Go beyond the granny square

It feels so good to be finished with this one.  My daughter wants to keep it and so do I. But we will send it as part of the swap by the end of the week.

The edge is just more double crochet with three double crochets, two chains, and three more double crochets in the corner. Now if I can just get the rest of the extra stuff ready to send the package, then I’ll be really happy.

It’s been a very rainy Memorial Day weekend. There’s less than one week left in May and I still have a few crochet goals to finish.

I have finished everything for my swap, so that is good. I need to finish the angel baby blanket and haven’t even thought about my laptop bag.  Yesterday I finished the last crochet item for my swap and feel really good about it. The toddler wanted to keep it but we must send it as it is the main item in the swap. Sometimes I think she thinks I only crochet items that are meant for her.

This week I should be able to finish the baby blanket. Then I might hold off on my laptop purse while I work on some ideas already formulating for June.

This weekend we are at Mobicon in Mobile, Alabama. It’s been a lot of fun. I always bring crochet with me and find when I see some clothing or other items, I naturally think how can you do that in crochet? This weekend I have spotted quite a few crocheted items for sale as well as on patrons at the con.

Around the con, I saw two people with crocheted beanies. One had crocheted mouse ears and was adorable. The other bean had rhinestones in it that made it very shiny. I also saw a guy toting around a crocheted shoulder bag perfect for carrying books, cards, or anything con-related.

My favorite crocheted item was a zombie amigurumi and it was for sale. For just $5,  I couldn’t pass it up.

I didn’t get much crocheting done. Maybe a few rows on the bat afghan which means I have a lot to do this week. Luckily the cooler weather is putting me in a very afghan crocheting mood.

While watching TV last night that included the season finale of The Office, I finished the crochet hook/knitting needle holder. I did ten pockets, to it will hold either 10 hooks or 5 sets of knitting needles.

It turned out really well. I was glad that I switched colors and ended with the multi-color yarn. It helps to make it stand out and not look so bland.

One project I started this week was a crochet hook/knitting needle holder. I’m making it as part of a craft swap.  I found the pattern through Ravelry and it’s crocheting up pretty quickly.

Here is the free crochet hook holder pattern. Instead of buttons, I plan on either using ribbons or glass beads to hold it together. My swap partner is a bead artist, so I thought it would be fun to incorporate beads into one project.

I plan on making 10 pockets. I’m on number eight, so I hope to finish this today. I just need to find some beads/ribbon to complete it.

Since I started crocheting, I have avoided thread crochet since I thought there would be no way that I could do it. But this past weekend I decided to give it a try since I wanted to make a few bookmarks to include in some greeting cards.

I found a cute pattern for a teapot bookmark and thought that would be perfect for my Mom who collects teapots. Here is my first attempt. I didn’t add stitches like I should so it looks more like a watering can than a teapot.

I did three more of these that actually looked like teapots.

Working with thread wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The steel hooks really make it easy to work with thread. I find my only real problem is with the slip stitch since it’s hard to hold the stitch tight and slip off the loop to complete the stitch.

Right now I’m working on another bookmark project. It’s a Gothic cross that is going to need a lot of starch to look like the picture. But seriously, it is working up pretty fast and might be a good pattern to make up several small gifts. The teapots are cute but as you can see from the first picture, they have a lot of threads to work into the piece. Sometimes that can take just as long as crocheting the project.

I’ve been working on a few cupcake purses for a knit/crochet swap I’m taking part in this month.  I whipped up three and finished last week.

I really didn’t have a pattern. I used a popcorn stitch to make the ‘icing’ at the bottom of the cupcake. My first cupcake purse didn’t turn out as great as I had hoped. I used a shell stitch for the icing but didn’t like the way it looked. So I went with something else this time. It’s a little more subtle but I think it looks okay.

I also used cotton yarn instead of acrylic yarn. It is not as stiff but I still like it better. Let’s just hope the recipients like it now.

Finally I’ve had an evening of crochet during television. Monday was just blah all the way around and Tuesday wasn’t much better. Wednesday is ‘Lost’ and there is no crochet during ‘Lost.’ I have to use every brain cell to try to keep up with the time travel and various plots. So tonight was a more casual night of TV with ‘Survivor’ and ‘The Office.’ I finally was able to make some progress on some of my ongoing projects.

I will post more on those updates tomorrow but I’m just so glad to get some more rows done. I was afraid I had lost interest in completing it. That wouldn’t be good since everything I’m working on are gifts.  This weekend I should have everything complete except the baby blanket. Then it will be time to start a new round of projects including Scooby Doo, the girl’s dress, and a knitting needle holder.

My daughter has become a big fan of Scooby Doo and since I can’t seem to win the Scooby Doo dog out of the claw machine, I plan to crochet one.  This could be quite challenging to make an amigurumi great dane that will look like Scooby.

What I will probably do is find an amigurumi dog pattern that I like and change it to up a little bit. After looking through a few dog patterns, I think I have an idea on how to create a Scooby Doo in crochet.

Here’s a free dog pattern that I like even if it isn’t exactly what I’m looking for. There is also a website, GreyhoundCrafts.com that has a pattern that could be used. Amigurumi are usually fairly fast to crochet so I’m hoping to start and finish this in one day.

There are several crochet projects that I hope to finish in May. A baby blanket, a lapghan, and some cupcake purses are my current projects that will hopefully be finished in two weeks. I also have a few other crochet project I want to get done.

There are two more projects I need to do for my The Office swap.  I’m going to crochet a knitting needle holder and a small coin bag. I also plan on starting and finishing a little toddler dress that is half crochet/half material. One more project is to make me a laptop bag/purse since I can’t find exactly what I’m looking for. I will just have to make it.

If I can get these projects done this month then I will be very glad.