Enter Entrelac

I've been pretty scattered with my projects lately. I think it's the pressure of the holidays coming up... I've put the Pirate design on hold to work on teacher gifts for my kids' teachers. With three of them in school, there are a lot of teachers! My oldest is now in middle school and she, alone, has six different teachers!

So I did some searching on Ravelry and found a pattern for a Quant, which, according to the author's notes, should take about half a day to complete. "Perfect!" I thought. "I should be able to whip out six quants in no time for the female teachers!"

Well. I must be the world's slowest knitter because it's been more than a week and I'm STILL working on the first one. :) Granted, I goofed up in the beginning of the entrelac portion (this is my first attempt at doing entrelac), and granted, I don't work on the project more than a couple of hours at a time. But still.. half a day, in my vocabulary, means it should take about 8 hours to complete. Let's say I average 2 hours of work on the thing a night/day, and I should...theoretically...have one done in less than a week.

Which leads me to believe I'm just the world's slowest knitter! I'm enjoying the project...It's not repetitious at all, so it holds one's interest. But I may have to find a different project for the remaining five female teachers...not to mention finding a project for the two males....

Black Cat Rattle

As mentioned in my last entry, here are pictures of the cat rattle that I made using a plastic Halloween pumpkin container that I'd found at the 99¢ Store. At some point, I'll translate my chicken scratch into a pattern... I may also make a few alterations and, considering the pumpkin containers aren't something that will be easily found at any time of the year, perhaps I'll try making the rattles with either Easter eggs (if you're like me, you'll have a great big bagful of them in your garage or wherever you keep your decorations when they're not being used) or maybe even those eggs that pantyhose come in. Either way, the project is probably low on the totem pole with the Christmas holidays coming up!

In the meantime, after you've checked out the photos, if you really want to know how it was made, drop me a line (or comment) and I'll contact you with the directions. :)

Side bar!

Work on the pirate is coming along... Right now, he's kind of a stationary doll. Meaning his arms will not be moveable nor will his legs. I'm also not sure how much I like how his torso came out. But I'll finish him the way he is and then see about making a revised version of him to work the kinks out. Maybe make jointed limbs...at least as far as the shoulder and hips go.

But this is not the reason I write tonight...er....this morning. I'm up waaaay too late! My neighbors do the "You have been boo'd/ghosted" thing each year at Halloween. We were ghosted the other night, so today I put together the goodie trays to boo some of my other neighbors. I try to remember to include something for each kid in the family plus something for the house (a decoration for the house, little trinkets for the kids) and realized, after I'd put the trays together, that I forgot the newest addition to one of my neighbor's family. Now, she's not quite one, so I didn't think a beaded necklace would be a good idea. I'd found these little pumpkins at the 99¢ store that are sort of like the plastic Easter eggs... They pop apart and you can put goodies inside them.

As I pondered what to put inside a little plastic pumpkin that would be safe for a 7 month old, it struck me that babies pretty much would shake something like that, or slobber on it as they try to stuff it in their mouths. Which caused the proverbial light bulb to illuminate over my head.

I decided to fill the pumpkin with some pony beads that I have a ton of and then encase it in a crocheted "body" to make a rattle. Why stop there? Why not design a couple different rattle critters?

Well, I didn't design more than one so far... All I have so far is a Halloween kitty. However, I do have plans to do perhaps a pumpkin and maybe a ghost... Maybe branch out into other motifs. I think I'll have to go back to the 99¢ store to get more pumpkins!

I'll post pictures tomorrow of the kitty rattle and the plastic pumpkins....

Happy Halloween!

For Halloween this year, I thought I'd make something for my kitchen table to complement the chach-ka that I have decorating (you know, pumpkin candles, ghost candles, etc.) and thought it'd be cool to have a spiderweb-like doily for everything to sit on.

I found this cool pattern on Ravelry: Spider Web Doily I don't usually crochet much with cotton thread, so I did use Simply Soft...besides, I wanted it to be big enough for my chach-ka (which I know I'm misspelling!) Here's the finished product:


I'm pretty pleased with it. It's about the size of a luncheon plate.

So then I got started thinking about my kids' costumes. Although none of them want to be a pirate this year, they all seem to have fun pretending to be pirates. I decided to make one for kicks! Except I couldn't find a pattern that was exactly what I was envisioning in my head, therefore I'm making my own pattern up for it. :) Here's a little sneak peek of it so far:

He'll be larger than a typical amigurumi, although he's made with the same in-the-round technique. Obviously, this is just his head. He'll have a full body, hat, hair and a jacket. I'm having fun dreaming him up!

Stay tuned...once he's done, I'll post pictures. The pattern will likely be a for-sale one vs. a free one. There's been a fair amount of work that's gone into fine tuning his shaping so far!

Still Alive and Hooking!

Knew that would get your attention. :) Not THAT kind of hooking...the kind that involves yarn and a crochet hook.

It's been about 9 months since I last posted. Long enough to have another kid! But I didn't...don't worry. However, my youngest HAS started kindergarten this year so it's been kind of nice having each morning to myself.

My creativity dried out a bit over the summer. Things were just too busy with the kids being out of school. Now the cooler weather has been starting to set in, here in Southern California, and it's so nice to sit and crochet or knit!

My most recent project included making a whole lot of cupcakes for my grand-niece's second birthday coming up this month, since her party is cupcake-themed. Enjoy the photos!


24 cupcake party favors


A bigger cupcake for Grace to cuddle



A cupcake hat for Grace to wear


A cupcake purse for Grace to carry

Blogger Down!

Wow.... It's been a looooong time since I've posted anything to this blog. I'm really sorry about that...I know all one of you who is following this blog must be really chomping at the bit in anticipation of this newest posting!

Ok, silliness aside, here's a quick rundown of what I've been up to:

1. All those projects I mentioned in my last post? I did two out of four of them. The cabled purse got completed and the end product was given to my sister-in-law as part of her Christmas present. The doll backpack got finished in time for my great-niece's first birthday in October 2009. Both items turned out really cute! I may post photos here... or, alternatively, you can check them out on Ravelry: mo3insd's projects

2. My oldest nephew and his wife had a baby! So now I've got a great-nephew, too. I knit him a really cute sweater and hat....

And I'm also planning on visiting him and the rest of my extended family at the beginning of February, so I've crocheted him a blanket....

...and I'll probably try to squeeze in another sweater before I leave for the trip.

Really, I have been keeping busy with my crafting... Mostly knitting and crochet. All of my recently completed projects can be found on Ravelry.

I'll try to keep things updated here! Yet another New Year's resolution..............