Dinosaur wash cloth
I can't figure out how to take the picture so the design comes out clearer...Sorry.

Got weary of making crocheted motifs all the time so started an Octopus for a baby gift. Yeah, I got LOTS of this purple Lion Brand Cotton Ease lying around.

Also OTN, prehistoric Nautilus thing from Knitty. This project was the first xmas gift break knitting I started, before the octo.








Opinons:
Finished this a bit ago for a two year old. Yes, there is lots of room to grow. That was the point. However, it is unadorned. I ask you, should I continue to add heart shaped bead things on the sleeve, to mirror the buttons, or should I let the design and yarn speak for themselves?

Parent book.
Picked this up from my kid's scholastic book fair. Title reminded me of Confessions of a Slacker Mom which I thoroughly enjoyed. After reading, plan to pass around among my mom friends, make that $10 cover price s-t-r-e-t-c-h.

Another dino wash cloth pau. Got pattern here: Knitted Kitty on yahoo groups. I think I can pump one out while watching a movie. The crocheted stuff I have to do while listening to podcasts so I can look at the stitches. I can even watch a foreign film and read the subtitles while knitting one of these dish cloths!

Hubby and I checked out Kill Zone most recently. Better than expected. I liked checking out Donnie Yen's muscles. Hey, not often a girl gets to check out some Chinese hunky guy's bod in American cinema. One of my favorite Chinese films is Infernal Affairs, upon which The Departed is based. Yeah, I got a thing for Andy Lau (House of Flying Daggers).

Hiking. Knitting.
Boy, have we been busy! Happy Hollidays! Hiking at Ho`omaluhia Gardens in Kaneohe. What a view! And yes, I got some knitting done on dinosaur wash cloth for a boy. In my tent. By flashlight. When the kids refused to go unconscious at 10 o'clock at night.

Tails! Lots of 'em.
Have a pile of these little guys to put on ankle socks and barretts. Little girl sets for Christmas. Most are simple two row granny squares done in crochet thread or sock yarn, using a real small hook (1.65 or 1.3 mm). I started making the squares as tight as possible so they would be smaller. Problem was, they wouldn't lie flat, and my 5 yr. old noticed. So started to loosen up my crocheting and the squares lay flatter. I use the variegated yarns because I just love to buy variegated and because I'm too lazy to change colors every row. The pattern still comes out nicely with variegated.

One sock yarn leftover I used had long runs of dark blues, so to jazz up the motif, I added a few beads. The beaded ones will be for baretts only since those won't go in the washing machine.

The younger one likes to carry these around by the long tail, calls them balloons.

FIXED!
Woohoo! I don't know how, but when my hubby went to look at my site today it was ok. Yippeeee! Maybe I just needed to restart Mozilla. SOOOO relieved.

Finished the kid wristlets except for button. Except...I tried them on the five year old live-in model and...they're too small! By a good 3/4" or so....rrrrr. So hafto dig out those yarn ends or rig up something else to bridge that gap. Have since taken measurements of her wrist and neck.

In case anyone interested, these crocheted motifs are from Lion Brand, Crochet Motif IV Circle in the Square, in some yarn that is like Patons Grace but isn't. I'll go look at ball band later. This stuff is just great for making these small motif thingies with tiny hooks. Really brings out the beauty of the design. My Kikaida-loving daughter loves the color combination.

Screwed!
In trying to add one of those smiley zwinky things to the html of my site i think i've completely screwed it up. And I don't know how to fix it!! Aarrggh!

Carrots pau. Pattern here. On to more fruit or veges. Trying to think of what I can make the fastest. Need more orange yarn if I make some oranges. Modified a dog ball pattern from a kids' crochet book for that.

Sometimes, while in a knitting frenzy, I get this niggling question in the back of my mind: are you crazy? you're knitting/crocheting carrots (or other fill in the blank item)! Does anyone really care that they're handmade? Anybody else ever get those doubts?

Before I shut down for the night saw this and had to share. It is Lang Pearl yarn: acrylic, mohair and polyester. In worsted weight, it is THE PERFECT color for my sister who's been living in Michigan for a few years with boyfriend. You know, the whole experimenting with college, work, and living away from home thing. Anyways, she's the roughest to knit for because i know she won't handwash anything and just does not really appreciate beautiful wool. That and I'm not sure how long this whole living on the mainland thing will last, so I dont wanna knit her anything major, like a sweater, that will be useless once she returns for good.

However, she has confessed to being fond of deep blue, red, and green. Dark, true colors. And then I found this cute Hermione's cable-and-bobble hat with just the same weight of yarn required and I thought, hey! There's a possiblity. Of course, I'm the Harry Potter fan, so maybe I'll just make it for myself and wear it around the house when the air conditioning is turned on (like my lovely wool hiking socks) and pretend it's actually cold enough to need one of these. Hmmm... I love the swoosh meandering around the bobbles. Not found of those bobble ball things but this pattern is very interesting.

Am working on kids' xmas gifts. So here is part of my fourth(?) crocheted carrot. Plan on making food baskets, all knit or crocheted! Sweets, veges, fruits. Will see how far I get before C Day! My pointy sticks and hooks are flying! Trying to work on those things that will get me the most gifts for the time, then will work on the bigger projects (socks), as the deadline is more flexible for those recipients (family vs friends).

