Valentine Hot Pad

Since the fall I've been turning mug rug patterns into hot pads by adding a back to them to make them sturdy enough to handle hot pans. I was contemplating what to do about Valentine's Day when i discovered Annie's had released Farmhouse Mug Matswith a heart pattern and my Valentine's project was selected.

I changed both the cotton yarn and the background color. I've been ordering Omega Sinfonia yarn from Creative Yarn Source for my hot pads and I have a variety of colors left in my stash. The cotton works well for the hot pads and at this point who wants to buy more yarn when you can use what you have in your house to make your project. The original bakground was off white and even if I'd ordered the yarn listed I wouldn't have ordered the color. I'm not a fan of white in my kitchen. I rather like the pink. The two other colors are fairly close to the color suggestions in the leaflet.

Lots to Love 8 inch Doll Valentine Gent

I am very pleased to say my Valentine packaged arrived several days earlier than the post office predicted. For those of you who have been shipping things or waiting for packages to arrive you can appreciate what a blessing this was for the day.

With the Valentine package gone I've had a chance to make some decorations for myself before moving on to the St. Patrick's Day box. I started with the Valentine Gent and am currently working on the Valentine Gal.

As I mentioned when I wrote about the Thanksgiving doll this pattern is from an out of print House of White Birches leaflet Crochet Holiday Baby Dolls 101102. I was recently pleased to find the out of print companion leaflet Dress Up Baby Dolls from the same publisher and designer. That leaflet has non-holiday outfits and will be useful for the 8 inch Lots to Love Doll I'll be donating for the annual doll donation.

Notes:

This pattern set is designed for a 9 1/2 inch baby doll but height is often misleading when looking at patterns to adapt. I originally thought this series would be closer to the 10" doll but as I worked with the patterns I realized height isn't the only issue for these dolls. The Lots to Love dolls are chubbier but shorter. This has allowed me to fit these outfits to the 8 inch Lots to Love dolls where I think they'd be harder to fit to the 10 inch dolls. I may experiment more with the other leaflet as I can always use more donation patterns but I was only seeking one line of holiday dolls to decorate with and the 8 inch dolls are actually a better size for this purpose.

The shirt fit well without needing to adapt the pattern. I used worsted weight yarn instead of the suggested sport yarn and the suggested g hook. This helped deal with the more generous round Lots to Love tummy. I needed to make adjustments to make the pants fit. I originally followed the pattern and then realized this is where the height of the other doll was an issue. The Lots to Love doll has shorter legs. I joined the legs after row 2 and then moved on to the directions for row 5. Follow with one row of half double crochet. This makes legs a good length.

The cloth heart buttons came from Joann and I recently reordered them along with some Shamrock ones to use with St. Patrick's Day projects The rose in the doll's hand is also part of a Valentine themed button set. I'm afraid I don't remember where that set came from. It has already been split up as I've used different pieces of it on various projects. The rose seemed a perfect fit for this project.

Breakfast Sausage Links

The breakfast crochet patterns are nice quick projects to work on as I rotate through some other projects which at times get more complicated. I'm working my way through a heart thtat I think I finally conquered. Don't want to declare victory to early on that one. However, the sausages were a quick break as they worked up without a challenge.

For those of you who haven't been following along I'm planning on including a crochet breakfast play set with the Valentine box this year. I'm working on some themed Valentine's projects as well but I was thinking with most of the country still shut down it is nice to have creative fun things kids can do at home that keep them busy and entertained while Mom and Dad have other things to do.

This pattern is the same pattern the sausage patty came from and you can purchase it here.

Sausage Patty

I'm continuing to alternate between making donation doll items and working on my Valentine box to mail out. I'm hoping to get this one there before the holiday. This was a nice quick project to finish off between working on a doll play set that had multiple pieces to finish. It is part of a breakfast play set Breakfast Time which you can purchase here.

I'm enjoying pulling from a variety of crochet food patterns and books I seem to have accumulated to put my crochet breakfast play set together for the holiday box. Play food is a great way to engage kids in pretend play and crochet food is a great alternative to the plastic stuff found in the stores.

I'm on to breakfast sausage links next which were more common in my house growing up than the saugage patties. The first one was a bit larger so time to move to a smaller hook and see where that takes me. I'm also hoping to finish the Lil Cutesies' set soon and be ready to move on to the next doll project.