Hooking on Hump Day – Crochet Baby Rattles

Hi everyone it’s Cindy here. Today I’m joining the Hookin on Hump Day blog hop to show you some baby rattles I made recently. I haven’t been able to let you see my recent crochet creations because I have mainly been working on some things for a baby shower for my niece. The shower was the weekend after New Year’s day so now I can show you what I’ve been making.

This week I will show you the rattles I made and in upcoming Hookin on Hump Day installments I will show you the other items I made including an afghan. I wanted to make a rattle to go with the afghan and I found a cute pattern in one of my magazines, Crochet! Presents Gifts to Go – Spring 2013.

Butterfly Kiss Rattle

The afghan is made in the sage green color that is the body of the butterfly and I picked other yarn colors that would go well with it. All the yarn for the butterfly is Bernat Satin. The secret of how to make the rattle make noise was as simple as a cat toy (as described in the pattern instructions).

This is what makes noise in the rattle.

These come in a package of four so I had three left over and I didn’t know what I would do with them. I thought I might make a few more butterflies and donate them somewhere but just before Christmas I received a text message from my sister (the grandma to be) with the following picture attached and the message, “Liz just sent me this…apparently hinting!”

My sister is a very accomplished knitter but she doesn’t crochet and since these were crochet she figured I might be able to make them. Luckily I had already finished everything I was planning on making for the shower but just couldn’t resist adding these too, after all I had three left over cat toys to use for something. I went to the website where you can purchase this set, hoping to find a pattern to purchase, but of course there wasn’t one. Thanks to the Google Machine I was able find free patterns for all the veggies. The next thing I did was check my stash of yarn and was happy that I had all the colors I would need for all four veggies.

Veggies anyone?

I used worsted weight yarn in a variety of brands from Redheart Super Saver to Caron One Pound. I wanted to use worsted weight to make sure the rattles were big enough to fit the balls inside. For those that might be interested I will let you know where I found all the patterns.

• Corn on the Cob from Lion Brand
• Eggplant from Lion Brand
• Carrot from Kristi
• Tomato from a blog called “Look At This Crap I Made” (I love the blog name!)

As usual I didn’t follow the patterns exactly in some places. One in particular was the tomato that called for you to sew some yarn around the outside of it to make indentations to look more like a tomato. I didn’t think that would be safe for little hands so I omitted it. I also didn’t like the way the stem and leaves on the tomato were made and modified it to be crocheted more like the eggplant stem was made.

To finish the project I also went into my stash to whip up the little market bag to put the toys in. I’ve made enough bags now that I can practically do them in my sleep. I just had to figure out how big to make it.

I also added a lining just to keep all the seams neat. If you have been keeping count you realize that I had only 3 cat toys left for my rattle inserts but made 4 more rattles. Before I started my last veggie, the tomato, I asked Charlie if we had any empty film canisters around. Being former Kodak employees and film users it wasn’t hard to find one.

Not my picture but this is what I used.

Next thing I did as go to the junk drawer (doesn’t every house have one of these?) and pull out a couple of lock washers.

Also not my picture but this is what I used.

I popped a couple of washers inside the film can and stuffed it into the tomato. Here is a little video showing you the rattles in action.

If you can’t see the video you can go here to view it.

I hope you enjoyed seeing the baby rattles I made for my Grand Nephew to be. His due date is January 28th so he should be here soon.

I didn’t receive any compensation for any of the links in this post but include them for anyone that is interested in finding the patterns.