A foxy fella...

Some of you may remember a few weeks ago when I was working on this little guy.  Well, I finally finished him, and this week he'll be going off to his new home.   He's going into a package as part of a baby gift.  

But first I required a photo shoot of Mr. Fox.

He was pretty patient at first, as I suggested various poses.  

But those long gangly legs were hard to stand on,  

so I suggested he sit a bit.

Sure...  go ahead and put your feet up, Mr. Fox.

And try out another spot on the deck if you like.

What do you mean, you need a nap?!?

No, he's not in trouble.  

Mr. Fox just wanted to show you his foxy tail.

And just like that - the photo shoot is done!

Adios, Mr. Fox.

I'm going to be kind of sad to see this funny little character go.

Unfortunately, the pattern I used appears to be no longer available.

This pattern appears to make a similar foxy fella, though I cannot vouch for it.

Friendly Flying Tams...

My crocheting was inspired by "friendship" this week.  :)  

We knew we would be visiting with friends on Friday night and enjoying pizza and a movie with them.  While I don't want to be presumptuous (especially if they're reading this ;^), but pizza and a movie seems to have become something of an irregular, every once in a while, whenever someone is inspired, sort of thing for us and this family.  And we love it!   

The kids are young and remind us of when our boys were little, but that's not why we enjoy them so much.  We enjoy them because, well...  they just emanate love and acceptance of us.  Such a simple thing, but yet it feels absolutely huge in this busy, often disconnected world we live in.  We consider their friendship a real gift and we are so very thankful for friends like these that span the years and the many seasons of life.  

With permission from their mother, I share the children's four sweet faces.  

In case you're wondering what they're all wearing on their heads, well...  I'm getting to it.

Looking forward to the visit, I got the idea that it would be fun to crochet something for each of the kids.  As I was looking online for ideas, I remembered this flying disc I had made last summer (during the Ravellenics):

And thought that it fit the bill perfectly.  

So I got to hooking, and by Thursday night I had three more:

This pattern is a good first color-work project (for someone who's adept at pattern reading) and the end result is a fun flying disc that anyone of any age would enjoy playing with.   Or those with smaller heads, wearing like a tam hat.  :)

I've made these in the past out of cotton (the first time I made them they went into some Samaritan's Purse Christmas Child boxes), but I've decided I actually prefer them made out of acrylic yarn.  Made of acrylic, they're very lightweight (which makes them safer to fly indoors), but they hold their shape well because the single crochet makes a dense fabric.  They're also machine washable so I have little concern about the colors bleeding, or little worry about a change in shape or size with a wash.  I found them kind of fun to make and have a feeling I'll be seeing more of these in my crochet future.  :)

And hopefully, we'll be seeing more of these in our future, too:

 

To see what other Yoppers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry.

Revelling in my Ravellenics' Accomplishments...

Along with the ending of the Olympic games tonight in Rio, the Ravellenics will also come to an end.  Rather anti-climactic-ly, it feels at this point (evidently, Bobicus Maximus has been chasing his tail for two weeks and the "medal machine" has had glitches so most of us are still waiting to be called to our respective "podiums" to receive our electronic awards), but still...   though I'm ready to wrap it all up, I'm excited at what I accomplished.  And happy to show my latest makes.  

First is a Linen Stitch Scarf I made with Red Heart Unforgettable in the new colorway Tealberry (my prize yarn received from Red Heart last month).

Normally, I make these with two different colorways, but this yarn had enough different colors in one skein I thought it was unnecessary to use a second colorway.  Yay! I thought - over having fewer ends to weave in.  Well...  Of course, self-striping yarns don't always work out the way you hope.   Where particular colors lie, how long the color runs are, how large (or small) the piece is that one is making -- all conspire together to either make a beautifully striped, or oddly color-pooled finished object.  As I was making this scarf I concluded that I didn't want more than two rows of the same color laying side by side together.  And I couldn't have one color dominating one end of the scarf while another color dominated the other end.  Which, of course, kept wanting to happen.  Sigh.

So there I was...  with my self-striping yarn (that I thought would be a piece of cake to make one of these scarves with) clipping and re-rolling the yarn to get to just the right color in the skein (over and over again - many times needing to do this in the middle of the row) to keep any one color from dominating any one part of the scarf.  And of course, all those starts and stops meant ends to weave in.  I'm pretty sure, by the time I was finished, I had woven in far more ends than if I had simply started each new row afresh - alternating colors from different skeins, as I normally do when making one of these from two different colorways of yarn.

But I'm glad to say... for my tenacity and hard work, I will receive a gold medal (someday) for successfully completing the Scarf Hockey event.  Yay me!

~~~~

Next I finished a Coozie Disc for a medal in the Toy Toss event, and laurels in Colorwork and Stash busting:  

I see more of these in my crocheting future (like this upcoming week, I think).  They make great flyers and every one is unique.  Great gift ideas for kids and adults alike!

 ~~~~~

Then, late in the games I was inspired by a post Casey wrote a few weeks ago titled "My Yarn Story".  In that post is a composite picture of a bunch of Casey's beautiful crocheted potholders and I decided I needed to start a cute collection.  So this week I did.  Here's my first potholder (for a medal in the Household Heptathalon event and laurels in stash busting):

~~~~~

And then on Saturday, I decided to concentrate on finishing a doily I began last April.  It's called April Showers: 

Can you see the little umbrellas ringing the center?

I know April showers are long behind us, but last week it rained nearly every day, so it was a fitting project to work on.  This was my first attempt at making a doily, or crocheting with a tiny steel hook and a single strand of size 10 thread for that matter.  It's hard, let me tell you - especially if you've got middle aged eyes and fingers.  But once I got back to it, I actually found I enjoyed it  - in between sessions of rubbing the back of my neck as it got achy from holding this thing close and bending over it.    While it was challenging (for me) and tedious, it was also very interesting to watch the pattern emerge.  I think I'll be wanting to make some more.  Or, at least, another one.  Someday...

And that wraps up another YOP week and Ravelery's Ravellenics for me.   It was fun while it lasted, but I imagine next week to not be nearly so prolific.  To see what other Yoppers are up to visit our thread this week on Ravelry.