I found a website that has down-loadable pattern templates to make your own sock blockers. You just print, pick the size you need and you are good to go.
The website is here: http://cyberseams.com/article/105710/all_things_knitting/how_to_make_your_own_sock_blockers.html
For gift giving I used their template and cut the shapes out of cardboard [that otherwise would have gone in the trash] and put the handmade socks on slippers on the foot shapes.
I don’t even know how I came across this link but it has been sitting in my drafts for some time now.
Stephan is gone for a few days so I am planning on, while he is gone, casting on the hunting socks he will be getting for Christmas. No better chance than the present I suppose to follow the tutorial from Knitty.com that teaches how to knit two socks at the same time using a method similar to double knitting.
The link is here http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall06/FEATextreme2in1.html
Since I just got done with those Hunting socks for my youngest son I immediately starting looking for more patterns and came across this but haven’t clicked thru the links yet. I did scroll over a few and saw urls like Yahoo GeoCities–didn’t they close down?
Anyway here is the link: http://www.cooperativemainecraftsmen.com/NoJava/free_pattern_by_type.php?Category=-sock-
As soon as I started knitting and crocheting it was like I began developing this huuuuge list of all the things I wanted to make for the people in my life. The fact that Christmas was just around the corner left me feeling even more anxious! To my disappointment I spent so much time in search of quick or beginner level patterns that it was difficult to complete all the gifts I wanted to make.
This year I have more time to plan and have some experience under my belt so I am in the process of putting together a list below of knitting and crochet projects I have been able to make in 6 hours or less as a beginner or projects I am considering trying for gifts. I’ll keep updating this list and even adding links but if you know of something just post it below in the comments.
Dishcloths– there are free patterns all over the Internet but if you are a new knitter and have trouble understanding patterns all you really have to do is cast on 40-43 stitches of worsted cotton yarn with US size 6 or 7 needles and knit in garter stitch until you have a square. Garter stitch works great for dish cloth while stockingnette stitch is softer for like washcloths.
If you have knit dishcloths before but find yourself indecisive when it comes to finding a pattern consider joining a group like the Monthly Dishcloth KAL group at Yahoo. They do two Knit a Longs every month. During the Knitalong you are sent about 7-10 rows each day which makes it easy to keep up with and you can whip out 2 dishcloths a month (24 a year!!) to give as gifts. There is a sign up box below:
You can crochet dishcloths too. Here is the article with a crochet dishcloth that was (I am prettty sure) my first crochet FO: Crochet Dishcloth
Scarves – again very easy and there are some pretty scarves I’ve seen in plain old garter stitch. Just decide how wide you want it and knit til its the right length. Here is a wide muffler type scarf I made as my first patterned stitch to follow. It is a bit more involved and used two skeins of Red Heart Yarn. Here is a Ruffle Scarf I crochet with Bulky Yarn. It used less than one skein and would be pretty as a gift.
Fingerless gloves – Again there are tons of free patterns out there. I made Stephanie a pair last winter while she and Vee played Monopoly. I just chained the length I wanted the gauntlets and single crocheted til they fit comfortably around her hand and wrist then I stitched them up on the side leaving 1 1/2″ at 1″ from the top open for the thumb. In that opening I slip stitched and single crochet 10, joined and crochet two rounds so her gloves would have a thumb.
Yoga or ‘flip flop’ socks - Now these (Ally’s Vee’s)I’m sure took me more than 6 hours….maybe not though but I will be making more soon and will track my time involved.
Headbands - You won’t believe how quick and easy these can be. An earwarmer generally takes much less than one ball of yarn and girls like them better than hats because wearing them doesn’t mess up your hair. Most headband type earwarmers can also be worn as a neck warmer or what my girls call a ‘neckie’.
Crochet Headband – took about an hour
Knitted Headband – took about an hour
Jen’s Loop Stitch Pillow –If I had crochet the back this would have been just under 6 hours but I cheated and asked my mom to sew up some satin I purchased and then I attached the loop stitch to the front of that.
