Alpine Stitch Baby Sleeping Bag: Free Crochet Pattern

I hope you've all had good year-end celebrations and I'm wishing everyone a Happy New Year 2022.

One of my neighbours just had a baby boy so when I learned she was pregnant I decided to crochet a baby sleeping bag for her. I sort of free-handed it while still working on the knitted sweater for my son, as it created a welcome distraction from the sweater's repetitive pattern.

This Crochet Hooded Alpine Baby Sleeping Bag is pretty simple to make and I thought I'd write the pattern while making it so I could share it here 😁.

Crochet Hooded Alpine Baby Sleeping Bag

The yarn I picked is a bulky weight soft acrylic, I wouldn't make this in pure wool as babies' skin can be sensitive to wool, so use soft cotton, acrylic or a mix of both as long as it's soft.

It is an easy crochet pattern as all you need to do is crochet a long rectangle that is then shaped as a hood for the top part and the main sleeping part is folded over. There is no need for button holes as the chosen stitch has large enough gaps to slip the buttons in and out.

Bulky weight is great as this sleeping bag works quickly and will ensure that the baby will be extra cosy in his/her little hooded sleeping bag.

Free Crochet Pattern for the Hooded Alpine Baby Sleeping Bag:

Materials: 

3 balls of James C. Brett Top Value Chunky (100g/150m/163yds per ball) in Blue,

3 balls of James C. Brett Top Value Chunky (100g/150m/163yds per ball) in Beige,

Crochet hook size 6mm (US size K/10.5);

6 large wooden buttons; make sure the buttons you choose are large enough so that they fit securely into the gaps formed by the alpine stitch when closed.

Final dimensions:

40cm (15.5in) width × 66cms (30in) length when finished (folded over).

Gauge:

11 sts x 10 rows in alpine st make a 10cm square.

Abbreviations:

SC: single crochet (double crochet UK);

DC: double crochet (treble crochet UK);

FPTR: treble crochet in the front post (double treble in the front post UK);

Pattern:

(a) Using colour A, ch46;

Row 1: SC in 2nd ch from hook and in each ch across, turn (45 sts).

Row 2: ch2, DC in each st across, turn (45 sts).

Row 3: ch1, SC in each DC across (45 sts).

(b) Row 4: ch2, DC in first SC, *FPTR in DC from row below next SC, DC in next SC*, repeat from *to* across, turn (45 sts).

Row 5: ch1, SC in each DC and FPTR across (45 sts).

Row 6: ch2, DC in first SC, *DC in next SC, FPTR in DC from row below next SC*, repeat from *to* across up to the last 2 SC, DC in the last 2 DC, turn (45 sts).

Row 7: ch1, SC in each DC and each FPTR across (45 sts).

Repeat rows 4 to 7 five more times or until your work measures about 23cms from the beginning. This will be the hood.

(c): Using colour B, work rows 4 to 7 twice.

(d): Using colour A, work rows 4 to 7 once.

Repeat (c) and (d) alternatively 5 more times, then repeat (c) once.

Last row: ch1, SC in each DC and FPTR across (45 sts).

Fasten off, weave in loose ends.

Assembling:

Form the hood by folding the top of the hood into 2 halves in order to make a triangle shape and sew or slip stitch both halves together.

Position the buttons: fold the sleeping bag all the way to where the hood finishes (where the baby's shoulders should be) and 3 buttons on each side of the back part, spaced evenly apart; there is no need for buttonholes as the buttons will close into the gaps left by the alpine stitch. 

Congratulations! You have completed your crochet hooded alpine baby sleeping bag! 

You can use this pattern for making your own baby sleeping bags for personal use and selling your own finished products but you cannot give or resell this pattern; If you know anyone who would like this free crochet pattern please give them this link to direct them to Sophie's Knit Stuff's Hooded Alpine Baby Sleeping Bag Free Crochet Pattern.

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Up Mayo! Crochet Headband Free Pattern

I'm not a huge GAA fan but when there's an opportunity to crochet, then why not?

If you live in or come from Ireland, then you'll already know that each year, there is a Gaelic Football competition that includes every Irish county (from both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland), called the All-Ireland championship, and the winning team goes home with the Sam McGuire Cup.

This year's final takes place this Saturday and this year it is a particularly big event, as the Dublin team (who previously won the cup for 6 years in a row) were beaten by the Mayo team in the semi-final a few weeks ago, meaning that Mayo could be the winners for the first time in 70 years (yes 70, you read me right, it's all got to do with a curse which I won't go into, but you can read all about here).

So my partner being from the beautiful county of Mayo (not as beautiful as Galway though😉), this year we are all very excited about this All-Ireland GAA final, which is why I made this crochet Headband in the Mayo county flag colours: red and green.

Me "sporting" my Up Mayo! Headband

I'm sharing this here for free so you can use it to make your own headbands in your own county colours. Just not the Dublin colours, nor Tyrone (Ha Ha, just kidding😉).

My head is practically child-sized, so this would probably fit anyone over 12 years old, up to women with a small to medium head (I would make it bigger for a man or a woman with a bigger head size).

