Tag Archives: Creations

Crochet Water Balloon Pattern (Free)

Life has been crazy. How’s yours? Summer is here and I would like to share with you something my kids love. I was not planning on making these reusable squishy balloons until my patience went out with the little plastic balloons. I was constantly picking up the little plastic balloon pieces everywhere, it caused me headaches and backaches. So, to save some money and frustration in the long run, I opted for the greener version for environment sake and my wallet sake.

Let’s make some crocheted balloon for mama’s fun craft time. Bonus point is the kids get to enjoy the finished products. Win – Win. Join me to make these crochet balloons with my free, simple and easy pattern for outdoor endless fun.

Yes, you heard it right. IT’S FREE!! Summer is hot in Texas and my kids are constantly wanting to get soaked. Pool time had been resulted in sunburns even sunscreen was applied. Yikes! We will go swimming again but may need to wait until evening next time around.

Back to the pattern, I finished the written pattern (see below) and will work on editing the video tutorial soon (will post link here when ready). You can subscribe to and get notification from my Youtube channel now (click here), so you will be amongst the first to know when my latest videos are published and never miss out.

Continue reading

Story Book Parade Costumes (Pete The Cat, Poppy Hat (from Trolls)

Happy to start blogging again and I hope this will be a more regular thing for me. I really enjoy writing and sharing all my creations with you. For my long time readers, thanks for being so supportive through out the years, even when I was out for like a whole year with barely any updates. This is a very happy new year update for me, I have been trying a lot of new things and crafts, designing some new and fun things, even attempted to make characters costume. I made my girls Pete the Cat hat and tail (“Pete the Cat” is a super fun series children books, the girls and us love it) and Poppy (from the movie Trolls) hat and dress for their school story book parade. I never do characters or cute crafts (just not great at them, so didn’t even bother to try). Surprisingly, they all came out pretty well and I actually enjoyed creating them. Lily (my younger daughter) even won 1st place for the costume contest for first grade. (Hurray!) She is super excited.

Alexis modeling her Pete the Cat hat, having a lot of fun reading the book while pretending to be Pete.

FullSizeRender 11

She is taking the modeling job really seriously, hid the mouth and pretended Pete.FullSizeRender 8

Continue reading

Crochet Tartan Scarf with Planned Color Pooling 

This article contains affiliated links, we may receive a small commission if you purchase products through them (it costs the same while the commission will support us to run the website and develop future contents. Thank you for your support and happy browsing.

I always love tartan scarf but too lazy to do all the color changing while knitting or corcheting. However, when the planned color pooling tartan scarf became a phenomenon in the crochet world lately, I decided to give it a try.

Well, I didn’t just I give it a try, it was more like 10 tries to get it started right, then another 10 tries of crocheting and ripping half the scarf apart and restarting.

Even though it was frustrating how it worked for 10 rows and showed the tartan pattern then suddenly went bananas on me, I am glad to finally crossed the tartan scarf and color pooling off from my to-do list.

After all the intense practices for single crochet and chain stitch, this scarf was made with crochet moss stitch, also known as granite stitch.

How to make moss stitch?

  • Sc – single crochet
  • Sk – skip
  • Ch – chain
  • St(s) – stitch(es)
  • Ch sp – chain space

Cast on multiple of 2 (mine was 24).
Row 1: Sc into the 4th st, * sk 1 ch, ch 1, sc into the next ch. Repeat * to end. Turn.

Row 2 to end: Ch 2, sk 1 st, sc into next ch 1 sp, *ch 1, sk 1 st, sc into next ch 1 sp. Repeat * to end. Turn.

I found a few tips to share with you if you wanna give it a try or more than a few tries.

For materials, you need some variegated yarn and the suggested size hook (probably a few smaller size hooks also). I used Red Heart Super Saver yarn in Camouflage colorway with a 4mm hook.

To get started , casted on 24-36 stitches. I tried 24, 28, 36 and after switching hooks from a size 5mm hook to 4.5mm to 4.25mm, I finally got it worked with a 4mm and chain 24 cast on combination.

If the color pooling is working, you should notice the tartan pattern start to show about 2- 3 inches length, be careful because it could work it way out of alignment if your tension changed just the slightest bit, then the once beautiful tartan pattern would be gone and you will be wondering what is wrong. I almost fell for the white lies my husband kept telling me: “it was the yarn, not you. It just wasn’t the right kind of yarn.” However, I am stubborn and couldn’t hide from the fact that there were two perfect tartan patterns on the scarf.

Lesson learned, if you are going to pick up and put down the project a lot like I do, as a busy mom with a baby and two school aged girls, 2 dogs that are getting old and need to go outside every 2 minutes, you will need to re-adjust every now and then as you go. Or try your best to find some uninterrupted time to sit and crochet, therefore you will have a better chance to keep the tension precise and consistent.


Tension plays a key role in color pooling. This scarf you see now made with the same hook same yarn but had been unraveled multiple times. It wasn’t fun and super confusing as I looked at the scarf when it went wrong, it had the perfect tartan pattern for 5 inches long and all a sudden it looked nothing like tartan, not even remotely have the possibility to be tartan in anyway.

Somehow my stubbornness won and I unraveled the same messed up part for 3 more times and magically it became tartan again. I was so mad at the crazy rows (at least 15, if not 20 rows) I didn’t have the heart to took a picture last night (I really should have). I just unraveled it and left it there for another tryout this morning. Thanks God, it worked.

If time available, I will make a Skillshare class about how to spot a mistake while color pooling and how to fix it before you need to rip apart half the scarf. Subscribe by email to my blog or follow me on facebook and Intragram to receive update.


All rights reserved. ©2016-2018 Littlepandamommy.com

Quick & Easy Crochet Scarf

My second Skillshare class is published: Simply Crochet – Quick and Easy Scarf. This scarf is gender netural and looks great on everyone. I will teach you the basic of crochet including slip knot, chain stitch, slip stitch and how to weave in the ends. Enroll now.

If you just want a copy of this simple and easy pattern, grab it at my Ravelry store.

My two little girls are both making their own in different colors with their choices of yarns. My oldest loves this scarf when she modeled it for me, so we went to the store and let her pick out her own yarn to make one herself . Little sister saw it, sure wanted to join the crochet club and picked her own yarn too.

Happy crocheting!

Little Panda Mommy Creations.

Copyright 2016. All right reserved.

Crochet Dress – dress it up or summer cover-up?

 

This is such a beautiful crochet dress, the first time I saw the picture online, I know I have to make one. I doubled up size 10 cotton thread for this beauty, it was such a labor intensive project, my hands were actually hurt for the repetitive motions after a few days. So, I ended up switching off to other projects back and forth, at some point I got too distracted, took me almost a year to finish it. It happens to me a lot, a project got finished in a few hours, a few days or it will be over a year. I hope I am not alone.

If some length and a few layers of ruffles were added, with a low cut at the back, it would be a nice wedding dress, so gorgeous. I can totally imagine a glowing bride wearing her loose wavy hair down, with some fresh flowers pin on one side right above her ear, put on simple and natural looking make up in a blooming courtyard or in a sandy beach with sunshine. How dreamy a wedding it will be?
4-IMG_0703 Continue reading

Free Crochet Flower Coaster Pattern

Christmas is around the corner, this simple and easy flower coaster is prefect for a last minute gift. It only takes about 15 minutes to crochet one, super easy even for a beginner. I made a set of six in red and green (Christmas color theme) for my daughter’s teacher as a holiday gift.

2-DSC_0010 Continue reading