Katie and cookies

I finished my sister Katie's afghan just the other day. I spent most of the afternoon and evening putting the scallopped edge on it, then it took me over an hour to weave the ribbon through the edges. Quite an undertaking! In the end, however, it turned out really well and quite pretty. (It's a little girly for my tastes though, lol.) Below are two images of it. In the first, I didn't have enough room to lay it out completely, so I folded it in the middle to show the overall pattern. Just imagine that when it's unfolded, the length is just over twice the width. And the second picture is a detail of one of the corners to give you a better view of the pattern itself.

I packed the blanket yesterday in a big box (the blanket itself weighed about two and a half pounds!) and walked to the post office with it to mail it to her. It wasn't heavy to carry, just bulky! She should get it Tuesday because Monday there's no post (Columbus Day). I think she'll really like it. :)

On an unrelated note, I was having a conversation via text messages with my younger sister Sarah about something I'd seen in the news about her former state of residence when the conversation wandered off to cookies. Somehow, the idea of crocheting a cookie came up, and after she went to bed, I grabbed some yarn and started playing around. Using a design I'm really familiar with, I just changed it up a little and then added lots of French knots as chocolate chips. The result of the experiment is this:

It looks burnt, but that's because the only shade of brown that I currently have is "coffee." Black coffee, I might add, lol. But for a first attempt, I'd say it turned out really well. I'll have to try again when I get some different shades of brown. Maybe I'll come up with sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles next, lol. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

The jack-o-lantern revisited

Behold the cuteness of the turnip jack-o-lantern!

I was playing around on Etsy, looking at various Halloween decorations, and I remembered from school how we all learned that the Irish actually used turnips (because they didn't have pumpkins, duh) to turn into lanterns. Now, it's under dispute as to whether the turnip lanterns were originally associated with Halloween, and no one's completely sure how jack-o-lanterns got their names, but one thing is for sure: now that jack-o-lanterns are here, they sure are cute and fun to make! I already made a bunch of pumpkin jack-o-lanterns, and after a quick search on Etsy, I realized that there were lots of those. So I looked for turnips. There were a couple crocheted turnips, but those were part of vegetable groups, not jack-o-lanterns. I texted the husband to tell him I was going to make turnip jack-o-lanterns, and he sounded less than sure about the sanity of that. But when he got home and saw the first one, he had to admit it was cute. I'll leave you with a picture of the first turnip I made. Enjoy!

Eye extravaganza

After about four days of near-constant crocheting, I've finished making all the eyeball toys for Golden Snail on Etsy. I made two of each of the following colors: brown, blue, light blue, gray, red, green, and black. That's a lot of eyes! The nice thing about eyes as compared to all the other Halloween toys I've been making is that they're pretty simple to make and aren't nearly as intricate or time-consuming as the spiders or jack-o-lanterns. Once I figure out the bats, they'll be just as complicated as the latter two toys, and the eyes will stay the simplest to make. Below is a picture of the eyes in a large pickle jar that I used on Etsy:

I thought the jar would be a fun idea as a display. On a recent trip to Wal-Mart, I picked up some fall-colored leaves to use as background for future Halloween toys. I think they'll look good with the spiders. I wish I'd had them for the pumpkins because they would have looked really cute with them. But I have them now for future projects. It's time to work on arachnids!

Jack-o-lanterns

I've been spending the past couple weeks trying to find a job in the area, so I haven't spent that much time crocheting or working on other craft projects. I'm waiting to hear back from a temp agency, and in the interim, I've made a bunch of Halloween toys to put up on Etsy. They're little jack-o-lantern balls--around three inches in diameter and just a little taller--and they're so cute! I made ten in three days, and I've already put them up on Etsy. Pictures below.

It's a pumpkin pyramid! :) I am going to take a break from making jack-o-lanterns and switch to making eyes. I have a lot of colors I can make: light blue, bright blue, green, brown, and grey. I don't have any yarn that I would call "hazel," unforunate because most of the people in my immediate family have hazel eyes. I have dark brown and the husband has blue. I think it'd be interesting to get some varigated yarn and make eyes with that. Until then, I think I'll just try to make at least two of each of the colors I have now. The eyes won't take nearly as much time as the jack-o-lanterns because I don't have to make leaves, stems, or vines for eyes. Just an eyestalk. ;) At any rate, I'm going to go crochet and probably watch a movie. Have a great day!