I Heart Crochet

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The purple hearts are done!

Purple, green, blue and pink hearts combine for a giant layered and super colorful heart.

Far more avocado hearts are done than I've photographed (a total of 26 so far), but I've still got three more hanks of thread sitting in avocado pit and avocado skin dye in the living room window. At least three more avocado hearts to come!

Lots of heartflakes have been completed and gifted.

I never get tired of heartflakes.

Pink stretched hearts were an experiment I liked so much, I couldn't stop.

Now I'm tempted to go back and make MORE stretched hearts from all my different shades of solar-dyed hues!

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Slitherin'

I'm still tempted to put a tail on this gal because she's just getting too long to work with comfortably. Plus, I have those awesome name ideas for five sibblings... or five offspring...

I'll decide in a couple of weeks whether to bring her to an end on the 28th. It will depend how much she curls around me while I work. I can only take so much snake love... :)

In the meantime, I was playing with crocheted temperature snake prompts in AI, and some of the images of the freebie programs are HILARIOUS.

My paid subscription generated much better quality images, including this little video that I think is just adorable! Makes me want to create my own stop motion movie with my own crocheted critters!!!

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Decisions

Last week, I asked my friends and family if I should begin shaping the tail so I can bind off at the end of January, start a new snake on February 1, and finish the year with 12 little unique temperature snakes about two feet long each, or keep going and wind up with a 24-foot snake at the end of the year. I got two responses, one that whatever I do will be cute as can be, and the other a warning to be wary of making a long snake if the forever home might one day be a kid who might play tug of war with it... I must confess, I never considered that second possibility. My eyeballs are still sort of rattling around in my head over that.

I was leaning toward 12 little snakes because one month of growth would be easy to tote around if, by chance, we happen to go anywhere this year. Nothing planned, but I do still keep hoping Lizard might be able to handle another trip one day. I also considered the possibility of making each snake two months long, which would be a pretty cool finished length, in my opinion. I'd wind up with six very unique four-foot-long snakes.

My mind was made up a couple of days later when I saw, for the first time, Planet June's temperature snake CAL photo gallery. I decided I want my own long, long, very long snake!!!

But then a couple of days later, I was trying to come up with a name for my snake. And boy, have I seen some cute ones! Caution Ramen, Fang Ramen, Assault Ribbon, Speed Bump, Slithery Shoelace, Hiss Tube. Suddenly, I was back on the monthly or bi-monthly kick because I wanted to use all the cute names I came up with...

Psychedelic Angel Hair, Lumen Udon, Bulging Bucatini, Plump Pappardelle, Tallow Tagliatelle, Tubby Tube, Paunchy Pici, Roly Poly Tuffoli, Stocky Gnocci, Stout Kraut, Chubby Buddy... I bet I could stay up all night and coin new names!

I briefly considered calling "her" (I think I've decided my snake is female... maybe so she can be bigger than whatever other temperature snakes I create, and she can be the mama mamba...) Desi because there are just too many decisions to make!!! I toyed with the idea of naming her Fredrica, Freddy for short, and I hope you pick up on the connection. I finally named her Mercurina. Because that's so much prettier than Mercury. And I've still got more than a handful of cute names for her offspring!

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Sleepsalotl

He's a bit top heavy, but I think I have a new addiction.

I must be totally crazy. I want to make an axolotl from every shade of my hand-dyed crochet thread now!!!

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Howling at the Hook

This is all I have to show for myself this week. And I didn't even finish it this week. Or last week. Now I have to make an axolotyl. !!!

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Heart Strings

(affiliate links to my designs)

No, not the book!!!

It feels like it's been forever since I began my crocheted heart amigurumi kick. I work on the hearts mostly while Lizard is sleeping. It's something I can do quietly.

I finished the blues back in June. Greens didn't take long because I didn't have that many. That's a hint I need to dye more... But not today.

Pinks took longer, not only because I had more shades of pink than green, but also because life just got in the way. Hallucinations are on the rise, changing seasons means garden cleanup, and there have been a few unwanted visitors in the basement. I might elaborate on that next Tuesday...

Finally finished the pinks this week, and I've had such fun photographing my collection of hearts!

When I create greeting cards (which I absolutely love doing) the most difficult part sometimes is trying to come up with something sweet on the inside, and we're, unfortunately, not talking chocolate. Darn it. Anyway, with all the heart amigurumi photos I shot late Tuesday night, it was time to challenge my brain and get back into the habit of trying to rhyme. (Sometimes...)

I'm about to start the purple hearts. I thought that would be my final batch. Because I do not have many hand-dyed shades of red, orange or yellow. (In part because true red is so difficult to achieve when dyeing.) I might go ahead and combine all three of those colors into yet one more batch of hearts, but that's not a project I look forward to because I don't get as much joy out of working with those colors. Which is why I don't have many of them! (I actually ought to dye more because I do love shades of autumn. Just in photography more than in crochet.)

With all the tomatoes I harvested out of my garden prior to our first freeze last week, I decided it was time to make another avocado salad, one of my favorite garden treats of all. I use my own homegrown tomatoes, onions, chiles (when I have them, farmers market when I don't), cilantro, chives and basil, then add in store-bought pink Himalayan salt, garlic, and Olathe sweet corn, plus black beans I soften and cook from scratch, and the pièce de résistance... store-bought avocados.

Which means... time to dye!!! Which free time I don't have a lot of. But with eight more pits and half a Mason jar full of torn skins, how could I not?!? Now I'm super excited to try to quickly finish my purple hearts so I can make a batch of tiny heart amigurumi with my shades of solar avocado dye!! (I just finished winding the first two new colors, and I can't wait to use them!!!)

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Glow Critters

Two more of my students are turning eight this month and getting baptized next month. So out come the glow-in-the-dark yarn and crochet hook again! I'm making glow critters from white yarn because the kids wear white for their baptism, and I use glow in the dark yarn to symbolize the Light of Christ. All the kids in my class can tell me now why I make them white glow critters! Object lesson mission achieved!

When the kids saw my January creation, a bat, by request, each of them wanted something different when their birthdays came.

After my February creation, a snake, by request, all the rest of the kids started wanting snakes! That intensified when the four-son family of the sole boy in my class adopted TWO real live snakes as pets. His weekly tales keep my kiddos snake charmed!

As the year has rolled along, some of the kids are expressing their desire for different animals again, but a couple still want snakes!!!

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Flashback Fall

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