Materials needed:

50gr Dk yarn, red colour,

50gr Dk yarn, green colour.

I used 100% acrylic yarn as this is what was in my stash but you can use whatever yarn you want, you may have to adjust the number of stitches if your yarn is less or more dense than mine or if you need a smaller or larger headband.

3.5 mm crochet hook (E4 in US sizes),

Tapestry needle,

Scissors.

Abbreviations:

Ch: chain;

Sl: slip stitch;

FHDC: foundation half double crochet US (foundation half treble crochet UK):

To make a row of FHDC, start with ch2, yarn over and insert your hook into the first chain stitch made, yarn over and pull up a loop, yarn over and pull up the 3 loops on the hook (1st FHDC made).

To make subsequent FHDCs, yarn over, insert your hook in the previous FHDC (it should look like a V), pull up a loop, yarn over and pull up the 3 loops on your hook.

HDC: half double crochet US (half treble crochet UK);

To make a HDC, yarn over, insert your hook in the next stitch, yarn over and pull up the 3 loops on your hook.

HHDC: Herringbone double crochet US (Herringbone treble crochet UK);

To make a HHDC, yarn over, insert your hook into the next stitch, yarn over and pull up the first 2 loops on your hook, yarn over and pull up the remaining 2 stitches on your hook.    

Additional information:

1-In order to have smooth colour changes at the end of the colour changing rows, I decided to turn and work in rows from the end of row 2 instead of working in the round. 

2-The ch2 at the beginning of the rows do not count as stitches, the first stitch of each row is made into the same stitch as the base of ch2.

3-The slip stitch to join each row is made into the first hdc or hhdc of the previous row.

4- I haven't made a swatch (Gasp!) but still got it right first time: my tip is not to make the foundation row too tight (you can try using a larger hook for this row, and to measure as you go: once your foundation row fits around your head when reasonably stretched out (don't go overboard with stretching out, think of how it will be stretched when worn), then you have enough foundation stitches.

Instructions for the Up Mayo Headband:

Row 1: Using red yarn, make 70 FHDC, sl into the first foundation stitch to join,  making a closed circle, taking care not to twist your stitches.

Row 2: ch2, HHDC in each stitch around, sl into the first FHDC to join, turn.

Row 3: ch2, HDC in each stitch around, sl into the first HHDC from previous row to join, turn.

Change to green yarn.

Row 4: ch2, HHDC in each stitch around, sl into the first HDC from previous row to join, turn.

Row 5: ch2, HDC in each stitch around, sl into the first HHDC from previous row to join, turn.

Row 6: ch2, HHDC in each stitch around, sl into the first HDC from previous row to join, turn.

Row 7: ch2, HDC in each stitch around, sl into the first HHDC from previous row to join, turn.

Change to red yarn.

Row 8: ch2, HHDC in each stitch around, sl into the first hdc from previous row to join, turn.

Row 9: ch2, HDC in each stitch around, sl into the first HHDC from previous row to join, turn.

Row 10: ch2, HHDC in each stitch around, sl into the first HDC from previous row to join, turn.

Voilà! You can now support your favourite team in Sophie's Knit Stuff style and I can go back to knitting my socks off!

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Knitty And Crochetty Halloween

Have you ever had any knitting cravings (and before you ask, no I'm not pregnant!)?

Yesterday I was taken by an urge to knit one of these cute Halloween Pumpkins (free knitting and crochet pattern available from Hannah Maier on Ravelry):

I'll be visiting my sister for the Halloween week-end so I thought I would make one for her so she can have one piece of Halloween decor for her flat.

I also had to make one for our own house, this one will probably look a bit out of place among our tacky Halloween decorations (I'm too lazy to decorate so I more or less gave my kids a free hand for our Halloween decor, I had to stop them before having the walls covered in fake blood - creative kids can be a curse sometimes!)

I knitted both pumpkins using the same pattern and wool but using a different needle size (3.75 mm for the big one and 3.00 mm for the small one), which explains the difference in sizes.

My eldest wants to dress up as a black cat this year so she asked me to crochet her a cat ears hairband for which she found a free pattern online from Stitch11. Of course doing this in black means my eyesight has been blurry since (should be better by the time I have to drive to Dublin). She started making herself a cat tail without a pattern which I had to finish for her as she has crafty ADHD too.

The plan this year is to leave the Trick or Trick responsibility to their Dad and his girlfriend (I'm no good at doing fun stuff) while my sister and I head to the Knitting and Stitching Show (yes it's that time of year again:)

Hopefully the little one doesn't decide that she needs a full Halloween outfit crocheted for her 5 minutes before going to Dublin!

Happy Halloween!

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Free Crochet Heart Pattern

My daughter's class is studying the heart at school, and I know that the love heart shape is not very realistic, but it's cute, so I looked for a crochet heart pattern online.

