Earth Kingdom

After making multiple projects while working on this square, I've finally finished. I present, the Earth Kingdom square!

I think it turned out well. With the completion of this square I am approximately 40% of the way done. Yay!

Now that summer is upon us, I'm hoping I will have a little more time to work on the blanket and that I can have it done by the beginning of August. Even if I don't though, I'll definitely have it done by the time it starts to get cold.

The swirls might be my favorite part.

And of course Appa's gotta pose with the square.

EDIT: Here's the first post of this blanket saga. I did not write the pattern or create the charts. The link to the pattern is in the first post.

Cthulhu

The stuff of geek legends..The terrible, mystical beast, best described as a sea demon. Who this? Why, Cthulhu of course!

Looking quite adorable and cuddly, really. Last year I made my boyfriend a d20 for his birthday, and this year I had to try and match that by making him some equally geeky and cool. I had seen this pattern on Ravelry and decided it was perfect, and I am very pleased with the results.

The pattern calls for an F hook, but I decided to use a G hook to make him cuddlier (it's also easier to work with.) The pattern was relatively easy to follow, and the wings were definitely the most difficult part.

In order to get the ribbed, more wing-like look, I crocheted in the back loops only on the way back from the chain. This means you only crochet in the back loops in one direction, aka every other row.

My boyfriend was very pleased and his nerd friends jealous, so I suppose I accomplished my goal!

Rainbow Scarf Pattern

Well blog, it's been about a month. I promise I have been crocheting, it's just all my projects seem quite large and time-consuming right now. But...I do have a new pattern! This one was created in collaboration with my friend who had the idea to make a rainbow scarf and I played off her idea. So here goes (it's pretty short).

Rainbow Scarf

Materials:

I hook

6 colors worsted weight yarn

scissors

yarn needle

Directions:

With red ch 200 (check length and adjust as desired)

Row  1 - hdc across starting in third ch from hook

Row 2 - ch 2, turn, hdc across in back loops only

Row 3 - pick up orange, ch 2, turn, hdc across in back loops only

Row 4 - ch 2, turn, hdc across in back loops only

Continue with the remaining colors (each two rows wide)

At the end of the purple rows FO and weave in ends.

See! Super simple. Crocheting in only the back loops creates more texture which is definitely a good thing in this case!

Waffle Hats

Over spring break I was walking around in Hobby Lobby while waiting to pick up my boyfriend from class and I saw some bulky yarn on sale. Now, if you partake in the fiber arts you know that this yarn is more expensive than "regular" yarn, so I jumped on the opportunity and got green, gray, and teal. I'd been wanting to make some hats that needed bulky yarn and now I could make some!

These are waffle hats! Aka they have a mesh pattern.

I made the green one first, following the pattern exactly and it took me one sitting (while watching Skyfall). Only problem was, the hat didn't slouch.

Probably because I crochet tighter... So I decided I needed to make another one.

For the gray hat, I added about 5 rows to what the pattern calls for...

And huzzah! It turned out! 

The pattern was very easy to follow, and like I said before, very quick! It was a nice breather from the blanket. (I'm halfway done with the earth (2nd) square!)

Some clarification for those of you out there who might be in the dark like me: apparently slouchy hats are hipster.

Waffle Cone Hat Pattern: http://www.gleefulthings.com/blog/?p=3258

Don't have bulky yarn? Sugar Cone Hat Pattern: http://www.gleefulthings.com/blog/?p=5569

Tiny Turtles

The week before spring break is always rough. Deadlines and exams seem to be coming at you from all directions! That was two weeks ago for me, and I had the most difficult exam I have ever taken. (found out I did well though!) After five hours of hardcore studying one night I decided I needed a crochet break. I'm still working on my blanket, but I want to make a quick project; something I could make in under an hour. While searching on Ravelry I found a pattern for little turtles, and so I made a couple!

Adorable. As you can see, they are very teeny. Each one took me between 25 and 30 minutes with distractions (Pirates of the Caribbean). The pattern is easy to follow and I learned a couple new stitches (popcorn and spike), which I enjoyed.

I apologize for the not-so-high-quality pictures. My digital camera is about 5 or 6 years old now.

I have plans to make more for the other women in my small group, so there will probably be an update with more later!

Water Tribe

Because this blanket project is going to take awhile I plan on giving updates as I finish things like...I finished my first square!

It only took me three weeks! Which is pretty good because I calculated that each of the four squares as 8,836 stitches in it! Holy crap! That's not even including the three rows of dark border. Completing this square means I am approximately 20% of the way through this project.

Appa modeling

I made a few adjustments to this square. First off, there are only supposed to be 94 columns, but the water motif pdf has 95, so I scratched the 95th column (the rightmost column). The pattern also calls for cluster stitch for the dark blue but I changed to half-double crochet because the cluster stitch was not working out for me.

 Swirlies!

This is not my pattern, I found it online and I am so glad I did because I am seriously in love with Avatar: The Last Airbender, on which this blanket is based. Feeling confident? Want to try to make your own blanket? Here's the link to the pattern!

ATLA Blanket Pattern: http://kimby77.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/avatar-the-four-elements/

Chevron Infinity Scarf & News

I've got a couple large projects I'm working on now, but I just finished up a smaller project! I had some gray and white yarn just sitting in my pile for some time now and I decided that I wanted to make an infinity scarf but didn't want to do normal stripes anymore. While flipping through a small booklet of patterns that I have I found a pattern for a ripple baby blanket. With a little tweaking I was able to make this chevron infinity scarf!

I am pretty happy about how it came out! It's a little longer than I'd like, but other than that it's great. I just used Red Heart Super Saver yarn.

The pattern has a slight ribbed effect created by working in back loops only. Unfortunately I can't share this pattern with y'all because it was a purchased pattern and so is not mine, but if you find a ripple pattern you should be able to recreate it!

In other news, I finally got a Ravelry! And I am completely addicted. There's so many things that I want to make now! Also, this past weekend I got started on an Avatar blanket, which I am pretty freaking excited about! Here's what I've got so far: