December Goals

 Well, doing well at a craft show in November caused me to veer away from my goals to restock sold items... so one of the items (elephant) will carry over to December. 

Here are my moderately ambitious December goals: 

1) Ami Book Challenge: make the owl from Sarah Zimmerman's Crochet Cute Forest Friends - DONE

2) Crazy Critter Challenge: a blue dino with yellow spots - DONE

3) At least one elephant - DONE - how about two? 

4) Use up the yarn from my Yellow Tag Sale back in May. Bag has 1 pound, 5 ounces of yarn: DONE

 Used up most of the red. 

 Finished off the blue 

Used the Studio Sampler

5) if I get through the Yellow Tag yarn, work on the yarn in the "Leah" bin... yarn from a garage sale my friend Leah visited. Originally, there was 20# of yarn in the box. I have used up some, moved some to other totes, and gifted some... Here is all that is left: 

The fun fur yarns made up some cute hedgehogs.

I made myself a cowl with the super bulky pink yarn. I don't have a picture, but it was in my YouTube video from December 12. 

Black/purple yarn at upper right became a bandana cowl, shown in my 12/26 video. Gray yarn on lower left became a headband. Still working on the green at the lower left. 

November Goals - Better late than never, right?

 You know it's been a crazy couple of weeks when it's the 8th of the month, and I'm just getting around to putting my goals down on paper! 

Craft shows have been sort of blah this fall (you can check out my Craft Show Recap playlist on YouTube here )

So for the month of November, I'm going to work on getting back to basics... working on known best sellers. The exceptions will be 1) my #amibookchallenge - making something from a pattern I purchased, but haven't used, and 2) my Crazy Critter Challenge. 

So, my list will be rather vague - no numbers / goals, just "here's a list of best sellers - focus on them." 

1) For the #amibookchallenge, I will be making FoFo The Bull - Pattern Here DONE

2) My Crazy Critter Challenge turned out to be a dark blue bear with white stripes. Okay, that's workable... DONE

Peppermint Pete

Pattern is Buddy Bear 2.0 from Craftably Ever After

Well, his pants are sort of dark blue...

Best sellers / restocks to focus on: 

Elephants

Big Head Turtles (free pattern on Instagram from MercanHandmade) - finished two: 

Ballerina Kitty - free pattern from Grace and Yarn

Finished 11/7 - sold 11/18! 

Penguin Mini - paid pattern from Minigurumi

Hilde the Highland Cow - free pattern from Yarn Society

Finished a Chocolate cow, and it sold at my 11/11 craft show. 

Made another one for a custom order from Etsy. 

Since the other two sold, I made "Snowball"

Dachshund - my own pattern

Ankylosaur - both my usual pattern from Handmade by Halime, and a new pattern, smaller, from Complicated Knots on YouTube

Made another one for a custom order

Cute Mini Dino - free pattern on my blog

Forest Friends - paid pattern from Minigurumi on Etsy

Hamsters - paid pattern from Minigurumi on Etsy

As of 11/18, all three of these sold... I guess I'm making some more! 

My 11/11 craft show went VERY well, so I have to step back from November goals for a little bit and restock items that sold! 

Restocked Triceratops, coffee cups and flip octos! 

Mini Dino pattern

 

Once upon a time, I saw a pattern for a really cute dinosaur... it was a free pattern on Instagram, but it was not translated into English. I think it was in Russian. The original pattern was by @softs_stories on Instagram, and it was translated by amigurum.com

I made the pattern and loved how it turned out, but it was sooo big... That head took forever! Eleven rows at 54 stitches? Not my cup of tea! I like little projects that I can whip up in an evening! 

So I cut the pattern in half and started making dinosaurs. I think I have it the way I want it after four tries! I am making a fifth one, though, to give an exact figure for ounces of yarn needed. I made these with worsted weight yarn and an F hook. They end up being about 9" tall. The lavender one was made with a thinner yarn (maybe Caron Simply Soft?) and is only about 7" tall. 

It takes 1.4 oz of the main color and .2 oz of the contrast color. I used 12mm safety eyes. 

Mini Dino

Head: Using main color, begin at nose

Round 1: 6 sc in MR. (6)

Round 2: inc x 6. (12)

Round 3: *sc, inc* x 6. (18)

Round 4: *sc 2, inc* x 6. (24)

Round 5: *sc 3, inc* x 6. (30)

Rounds 6-11: sc 30. (30)

Round 12: *sc 3, dec* x 6. (24)

Rounds 13-14: sc 24. (24)

Place 12 mm safety eyes between rounds 9 & 10 with 8 stitches between. I fold the head in half and count down 4 stitches from the top on each side. 

Round 15: *sc 2, dec* x 6. (18)

Round 16: *sc, dec* x 6. (12)

Round 17: dec x 6. (6)

Body (starting with legs)

Leg 1:

Round 1: 5 sc in MR. (5)

Round 2: inc x 5. (10)

Round 3: BLO sc 10. (10)

Rounds 4-6: sc 10. (10)

FO leg 1. Make another, but do not finish off.

Round 7: ch 2, work 10 sc around leg one, work 2 sc in connecting chain, work 10 sc around second leg, then 2 sc in back of connecting chain. (24) Place your stitch marker at the center of the back. 

Round 8: *sc 3, inc* x 6 (30)

Round 9-10: sc 30. (30)

Round 11: *sc 4, inc* x 6 (36)

Round 12-13: sc 36. (36)

Round 14: *sc 4, dec* x 6. (30)

Round 15-16: sc 30. (30)

Round 17: *sc 3, dec* x 6. (24)

Rounds 18-19: sc 24. (24)

Round 20: sc 8, dec x 4, sc 8. (20) These decreases should be over the front of the dinosaur. 

