Jewel tones

I like all colors, I really don't think there are any that I don't care for. Among my favorites are the warm tones of fall. The reds, golds, and yellows that are starting to show up here in Alaska. I also love the cool blues and greens of our oceans, lakes, rivers, and seas. The bright pinks and purples of little girl clothes make me smile. But my all time favorites have got to be jewel tones. 

I've been making things for other people for so long that I decided I wanted to make a new throw for me based off the larksfoot stitch. It's working up so fast and I'm loving the way the colors are coming together. I've received a lot of compliments and even have a potential order to make an afghan for someone else.

On a side note, I had another order for little girl maryjane slippers which have been finished and delivered. I love that she keeps ordering more, but the color combinations she chooses really hurt my eyes!

Trying new things

Over the past month I've finished a few projects that I haven't posted because they're gifts that I don't want the recipients to see until they've received them.

That isn't to say that I haven't been busy doing other things. I found this super cute patter for baby sandals on  Ravelry and just had to give them a try. They turned out so cute and they were relatively easy to make. They were made to go with the matching hats and diaper cover.

A few days ago I was at the library and picked up the book "100 Crochet Projects" by Jean Leinhauser & Rita Weiss. There's a pattern for an entrelac skull cap which I decided to try. I've never attempted to do entrelac before and I think it would have been easier had I tried it with a flat piece. As you can see from the following pic, it didn't turn out as a skull cap - more of a slouch hat.

I also finally finished the slippers for one of my daughters that she's been waiting for since I made the first set a few months ago. So I haven't had idle hands, just busy getting kids ready for school and not much time for posting.

Meltdown Mayhem

There's really nothing like being at the library with the kids and one of them deciding to throw a screaming, raging fit! Yesterday it was my son, today it was my youngest. Can you say "headache"? I've got a massive one, the kind you can feel every time you change expression. The kind that wraps around the top of your head and down the neck into the shoulders.

Lol, if I could afford it I'd go spend a day at the spa and let someone else do all the work for the day. Sadly, it's not going to happen anytime soon.


*sighs* 

Contests

I love free give-aways! I really hate having to enter a drawing for them though! Seems I never win, but it's always fun to try.  Once again AllFreeCrochet is having a contest to give away something. This time it's 63 Easy to Crochet Pattern Stitches from Leisure Arts! I've been eyeballing this book for years but could never warrant spending the money on it. My fingers are crossed that I win it this time!

Anyway, without further ado here's the link to the contest. Give-Away Contest. Good luck!

Hot Hooks and Sore Hands!

Over the past couple of weeks I've been crocheting away and it seems like my hooks got hot and my hands definitely got sore! I finished up some 'time waster' projects, worked on some baby items for a couple of cousins who are pregnant, and decided to try again at Tunisian crochet.

The time wasters really weren't wastes of time. I picked up a ravelry pattern for the Hyperbolic Pseudosphere Scrubbie that I ended up making several of after my oldest daughter took the first one and couldn't put it down. Not only that, they were just fun to make!

I have more of these, just didn't photo them. I generally stopped on round 4 with most of them, but the rainbow one here on the bottom has 9 rounds as the red and orange I did two rounds each because they're the shortest.

For obvious reasons ( I don't want them to see ) I'm not posting the baby stuff yet. That will come later after they've been received.

Now. Tunisian crochet. I tried it once years ago and really had trouble with my tension and working the return rows. So the other day I was looking for something and found my tunisian hook. I decided I'd give it another try and I swear I didn't put that long hook down for almost three days! I found a short row dishcloth pattern on ravelry (yes, I love that site!) that I really liked, but it was in tunisian so what better way to try again, right? I ended up whipping out five of these dishcloths and learning a few other tunisian stitches that I really like. Sometimes I just amaze myself with the things I can learn if I just take the time to try!

Slippers

A few weeks back I made myself and one of my daughters some slippers found at Crochet Spot (click the link for the pattern). I did make some adjustments to the pattern to make them fit us each well as well as making a gusset in the back for the heel as I didn't like the way the heel stitched up with the original directions. Anyway, someone else saw them and asked if I'd make her 3 pair and a pair for her daughter. She picked the color combinations and gave me measurements, she also asked for contrasting edging and flowers so here's what I came up with. 

