Butter Mellow pocket scarf

Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow,  
Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow.

That silly "spell" didn't work for Ron Weasley in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" as he tried to turn his rat familiar, Scabbers, yellow, but this butter-yellow yarn from my stash knitted up beautifully to make a cozy pocket scarf for Mika and Emmy. 

The sport-weight fiber worked to a gauge of about 4-5 rows per inch. And since I wanted a scarf 80 inches long (to turn up 10 inches at each end for deep pockets, leaving an overall length of about 60 inches), I made the scarf 400 rows long. (Which actually turned out to be a bit too long, but that was OK; I just made the pockets deeper to compensate.) The yarn is an interesting blend of 55% acrylic, 35% rayon, 5% wool, and 5% vinyon (whatever that is!), but the fiber is safe to machine wash and dry, so it's easy to care for.

Cast on with at least 6 rows of waste yarn in a contrasting color to your project yarn, then add your project yarn and crank until you have the desired number of rows. Cast off with another 6 or more rows of waste yarn, then remove project from the machine. Using a 5mm crochet hook, close each end of the tube as shown in this video by Jojo Juju. Fold each end of the scarf until the pockets are as deep as you want and pin them in place with locking stitch markers. Mattress stitch both sides of each pocket and knot securely. Hide all tails inside the tube, and enjoy your new pocket scarf! 

Jojo also has a full video tutorial for how to machine-knit a pocket scarf, which you can view at this link.

The sport-weight yarn is rated a 2, when usually size 4 yarn is used in the circular knitting machines. For me the trick to getting lightweight yarns like that to work in the machine is to maintain a firm tension.

I had just enough yarn left after knitting the scarf to make a matching beanie of 113 rows.

 

Rustic Tree Ornaments

We live on a lovely little cul-de-sac with six neighbors, and every year at Christmas we exchange small gifts. This year we are gifting pint jars of locally produced jam, but I wanted a little something extra to tie onto the jars, and this pattern for Rustic Tree Ornaments by Regina P Designs was the perfect finishing touch.

Each tree requires only a small amount of yarn, and I can complete the crochet portion of the work in a mere 20 minutes or so, making it possible to whip up several of these in a single evening.

Each one also uses a small amount of 24-gauge floral wire and about 7 or 8 beads.

I'm using 10mm beads made of olive wood harvested in the holy land to add a layer of deeper meaning to the ornaments. I found the beads on Amazon. The "certificate of authenticity" was included with the beads. I scanned that into a digital file and then printed it onto Avery stickers that are 2 inches by 3 inches, so I could add the stickers to the reverse side of the gift tags (which are printed on Avery business cards).

A demogorgon for Wendy

I am really pleased with how well this Stranger Things Demogorgon free pattern by Andrea Leek turned out. My grandniece Wendy is a huge fan of "Stranger Things," so this will be her birthday present. 

I decided to make the demogorgon in a slightly less demonic chibi ragdoll style. I worked the pattern as written for the legs and arms but subtracted two rows from the torso to shorten it slightly. I worked the head separately so it could be stuffed and closed and then stitched to the top of the unstuffed torso. Legs and arms are also unstuffed.

The toes, fingers, and "flower" face are worked as written in the pattern. Don't worry if the flower seems too full and wants to curl as you make it; it will straighten out as you stitch it to the head. I added more teeth to this one than was shown in the pattern to resemble the original character more closely.

I worked on this back in July and August, so my only problem was having to wait so long for December to get here so I could gift this little guy to Wendy! 

Even though my yarncraft productivity has fallen dramatically in recent years due to my chronic pain issues, it felt great to be able to finish this project. And now I bet Wendy's sister Charlotte will want me to make one for her too! 💜

The Granny Merge blanket

I was looking for an idea of a different way to work a center-out blanket when I came across this video by Fiber Spider showing how to use the granny merge stitch sequence to make a shawl. I like the way this looks, and so I'm adjusting the instructions just slightly to use them to make a center-out square blanket.

The repeating sequence I'm using is 3 granny rows followed by 2 solid rows. After 25 rows, the blanket measures about 30 inches on a side, which if I stopped now would be the right size to make a nice lap blanket. But I believe I will continue working to make this into a throw-sized afghan.

I wanted to make a new blanket for my grandniece Charlotte, and when I saw how long it was taking me to finish this one (which I started on Jan. 30 ... that was 10 months ago!!), I realized that if I was going to give Charlotte a blanket this Christmas, it would need to be this one (even if it isn't her first choice of colors). My ability to crochet blankets has slowed way, way down, to the point where apparently I'm only able to finish one blanket per year anymore. Sigh! I hope Charlotte will like this one.

Finished at 45 pattern rounds plus 1 round of RSC (crab stitch) edging. Total yarn weight: 1,223 grams.

Country Cottage Mini Stockings

I needed a gift-card holder for Chip and Renee's Christmas present, and this cute mini stocking is just right for that. The Country Cottage Mini Stocking pattern by The Turtle Trunk is free on their blog. After doing its duty to deliver the gift card to Chip and Renee, the stocking can become an ornament on their Christmas tree for many years to come.

The stocking works up fast and uses just a tiny amount of yarn. You can make these in all sorts of color combinations. They are addicting!

Because these are so fast and easy to make, I decided to go ahead and make one for each of my grandnieces and grandnephews to use as Christmas money-holders. I've been having fun making lots of the little mini stockings as well as a bunch of Rustic Tree Ornaments by Regina P Designs to tie onto the gifts we're giving to our neighbors. And I even made a couple of machine-knitted mini wreath ornaments by following this tutorial by Yay for Yarn on YouTube. (My wreaths are 40 rows.)

For a fun and personalized finishing touch, I got some silvertone alphabet beads and added a name to each ornament.