There are times when I view a yarn online and my eyes start to roll back in my head because it is so out of this world gorgeous! That's how I felt about this one: Trekking XXL 78. Do you guys keep a list of DREAM yarns? Just so you can look at them daily on your monitor or next to your bathroom mirror and moan with ocular pleasure? Anyone? Anyone?

I saw this on Astrid's Dutch Obsessions and thought: so cute, in an odd, really odd, kinda way. Definitely shouts "sock knitta" at ya. Now honestly, I don't know if I would wear this thing, but I sure would have to go up and give the person I did see wearing it a really big hug of appreciation and admiration for her daring.


And have ya guys seen these? They are called Regia Sock Stoppers. Also on Astrid's. They're perfect for folks with wood or tile floors! My kids are always slipping around in their handmade socks.

Here is purple lion. Her name is Violet, inspired by one of my favorite podcasts Lime & Violet. I like it, the lion, I mean. Even if it weirds my kids out a little.

And crochet motifs for possible chokers and wristlets.


Fast Christmas gifts!

Anyone have other small project ideas for crochet motifs? Ones using only a few motifs at most?

Pau! (finito in Hawaiian)
The purple lion is done and...and...well, see for yourself. I added eyebrows and whiskers. Not cute but definitely interesting. Next project: last-minute Christmas projects!!!!! Oh no, it's just around the corner!

Made a bunch of these crocheted motifs and they just looked to pretty to be lost among a zillion identical ones in a large project so perhaps something simpler and smaller would be more appealing and show off each motif's charm. Things like chokers, with or without beads, wristlets - who says you have to have a watch on that wrist - and I even attached one motif to one of my daughter's plain white athletic ankle socks. She LOVES it! I'd show picture of last but the younger one snatched it and it has run away from view, hopefully not home.

Sorry, computer not reading my camera's memory card. post pics later.

Okay, okay, surfing, surfing, and just found this pic that just made me laugh! So here, not leaving you pic-less:
you gotta ask, what the heck is that wolf doing/thinking? Is that for real? I think it is.

Where yarn?
Okay, okay. Where is the knitting, you ask. The crocheting. The yarn??? I am not comfortable taking pictures of my WIP and usually just wait until I am finished to take pics, but since I gots a blog, may as well. So here is potential birthday present for a three year old. My own munchkin had so much color input, she may claim it as her own, however. Is from a cute amigurami pattern from Roxycraft http://www.roxycraft.com/The_trio_info.htm.

It is supposed to be a lion but i had all this extra purple cotton ease from Lion Brand lying around, and i always like to do the unexpected. And, well, let's just say I'm a hoping it gets cuter when fully assembled. Here is original:


Does anyone know the secret of making cute knit or crochet toy faces? Do ya have to use eye things or can you embroider cute ones on? The flat button thing doesn't really seem to do it.


And here is me crocheting...at the beach!

We went after school today, about 3:30 p.m. and the sky was cloudy but absolutely beautiful. Not too hot but kinda cold once you come out of the water. Late afternoon is a really good time to go to the beach because it is less crowded and the sun is less strong. Especially for us slacker moms who don't always put sunscreen on the kids.

My hubby said the water was very clear and could see schools of fish swimming around his legs. He said they were probably nibbling on skin flakes. Ewwww!

Okay, this didnt happen today but I bought this Buddha concrete figure for my husband in July and it just arrived recently. We put it in our wealth corner of the yard...see what happens. It's pretty nice, don't ya think?






In other news, finished assembling blank art cards and gift tags to sell in my daughter's family fun fair at her school. It's a fundraiser so she doesn't get to keep the cash but it was a good deadline to meet. I took photos of her artwork and made the cards out of them. Bundled them in packs of three with three envelopes, with nice ribbon yarn and a tag, in a sandwhich baggie so wouldn't get grubby from handling. Pretty nice and VERY FUN. I almost skipped dinner working on these, was that fun. Passing over food for anything is a really big deal for me. And she was involved in the project so that was good.

Knitting toys, this pic from Hanna Anderson site gave me ideas about how to make a knit thing cuter.

I knit this fella from Berrocco http://www.berroco.com/exclusives/kiki/kiki.pdf, somehow not as cute, but the Small One liked it anyway. I think it's the face. How to make cuter?

This is our baby parakeet, Bajinda, of Kikaida fame. Yes, that's a sock on my hand. We're trying to hand train her (we assume it's a her) and she bites. HARD! I've only gotten around to taking her out of her cage one or two times a day. And she is very quiet. Am worried she may need bird company but that may hinder hand-training.

The girls love her. The little one always says good morning and good night to the bird and even "reads" to her.

And this is oldest in costume. She sure snagged a lot of loot for just our half block of trick 'r treating!


This is the other one dressed as a tomato. Without the green part. It was crocheted with green yarn and green fabric strips, green fabric leaves tacky glued to wire. Worked better as a belt than headpiece.

My hubbie and I made these two costumes but after the time and stress, I wasn't sure it was worth it. But then the kids were SO happy with their costumes, i guess it was worthwhile after all. Although perhaps I could start earlier than the night before for final assembly, as I had to hand sew the tomato costume. Fortunately, it has many creative possibilities in years to come.



CENTIPEDE!
Found baby version of this icky nasty in yard while raking up wet leaves. Daughter is taking to school tomorrow for show and tell (it's science, ya know). I squished it a bunch of times but it's still got some kick.