**Below you will find the step-by-step picture tutorial for making the Seed Stitch Ear Warmer.  You can find the free pattern here.** 

It’s a family tradition of ours to go apple picking every year in Michigan.  That’s about a 3 1/2 hour car ride for us so I usually try to plan something to keep me occupied while Will drives.  In preparation for our road trip this year, I grabbed a skein of yarn and 5mm crochet hook with absolutely no idea what I wanted to make.  

It was starting to get a little crisp out, so I was thinking along the lines of a wearable item and decided upon an ear warmer for Audrey.  I chose a stitch that I had recently discovered and desperately wanted to use, the Crochet Seed Stitch.  The Seed Stitch is incredibly easy, but works up so beautifully.  Check out my step-by-step instructions here.

Since we were driving and Audrey was in her car seat while I was in the passenger seat, I had no good way to measure how wide I should make it so I totally guessed.  I started with a foundation row of 21 chains, and set to work with 20 stitches in each row.  By the time we had arrived at the apple orchard, my ear warmer had quite a good length on it.  I had held off on adding more rows until I could measure it to Audrey’s head.  As soon as we unpacked from the car I held it up to her head.  It was way too wide for her little self. I was frustrated that I might have to end up scraping my project in order to make it thinner and resolved to think of a solution while picking apples.

If you have never been apple picking before as a family, I highly recommend it.  Our family loves to use the time to connect, joke around and some of us even have apple throwing fights (I do not recommend this as much).  This year I had the opportunity to connect and hang out a little more with my baby sister, Alex.  She is such a beautiful, sweet and compassionate woman.  

I was describing to her my dilemma of the ear warmer and she suggested that instead of scraping the project, I make it for her instead of Audrey.  She had been wanting something warm for her head for winter and thought it would be the perfect fit.  Problem solved.  

I continued my work on the ride home until the completed rows measured about 20″ long.  Once the main piece was complete, I whip stitched together the two short ends, and tied it together like so:

To add an extra bit of beauty to the warmer, I made a smaller swatch that I later stitched into place over the bunched up area.

I ended up completing the whole thing later that week and was finally able to get my baby sis to model it for me this weekend. I’m pretty proud of how it turned out and like everything, Alex makes it look all the more beautiful.  The Free Pattern for this Seed Stitch Ear Warmer is available here.  If you get the opportunity to make it, share a picture with me and let me know what you think! 

Side note, if you noticed the slouchy beanie Audrey is wearing in this post and want to know more, stay tuned.  My pattern for a Toddler Star Slouchy will be posted soon! 🙂