Pepperberry Crochet

Holiday Shopping

I know, I know. However, I've decided to make it my mission this year to buy or make gifts that will make the recipients laugh / get some use / taste good. For this to work, I'm doing some preliminary scouting. I have come to the following conclusions---

I'm insane, but I plan on making pulled hard candy as a component of my xmas gifts. My mission tomorrow will be to pick up a candy thermometer and some supplies and try it out. The idea is courtesy the new issue of Readymade , which has a non-pulled candy recipe.

ThinkGeek has the COOLEST stuff ever. Not that I would ever use the Phantom Keystroker, Eviltron, or Annoy-a-tron *coughcoughcough* but ooooooh, so tempting. And a pull-apart zombie! I think I'm in love... Of course none of those items meet the "practical" requirement, but maybe while I'm looking at the practical items they sell I can get a zombie...

And so that this post is not completely free of crocheted content, Fluxx on Flickr has made a spiral I can't stop looking at...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Soooo... apparently I will have a lovely turkey pattern for release next year for Thanksgiving. Apologies, I just didn't get it done, there's not much more of an explanation for that. Procrastinating, as usual. I did made this jellyfish, which ended up being a lot of fun, it's been a couple of years since I made any of them. This guy is a combination of designer sport and some pale green cotton I had kicking around. Photographed with the lightbox, of course. I'm still getting the hang of the colors on it, but the picture quality makes up for it.

In a follow-up to the question about holiday gifts, Melanie and the Cramped hand have suggested consumeable gifts, and I'm taking this under advisement. That does seem to be the way to go when we're talking about people who don't need more "stuff". Included in the brainstorming was the thought that maybe I would make some custom calling cards (via moo, I love their stuff) or...well...still thinking about it, I suppose.

We're doing the double Thanksgiving thing tomorrow. I will be preparing mashed potatoes tomorrow at one Thanksgiving (normally I love to bake, but I've been banned from bringing desert this year) and we'll go north for the other one.

I hope that you all have a happy, healthy, and safe Thanksgiving, with plenty of tasty food and time for crocheting (or, you know, your own craft of choice).

I know it's not Thanksgiving yet, but...

Okay, you can mentally smack me now for talking about holiday gifts. Relatives of mine who read this blog (you know who you are) can go right ahead and look away now! Really!

I'm trying to come up with a way to do holiday gifts for my side of the family that meet strict requirements. Those are as follows:

1. We're minimalists, at least on my side.
2. My family treasures practical gifts over anything else.
3. I am not, repeat NOT, ever making holiday gifts for anyone ever again, unless they're edible or specifically requested. 
4. No one except for me cooks (so cooking-related practical gifts are out)
5. The Mr. and I are cash-only shoppers and do not intend to spend a lot of money. It's the thought that counts.

Because of these factors, I find myself doing a lot of thinking about holiday gifts this year. The current thought is that perhaps I will buy reuseable shopping bags made from recycled materials and fill them with home-cooked food. I am a dedicated reuseable shopping bag user, and I think that other people would appreciate them. Er, maybe.

What are you doing for the holidays? Do you have ideas I can use? Maybe if we all brainstorm we'll come up with some fun family gifts.

Crochet News 11/20/09

Shauna Richardson makes amazing crocheted animals. She calls it Crochetidermy, and crochets covers for polyurethane animal forms. Pretty amazing, you have to go to her site and see the pictures. She won a commission from Artists Taking the Lead to design and create two crocheted lions for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

There is Yarnbombing going on in Denver, and it's being done by crocheters!

FaveCraftsBlog has a roundup of 22 free crochet patterns.

CrochetSpot has a tutorial on extended single crochet (useful, I didn't know how to do it!)

Futuregirl has been experimenting with plarn.

Elinart = Best. Crochet. Ever. (via modish)

If you have crochet-related news or announcements that I'm missing, let me know. :) Otherwise, have a lovely weekend.

Lightbox Success

If you don't currently have an indoor lighting system for taking photos and have been on the fence about building one, check these out! These are shots of that mushroom I was making yesterday, taken in my windowless "front hall" (anyone who has been in my apartment understands the """s.)

Top, gills, and side! Woo!

Back to work!

Sunday WIPs

Up early working on the consignment restock I mentioned the other day. Having some fun with leftover wool from other projects creating some woodland creatures. I think I want to make some bugs, too, I'm not sure.

