Special Olympics Alaska Needs Your Help!

Calling all crocheters! Special Olympics Alaska is looking to give each of their participants a red and black scarf during their 2015 Winter Games which takes place on March 6. That's coming up fast! Ten days ago they were still in need of 200 scarves, so I thought I would pass along the message to you lovely readers. Scarves are a quick project and a great way to try out a new stitch. Surely fiber folks can come together and whip up some cozy scarves to help Special Olympics Alaska meet their goal. Here's the info from their Facebook page.

Just imagine how appreciative the athlete who receives your scarf will be and the smile it will bring to their face. There's still time to crochet for this great cause.

Dragon Egg Dice Bag

Do you like Game of Thrones? Both the books and the television series are quite popular with fantasy lovers. While I certainly consider myself a lover of fantasy (The Abhorsen Series, His Dark Materials, and Earthsea for the win!), I never really got into GoT. I tried reading the first book several times but it seems to cater too much to the male gaze for me to become seriously interested in it. Perhaps I'll try watching the series sometime.

Though I'm not terribly interested in it myself, I can totally understand why others are. One person in my life who really loves the books is my brother-in-law, Eric. Another of Eric's hobbies is playing Dungeons and Dragons. When I asked myself what to make him for Christmas this year, the answer came to me quite readily: a dragon egg dice bag. Many members of r/crochet have successfully made nice dice bags, so I thought I would follow their lead. Here's what I ended up with.

To create the egg I used this pattern by Rachael Fulcher. I used Bernat Satin and a 4mm hook. The pattern is for a stuffed dragon egg but I modified it slightly to make it into a bag. She also has this pattern that is actually meant to be a bag, but I liked the look of the first egg more since it is truer to the egg seen in the show. To modify the first pattern I stopped about 3/4 of the way through and worked up a row of posts to run a string through. I'm really happy with the finished object.

Wanna know something quirky? I find it tremendously satisfying when I'm making a project and at some point the yarn I'm using can fit inside of it so I can keep it there while I'm not working on it. Like this!

Isn't that satisfying? So tidy. This was a great project with nice texture and I would totally recommend it to all of the GoT fans out there.

Dandy Dan's Rad Rock Blanket

Today is the day! I am so freaking excited! I can finally tell you all about my biggest pattern yet. Here it is, Dandy Dan's Rad Rock Blanket!

The pattern is named after my younger brother, Dan. Dan is an avid guitar player. One of his nicknames growing up was Dandy Dan, and I think it has a nice ring to it. The resulting blanket is twin-sized. It is all single crochet, all 55,590 stitches of it. While that does make it a bit tedious to craft, no stitch rivals single crochet when it comes to crisp tapestry designs. Best of all? I provide complete line-by-line written instructions for the blanket along with the chart. This means that you don't really have to think much if you don't want to. All you have to do is follow my drop, carry, and stitch count instructions. I provide instructions for color changing as well, a method that leaves the blanket smooth on the back, no strings hanging out. A little bit of texture is provided by the appliques for the strings, output, bridge, and tuning pegs. I am confident that someone who has been crocheting successfully for at least six months or more would be able to complete the pattern.

The blanket took quite a long time to make and write up, about two and a half months. While that may be a relatively short amount of time when it comes to crocheting blankets, I usually finish my patterns in one to two weeks so I felt like the blanket was taking me quite a long time indeed. Here are a few pictures of the blanket while it was in progress.

I just gave the sample blanket to my brother for Christmas. The pattern is available on both Ravelry and Craftsy. Before we part ways for today, here are a few more detailed pictures of the blanket including one with a smartphone for scale. I couldn't be more proud!

I think the guitar would look pretty cool if variegated yarn were used in place of the red. What color would you make your guitar?

Amber Bee Bag

I have so many pattern ideas in my head that it feels like it could explode. It seems like I can't finish my projects fast enough because there is always another awesome plan waiting in the wings! Writing this purse pattern was extremely satisfying because it came out exactly as I had imagined it. I present to you my Amber Bee Bag.

I opted to leave the pattern plain and simple so that folks can add whatever embellishment they'd like to their bag. The pansy pictured as an example is based off of this free pattern, but the pattern was so difficult to follow that I just made most of it up. It might also be cute to attach a costume pin to this bag.

I named this pattern the Amber Bee Bag after my best friend, Amber B. Be on the lookout for more patterns named in honor of my friends and family.

Redditgifts Hat and Scarf Exchange

Throughout the past year I have participated in a few redditgifts gift exchanges. Some of them have gone well and some not so much. The best exchange that I participated in was the Hat and Scarf Exchange. I signed up with a mind toward making something instead of buying. My giftee requested a cloche, an item I had never made before. Not to be deterred, I scoured the internet for an appropriate pattern and finally settled on this one. It was well written and the directions were clear and easy to follow. However, I would caution you to use a hat chart to make your initial circle rather than following the pattern as the first time through my circle was much too small and I had to frog it. Here is the final result.

She said she enjoyed the item and it pleases me to know that a random woman in New York is wearing my work! Since I had so much fun making the cloche I also included a scarf that I made using my personally created bobble stitch.

She told me that grey is her favorite color and she began wearing the scarf as soon as she received it. Success!

I also received my own gift from a random internet stranger. Through a great stroke of luck my gift giver was also a crocheter! Here is what I received.

Reddit user Liz4tin sent me a beautiful handwritten note along with a fanciful owl hat and a pineapple motif scarf. How thoughtful and exciting! Sometimes the internet can be a magical place, in this case connecting me with another crochet lover. As an aspiring elementary teacher, I plan to use the hat as a "Hat of Knowledge" since owls are typically used to represent knowledge and wisdom.

It was so much fun the first time that I will definitely consider participating in the redditgifts Hat and Scarf Exchange again in the future.