Granny Square Crochet Hearts

Did you know you can make Granny Square crochet hearts? I didn't either:


However, it's pretty easy. Make a granny square....


... then add some bumps...


... and ta-dah! Heart!!


Add a picot edge, and they're really pretty!

(Yes, I realize I should have put these up a month ago, but it's up now!)

Crocheted Snowflakes

I took a class offered at the shop on Crocheted Snowflakes. I made two.


Any day now, I'm going to figure out how to starch them....

Use Your Right Beads!

These are beaded cross-stitch ornaments that I found when clearing out the house... rather, I found the kits, and there were shiny things in them, so I made them. (I'd just found the HibernaStitchatorium on FaceBook, and wanted to play along and be actually stitching something. Which eventually started me on beading... but I degress.

Anyway, here are the two ornaments finished, ready to have gilded loops and felt backing adhered to them:


Both are Mill Hill Beads kits, and I belive both are still available. Tannenbaum was fun...


... so I started the Clover. Which had beads that I thought were the same color as the ones from the Tannenbaum kit, and hey, they were, so I used them instead.

Only problem was the Tannenbaum beads were bigger... noticeably so if I'd bothered to notice. So, after a quick dash to AC Moore in hopes they'd have comparable beads to the ones I had half-stitched onto the perforated paper (they did!), I was able to finish it up.


So, moral of the story: Pretty Beaded Ornaments Are Fun, if you have a kit, USE THOSE BEADS!

A Partridge Named Harriet

Whups, a bit late this week. In my defense, um...

.... okay, I got nothin'.

I did manage to cross-stitch and bead a lovely little partridge-in-a-pear-tree Mill Hill kit I got at the Stitcher's Stash Superbowl Sale, though:


I really like it; I think I will name her Harriet.

Things Upcoming (I think)

Christmas Lights Garland by Jean Herman, a free Ravelry download. I just found this, want it for my tree. May put actual LEDs inside the tips and wire them so they glow... or is that too geeky?


This is Knitblue19's photo of her garland-of-lights

Bigger on the Inside Shawl by Kate Atherly. Free pattern from the Spring + Summer 2012 issue of Knittty. This was supposed to be my Ravellenics project; I never actually started it due to the Ailment That Ate August.


This is Amy Singer's photo of this lovely shawl
Plush Pegleg Pirate - sort of a soft chibi toy version of some of the artwork from the Book of Heroes iPhone/Android game, just for fun. I found this delightful Grisig the Cat pattern (downloadable here from Knotart.wordpress.com. I like the way it’s constructed; I think it will work well as a base. (And I’m totally making something vaguely Hello Kitty-based for my niece for Christmas, too. It’s an adorable pattern!)

This is PaintedMagnolia’s photo of her lovely little kitty
Something with my red Wild Hare Fibers Galaxy yarn (OMG there's an Etsy shop! Eeeeeee!). No idea what. Something pretty and special, though; of all the yarn out there, this is my favorite. It's just so springy and sparkly and happy!


This is my copper Galaxy;
photos of the red forthcoming once I figure out what to do with it
Of course, there’s another 200 things in my Ravelry queue, and I’m sure there will be more shortly. And there are some things I actually want to start more, once I’m sure I have the skillset (I’m looking at YOU, adorable HandMade Awards Sweet Grandparents!)

Mini Sock Challenge - WIN!

So, the first round of Challenge Quidditch was a numbers-participation based one - the more Housemates that turn in a project, the more points for the House. (So far, Gryffindor appears to be WAY ahead.) I decided to do little tiny Superhero Mini-Socks (GL and Cap). They're on size 0 needles, using thin sock yarn left over from other projects, so they're actually 28st around (which can be my stitch count for MY socks on size 8 needles with worsted yarn!!) - they're real socks, just really small!

I started the Captain America sock early on Friday, and the Green Lantern on Saturday:

The actual sock part for each took about 4h total (yay for Friday Night TV and the All-Star Showdown & Race on Saturday!), and about an hour each for the duplicate stitch.


It's a simple toe-up sock with a short row toe and heel (the first kind I learned making my first socks, Nutkins; still my favorite because it's just SO darned easy!). That made the "where to change color" really easy (toe, heel, cuff!). I totally winged it on the duplicate stitch, figuring it out as I went. I think it worked well.


Now, if I can just finish my Plein Air Tote (more on that Wednesday), I'll be all set for May!

The red one is a Valentine fish.

The House is doing another mass turn-in in detention. The theme is "fish" (insert your favorite Carp joke here). Not sea creatures, else I would have made an awesome little orca, but fish. So, I found directions in either Japanese or Chinese (I think it was the latter; I haven't been able to easily distinguish between the two for a decade or so now) for little crochet fish.

I did a gray one, then I did an ecru one. Then I found some leftover blue cotton, and then some red cotton (go figure, given I just did a cup cozy out of ecru, blue and red)...


... and then it became glaringly obvious what the title of this project really HAD to be. Yep, you guessed it:

One Fish	Two Fish
Red Fish	Blue Fish

Really, I had to.

October is DONE.

