Cunning hats.

Remember those Jayne hats I mentioned? Well, here they are minus pompoms.

They'd be more cunning if they had pompoms.

Should I ever decide to make a Jayne hat for myself this is absolutely the yarn I’m going to use for it.  (Lamb's Pride bulky in Autumn Harvest, Sunburst Gold and Rust.) It’s a perfect match, and it feels so much better than the acrylic* I used to make DH’s hat. Here’s a picture of his for comparison.

I'd make mine with a bigger pompom.

I made his in October of 2008. I really should get around to making one for myself.

If you are wondering what I'm talking about, check out this Firefly clip. And then go and watch the rest of the series. You're welcome.

That’s all I’ve got for you today. I’ve joined pinterest, and it’s proceeded to eat my brain.

*As long as you aren’t allergic to wool.

Next time: Getting back to my wheel, if my shoulder will allow.

In which we present a pattern.

First, here are some blurry pictures of the necklaces I made for friends for Christmas:

I took this with my phone right before a gave it away.

Same with this one.

I got the idea for these because I wanted to knit a couple of Chevettes, but I'd run out of time. So, I decided I could probably come up with something that was similar, only in crochet. And so the kind-of-like-Chevette-only-in-crochet was born. (It's a working title.)

This is my first official-like pattern. So, should you find any mistakes (and you probably will) please let me know.

Yarn: Not very important, I'd go with cotton for the choker part so it doesn't irritate the skin. For the pictures below I used this, but that's just what I happened to have near me at the time.
Hook: I used a G, but use whatever works with your yarn.

Choker:
Chain 5, sc in 3rd chain from hook, 2 sc, turn,
*Ch 2 (counts as first dc) skip first sc, 3 dc, turn
Ch 3 (counts as first tr) skip first dc, 3 tr, turn
Ch 1, skip 1, 3 sc, turn*

Repeat from * to * until long enough to just touch around your neck.
1 sl st, ch 7, sl st into the next stitch that is not a chain, fasten off. This will be your buttonhole.

If you have a button, sew it on to the other end and you are done with the choker part. If you are like me, and live in a button black hole, crochet your own thusly:

Magic loop, sc 4. 2 sc in each sc, (total of 8 sts)
sc, 2sc around, (total of 12 sts)
sc, dec around (total of 8 sts)
dec around (total of 4 sts)
dec around (total of 2 sts)
Fasten off.
You get something that looks like this:

I hope yours isn't as blurry as mine turned out.

Yes, it is kinda funky looking, not to worry. Take both the ends, thread them through a needle, and sew it on to the end of choker.  Weave the ends into the button.  You get this:

See? Much less blurry after you sew it on.

The choker, as modeled by two bottles of sparkling apple juice.

The flower:

Magic loop, sc 10, do not turn

Shell pattern:
Sc and hdc in the first stitch; dc, hdc, and sc in the next stitch.

Continue around until you get to the first shell. Sl st into the first shell, fasten off. Leave a 3 inch long tail.
 
Leaf (make two):
Chain 7, sc in 2nd chain from hook, hdc, dc, dc, hdc, sc. You should be back at the beginning. Turn,
chain 1, sc, hdc, dc, dc, hdc, sc, sl st, finish off.

Sew the leaves to the back of the flower.

Pretend there are two leaves here.

Find a button (I used a bead - button black hole, remember?), and sew it to the flower and two leaves. Then slip the button in any of the spaces created by the triple crochet, or double crochet depending on the size of your bead button.

There you go.

Tada!

When allergies attack.

So, I've got half a necklace pattern written. I still need to remind myself how I did the leaves. But I cannot think straight as my head is about to explode, so no leaves for you tonight. I'll try again tomorrow.

Baby blanket pictures.

I know I promised the necklace pattern, but I needed to share this first. This past weekend I went to L's baby shower. So, now I can show you the pictures of the baby blanket I went on and on about before Christmas.

I wish you could feel how soft it is.

