this post I did awhile back.

Crochet Head Band/Ear Warmer

Since it is finally starting to get cold in New York I decided it was time to start wearing winter gloves, scarves and hats. Except that if I wear one of the awesome beanies I learned how to make (in non-crochet speak) then my hair is all messed up for my professional job. So, I invented this headband/ear warmer. It has buttons underneath so you don’t have to slide it on your head but instead can just button it on over your ears. Plus, it has a flower cause thats just pretty.

Materials needed:

Yarn
Crochet needle
Thread
Buttons
Sewing needle

Directions

Step 1:

Crochet (single stich) a rectangle long enough to touch behind your head and wide enough to cover your ears.

Step 2:

After you are done crocheting that you need to sew two buttons to one end. Loosen the yarn across from the buttons so that it loops around the buttons.

Step 3:

For the finishing touch I crocheted a little flower. Do this by doing a crochet chain and then link together to make a loop. Then keep on building off of that loop (same method) until you have a flower. Attach with a different color of thread by hooking to headband to make flower middle.

Done, no more cold ears or hat hair 🙂

Hats for the crochet-speak impaired

I went to high school in the NW where it was the coolest thing ever when you could make beanies and give them to your friends. Problem was, I could never read the patterns. All the sc’s and ch’s got me confused. Even with a key that explained the words I would always get overwhelmed and give up. So finally, 5 years later, I decided to try again. First, I learned how to crochet by just messing around with yarn and a crochet hook until I could figure out how to make a scarf, and still when I am around my friends that crochet they say I “do it weird”. To me it isn’t weird, it is the only way. I searched online for an instruction manual in english as opposed to crochet speak and alas, there was none to be found. Luckily, I was able to mess around long enough until I figured it out. So, I now give to you instructions on how to crochet a hat in complete sentences! Hopefullly it will help someone!

Materials needed:

Yarn (any kind, I use think wool yarn usually but anything works)
Crochet hook (this also can be any size, but you should usally match size of yarn to crochet hook, ie fat yarn = fat needle, ect.)

Step 1:

Start out with the normal knot around your crochet hook.

Step 2:

Do 6 single crochet stitches in a line (chain), then go back over them once so you have two rows of 6 stitches.

Step 3:

Join one end of the chain with the other end so it is in a little loop.

Step 4:

Do a normal single stitch once, but then instead of doing another one, loop the free yarn around the hook without going through a hoop. This is the trick because instead of making your yarn curve in like a basketball it will go out like a doily.

Step 5:

Measure on your head/ head of person you are making hat for to see when you need to stop doing the skip loop trick (my made up name to make it sound cool).

Step 6:

When your doily-like object is big enough go back to regular single stitch crochet until the end of the hat. (This is the curve part of the hat). I don’t believe there is a magic number for rows or anything so I just put it on periodically to see if it is the right size. If you want at the end you can make a “brim” by changing the color of yarn for the last 3-4 rows.

Step 7:

When finished, wear your awesome hat, get used to getting compliments. (Or, in my case statements of the obvious, “whoa, you guys have matching hats”).