By the time I was done with these I was sick of working with black yarn...ugh. For the contrasting edging I added a round of sc and then a round of picots to make them a bit more 'girly'. The flower pattern was originally for a flower garland with the pattern found at Sarahndipities. 

I found a recipe for homemade puffy glue that I'll be using to draw some flowers or such on the soles to make them non-skid. She'll be back on Saturday, I hope she likes them!

Finally!!

So the shrug I made for my friend's daughter needs a slight alteration and I brought it home. I figured while I had it here I'd have my daughter model it so I could show the back! I need to close up the arms a little bit more so it doesn't slip off her shoulders but I'm so happy with how it turned out. I'll have to write up the pattern and then I'll post it for anyone who'd like to test it for me.

The shrug isn't blocked, but it still looks good. I really like this stitch pattern, I think I'll try to figure out how to work it to a point and make a summery shawl. Oh the possibilities are endless!

Finally a pic!

So I posted a while back that I had finished the shrug, but I didn't have any pics to post. I finally got a picture of the shrug on the little girl I made it for. I wish I had a back pic, but she's cute so a front will do :)

It was so cute, when she saw it she said "oooo, it's sooo beautiful"! I guess we have a winner here. One day I might finish typing up the pattern and put it up to be tested.

Busy Hands

I've had busy hands for the past few days. My friend said I should build up an inventory of ami to sell at our local Saturday markets so I've been working on that. So far, these are what I've come up with:

 I also finished the shrug I posted about before. I'll post a pic of it being modeled by the little girl I made it for when I give it to her since it doesn't look as good when it's not being worn.

I have a hard time listening when my hands are idle, so yesterday at church I started crocheting. I didn't decide what it was going to be until about the 10th round. I had seen some really cute pin cushions online which gave me the idea for what I came up with. I wish I could find the pattern again to give reference. Having said that, I did NOT follow a pattern but I DID get the idea from someone else and as soon as I find the page, I'll link to it. Anyway, here's what I came up with:

Toddler shrug

So my friend and I were having a conversation a few weeks ago about the difference between crochet and knitting. She's recently learned to knit but doesn't crochet and I have been crocheting for years, but couldn't knit to save my life.  Anyhow, she mentioned that she'd really like a shrug for her daughter but would like it crocheted because it seems easier to get a "lacy" look with crochet. I decided to take on the project. I haven't made a shrug in years. I looked around through all of my pattern books and tons of patterns online and just didn't find one I liked so I decided to try and design one myself.

This book has been invaluable in helping me figure out what I wanted to do. I really like the net stitch when I want to give something that light and lacy look, but since this was going to be for a toddler I wanted it to be just a bit more sturdy so on page 34 I found directions for the "Lily Net Stitch". The back panel turned out beautiful.

I'll also be adding some ribbed cuffs with a picot edge and I think once I get the arms sewn up I'll do a picot edge around the opening. Writing a pattern is a lot more work than I thought it would be. I have crossed out and frogged so many times I almost gave up on writing it. Once it's done I'll post it here and on Ravelry.com for people to test it for me.

Feeling a little froggy.

After seeing the octopus I had been making, a friend of mine asked if I could make him a frog. Although I vigorously waved my magic wand and said the magic words..nothing happened. So off I went in search of a good (free and easy) pattern!

The first one I found was Amigaerumi by Erika Hughes. Fast and fairly easy to make all the parts I was really liking this one until it came time for assembly. I usually avoid patterns that require sewing, but I really wanted to make this frog. Anyway, here's what I came up with.

Not too bad, but I'm not especially happy with how the arms turned out and I think adding pipe cleaners inside the legs would have been a good idea so they'd be more pose able.

The next one I tried was Frog in "Paris" which is a DROPS design. He's a cute little thing, but once again I had some trouble with placement when adding the limbs.

After trying both designs I kind of mixed them up a bit and tried a little harder in getting the placement right and came up with this little guy.

He's a little cockeyed and has the "gangsta lean" going on, but I'm pretty happy with him. My friend liked all three and decided to buy them all! Not bad for a few days worth of crocheting here and there!

Yarn Addictions

I don't understand how people who crochet and knit can limit the amount of yarn they have on hand. I try, I really do try really hard not to make extra yarn purchases. In light of that statement I have a confession to make. I'm a yarnoholic. <<-- is that even a word?