UPDATE: Bev’s Country Cottage has a ton of easy Christmas Gifts you can make by knitting or crocheting. Here is one that is quick and easy and both my girls are getting. It is a lipbalm holder that can be clipped to their keychain, back pack or purse. The link to her pattern is here: http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/keychain.html
and her Christmas Gifts Ideas Page is here: http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/christmas/gifts.html
Hats - I have a really easy pattern that I use for making knitted hats with earflaps. Eventually it will get posted. In the meantime there is a great ‘formula’ here for creating a hat pattern
Babies and Toddlers
Hats, moms love animal hats and I could crochet these all day long.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I started working on my Christmas gift list just before the beginning of April.
Years ago my mom worked in a craft store. It was a Piece Goods Shop (are those still around?) One of the managers there was a young woman named Nicole, who really should have been a designer. I swear she could look at anything and make it into something beautiful and usable. She could take lace and sew it to the edge of cheap white socks or cut a t-shirt and add a Chintz skirt to it, or wrap fabric around a garage sale lamp and make it look like a decorator item. The lady was amazing and try as I might my projects never resembled anything of her craftiness.
Browsing Crochet Pattern Central when I was looking for a trim for the Easter Chick Hat that I crochet for Brady I found this idea to spruce up those cheap little magic gloves with crochet thread. It reminds me so much of something Nicole would make and it may be something I can handle since it does not require sewing!!
My girls love those little Stretch Gloves because they fit into a pocket and I love them because you can pick up two pairs for a buck at the Dollar Tree. This pattern to add crochet trim to Magic Stretch Gloves is here: http://shala-beads.livejournal.com/109358.html
This link was provided in a post at the Knitting Help forum (ever been there? It’s a nice forum with genuinely friendly members, admins and mods). It is a basic formula for figuring out how many stitches you need to knit a hat regardless of the size needles or weight of yarn you are using. If you know how to knit and know how to knit and measure a gauge swatch you can knit a hat. Check out the Knitted Basic Hat “Formula” Pattern
Remember the video I posted of the lady making a half double crochet Easter Bunny hat in this blog post? Well I realized I had accidentally removed her video from the post when I added a knitted pattern either last night or this morning so I went to find it and ended up glued to her video lessons for quite a while.
She has some really cool crochet flowers that she walks you thru making. They are done in groups of 3 and layered. I so want to make one to embellish either a hat or a headband.
Here is her video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpRWWHemkHs
If you have been following my blogs you know I’ve been a crocheting fool trying to get down a hat pattern that will really fit a newborn baby instead of one that the baby will have to grow into.
In my family babies are 6lbs to 7 1/2 lbs and I want to be able to make hats as shower gifts that the babies can wear right away.
Earlier this week I finally (thought) I came up with a hat that would work, and I guess, for people having babies that are 8, 9 or omgosh 10 pounds but the more I think about it that is more of a 0-3 month size. Leave it to me to continue over-thinking and re-doing ::big sigh::
Here are the comparisons
 This hat measures just under 13 1/2" so it will fit a 13 1/2"-15 1/2" head or 0-3 months Click the pic for the pattern
|
 This hat measures approx 12 1/3" If you have a small baby this will be a good newborn hat. Click the pic for the pattern
|
And here is what I used as a guide.
This is the hat the nurses put on Vee when she was born. Gosh, I can’t believe she ever wore this. Her head is bigger than mine now. (Yes I have drove my family insane since taking up knitting and crocheting by measuring their heads, measuring the width across their face, behind their ears, even from their crown to the bottom of their earlobes. It’s to the point I fear, they will start running when they see my yellow measuring tape in hand 
)
Anyway back to the hat. This is the hat she wore the day she was born.
This is it in comparison to the blue trimmed, 40 stitch hat located here
The double crochet hat is slightly larger on each side
The double crochet hat is slightly larger on each side. Now it may only be a half inch or so but when you are talking about a little noodle that’s only 13 1/2 inches every cm is going to make a difference.
Now this hat, the hat trimmed in pink is pretty much identical in size as shown below
This hat measures right around 12 1/4″ to 12 1/3″. That is 36 stitches in double crochet with my J hook (6.5 mm) which, if you keep up with my blog, will know that is the size hook I prefer as smaller ones make my hands ache.
To arrive at 36 stitches your last row of increases needs to be done a bit differently as you will be adding only 6 stitches to your 30 opposed to 10 to your 30. Here is how I did it.