Also, how did I miss Pretty Little Things' (Lori Marie) blog? Her work is just incredibly cool, as is her blog! Reader it! She has all kinds of mushroom/woodland related stuff, amazing sewing and embroidery, and a super cool etsy shop. I'm ordering this:

to add to my collection of plush mushrooms. And I lust after this:

Crochet News This Week 11/12/09

John Paul Flintoff is working with activist Vijay Mehta for charity Kids Company to supply crochet hooks to disaffected youth and teach them to crochet items out of plastic bags. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on with this, maybe there's a way for US crocheters to help out, too.

Via Craftzine: The fantastic Sarah London is working on her mystery Christmas Crochet project, check it out!

Person on People of Public Transit blog dressed in a crocheted jumpsuit. Um, there are actually a lot of people on this site dressed in head to toe crochet. Am I missing something? Would this be an effective way of dressing when riding the T?

This isn't major crochet news, but I've added Crocheting My Worsted (Molly Wilson) to the crochet blogs list-- check out this awesome Spider Man afghan she made:

WIPs and Excuses

Totally not good excuses, though. I've been, er, busy (playing Dragon Age) and not too motivated (because I've been playing Dragon Age) to work on the Turkey. I actually have completed it and done basic notes on the pattern, I just haven't done the full editing, etc on the damn thing. I assure you, it will be a free pattern once it's finished.

To assist with my procrastinating, I've started another project, because that will seriously help me complete the turkey pattern! Between the video game, Margaret Atwood's Year of the Flood, and a consignment restock that I really, really need to finish, I'm slowly self destructing, priority-wise.

Even my amigurumi stare at me with disapproval.

Ah, well. At least I'm happy. :)

Pepperberry FAIL, but at least I have Doritos...

One of the mushrooms I've mentioned I'm working on.

Being the careful, well thought, painstaking person I am, I neglected to check the links on the list of Crochet blogs. I've fixed the links, so everything should be working now. Apologies. I've also added Sarah London, who I missed on the first go-round, and Margaret Hubert, a freeform crocheter (love freeform!).

I was thinking of maybe organizing the list by topic rather than alphabetical order--something like "Blogs about Crocheting", "Amigurumi", "Designers", "Traditional", etc, since I realize that not all of us are interested in the same stuff. Thoughts?

If you're looking at the title of this post and thinking it was about the Crochet Blog List, not quite. I broke down and bought acrylic yarn today-- I had been doing really well on my Vow to Use Only Wool. Ah, well, it's RH Designer Sport, and it's for a personal amigurumi project. I also bought some to reattempt the turkey pattern, as I'm using obscene amounts of wool (which I can't rip back terribly well) to try to work out this project. I think it's going to end up being a free pattern as I've taken so long to make it.

At any rate, working on the turkey, and a personal project. Keep sending me crochet blogs!

Crochet Blogs

Ongoing List of Crochet Blogs

This is by no means comprehensive. If you have a crochet blog or know of one I should have here, leave a comment so that I can add it.

I've also only included people who have updated in the last six months or so.

A Life Crocheted

Annette Petavy

Amigurumi Zoo

Attic24

Cheryl Cambras

Crochet Codex

The Crochet Dude (Drew Emborsky)

Crochet by Faye (Robyn Chachula)

Crochet Jessica

Crochet Liberation Front

Crocheting Lessons

Crocheting My Worsted (Molly Wilson)

Crochet Spot

Cozy At Home

Designing Vashti (Vashti Brahna)

Everyday Crochet (Doris Chan)

Fru Ekelund

Futuregirl

Gourmet Amigurumi (Beth Doherty)

The Hook and I (Amy O'Neill Houck)

Hook and Needle Girl

Lindamade (Linda Permann)

Le Croix de Nico (French)

Nexstich

Magnolia Surprise

Manhattan Craft Room (Brett Bara, Crochet Today editor)

My Hooks and Needles (Margaret Hubert)

Moon's Creations

Monster Crochet (Regina Rioux-Gonzales)

My Crochet Blog (not me, Alison, but the name of the blog itself...)

Sandy's Hook

Sarah London

Strand Over Fist

Subway Hooker

Truly Outrageous

Pepperberry Crochet (Alison Grenier)

Woo Work (Howie Woo)

Yurt Alert 

I'm also working on a list of crocheters on twitter, so if you know of anyone, send them my way!