Autumn Dragon Wing Shawl

 I have been trying to stash-bust during the pandemic, and in going through my yarn I came across 2 skeins of Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable in Polo. It's incredibly soft, and includes beautiful autumnal shades of orange, burgundy, and olive.  I decided to revisit the Dragon Wing pattern I made a few years ago, and submit it for the Cozy Autumn Challenge I'm running on Lettuce Craft.

I ended up buying one more skein to finish the project, but managed to use up nearly every inch.  I had just about 3' of yarn leftover, after doing 2 rounds of single crochet for the border.

Crocheted Granny Circle Harry Potter Ornaments

 I have had this idea in mind for a few years now.  I saw the pattern in the book Boho Crochet, and they just seemed like something Molly Weasley would make out of her leftover scraps of yarn.  So this year I finally hooked some up, but instead of the scrappy multi-color motif of the books, I went with Hogwarts House colors.  They were all crocheted from acrylic yarn in my stash; mostly Caron Simply Soft, and some Lion Brand Heartland (the gold & silver).  If you don't have the book, here is a free pattern for the same design.

Gryffindor

Hufflepuff

Slytherin

Ravenclaw

A side view, of the stitching.

Hogwarts United

On one side the center is red, on the other side the center is blue.

I'm so pleased with how they came out!

Hygge Throw

My very lovely friend PerfectlyBohemian on Lettuce Craft, sent me 10 skeins of beautiful Sugar Bush Canoe yarn in this pretty lilac purple color.   She had rescued the yarn from a tent sale, but didn't know what to make with it, so sent it to me.  10 skeins was a lot, more than I needed to make a sweater or hat, but not quite enough to make an afghan.  After doing some digging around online I found an awesome throw pattern for free, called the [Hygge Holiday Throw](https://makeanddocrew.com/hygge-free-beginner-crochet-blanket-pattern/) that was just about perfect for the amount of purple I had.  I found few more balls in a contrasting mulberry color on Zulily, and set to work.

It's about 36" wide with the added border, and about 50" long.  (I'm guessing.  My dining table that it's laying on is 3'x5'). 

When I got to the end of the pattern, it called for a single border of mulberry, but I had 1.5 skeins of purple, and 1.75 of mulberry left, so I decided to add to the border in an effort to use up as much of the yarn as possible.  After the initial border, I did a second round of single crochet in mulberry, then a round of double crochet in purple, and finally 2 more rows of single crochet in mulberry.  I had *just* enough mulberry for the tassels, but not the ties on the tassels, so I did those with some of the leftover purple for contrast, and love how they look.

Skull Doily

 I fell in love with the awesome skull doily created by CraftsUntold over on Lettuce Craft, and knew I had to make one too.  So I created this one for TheMistressT for the Secret Modmirer Swap.  Now they are doily twins.  The pattern is by Ann Wannamaker, and can be found HERE.  She has so many fantastic skull patterns I want to try!

Stash Busting Star Blanket

 I have a dear friend who is expecting.  I wanted to work on something for her that would be cheerful and gender neutral, and hopefully work through some yarn in my stash.  I found two skeins of acrylic purchased to make one row each in the 13th Doctor's Scarf, a pretty buttercup yellow and soft soothing turquoise.  I picked up one skein of speckled white yarn to tie them together.  It had lots of colors in it, but yellow and turquoise showed up a lot, with some blue, green, pink, and purple.

The pattern is the 6 Day Star Blanket from Betty McKnit.  I spent more like 3 weeks working on it, off and on as I felt like it.  The pattern is bands of granny and bands of double crochet, with rows of single crochet between them.  I started with all the granny in yellow, all the double crochet in turquoise, and the single crochet in the white speckled yarn, but towards the end I was running out of yarn.  I didn't want to buy more, only to have more to stash bust, so I made do with what I had, for a slightly unusual final border.

 The final row of granny was subbed in with white, and I used up the last of the turquoise on a third row of double crochet, before finishing off nearly all the yellow with a final row of single crochet along the edge.  I think it makes the blanket pop.

The Neverending Klaziena Shawl

This project was a long time coming.  I started it on Christmas Eve, as a gift to myself, what with the news of Craftster closing and whatnot.  The pattern is called the Klaziena Shawl, by Kirsten Bishop, and it's free.  One of the nice things about the pattern is that it comes with options for making it as a triangle, or a rectangle shawl.