The pattern is Michelle's Baby Blanket. I used Berroco Vintage DK. I was really worried you wouldn't be able to tell that the fleur de lis were fleur de lis, but it blocked out beautifully. It is supposed to be washable*, so I didn't think it would block, but it worked.

See? It's a seed stitch fleur de lis.

I started this blanket August 15th, and finished it December 11th. And, now I'm off to finish cleaning up the necklace pattern from Christmas.


*I'm not going to give soon to be new parents anything that they have to hand wash.

So many dishcloths... ahhhhhhh!

Way back in early September I mentioned I had a few projects to finish before I started Christmas knitting. This one turned into a Christmas gift because it took me so long.

They are Susi's Reading Mitts. I've made them before, but since then they've taken the pattern down, so I did some of it by memory and some of it by guessing. I didn't use the right yarn, and though I thought I'd gotten gauge, I hadn't. For these many reasons I got this far before I realized that they were too small.

Too small. Ouch.

I ripped them out, had a mourning period of about a month, and then started over. I'm going to claim having to start over as the reason why I didn't start on Christmas knitting early enough. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So my Christmas knitting became Christmas crochet. And since I'd learned to make soap the easy way, I thought I'd make dishcloths to go with a bar or two of soap.  Fabulous gift idea, I know.

I used the nubbie scrubbie pattern for the most part.

I made a LOT of them. I think I can make that pattern in my sleep now.

I tried out the Interweave pattern, but I didn't like it as much. They were pretty, but weren't as scrubbie, and took more concentration.

I got tired of those so I tried out the Scrubbie Dots pattern. Lots of ends, I chose poorly on the colors, not my favorite pattern.

 After being thoroughly sick of making dishcloths I decided to make a hotpad for my MIL.

It turned out okay. I think if I'd reversed the colors it would have been better.

But the cool stuff happened when I threw out the patterns.

Next time: The necklace pattern I promised you a while ago, and pictures.

Gingerbread! And lots of it.

The magic of the internet started working again. All hail the random gods of the internet. So you will now be subjected to many, many pictures of our gingerbread house.

Don't worry there's a bigger picture at the end.

How to make a gingerbread hobbit hole:

First assemble all your tools, preferably in someone else's much larger kitchen. (Thanks, Mom!)

Cover the board you are going to use to hold the completed house with parchment paper.

After having mixed the gingerbread the day before (it has to chill over night) roll it out on parchment paper.

Form the gingerbread to the bowl you've chosen as a mold. (You did grease it, right?)

Like so.

As it cooks, if you've made your gingerbread too thick, it will start to crack. Take it out of the oven and patch with not quite cooked gingerbread (try to keep from burning yourself), and then pop it back in.

We thought about greasing it, does that count? No?

Make another one.

And then a lot of work happens and you get to here:

Sorry for the blurry camera phone shot. I did the icicles.

I also made the shed and the shovel, all by myself. I'm quite proud.

Very proud, actually.

I think the trees are fabulous. I had no part in them.

The wood pile used to be a gate, but I may have broken it. Twice. (Sorry KW.)

And here it is again in all it's glory:

Next time: Christmas stuff I couldn't show you while I was working on it.

We are experiencing technical difficulties.

I uploaded some pictures to photobucket. Normally, I edit them on photobucket, download the edited copy and post it here. I'm sure there must be an easier way to do this, but so far it has worked.

It is no longer working.

I can't get the darn things to download, so I can't post them here. This is not that big a deal when the pictures are taken with the camera, but when I take pictures with my phone the only way I know how to get to them is to upload them to photobucket. There must be another way, I just don't know it yet.

So instead of showing you pictures of gingerbread or crocheted gifts, I've given you this rant about not being able to get the blankity-blank-blank interwebs to work for me.

I've not given up. The world needs to see the wonder that is the gingerbread house that my sister and I made. It just might take longer than I thought it would.

I'm not dead yet. (again)

This is just a quick post to say: I'm not dead on the side of the road. I just got holidelayed. Pictures of gingerbread, crocheting, soap, and what I'm working on now by Monday. Tuesday at the latest.