Progressing

I think I'm finally getting pretty decent at crocheting.  One of the major reasons why I picked up the hobby in the first place was because of these little toys my grandma used to make, which were basically just little balls with long strings attached to them.  We used to use them as yo-yos or as projectile weaponry.  :)  There were a lot of us (there are about fifty to sixty grandkids on that side of the family; I lost count long ago), and the little spiders (Grandma often put legs or eyes on them and called them spiders) were toys that Grandma could make quickly.  With all my fond memories of Grandma's little spider toys, I desperately wanted to make my own.

So I learned how to crochet and then looked up lots of patterns on-line for making ball shapes.  I messed up the first, oh, fifteen or so that I made mostly because I was always trying to make them with other people around or while watching TV which meant I lost count a lot and therefore had to frog them over and over again.  Finally, I decided to give it another shot just last week, and lo and behold: balls!  The first one I made was this eyeball:

I'm fairly happy with it.  The stitches for the bottom and upper halves didn't match up quite right, so it's a bit lumpy.  I tried again, this time being more adventurous and attempting to add legs to the ball.  I came up with this spider, which you can see I put on the cat to pose it:

I also made a pumpkin, and while I have photos, for some odd reason my jump drive is not cooperating with my laptop at the moment, so those pictures will just have to wait. I've alreayd made a second pumpkin (technically, jack-o-lanterns because they have faces) and am halfway through the third. These do go pretty quickly, provided I'm paying enough attention to keep from losing count of my stitches. :) I think after this pumpkin, I'm going to go back to eyeballs for a while. They don't have leaves or stems to be added, just optical nerves. Have a great day!