The yarn is Scheepjes Whirl in the color Green Tea Tipple.  I finished the last row with about 20" of yarn to spare!  I love when that happens.  While I am very happy with how it came out overall, it was a bit of a slog.  The repeat is about 12 rows long, and not easy to remember, so you really have to keep an eye on your pattern.  Plus the yarn is so thin and the hook so small (3.5mm) that it just takes forever.  If I were to make it again, I'd try it with a thicker yarn, and larger hook, and do one less repeat of the pattern.

Stash Busting Amelia Shawls

I saw this light, simple shawl pattern, that uses just one cake of Lion Brand Shawl-in-a-Cake and knew I had to give it a try. It's called the Amelia Shawl, from Moogly.  I had several cakes in my stash, so I pulled out one and got to hooking.  The colorway is Moonstone. 

I actually had more yarn left as I was winding down, so I did an extra row of V-stitch, and an extra row of single crochet around the edging. It’s a super fast pattern. I somehow only took one picture of the shawl being blocked. Special thanks goes to StudioANF on Lettuce Craft, who snapped real pics of both shawls for me.

I liked how the first one came out, and had more cakes of yarn, so I decided to make a second one out of Lotus Blossom. I must have been using a looser tension, because I didn’t have extra yarn with this one, but I wanted it to match the first one, so I used a pinch of a second cake to do the same extra row of V-stitch and single crochet edging. Maybe 10-20 yards of a second cake? I love how the pattern shows off the gradation of color in the yarn.

Garden Pests April Fool's Projects

This year, after the move from Craftster to Lettuce Craft, the Mod Squad decided that Garden Pests would be a great theme for our annual April Fool's project takeover on the site.  I created a few quick  projects to join in the fun. 

A pair of earrings featuring naughty bunnies trying to steal my bok choy.  The bok choy beads are lampwork glass that I've had for ages.

Dougie, the Derpy Worm bookmark, crocheted from Darn Good Yarn's ombre silk.  The face is top stitched with embroidery thread.

And finally a set of squirrel paper lanterns.  The cut files came from the Silhouette Store, and were cut from some paper given to me by the lovely pottermouth, over at Flew the Coop.  The file cut just fine, but I did worry the whole time I was weeding it that I might tear it, and I do wish the overlap for gluing was a bit bigger, but all in all it was a quick and easy project.

Recycled Silk Tuck-Away-Tote

For my first quarter Fiber & Textile mod project on Lettuce Craft, I decided to run a Spring Greening Challenge.  The assignment was to craft an item that replaces a commonly used disposable version, such as dishcloths, cloth napkins, paperless-towels, etc. 

For my own contribution, I knew I wanted to make something out of a recycled yarn.  I dug through my stash and picked out a few cakes of Darn Good Yarn's silk blend sport weight yarn, in colorway Burgundy Blossom.  It's made from reclaimed sari silk and viscose. 

I searched Ravelry for a grocery tote pattern, and found this super cute Tuck-Away Tote pattern, that contains a pocket, that the tote can be folded up into!  You can easily tuck it away to carry in a purse or coat pocket. 

 The round pocket is positioned along the bottom of the tote.  I finished it off with a pewter Celtic button that I had in my stash. 

All tucked away, ready to go on a shopping trip.  ...whenever we're finally allowed to go out again!

Miniature Dragon Egg Dice Bags

These little wonders were created specifically for a challenge over on Lettuce Craft.  My friend PerfectlyBohemian, who mods the Art Board, challenged us all to miniaturize our favorite crafts.  Are you kidding?  You want me to Miniaturize My Craft?  Well buckle up Buttercup.  I've got a teeny tiny craft just for you!

 

When I saw this challenge, I was so intrigued with the idea, but I had no idea what to make.  After kicking around some ideas with crafty friends, I realized one of the things I'm known for crocheting is dragon egg dice bags.  And in my jewelry making stash, I just happened to have some itty bitty aluminum scales.

I whipped out my smallest crochet hook, and some lace weight silk yarn and got to experimenting.  My normal sized dice bags are made with 144 'small' sized scales, that each measure 14mm x 22mm (or 9/16" x 7/8"), and use #4 or Medium weight yarn and a 5mm crochet hook, and are finished with glass pony beads, about 1cm wide.  The finished full size bags measure 12cm tall (or 4.5").

The miniature bags were made with 27 'tiny' sized scales that measure 7mm x 11mm (or 1/4" x 7/16"), and used a #0 or Lace weight yarn and a 2.25mm crochet hook, and are finished with 4mm Swarovski crystal beads.  The finished bag measures 3cm tall and 2.5cm wide (or 1.5" x 1").

