Little Brown Pup

My latest crocheted critter. He’s ready for winter. Are you? I’m not.

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous here in Dallas. Too nice to work. Unfortunately, I’ve been working. How about you?

Pepe & Crochet Pepe

My latest custom critter creation meets his match. Photo courtesy of Pepe’s mom. Aren’t they adorable? Pepe’s mom tells me that she bought a collar for Crochet Pepe that matches real Pepe’s. How fun. I love creating custom critters.

Percy

Allow me to introduce you to the newest pup in my Etsy shop, Percy. Crocheted from jewel tone purple acrylic chenille and soft grey rayon chenille. He’s looking for a permanent home filled with hugs and squeezes. Interested? Click on his picture and be whisked away to Critter Central to find out more about Percy.

Spooky Crochet

I love the latest Halloween projects from Lily Sugar n’ Cream yarn. These washcloths are just fabulous. In the kitchen, bath, everywhere.

Or you could crochet a bunch of these and then attach them to a crochet chain and make garlands to hang on the walls or across a window.

My favorite is the bat. Which is yours? Clicking on the picture will take you to the PDF file on the Lily site.

Black & White & Grey Stripe

These cuties are my latest custom critter creations. A very nice man commissioned me to crochet each of his adult daughters a version of their own cat.

I love custom critter creating. It is such a challenge to translate the photographic cat into yarn and stuffing cat. He was pleased. I was pleased. How about you, do you like these kitties?

Here’s the photographic cats:

FREE

Recently Lion Brand Yarn announced on their facebook page

Enjoy some inspiration! All Lion Brand patterns are now free! Please note that we do still have a few paid patterns from outside designers.

They have a vast quantity of really fun and cool patterns for crochet, knitting and crafts. I’ve had my eye on a couple of patterns I hadn’t had sprung for yet, now I don’t have to worry about feeling like I’m spending money frivolously – cause they’re FREE.

But I don’t think I’ll be crocheting this one anytime soon…

Dragonflies

I love living by a creek. The dragonflies are plenty and pretty. Shimmery wings and enormous eyes are quite the spectacle in flight. Occasionally I can get one to pose for me, but its been a while.

I thought I would crochet a dragonfly just for fun and went looking for patterns on the wide world web of crochet patterns. I found a delightful specimen, but haven’t made one of my own yet.

The site where I found the pattern, MYpicot, has lots of interesting and wonderful patterns and tutorials. Rather than keep it to myself until I crocheted my dragonfly, I’m sharing it with you now. If you crochet a dragonfly from this pattern, please share it with me, I’d love to see it. Enjoy.

Portraits in Yarn

A couple of crochet artists have caught my eye recently, and I know you want to see why. They both create portraits by crocheting. Fascinating.

Jo Hamilton’s portraits are more abstract in color and details, but recognizable as faces none the less. Quite striking, I think. A bit impressionistic as well.

Todd Paschall crochets portraits that are digitized, pixel looking, lots of detail and almost, from a distance, photographic. Based on a grey-scale conversion, the finished crochet portraits are like duo-tone photos, not full color portraiture.  A total different look and feel from Jo Hamilton’s work. Todd offers free patterns and will digitize your photo for you to crochet. What a concept.

While on the subject of crochet artistry,  Xenobia Bailey, artist extraordinaire, has an Etsy shop with fabulous crown-like hats and a blog. Be sure to visit both. Enjoy.

Critter Central

Update: They have decided not to give me a space at August’s market and I was told, all this by email, that  if I was interested, they’d place me on a list to be considered for future markets. I’m not happy, but what can I do? I was there for the first and second market, took a chance on an unknown venture, and now that the crowd has grown and the press has noticed, they don’t want me anymore. Sour grapes, I know. I’m just feeling sorry for myself.

If you have visited my shop on Etsy, you already know that I call it Critter Central. But did you know that Critter Central can be found off line, in person, at White Rock Local Market once a month in Dallas, TX?

Here’s some booth photos from last Saturday. If you are a Facebook member, you can click here and see a bunch of photos from the market on the White Rock Local Market group page.

We all had fun in spite of the 102° heat. The next market is Saturday, August 8. If you live in Dallas or will be here that weekend, try to come by. You’ll be glad you did.

Scribbled Crochet

I have been carrying around this idea in my head for months, I wanted to make crocheted critters that look like they had been scribbled upon. Random, meandering swirls and twists and spirals. Doodle type designs.

After thinking about it for way too long, I finally embarked on creating a dark blue textured yarn cat. I crocheted, stuffed and sewed her up to point where I usually add the facial features. Instead, I crocheted a couple of very long chains with a contrasting color, burnt orange, cotton yarn. I then straight pinned the chains in a scribbled design. When I was satisfied with my scribbling, I hand sewed the chain to the kitty.