Hoot hoot....

After many ( and boy do I mean many) false starts and twisted yarn, I finally managed to get this hat going.  I have to tell you, when there are 80 stitches you have to make sure to not twist while you're trying to figure out which side of the chain you started crocheting on and hope to God you are still crocheting on....it's a pain in the butt.  Genuinely, a giant pain in the butt.  More of a pain than trying not to twist 200 stitches on a circular needle.  And folks, if you have ever done that, you know how frustrating it can be.  More than once I thought "If I were knitting this, I'd be done by now!"  Gah.  But perseverance got me through.  :)

I used the Woolly Owl Hat pattern from Ravelry.  It is written for both bulky and worsted weight yarn.  Because I only have one crochet hook (I really should remedy that now that I am crocheting...) I had to adjust some of the numbers and make stuff up.  Instead of 60 stitches I chained 80 and for the eyes instead of making them super huge (which wouldn't fit) I quit when they were 32 stitches around.  Now that I have one under my belt I really really really want to make the bulky yarn version because it is super adorable!

Little Miss is making this face because I finally told her to please quit moving so I could get a decent shot of her.  Every time I had a good one, she'd flinch just as my phone was taking the picture.  So I have several blurry ones of her that could have been cute, but now we'll never know.  :D

When she arrived at school her teachers and I had a fun chat about arts and crafts, Pinterest and of course never having time to do all the crafts you want to do because you have to A) go out of town to collect supplies, b) figure out what you really want to do and C) decide between the thousands of projects you want to do.  :D

With the hat complete I am thinking she should have some matching mittens.  I think I have enough yarn to make mittens (crocheting really does eat up a lot of yarn!  I think crocheting this hat took up as much yarn as it would to knit myself a hat).  Off to Ravelry!  :)

Fall means apples and fairies

A couple weekends ago my husband picked a bunch of apples off the bottom branches of our tree.  I have finally gotten around to making something with them!

Instead of making a regular pie I found a recipe for Deep Dish Apple Pie.  My top crust is definitely better than normal, I only had to fumble about with the edges  We had it as dessert after lunch today and of course my husband gave his standard answers of "The crust is tough" and "Oh it's terrrrrrrible ;) "  Which of course all equate to it's pretty good.  My daughter, bless her sweet heart, very nicely told me "You're pretty and you make pretty pie".  :D

For the past few days I have been crocheting a fairy doll for my daughter.  What made this project take a little longer is all the darn hair.  O.o  I mean really, it wasn't so much a pain in the butt, there was just so much of it to make.  So I cheated a bit and did some of it in the funny swirls and the rest sewn up to make it look like it's in a ponytail.

I used a free pattern from Petite Purls (a wonderful resource for free knitting and crochet patterns!) titled "Margarita". 

The only part of this pattern I had trouble with were the legs.  I'm not really sure why but every time I went to make them, I always ended up with a different looking second one.  After 6 failed attempts I said screw it and improvised some simpler ones :D  This project was fun because I was able to use up lots of leftover scrap yarn from various projects.

This upcoming weekend I am looking forward to picking up more tulle to make a witch tutu skirt for Little Miss' costume, more yarn for various crochet projects (obsession now I tell you) and taking some relaxing time.

Crochet

Most people will say they are either crocheters or knitters.  I am most definitely more of a knitter than a crocheter.  It has a lot to do with my beginning experiences.  I thought I had the knack down for crocheting but when I tried to crochet the easy projects, I was totally overwhelmed and gave up.  Then I picked up knitting and the rest was really history from there.  Until today.  Or a few weeks ago really.

Crocheted animals and figures are admittedly way cuter than knit ones.  I'm not sure why I feel this way, but I hold it to be true in my heart.  I always feel like my knit animals are too holey where shaping needs to be done and they just don't look quite the same (and definitely never the same as in the pictures).  So you know that my friend asked me to make her some zombies and I went ahead and tried crocheting one from a super cute pattern.  It surprisingly went well!

This past weekend I was fiddling around on Ravelry and started queuing crochet projects like a crazy person on crack.  Cute animals here, animals there, ornaments, dolls....it was intense I tell you.  Out of my flurry of activity I crocheted: stuffed bird as a kitty toy, kitty, dragon, and a pear.  Since Friday.  :D

I tried to get a picture of the bird but Mance has been having too much fun with him.  :D  The kitty looks a little weird because I misread some of the directions.  For the longest time I kept wondering why there were minus signs by the some of the directions.  Yeah, if I had really looked I would have realized they were trying to tell me to crochet through so and so rows.  Ooops.  He worked out nonetheless!  It is pretty exciting that I have picked up a new skill and I can't wait to make more cute little animals :D