I found a few crochet heart shape patterns, but they were always too small: for some reason it seems impossible to find a crochet heart bigger than 2 or 3 inches, so I had to put my overactive brain to work, and after a few trials, I came up with this:

Big Crochet Heart

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has been looking for one of these, so here is my Big Heart crochet pattern:

Notes:
I used some pink acrylic DK yarn and a 4mm (G) crochet hook ; it would look great in cotton too, and you can use thicker/finer yarn with a bigger/smaller crochet hook for different results.

I am using UK/Ireland crochet terms so if you are more familiar with the US crochet terms, here is a list of the terms and abbreviations used in this free heart crochet pattern:
ch = Chain (same for US and UK)
sl st = Slip stitch (same for US and UK)
dc: UK Double Crochet  = US Single Crochet
tr: UK Treble Crochet  = US Double Crochet
htr: UK Half Treble Crochet = US Half Double Crochet

Important:

•  Insert a stitch marker into your starting chain at the beginning of each row. 
• When counting your stitches, do not count the slip stitch at the end of the rows, or the starting chain at the beginning of the rows.

Instructions (in UK crochet terms):
ch4, join with sl stitch in the 1st ch to make a ring.
Round 1: ch1, 11 dc into the ring, join with sl st to beg. ch1 (11 sts).
Round 2: ch1, dc and htr in first st, 2 tr in each of the next 4 sts, 5 tr in the next st,  2 tr in each of the next 4 sts, htr and dc in last st, join with sl st to beg ch1 (25 sts).
Round 3: ch1, 1 dc in each of the first 2 sts, 1 dc and 1 htr in next st, 1 htr and 1 tr in next st, 2 tr in each of the next 3 sts, 1 tr in each of the next 5 sts, 5 tr in the next st, 1 tr in each of the next 5 sts, 2 tr in each of the next 3 sts, 1 tr and 1 htr in next st, 1 htr and 1 dc in next st, 1 dc in each of the last 2 sts, join with sl st to beg ch1 (39 sts).
Round 4: ch1, 1 dc in each of the first 2 sts, 1 dc and 1 htr in next st, 1 htr and 1 tr in next st, 2 tr in each of the next 3 sts, 1 tr in each of the next 12 sts, 5 tr in the next st, 1 tr in each of the next 12 sts, 2 tr in each of the next 3 sts, 1 tr and 1 htr in next st, 1 htr and 1 dc in next st, 1 dc in each of the last 2 sts, join with sl st to beg ch1 (53 sts).
Round 5: ch1, 1 dc in each of the first 2 sts, 1 htr in next st, 1 tr in each of the next 2 sts, 2 tr in each of the next 3 sts, 1 tr in each of the next 18 sts, 5 tr in next st, 1 tr in each of the next 18 sts, 2 tr in each of the next 3 sts, 1 tr in each of the next 2 sts, 1 htr in next st, 1 dc in each of the last 2 sts, join with sl st to beg ch1 (63 sts).
Row 6: 1 sl st in first st, 1 dc in each of the next 2 sts, 1 htr in next st, 1 tr in each of the next 3 sts, 2 tr in each of the next 3 sts, 1 tr in each of the next 21 sts, 5 tr in next st, 1 tr in each of the next 21 sts, 2 tr in each of the next 3 sts, 1 tr in each of the next 3 sts, 1 htr in next st, 1 dc in each of the next 2 sts, 1 sl st in last st, join with sl st to the back loop of the first sl st (73 sts).

Here is the link to the free Ravelry PDF download: Big Heart Crochet Pattern.

If you share this big heart shape crochet pattern, please include a link to my blog or my Ravelry Designer page!

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Free Crochet Easter Egg Pattern For Beginners

Last Friday while at school for the weekly crochet session where I try helping out (I say try because sometimes there's more giggles than actual crocheting:-), the teacher was looking for ideas of something simple the kids could work on during the week.

Because it's nearly Easter the obvious and easiest thing I could think of was a crocheted Easter Egg so I said I would try and come up with an easy Easter Egg crochet pattern.

Some of the girls in the class are still struggling with their crochet (I guess I'm not that much help then!), so I could have designed an egg to work in the round, but I thought it might be easier to work 2 flat pieces and sew them both together after stuffing them with cotton wool or other stuffing material.

I did my homework and came up with this:

Crochet Easter Eggs

I made the turquoise egg on Friday, typed the pattern on Saturday and my daughter tested the pattern by making the red and pink eggs on Sunday morning: she found them so quick and easy she made one more last evening and cast on a 4th one this morning, to work on in her spare time in school.

I also made a crochet basket to put all our eggs in, but I finished it last night and my daughter took it to school this morning before I got the chance to take a picture:-(

Since I am sharing the pattern with the school, I thought I might also share it with my blog readers.

If you are a beginner the instructions are very easy to follow because I tried making sure it would be easy for 12 year-olds (the average class age), there is even a chart included to make it even easier: my daughter can vouch for it!

You can download the PDF for free from my Ravelry store. Here is the direct link: Easy Crochet Easter Egg for Beginners.

I apologise to my French countrymen and countrywomen as the pattern is in English only because I am not familiar with French crochet terms (I learned crochet recently and have been living in Ireland for about 20 years), but the chart should make it easy enough to understand as long as you know how to increase and decrease in double crochet.

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