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!

Machine Embroidered Patches

I've been experimenting with my new-to-me embroidery machine.  Mostly thanks to PrincessP over on Lettuce Craft, who created an awesome digital file for a Lettuce Craft patch.  I started out with the tutorial from Urban Threads, and one of their designs for Crafty Merit Badges, specifically their Runs With Scissors patch.  I used tear away stabilizer under the felt, then finished them on water soluble stabilizer, so they are completely freestanding.

After a little practice, I even managed to give them backing layers of felt, so you don't see the embroidery.  

Once I had a feel for patch making, I felt confident enough to try the LC patch.  Since I only had dark felt when I started, I tried a few of what I'm calling my "Dark Mode" patches.

After I was able to pick up some more light felt, I did a few in white, as she designed them.

Then finally I tried out the world's most adorable patch pattern, for a potion bottle.  It might be the cutest thing I've made so far on my embroidery machine.

After finishing making some more patches, I tried my hand at coasters.  This blue moon coaster is for my bedside table, to compliment the moon & constellation artwork in there.

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.

Kahlua Brownies

I've been on a crusade to clean out my pantry and use up things that have lingered there for a while.  One of those lingering items was part of a bottle of Kahlua that I bought for a recipe, and never finished.  Since neither my husband nor I have been drinking alcohol lately, it was just going to keep sitting there.  So I decided to bake brownies with it.  Go pull out the bottle of Kahlua (or other coffee liqueur) in the back of your cupboard and make these.  Trust me. The added instant coffee ups the depth of dark chocolate flavor, and helps the Kahlua shine through.  

Kahlua Brownies

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp salt

1 stick butter, softened

1/2 cups dark brown sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp (or 2 packets) instant coffee granules (regular or decaf)

1/2 cup Kahlua

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8x8 or 9×9-inch baking pan with cooking spray and set aside.

Combine the flour, granulated sugar, cocoa powder, and salt.  Whisk together and set aside.

Beat together the brown sugar and softened butter. Next, add the eggs one at a time fully incorporating before adding the next egg. Add in the instant coffee granules, and the Kahlua and mix to combine. 

Mix in the dry ingredients until just incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle with the mini chocolate chips.  Bake in preheated oven for 35-40 minutes till done.

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!

Bigfoot Throw Pillow

This was created for TheMistressT, in the Secret Modmirer Swap on Lettuce Craft.  MissT loves Bigfoot, and has a very woodsy guest room.  I used all scrap fabric and a zipper from my stash for the front.  

The back fabric was purchased from Spoonflower, and I fussy cut it to get a nice stripe of green along the back of the pillow.  

Bigfoot himself is made of flannel, so he's soft to pet.  The trees are quilting cottons from previous projects, including the brown branch pattern, which is the border to a quilt my husband & I made together when we were dating.

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.