Finished! (2 of 5)

Hi again!  Still spotty on the appearances here, eh? Meh, that’s just how May goes.  Last year I took this week off entirely, and I now vividly recall the reasons for that decision. However, my next vacation is not  for some months yet, so I’m hoping for a few days of some exceptionally brainless work in the next month.

I mentioned I was working on some amigurumi for evening decompression, and I have 2 of those ready.  Actually, they were finished some days ago, but I had no face pieces to finish ‘em. I ordered a bunch of eyes and noses and now I can make any number of lovely animals. I need to go to the Container Store now and get something so I can separate them all out.  So far the “organization system” involves quantities of masking tape.

The elephant’s name is Herman and the dog’s name is Basil.  Aren’t they cute?

Heehee!  Here’s what they look like from the back. That seam on Basil’s jumper is kind of ick, but that’s kind of what happens when you crochet in a spiral instead of joining the ends and separating each row.  I put Basil in a considerably more elaborate sweater than was called for in the pattern (it was all blue with a bottom brown border).  Aren’t their tails cute? Aren’t the elephant ears wonderful?

Herman the Elephant was a lot easier and more fun to put together than Basil the Dog. I think that (a) these would’ve been a lot more easy if I’d been able to put the faces on before the heads were stuffed and the bodies were assembled.  Also (b) I would’ve put the dog together in a different way. I wasn’t really happy with the way the arms, body and head came together. It was not easy and it didn’t end up making me happy.

Next up are a panda and two cats.  I sent these two to work with Jeff (robin’s egg  blue and chocolate brown are his favorite color combination), and they now live with the cactus I made for him.

Musings

My mother-in-law, Jennifer, is something of an animal nut.  Those ducks right there?  They are in her back yard.  They were migrating and landed there.  She’s feeding them.  Now there are 28 of them.  All we get are the occasional raccoon or possum here in our backyard.  An owl maybe.  Lots of doves.

Meanwhile, I’m marching bravely on through my work.  I generally am not an overtime fan, and this weekend I’ll be missing some important creativity time, which is too bad, because I have a couple of projects on my mind, a painting and a couple of bags.  The painting seems like it’s going to stick around in my head, so that’s good.  I made about a dozen sketches for projects in my notebook last weekend, so whenever I get back to it I’ll be very busy.

Meanwhile, the elephant, dog, panda and cat proceed apace.  I decided to make 2 “good” creatures and three “rascals.”  At least that’s how the pattern bills them.  The elephant’s name is Wesley, the dog is Scooter Pup, while the panda is Roscoe (Newgate) Kidd and the two cats are Chaos and Calamity.

A crafting friend recently did herself an injury to her hand with a mandoline (yowwwza).  Given my predilection for injuring myself, I should not get that mandoline I was contemplating.  Although typically I burn myself instead of cutting myself, I don’t give myself good odds on the slicing.  Ever since I’ve been thinking about what would happen if I were to lose the use of one or both of my hands.  Or even a finger!  Oy vey.  Heck, I’ve had one spot on my shin that hurts from running, and I’ve turned useless and whiny.  A more serious injury, whew, well, I just feel for her.

Tonight - early bed.  I need it.

Crafting for Charity - *Happy Dance!* I’m done!

I’ve got just bunches of stuff to show y’all this week, but first, since it’s Charity Tuesday - My Share-A-Square Afghan is finished, complete, done, and over!! It’s on its way back to Shelly with a little cloth bag for the tags when the recipient removes them. Whee!

I’m extremely pleased to have taken part in this project, and so happy I found it. What a great experience! I have pleasant memories of receiving my box and connections made across the world. I know that with my limited time I wasn’t able to contribute as much as I might have otherwise, but at least I got off my butt and contributed

At this point, Shelly has more squares than they need, and over 100 afghans are now complete. Two side projects have developed - one that’s making cloth bags to go with the afghans to store the tags.

The other project is actually collecting donations to send the kids with cancer (who are receiving the afghans) to Camp Sanguinity in July. Her last post indicates that they have enough to send 2 kids to camp at this point [update: 3!]. So if you feel inspired, the button for the PayPal donate thingie is there to the left.

I wish I could send a picture of the blanket to all the people who contributed, but I don’t really know who most of them are!

Without further ado, here’s my blanket. Here’s also the little cloth bag with drawstring that I made for the tags from the blanket. Such fun!

Below, bottom left, is the square I made for it. You can also see the border I made. I’m divided between calling it the bumblebee border and the taxi border. I thought yellow might be a nice, cheerful color for a kid.

And the polka-dot bag I made for the tags. I wanted tie ends, and so there are bells, too. My cat tried to attack them immediately. She’s a big bell fan. (That’s one huge pic of the bag. I believe that’s nearly actual size).