Last week a friend of mine asked if I'd make a shrug for her daughter. Seeing as how she's my friend and I love her daughter to bits I enthusiastically said yes. She said she'd like it to be in a shade of brown. I know I had recently purchased some beautiful chocolate colored yarn a couple months ago so decided to dig it out for this project. After going through the house and pulling out a tote and a few bags full of yarn, I didn't find the brown (I think it's hidden in my room somewhere.) but I did find all of this:

The way I had it all laid out I wasn't able to get it all in the picture. The box in the background has been in the closet for years and I found a bag of yarn in the bottom of it that was given to me by my ex-husband's late aunt which included the bag in the foreground which was full of plastic canvas and yarn specifically for that. The sad part is I didn't find the brown and this isn't all of the stash. There's another 20gal tote full of it out in the storage shed that I found the other day and I keep running across small bags of yarn here and there.

Balls

Ok, I think I've finally got the basic concept of crocheting balls down. Start with magic ring, increase a few rounds, sc a few rounds, and decrease the opposite of your increases. Easy peasy!

Now that I've figured this out I think I'll be making a bunch of hackey sacks for the group of kids in our local behavior treatment center. In the past 9 months of spending time there I've noticed a lot of the kids don't get regular visits from family if they get them at all. I usually have a small project there with me and they all get excited to see what I'm making. Today I had these two balls with me ( I whipped up the yellow one while sitting at the laudromat) and several got excited and asked if they were hackey sacks. They aren't, just stuffed with normal poly fill and the smaller one has a few bells in it. Anyway, it got me to thinking. At any given time there are 60 kids living in this building. I can whip these up pretty fast so I think I'll make a bunch and drop them off.

I also figure that just knowing the basic design for a sphere is a good jumping off point for learning to design my own amigurumi. We'll have to see what I can come up with.

Snuggly (Ugly) Bunny

I used the Snuggly Bunny pattern over at StormyzCrochet but mine just doesn't look like hers. I like how fast it worked up and thanks to tutorials over at PlanetJune's amigurumi help I think I did pretty a pretty good job attaching the pieces. The problem I had was with placement. I wish there had been more pics showing the placement of the different parts. As you can see, mine came out a bit crooked.

I'll chalk this one up as a learning experience and do some more reading of tutorials and practicing.

Octopi - who would've thought?

Last week I posted about the octopus I made for my daughter. She took it to school with her and her substitute teacher literally went bananas over it. Said she would pay me to make some for her. Pay me? For something I enjoy doing? Can you believe it has never crossed my mind to charge people for the things I make?

Anyway, it was a good idea, but I wasn't totally happy with the pattern. I tried another and ended up with this:

It's cute, but came out a lot smaller than I expected. The original pattern calls for two strands of yarn and a K hook. I used some leftover RedHeart and either a G or an H (can't remember now). I really liked how the legs worked up in this pattern moreso than in the other, but there was no direction on actually closing the bottom. So anyway, I took the two patterns and morphed them a bit to work together and came up with this cutey:

In the end though, I ended up not following any patterns precisely and ended up selling her this orange one and four others and no two of them were the same. Needless to say, it was an interesting experience and I've received lot's of positive feedback from people saying I should either open up my own Etsy shop or do the local Saturday markets. We'll see. I'm still learning the fine art of amigurumi and having fun with it.

Here's another one without the googly eyes. I don't care much for the eyes like this, but I really like where it's sitting!

Crochtopus anyone?

Allie has been asking me to make her a squid, but for lack of finding a pattern I'm going with this cute little octopus patter I found at http://www.favecrafts.com/Crochet-Amigurumi/Crochtopus/ct/1# . This is working up pretty fast. I started this afternoon sitting in the car while waiting for JohnWalter and have worked on it a round at a time in my few stops today.

Sometimes it's nice having a quick project like this while I'm stuck in traffic sitting at long red lights! lol. I got the last round done and started on a tentacle while doing just that...sitting at a red light. 

After several interruptions and having to hunt high and low for the backs to the eyes, the beast is finally done! I hope she likes it, I've already got 4 more people asking for one!

Finally

After a 5 year break I have finally unpacked my yarn stash and picked up my hooks again! It feels so good to be making things again and the pain that made me stop before (bilateral CPS) is almost non-existent now. I'm not doing big projects, but have completed plenty of small ones. Lots of hats

 , some scarves, my first amigurumi ,

my first couple of projects using tapestry crochet

 , and a new hook case among other things.