Resolution Round up 1/31

Its the end of the month so I am going to share my progress.  I restrained myself and only worked 4 motifs this month which completed the hind set of feet/legs for the Hippo.

Sorry for the washed out look of the photo its over cast today and my phone aparntly likes blue hues.  These colors are greens blues and purple.

I find I am actually a little bit excited to make the next few motifs.  Spreading it out like this has keep me interested in the project and since its a fairly tedious task with a small hook keeping my interest is key to not burning out.      
                        
I am wondering if I should keep the joining round all in that purple, or if I should deviate and do a few in the other shade of green that I have 2 skeins of.

Finished with reassembling....

So here it is.

I didnt have the space when I started to lay it out so I didnt realize the orange and green where in rows and I had already gotten 2 rows worth sewn in randomly.

The darker of the rainbow colors like purple and the darker green show through at the corner joins in spots. 

I hope she enjoys it once it gets back to her, she can wash it now with out it falling apart!

Blanket repair for mom

So this is a blanket a family member made for my mom.  The first time she washed it we found out it was sewn together using plastic thread.  Which melted, broke and made a mess of the blanket.

My much much much much older sister tried to pull out all the melted plastic, in the process disasembling what was still left connected with it.   So I have no idea how it was supost to look originaly.  I am just going to wing it, since the boarder is still attached and a round of squares  are still attached to the boarder I am going to be sewing this from th outside in.

I plan on working it in a corner to corner style, I started by closing up the edges around the blue square connecting it to the edge of the green and orange that where still attached to the boarder on either side.   Then I start on the other side of the green, connecting it to the blue, I picked a pink square out of the pile of loose squares work its edge acrosss both green and orange then sewed up the side of the two orange squares. 

I am hopping by doing it this way there will be less matching sides up issues.  It seems like not all of the squares are exactly the same some have more/less stitches than others.

I am just doing a simple whip stitch with that ball of rainbow yarn, starting on the back side and securing with a knot at every corner I get to for extra paranoia.

I may try slst'ing the next row together on the back side to see if that works up fast and feels sturdyer.

Chinese Dragon PDF [Pattern]

It is finally finished so here for your crocheting enjoyment!!

This is a very generic Chinese Dragon pattern, you can add more details to it to make your favorit dragon, like working it in red and gold will give you a Mushu style Dragon as apposed to this blue and white Haku look.

Click here for Chinese Dragon PDF
 I would rank this as between Easy and Medium.  Mostly because of the wiring work put into it to pose and have him standing unassisted.

I do think if/when I make an other I will move the legs a bit farther back by 4 to 6 rows.

I used Red Heart Soft for the hair because I like the shine, but I recomend in the pattern to use normal RHSS I realized to late that the shine in the soft makes the hair next to impossible to style unlike a normal acrylic or wool/cotton would.

Blanket Repair

 Ok so this pink and blue blanket is 3 years old its one of the first blankets I ever made.

This is the first repair I have needed to make to it.   I was/am a bit under the weather so the day they pulled it out of the laundry and saw this the text's and phone calls poured in.  My niece is really attached to her blankets (White and pink is #1, pink and blue #2 and the others are just at random) and I just spent most of christmas fixing her white and pink blanket (you can see it below) which semi traumatized her because she thought I was going to take it away forever.  Now that #2 needed repair and I couldnt take it home to fix it so she sat next to me on the floor the whole time she wasnt on her moms lap just to make sure it wouldnt leave the house.

I started out by picking up the bottom loops of the blue row, and leaving them on a strand of the original pink yarn,  There was not quiet enough of the original yarn left to fix it as the point it broke was badly frayed.

This was a pretty easy fix, as the row that came undone was just a mix of  * sc, ch 3 (had to do this threw the bottom of the blue loops), sc * all in the same chain space, then skip a st.


 You can see in the photo, I took my hook out of the working stitch, slipped it threw the bottom loops of the next row, worked a ch/slst on the bottom of the first stitch, chained, then worked an other ch/slst, and sc'd on either side.

I did not have a matching pink so you can see the patch row stand out quiet a bit.  Due to alot of streatching and wear the stitchs are all worn out and stretched so my patch will take a while to match the gauge of the rest of the blanket.     
               
After fixing this one, I did some small work on the pink and white blanket tucking in some tails that I forgot to do at christmas.

Then the blanket I made her for christmas needed a fix.

I am not quiet sure what happened, well no I know what happened I am just not sure how it happened.

The pink and black blanket is made with this wobbly yarn that goes from super bulky to lace weight thin.  I worked it in a basic never ending granny, and some how my starting round unraveled.

The mystory here is I could not find the end of the yarn where it unraveled.  Aparntly it had been in the dresser since christmas, and when #2 broke they pulled it out and soon noticed this hole.

I know I started this blanket with a magic ring, that I weaved the tail into at least twice around.  Now there is no starting tail or any loose end, so I took a scrap of pink that I used on the other blanket, and as with the other blanket I picked up the bottom of the stitches and cinched the opening closed making sure to secure the round in 3 places before attempting to hide off my tails.

The new pink matched the pink in this pink and black yarn very well so I didnt even notice after tucking the tail's where they where hidden.

Here is the blanket monster herself.
Miss Jordan clutching onto blanket #1 for dear life, with blanket #2 tucked under and behind her.

She was so happy it was fix she give me this great big grin.

I managed to get an other grin out of her when I got the pink and black blanket finished and passed off to her as well.

She is lucky she is so cute.  I still need to fix my moms blanket.  Sorry mom!!  I promise I will get to it next!

CD-WIP update

He is not finished yet.  I spent about 4 hours brushing out his hair with a slicker brush, then trimmed it up a bit.                
                 
I will probly brush it some more and give it an other trim later but for now I will leave the hair as it is.

I still need to work out a pattern for ears, and decide if I want to add in a eye lid or any other details.

Sadly I didn't realize how heavy his front end would be so I can not put him in the pose I had planned.  Which would be a springing spiral pose as if he was getting ready to launch himself into the sky his top end is just to heavy and the wire is not enough support.  So I know now if I make an other CD I need to either double up on the wire, possibly twisting it cable style for better support or get a thicker stronger wire that might be harder to manipulate.

At some later point I am going to play with posing him and see if I can come up with something I like better then this pose.

Feeling Sheepy [Pattern]

I finally finished it!  So here you go a PDF Download of the Feeling Sheepy pattern.

To make one like mine you will need two yarns and 2 hooks. Bernat Blanket yarn, and Red Heart WW.  If you don't have bernat, and don't want to buy a ball just to make this tiny guy you can crochet holding 3 strands of any ww yarn together as a replacement but you wont get the same 'fluffy' look.