Great Title, Catchy Subtitle!

This is a very late post. I made this for my mother-in-law for Christmas, with some Brilliant that I got on a big smileysyarns.com binge. It's not a warm scarf but she lives in Houston so she doesn't really need a warm one. The pattern is the same as the body of the pineapple-edged baby blanket, mirrored on the other side of the foundation chain as well, which gives it a completely different look. It was very simple but I thought it turned out well enough.





Here's my mother-in-law actually wearing the scarf. It is unfortunate that her eyes are closed. Luckily, chances are good that she'll never see this picture.

Well, I wouldn't say that I'm getting better at stuffed toys but I'm getting more forgiving of my own mistakes. The blue bear is for my daughter who was jealous of my husband's Totoro and requested a bear. What we learn from this project is that Simply Soft is a rotten yarn for amigirumi-style crochet, even if it's the only yarn in the house. He's from Dina's pattern at Crochetville. His feet aren't as misshapen as they are in the picture. Pretend he's strolling with his little avian friend.

The Baby Torchic is from Bizzy Crochet's great pattern. It's a Baby Torchic because the only orange yarn in the house is a really pale tangerine color. The body and feet are directly from the pattern, the neck feathers are slightly different (another row to make them stick out further), and the head feathers and beak are a completely different pattern because the kid wanted them to look more like this one; I still didn't get the spread on the beak right. The eyes are a no-yarn-in-the-house disaster: I have no worsted-weight black yarn, just thread (didn't work) and Shetland Chunky (didn't work) and I ended up making them in Patons Brilliant and they're just not right but they're for my kid's Youtube video and I am working on just letting this stuff go because I'm not trying to sell it and I have an idea what fate awaits this poor Torchic when he has to go into battle.

I finished this Little Maiden sundress (from Crochet Garden) last fall, but it was too chilly for the kid to wear it. It's made in Aunt Lydia's Baby Denim, which is 100% cotton worsted, which seemed like a good idea at the time but turns out to be really heavy. Oh, well; at least it's really soft. I have it tied with a ribbon through the shells part of the skirt instead of in the upper bodice like the pattern calls for because it looked better when the skirt was gathered up. Overall, though, I'm happy with the way it turned out and the kid willingly wears it without being prompted, so I guess it's a success. After reading a Crochetville discussion of Cotton-Ease (50/50 cotton-acrylic), I may try that next time.

I believe that I ordered the yarn from knitting-warehouse.com and it was the only time I've had a dye lot problem--I got five balls of the blue, and the order was split among two different dye lots which I didn't notice until after I'd finished the bodice of my first attempt. Now I've got the top and a few rows of the shell-pattern skirt to use as a tank top for the kid and I had to start again from scratch. Another rookie mistake to not check the dye lot. I'd like to say it won't happen again, but I don't tend to learn from my mistakes.

So this is my first 3D item, and boy, was it a learning experience. I learned why people use stitch markers. I learned that I still don't like sewing. And I learned that darn, Totoros are cute. This guy has a lot of beginner mistakes -- the eyes aren't quite aligned (they're not as bad as they look in the first picture, though -- the kid isn't holding it up straight) and the ears aren't stuffed right so they kinda look like rejected parsnips. But my kid says it still looks pretty good, and I'm inclined to agree -- I'm just stupid proud of the way he turned out. Unfortunately, now I've got both kids begging me to make stuffed animals for them -- one wants complicated Pokemon and one wants unicorns. It is an exercise to the reader to match the gender of the child to the requested item.

From this great pattern.

I finally finished these blankets for a friend who is adopting twins this month. One boy, one girl. Both blankets are Bernat Baby Coordinates but different dye lots so one is yellower while the other is wheatier. Both patterns from Leisure Arts Heirloom Afghans for Baby; the pineapple pattern is Exquisite and the square one Enchanting, but with two extra border pattern sections and no frilly edging on it.

I couldn't figure out why it took me so long to make them since I've done both these patterns a million times, then I realized that since I've started working again, I don't crochet during the day, and the kids are older with later bedtimes, so my nighttime crocheting starts an hour later than it used to. Anyway, these are finally done and I can start working on more interesting projects again. Am about 2/3 done with a blue Totoro -- my first stuffed toy -- and it's frustrating to be doing something for the first time because it's just not perfect. Augh.

Below is a baby sweater and hat set called "Aunt Jen's," available at http://www.sandiangels.com/pattern-page.html. It's super-fast -- I started this at 3:30 yesterday afternoon, and had all but one sleeve done by 7:00 last night, with time out to ferry kids around, make dinner, and clean the kitchen. Used a G hook and some Caron Cuddle Soft from a stash donated by my mother-in-law. (The worsted-weight acrylic became shelter pet blankets but I didn't know what else to do with baby yarn except make baby stuff.)

















In a strange stroke of serendipity (and this story will eventually be related to this sweater), my third-grade kid joined a Lego robotics team from another elementary school because the parent sponsors at our own school want to limit participation to the grades that their kids are in. (Last year, only fourth and fifth could join; this year, only fifth.) So we're competing on behalf of a school that we don't go to with kids we barely know, and when I picked him up last week, it turns out that a woman who I was passing friends with in the parking lot of our mutual preschool has a kid on the same team (I couldn't have picked her kid out of a lineup because I hadn't seen him since he was four), AND she's pregnant with a girl, so even though she'll be baffled that someone she barely knows anymore has made 2/3 of a layette for her, she's getting this today.

It's not that I haven't been crocheting for the past six months; it's just that I haven't been taking pictures of it. Made several things and gave them away. Turned 15 skeins of itchy acrylic into many, many pet blankets for shelters. Etc. But I either need to take link out my .sig or actually update it, so here goes.

Here's a recent poncho and hat set for the kid:


The poncho stitch is from "63 squares combine to make an heirloom afghan" pamphlet (I know, that's not the exact name, but it's not in front of me), which is currently the only thing like a stitch dictionary that I have. Unfortunately, I made the rectangles too long, so it fell off her shoulders and I had to fill in with a lot of ruffles and edging. The hat is one of luv2crochet's free patterns, with a ruffle on it. The flowers are..well, they're flowers.

The yarn is from a big acrylic stash donated by one of my landscapers, who'd inherited a pile of stuff from one of her other clients, who does not work with yarn at all. (I made hats for her and her partner out of some of the nicer yarn in the stash.)