A month late for Groundhog's day

Here's godfrey the groundhog in his mound of dirt, mentioned in my Valentine's Post. I bought a pattern download through Mochimochi shop. I left the eyes off the dirt mound as per Corrie's request.

This worked up really fast. It was pretty easy, except I had a hard time getting the hat to look right on him without covering up his ears.

Varmints make good Valentine's Day gifts

I knitted this snake and mouse combo from mochimochi land for Corrie as a surprise Valentine's Day gift. Weeks ago when I was perusing patterns online, Corrie saw this one and said he had to have it. I wasn't going to overlook such an easy gift idea, so I secretly worked on it out of the view of Corrie for a couple of weeks.


The idea is the mouse fits completely inside the snake, which this mouse did fit in all the way before I felted it in the washer. (A project made from wool yarn will shrink and become a totally different-looking beast once it's been washed.) I think I felted it too much, which took out the elasticity in the snake, so now the mouse will only fit in its mouth. I told Corrie I could make another smaller mouse but he said that was ok. Oh, those aren't hats on their heads, either-those are toupees.

Mochimochi land offers tons of projects I'd like to make, like this groundhog in his own mound of dirt.

I like this one too where the mouse and snake have made an appearance.

holiday craft wrap up

It became quite clear this holiday season that while I love to knit and crochet, I really don't like finishing my projects. I waited until the 22nd, 23rd and 24th to finish several gift projects when I had them ready to be finished weeks before.

For example, I originally wanted to give one of these cute elf gnomes to my sister when I saw her for her birthday at the end of November, that way she could have it for December decorating. I think I had most of the parts made, but sewing it together and stuffing didn't sound like a lot of fun. Well, at least she'll have it for next Christmas.

Another Christmas gift project that actually went a bit better was these crocheted cookies. Except for the peanut blossom cookies that required a little bit of stuffing, the only finishing I had to do was to sew two sides of each cookie together. I made quite a few of these earlier in December but still needed to make a couple more Christmas Eve so I would have enough to fill a jar for my mom.


Once I got in my "finishing project" mode, I also dug out these crocheted candies I made last year (or possibly the year before-yikes!) and added cellophane wrappers and ribbons. I would like to cover my entire tree with them.

If I'm able to hold on to the finishing bug, maybe I'll starch the batch of crocheted snowflake ornaments I came across as well!

This Woman is My Newest Hero

Before I could even start browsing for a scarf pattern on ravelry.com, I stumbled upon this jem of a craft blog: http://loomlady.blogspot.com/. This woman is my newest hero: she offers patterns for all sorts of overly cute creations that she knits using those looms you see in the craft stores. I will have to visit again.

Fair Fun

I can't believe after today the Nebraska State Fair will be done for another year. We went on opening day to see if my craft entries had garnered any prizes.



My baby blanket earned a third place ribbon in the crocheted baby blanket-multicolor category, and the pig and piglets won a 5th place ribbon in some kind of knitted-other category. I realize now I probably should've entered them in the toy category.

There were some very impressive entries across all categories, including this really cool felted tote with diamonds on it.


I keep changing my mind on what I'll enter next year, but I think I will try to do a couple of extraordinary projects. I'll take Corrie's advice and I'll make something out of wool yarn and will felt it, and I think I would also like to try one of these beaded doll dresses-do you think I needed to start on it about 5 years ago in order to finish it in time? It does look like there's some sewing involved, sewing and I don't go together.


Thanks to Seth who sent me this link, I could also make this rat, although I suspect Amy will beat me to it.



Corrie and I sampled various tasties while at the fair as well. I had my standard pork chop on a stick and fried peach on a stick. The pork chop was good, the peach coating wasn't as crispy as I remember it being last year. Corrie tried an Indian Fry bread taco this year, too.


One thing we didn't try was a beef sundae. Maybe next year.

One Fair Entry done, one to go

My first Nebraska State Fair craft entry, a crocheted baby blanket, is complete! I'm a little surprised with myself that I finished it this early, but when the entry deadline is August 1 and the crafts themselves have to be delivered to the fairgrounds the week after that, I didn't have a lot of time on my hands.



Even though there's a 20 page entry booklet on the State Fair's website that listed every category of needlework project and various rules and regulations, the entry process itself wasn't too complicated. You can complete your entries online in just a couple of minutes. I didn't realize that needlework entries don't require a fee, yet you still get to purchase fair tickets at a reduced rate! Pretty cool!

It was a little tricky for me to decide which categories my projects belonged in. For my blanket, I couldn't decide if it belonged in the "one color" or "multiple color" category. As you can see from the photo, the yarn has some speckles to it. While it's not a project made of several different colors of yarn, I also didn't feel right calling it a "one color" project. So I listed it in the multi color category. For my pig and piglet project, it had to go in the "other" category of the knitting division.

This is probably one of the first times I will "block" my project. Not a fan of checking my gauge or blocking, I decided because this was for the fair and because this blanket had a lot of picots throughout the last border row, it was worth the trouble to try to do it this time. I fully expected to have a photo of the finished blocked project here, but long story short, I just started blocking it a little while ago and it's not done.

I chose this pattern because 1. I felt I was in a time crunch and wanted to make one I've made before so that I was very familiar with the pattern and wouldn't have to spend time figuring out any tricky parts, 2. it looks more complicated and time-consuming than it is, the most time-consuming part was the very last time around the border, 3. I thought it would look really nice in this yarn.

While I really loved the look of this yarn (Lion Brand baby soft candy print) before I started working with it, I feel like it would've looked better if the pattern didn't have so many spaces in it. I think that detracts from the speckled aspect of the yarn pattern. I have almost 2 skeins left over, so I plan to make something else with a tighter pattern to it so I can enjoy the speckles.

The knitted pig and piglets don't take long to knit, but they take awhile to finish (adding legs and ears and snaps). It would be nice to start and finish them within the next week.