One of the only problems I encountered was that the hook didn't fit through the hole in the tiny scales.  The pattern I use for the full size bags calls for you to crochet through the scales, to attach them to the bag.  Since that wasn't an option here, I sewed them on.  I crocheted 2 rows beyond the row I wanted to add the scales to, then went back and stitched them, so that the thread wouldn't accidentally catch the yarn, or I wouldn't accidentally sew a stitch closed, that I needed to get a hook back into.

Each finished bag is about the size of a standard D20, though one doesn't really comfortably inside.  I knew that in order to display the tiny bags, they would need tiny dice.  But I was just not up for making itty bitty polyhedral shapes.  I felt sure that way madness lies.  So I picked up some 5mm micro dice from a maker on Etsy.  I adore how cute they are with my bags! 

Scrappy Virus Afghan

This afghan has been over 2 years in the making!  I started it in September 2017, as a way to stash bust.  I had 6 skeins of Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable in Dragonfly and thought I might be able to make a nice little thrown with it.  I had already made a Virus Shawl, and had seen a few patterns floating around for the Virus Blanket version.  The woman who wrote the blanket pattern also has a video of how to make it on Youtube, so I just worked from that rather than buy the PDF. 

I started with the Dragonfly, planning to do the whole throw with it, but after 4 rounds of the 4 row pattern, I felt it was a bit dull, so I dug through my stash and found I had 1 full and 1 partial skein of Petunia, so I threw in a row of that.  Here it is laid out on a queen sized bed. 

This was one of those projects that got picked up and put down often, when other things came up.  So it was well over a year and a half into making it that I bumped into a skein of Gossamer on clearance at Joann's, and threw that into the mix too. 

In the end, I think it took either 5 or 6 skeins of Dragonfly (the main blue-green), 1.5 skeins of Petunia (pink-purple-burgundy), and 1 of Gossamer (the more rainbow band in the middle, that contains blue, green, purple, pink, gold and lime).  I haven't decided exactly what to do with it yet, but it might go to a friend in Japan who was recently married. 

Crocheted Water Bottle Sleeve

My resolution (for lack of a better term), was to take care of myself a little better this year.  One of the ways I'm doing that is by eliminating plastics from my kitchen.  I wanted to replace my plastic water tumbler with a glass one.  I found a lovely glass bottle with a bamboo cap at Target.  I had been hoping to find one with a silicone sleeve to protect it from getting knocked around, but you can't say no to clearance prices, so I decided to make a sleeve myself.  I crocheted this from some Premier wool-free sock yarn in color Rainforest.  There was no pattern, I just started hooking.  I purposely made it a little smaller than the bottle, so that it would fit tightly around it, like a sock.  The bottom is single crochet, and the sides are ribbed, alternating 2 double crochet, with 2 front post double crochet.  I love how the self striping yarn worked up, and getting to bust some stash.

Hermione's Beaded Handbag

I made this little ornament for Audania1 in the HP Holiday Ornament & Stocking Stuffer Swap.  The very last HP Swap to be hosted here on Craftster!   :'(  But don't worry, I'm sure I'll host a lovely new HP Swap in our new home, as soon as we have one to settle into.  ;)

I knew when I started the swap that I wanted to come up with an object or scene from the books that I hadn't seen done as an ornament before.  It took me a few days of pondering, but I suddenly remembered Hermione's bag of holding pretty little beaded handbag that also served as a mobile library while hunting Horcruxes and on the run from Death Eaters.  It is crocheted from 2 yarns held together, Caron Simply Soft in plum, and Lion Brand BonBons in purple sparkle.  I didn't use a pattern, just winged it based on the many other bags I've done in the past.  I believe I started with 6 sc, and expanded up to 24 in your average crochet circle, then the sides were done in hdc, because sc was proving too stiff for the shape of the bag I wanted.  I just hooked until I liked the height to the point of a drawstring, then did a row of hdc, ch 1, sk 1 st, all the way around, then finished with a round of hdc and a final row of sc.  I crocheted the drawstring and made the tassel out of the BonBons sparkle, then I dug through my embroidery thread stash, and bead stash, to find stuff to embellish the little bag with.

I hid a second ornament inside: Slytherin's Locket!

Calypso Wrap

I recently whipped this up for a friend who is going through a rough time.  I had hoped the bright colors, reminiscent of the sunrise, might help brighten a dark time, and help her know that a new day is always on the horizon.  The pattern is the Calypso Shawl, and the yarn is Darn Good Yarn's Ombre Recycled Silk in Orange, Blue, and Purple.  The yarn is made from silk waste, that would otherwise end up in a landfill.