Turtleheart Crafts!

I decided to make another square for the C’ville Charity ‘ghan, since they are needing more to complete it.

This is square #23, Slant Stitch. It turned out very nice, an interesting stitch; however, I could not get a picture that shows it off very well.

Here’s what I came up with this year for Firehand’s Valentine:

I can’t help it, I just love the House Mouse series of stamps, even though they are soooooo cutsie.

Making this card was also a good excuse to finally get to play with my eyelet setter that my Tribemate got me for Yule. I love it! Must use often!

Firehand heard me pounding away in my craft room, setting the eyelets, and was calling me “Rosie the Riveter”. LOL. Gotta love that man.

A little token of affection I created for my husband, Firehand, for Valentine’s Day.

Another one of Sally V. George’s adorable designs. I just added a heart embellishment. It *is* the Porcupine of Love, after all.

Just so you don’t think that all I do is crochet–

I found some Valentine’s from past years that I made for Firehand. He’s so sweet, he always keeps the cards I give him.

These are pretty simple and plain. I’m starting to experiment more with patterned papers and the like now; hopefully my technique will improve.

I have a card in the works I need to finish for tomorrow.

I’ve been working on all sorts of afghan squares recently.

This first one is for the Crochetville “63 More Squares” charity afghan. Interested members from C’ville were asked to make seven inch squares and send them to Julie Kay along with a postcard from the member’s home state/country. Julie Kay will assemble the squares and then auction off the afghan to raise money for C’ville. I think its a great idea.

I chose my pattern from the original LA’s “63 Easy-to-Crochet Pattern Stitches” book for my contribution. This is square #25 “Aligned Shells.”

I’ve also been working on granny squares for Warm the World. I decided to start with some of the more obnoxious colored yarn that was sent to us. So far, I’ve gotten a dozen squares made. They work up pretty fast.

Its hard to tell from the photo, but the lighter orange yarn has speckles of green and purple in it. The color-combination actually isn’t turning out too bad. Its bright and cheerful, thats for sure.

Also over the weekend, the Monkey Tribe got together to crochet. Junky Monkey and I gave Cheeky Monkey her first lesson. She was a bit frustrated at first, but she picked up on it really fast. She’s practicing single crochets. Yay! Go Cheeky!

What’s funny is that **all 3 of us** are lefties! So we don’t have to worry about doing the opposite while we’re teaching. That makes things much easier.

Can’t wait til we get together again to work on stuff for Warm the World.

I found what I needed today for a project I have in mind for my Tribemate. I’ve been looking for the right stuff for a while. I’ve charted out what I want to do, now I can finally get to it! And I still have a month left before her birthday! Woo-hoo!

I also found some darner’s needles with the curved ends today. Hopefully they will make sewing together my amigurumi projects easier. Yes, I’m becoming addicted to amigurumi animals!

Here is the same pattern in two different varigated threads. One is made larger for a trade paperback sized book, and one for regular paperbacks.

Pattern from Leisure Arts Little Book, “Reader’s Choice Bookmarks.” (The same book that brought you these bookmark patterns).

Remember the issues I was having with this scarf? I finally found a pattern and stuck with it. It’s finally complete.

A close-up.

While I think it turned out nice, and I love the yarn, I don’t like how difficult it is to see the pattern because of the characteristics of the yarn. But it *is* soft and snuggly, and I think Auntie will like it… So, the question is… now that its so late in the winter, do I still send it to her, or wait until next winter?

I finished my very first amigurumi project today– a mouse!

This did not turn out to be as easy as I thought it would be. I think alot of the problem had to do with the yarn I had. Amigurumi is supposed to work best using the cheapest acrylic yarn you can find. Evidently mine wasn’t cheap enough. However, it did unravel quite easily.

I also had some difficulty sewing the completed pieces together. I haven’t found any directions on the best way to do this– running stitch, or like darning or what? I posted to Crochetville asking for help, but no replies so far. If anyone has any pointers, please let me know.

To see what my cat Claire thought of the new mouse, check out Turtleheart Cove for pictures!

Yarn, yarn, YARN!

When I got home last night after celebrating Imbolc at Monkey Mansion, there was a large box on the front steps. And inside was all our yarn from Warm the World for making blankets!

Woo-hoo! I am so thrilled! The whole Tribe is excited. I can’t wait to see what all we create!