Round 21: sc 7, (sc, dec) x 2, sc 7 (18)

Change to contrast color.

Round 22: sc 18. (18)

Change to main color.

Round 23: sc 18. (18)

Change to contrast color.

Round 24: sc 18. (18)

Change to main color.

Round 25: sc 18. (18) FO, leaving tail to sew head to body.

Arms (make two with main color)

Round 1: 5 sc in MR. (5)

Round 2: inc x 5. (10)

Rounds 3-4: sc 10. (10)

Stuff hand a little, but leave the rest of the arm unstuffed.

Round 5: *sc 3, dec* x 2. (8)

Round 6: *sc 2, dec* x 2. (6)

Rounds 7-10: sc 6. (6)

 

Tail: After a few set-up rows, the increases will be at the top of the tail, with 3 sc in one stitch (3 sc)

Start with main color

Round 1: 5 sc in MR. (5)

Change to contrast color

Round 2: *sc, inc* x 2, sc. (7)

Change to main color.

Round 3: *sc 2, inc* x 2, sc. (9)

Change to contrast color.

Round 4: sc 4, (3 sc), sc 4. (11)

Change to main color.

Round 5: sc 11. (11)

Change to contrast color.

Round 6: sc 5, (3 sc), sc 5. (13)

Change to main color.

Round 7: sc 13. (13)

Change to contrast color.

Round 8: sc 6, (3 sc), sc 6. (15)

Change to main color. Finish off contrast color.

Round 9: sc 15. (15)

Round 10: sc 7, (3 sc), sc 7. (17)

Round 11: sc 17. (17)

Round 12: sc 8, (3 sc), sc 8. (19)

Round 13: sc 19. (19)

FO, leaving a long tail to sew to body.

Cheeks – with pink yarn. Make two.

SC 4 in MR. FO, leaving a tail to sew to face.

Assembly: sew head to body, placing the back of the head at the back of the neck. Sew the cheeks 2-3 stitches below the eye, set slightly back from the eye. Embroider a smile 2-3 stitches below the eye, slightly in front of the eye.

Sew the arms on the side of the body, just under the neck stripes. Pin the tail on the back of the dinosaur, making sure it balances him so that he can stand. Sew tail to body. 

Spikes: make 1 with contrast color

First spike: Ch 5. Starting in 2^nd ch from hook, sl st, sc, hdc, dc.

Remaining spikes: Ch 7. Starting in 2^nd ch from hook, sl st, sc, hdc, dc.

Repeat spikes until you have enough to go from the end of the tail to the center of the head. I made 8 spikes.

Sew spikes to body. Use tail from spikes to embroider nostrils on the nose of your dino. (Which I forgot to do on two of the dinosaurs!) 

I did go through several changes in the spikes.

For this guy, I only did ch 6 between the spikes, which left a shorter gap. 

Then I tried ch 5, sl st, sc, hdc to produce smaller spikes. 

I put it up to a vote on YouTube, and bigger spikes prevailed. 

Back to bigger spikes with this guy, but they seemed a little crowded to me. 

For this guy, I added an extra chain between the spikes and liked it better. 

This is with ch 7 for the spikes.

The larger pattern called for embroidering little accents on the legs and belly with the contrasting color. I didn't do that on any of these. Some day when I'm feeling adventurous, I might. 

For this guy, I added accent colors at the bottom of the arms and legs... 2 rows on the arms, and 3 rows on the legs. 

October Goals

 Well, you know I've been busy when it's October 3 and I still don't have my October goals list done! 

This month, I'm focusing on a lot of little stuff for upcoming craft shows, and using up some scrap yarn! 

1. Ten use-it up sprees : 1. Variegated 2. Orange 3. Colorful Ombre 4. Tea Green 5. Variegated Yellow/Orange/Tan 6. Bright Blue 7. Light Sage 8. Raspberry

 

These three used up a small cake of baby weight variegated yarn. 

Bye, bye orange! 

The small pumpkin in the front started using up some variegated yarn. 

There was only enough left after this to make a small octopus... 

I played yarn chicken and won... the head/bottom/legs of this turtle used up all but about 

3 yards of the green! 

Between the pumpkins above and this one, I finished off a vintage skein of ombre yarn in yellow, orange and tan. 

Between these and a micro octo, I finished off that blue! 

This guy finished off a cake of Light Sage. 

 

Took a while, but I finished off that Raspberry! 

2. Ten mushrooms

1 mini mushroom in the middle - my pattern, free on my blog.

2, 3 & 4... Crushy Mushy pop mushrooms, free IG pattern by @crochet_crochey

3. For the #amibookchallenge, make an item from my new book, Whimsical Stitches by Lauren Espy

DONE - go big or go home.... I made three carrots! 

I want to find some purple to make an eggplant. 

4. Crazy Critter Challenge - this month's random number generator picked a pink chicken with a red ruffle - DONE

5. Ten Bees

6. Three Hilde the Highland Cow by Yarn Society DONE

7. Donatello the Dress-Up Turtle (my own pattern) - DONE

8, Keep up with one video per day on my YouTube channel for Vlogtober - so far, so good. 21 down, 10 to go! 

9. Two big head turtles (not originally on the list, but the show I'm doing on 10/21 used that picture from my Instagram to promote their show... and those two turtles sold last July!) DONE - I actually made three!