Round 3 – *2 dc in next stitch, 1 dc in next 5 stitches* repeat around (36 stitches total)
That way you are adding an extra dc at the beginning and then on every 6th stitch.
Now I know most of the directions for increases I have seen have you start out with your regular stitches and increase every 10th, 6th, 8th, whatever but I like to do the increase in the first stitch. To me it just makes more sense and I don’t have to worry about forgetting one. You’re working with double crochet in rounds so it’s pretty basic–get your specified number of increases in per round. If you prefer to do it in a different order than me I am sure your hat will turn out fine as long as you are doing your increases evenly around the hat.
The full pattern for the newborn hat is here. Keep in mind, the ears and the nose don’t have to be used and neither do the earflaps if you just want a beanie hat.
I tried making a lacey knit washcloth for Vee and failed misserably. Today on Rav I saw a post about Yarn Overs in the Newer Knitters group.
Got a Hat That is Too Short or Just Want to Add Earflaps to the Hat?
Attaching Earflaps to a Hat —
Earflaps can be easily attached to crochet hats.
Yesterday it was 65 degrees outside and Ally left Brady’s stroller on the back porch just in case we wanted to spend some time in the yard or garden. Even though it was warm there was still a good, strong breeze coming off the fields so a hat was required. To my amazement the little double crochet hat I hooked up for him a month…bet it was more like two months ago was too short.
Babies grow so quick. When I finally put this on him, it didn't cover his ears any more
That gave me an idea.
Last winter, because I was a new hat knitter and crocheter, I noticed so many men that wore stocking caps had their ears exposed. We aren’t far from Chicago and it is so windy here. Looking at Brady yesterday with his ears poking out from that hat reminded me of the hats I had checked out while in town the past few months.
The light blue Red Heart yarn was still out from the Easter Bunny hat I just finished so I grabbed my 6.5 mm (US size K) crochet hook. Literally minutes later we had ear flaps on his hat.
It took longer to get the baby to hold still for this picture than it did to crochet the ear flaps onto his hat!
I snapped a photo a bit prematurely as the hats look so much cleaner with so row of single crochet, slip stitch or blanket stitch around the edge. (keep reading though, you have to keep going to see how much different it looks with the trim on it )
At this point we needed to make a trip downstairs to get some necessaries out of his diaper bag. He still had the hat on and as I kept looking at the little hat the earflaps looked a bit long to me but of course that gave me another idea. I took a short piece of yarn and tied the ends of the flap. Sure enough the ends came together.
I connected the ear flaps under the chin
This could be done with ties, I suppose with velcro, but a button….babies and buttons are a combination that terrifies me. So, we left the hat on while I prepared his lunch.
When I turned around he was doing quite a job of removing the hat and I would imagine if the flaps had a button it would have been in his mouth.
When I turned around he was doing quite a job of removing the hat and I would imagine if the flaps had a button it would have been in his mouth. The decision was made we will stick to short braided ties.
What a difference the contrast color made
About five minutes to attach a nice border in a chocolate brown while he munched on a Mum Mum biscuit and then we tried it on again for size. What a difference that simple contrast color along the edge makes! For the border I decided to use a single crochet instead of slip stitch
CONTRASTING BORDER
All I did (all you have to do is) slip stitch on your contrast color yarn and single crochet all around the hat. I usually start just behind the right ear and work my way across the back, other side, front and then back to where I started. Just crochet loose. If you tend to crochet very tightly then consider going up a hook size for the contrasting border.
About that time he was ready for a nap and I grabbed the notes I had made for the earflap construction.
EARFLAPS/EAR COVERS
Here is all I did–
Attach new yarn with a slip stitch and chain 3, double crochet 7, ch3 and turn
Ch 8 (first ch3 in previous row counts as a dc), do not ch, turn
Following rows: dc all, do not ch, and turn
By not chaining at the end of the rows you are decreasing each row by 1 stitch. This is what gives the rounded appearance to the ear covers.
I repeated rows until I had only 3 stitches left and then fastened and wove in ends.
Measure across the back of the hat and allow 3.75″ before attaching the second earflap and repeat the process listed above.
Take a contrasting color and slip stitch it on behind the left ear flap. Single crochet around the hat and flaps. Fasten off and weave in ends.
Wah Laa!