October Wrap-Up:
1. Transfiguration - Acorn, Large, turned in post 24, marked complete post 66, October 4;
2. Care of Magical Creatures - Zombieproof Hat, turned in post 102, marked complete post 157, October 4;
3. Defense Against the Dark Arts, Neckwarmer!, turned in post 79, marked complete post 242, October 4;
4. Ancient Runes, Holastafur Hotpad, turned in post 42, marked complete post 46, October 5;
5. Muggle Studies, Glittery Faux-Lei, turned in post 127, marked complete post 129, October 10;
6. DETENTION - Nancy Shawl, started April 2011; turned in post 206, marked complete post 208, October 12;
7. Quidditch - Fire Task #2, Mantle of the Phoenix, turned in post 3283, marked complete post 3303, October 12;
8. Quidditch, Yule Ball event #2 - Dances - The Chudley Cannonball; The Tarapoto Tree-Skimmers Tango, post 3809, scored post ???, October 20;
9. Potions, Swiffer Cover!, turned in post 464, marked complete post 530, October 25;
10. 50% OWL (Evenstar Shawl), turned in post 373, marked complete post 377, October 27;
11. Arithmancy, Fractal Hot Pad, turned in post 345, marked complete post 376.



... and November promises to be even crazier. Whee!!

What to do with All That Yarn.

In case you were wondering what you can do with one ball of Peaches & Cream, here's some examples. Yep, all four things took 97 yards of a 98-yard ball, and all told, it was about four hours of knitting/crocheting-while-watching-TV. Well... maybe just three.

Who: CraftyGryphon
Where: Slytherin, Fifth Year
Why: Quidditch, Yule Ball event #2
What: Dances - The Chudley Cannonball; The Tarapoto Tree-Skimmers Tango
When: (aka Tag, because I wasn't sure which heading it should go under) ybslyqf11
How: 97 yards (for all four items)

Hello to my fellow dancers! I'm here with two dances to perform (somebody cue the orchestra please). First up, is the oh-so-fun Chudley Cannonball, half in knit steps, half in crochet!



And then, we move to the Tarapoto Tree-Skimmers Tango (a crowd favorite) Two-steps are always fun!

Whee!!

Goodness, that was exerting. Someone fetch me a hottie to fetch me some Ginger Ale, please!

Goodies Into the Mail

Down in the Dungeon, we had a Yule Exchange!


Slytherin Yule!!
I had a great deal of fun finding things for my Spoilee, who happens to be a glass artist, too (except a REAL one - as in has stuff in churches, etc). I misremembered the mailing date, though, so mid-week last week, there was a flurry of activity one morning.

	First, there was All The Stuff. I had fun getting it all. Matchy-matchy notecards, notebook, pad & pencil (DPN) cases; shiny-matchy pen, notebook & magnets; a cute keychain calculator; tape measures (including some cool peel-n-stick tape measure), and, of course, the owlet twins, Bert & Ernie. (The whole thing was allegedly and ornament exchange, With Other Stuff.)
Then there was the Getting Creative With Wrapping. I did the obligatory "presents hidden in other presents" that everyone, regardless of age, thinks is silly out loud - but secretly loves.
	Then it was a case of getting everything (and everyone) into the box I'd lugged home from work the night before. Tucking things carefully into brown paper would, hoepfully, protect *and* keep from shifting.
Then, it was a case of making sure I hadn't forgotten anything. Which, of course, I had.
	So, a few things had to come out of the box, then go back in, then get nestled back into the protective brown paper. About three times, before I got everything to fit, finally. (It wasn't that much stuff, and the brown paper didn't take up that much extra space; I think there was a tiny spacewarp on the lid of the box or something. And I managed to forget to add the card enough times that I'm pretty sure it was sneaking out of the box on its own.)
Then I stuffed the CUTEST OWL ART ever, with a greeting, down one side of the box. (Seriously. Cutest. OWL. EVER. Must track it down and attempt to get real, live prints - I just adore it!)
Then, it was time to decorate the box. Because if you've ever gotten a package from me, you know: the box is all this lovely blank space just waiting to be filled up with pictures. Since it's a Slytherin exchange, the art kinda flowed all by itself. And yes, I own red and green sharpie markers - doesn't everyone?
Off to the post office (which isn't open at 8am any more, so it was more like "take bus in the cold to block next to post office, walk up steep hill, discover post office is closed, trudge the half mile to work, work for a while/warm up, then trudge half mile back to post office, mail thing, trudge back to work, make hot cocoa) to get proof of mailing, which I wanted to be able to show to one of the exchange's Organizer Elves, as I was about a week late with the shipping.
Then it was just waiting for my Spoilee to receive her package. I was hoping she'd take a photo - but she took a bunch. The following four pics are from her. This first one is The Loot emptied out of the box...	Photo from Spoilee
Photo from Spoilee	... and here it is all unwrapped.
Photo from Spoilee	Bert and Ernie fluttered around the house, before finding the highest point on which to perch, while they wait for the Holiday Tree to go up. Plus, let's be real, they're hoping that someone will drop food so they can swoop down and grab it before it hits the floor. (They're like that.)
And the Shiny Magnets formed into an appropriately Snake-y shape on the refrigerator door. Wheee!	Photo from Spoilee

The day I mailed the package, while I was trugding back to work the second time, I noticed this sweater at one of the Hip Cool Stores(tm). It matched the notebook, pad, cards & pencil cases I'd just sent. I didn't get it for her, since it cost Actual $$, but I totally thought about it. Plus, I would've had to find a box and go back to the post office a third time - and that wasn't going to happen!


Once my package from my Spoiler arrives, I'll let you know what sort of goodies I got!!