Friday, December 7, 2012

Christmas-time Crochet

It's that time of year again where everyone is putting out their holiday decorations and/or making some new ones.  Last night was my company's internal holiday party and everyone really got in the spirit of things.  A co-worker of mine had asked me to crochet her a Christmas Wreath.  She gave me some green yarn and I was able to make the wreath below for her.
A simple wreath
For the pattern all I did was crochet a chain that I thought would be a good side for the inside of the wreath.  I then did a double crochet in each chain and joined.  For row two I did a double crochet in two stitches followed by 2 double crochets in the next one, and repeated till the end and joined.  And for the last row I did a double crochet in five stitches followed by 2 double crochets in the next one and again repeated till the end and joined.  Luckily I was at HDH making this and good ole Ethel had some red yarn for me to use and weave in to give this otherwise bland wreath some character.


I gave the finished product to my friend and she put it with the rest of her decorations. 
Then later in the day our holiday party started so I was walking around the agency keeping my eye open for some crocheted gems... I was surprised that there were so many items this year!  Here were some of the most memorable crocheted items I could find:
Large crocheted Santa that someone's mother-in-law made

In the area that decorated with a '70s theme they threw lots of crocheted afghans everywhere.

Here's another crazy Santa, his hat and face are crocheted..


Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Pink Monkey Pattern

With Baby Guendie coming to us in a little under 4 months, I have a list of lots of projects I want to work on for her.  With one afghan out of the way, I thought it was time to make a little stuffed animal for her.  I really wanted to make this, since Marvin and I want to take monthly pictures of our baby with a stuffed animal to see how much she grows each month (and if it's something I've made I feel it will be more special.)

After picking out a monkey theme for her room I found this pattern on pinterest and knew I'd have to make it for her.  Overall I really enjoyed this pattern, it was clear and easy to follow.  Using only single crochets, slip stitches, and decreased single crochets.  I was just about to post that my mouth didn't turn out as pictured in the pattern, but this could have been fixed by easily adding a few extra rows to make it bigger.  Now after I re-read the pattern I see that I actually WAS supposed to do that... whoops!  At the time I saw it was smaller, but thought that a monkey's mouth can look like that... sort of like Curious George, so I decided on assembling the mouth to the head as is.
Guendie's little pink monkey.


I promised my little niece that I'd make her one in blue, so I'll have to do that in a couple months after I get all these baby things done.