I had this all typed out yesterday.

I had this all typed out yesterday. I had my finger hovering over the button to select a picture to upload to Blogger...And the browser crashed. Just...closed. I have Firefox, so this doesn't happen very often to begin with, but this was like it just closed on its own. No error message, nothin'.

Of course, I haven't crocheted my browser window. So I need to get to the fiber-y goodness! First off, I have to give another shout out to Lady Linoleum over at Monster Crochet. I had to call my husband over and show him her Bacon Wrap. Sheer genius! Of course, she is probably themost talented crocheter I can think of offhand. I love her stuff. If you had told me it was possible to faithfully create a rasher of bacon in intarsia crochet...Well, I would have believed you, but I'd have wondered why you wanted to do it, and I'd have expected it to be, you know, life sized. There is something so truly bizarre and wonderful about a giant piece of bacon. Wool bacon. A pork product made out of a sheep product!

Moving along...

After that goodness, I am almost embarassed to show off my most recent completed project. I'm still stumbling along with my sculpture. It was more difficult than I thought to crochet a leaf that looks like a leaf and has the right dimensions without curling up upon itself. I wound up having to use a much bigger hook than I'd used for the rest of the project. I'd been using 3.75mm and 3.5mm hooks for most of it. Now that I think of it, though, I think I just used like a 7mm hook for another part. I am sadly prone to forgetting such things if I don't write them down. But it was necessary, because I was using ribbon yarn. I am pleased to report that I've finally successfully crocheted something using ribbon yarn! Strange little things make me happy.

Anyhoo...This is the latest completed project, made for Linda, my middle daughter (she's 2):
It's a simple little outfit for one of Linda's Cabbage Patch Kids. I have the pattern in rough form, I just need to remember where I put it, and then I'll post it on Crochetville. There seems to be an odd shortage of free CPK patterns out there, judging by the requests I keep seeing on the 'Ville.

I'm also thinking about adapting the dress part of the pattern into a shirt for Esther.

This outfit was a little lesson in learning to listen to the yarn. I know that sounds funky. I guess I should say, in letting your subconscious take control. I spent way longer than I should have trying to fancy up the dress. I was going to do a full shell-stitch skirt, but I couldn't get it to come out right, and then I was going to do crossed DCs, and then bobbles and then...Finally I had to go cook dinner. Yarn is fun, but it doesn't feed the children. Sadly, though, if I wasn't breastfeeding I'd probably hole myself up in my room in a yarn-induced stupor and let everyone else fend for themselves. See, breastfeeding really is good for you! LOL

Anyway, the next day I picked it up again, because I'd promised Linda a new outfit for her baby, and if you knew Linda you'd know she can't be deterred. Then again, what 2-year-old can? I finally thought, Oh, heck, I'll just make it plain. Plain DCs. See, I'd planned from the start to put the pattern up on the Ville, and I try to make my patterns simple enough for beginners when I do that. I think a lot of crochet patterns are written just to be confusing, though that is improving somewhat. So I just quit thinking and started working and before too long conceived of the idea to do some BLDCs (actually, since I am left-handed & so tend to work inside out, for me they were FLDCs) so I'd have something on which to anchor a double tier off ruffles.
Of course, that's not the only place I put ruffles. I don't actually care for butt-ruffles on real baby clothes (though we do have one pair of pink ruffle-butt pants that both Linda and Esther have worn), because they seem as if they would be uncomfortable. But I couldn't resist the urge to put ruffles on the undershorts here, though I did manfully (womanfully?) resist the urge to put ruffles around the legholes.

You can see from this picture, too, that I did tie closures. That was for simplicity. Linda has actually managed to yank the clothes off without undoing the ties, and to put the clothes on other dolls (and even, once or twice, back on this one) as well. So the ties aren't an issue. By the way, they're not my usual drawstrings, but extentions of the trim at neckline & waistband. I'm interested to see if this can be successfully adapted for use in actual clothes, say in my daughters' skirts. I'm afraid I will run into the old problem of the weight of the yarn making it too saggy, though.
These are the booties. The photo didn't come out so well on account of the flash, but that's OK. You get the general idea. These were significantly easier than real booties. Real booties require shaping; these are pretty much just tubes. They do have drawstrings; I needed some way to keep them on, however briefly.

The ruffles on these were much easier too, as they were crocheted in the normal part of the stitch, rather than in free loops.

The whole thing was done with a J (6mm) hook and, of course, Caron's Simply Soft. I love that yarn.

And now for this week's Gratuitous Esther Photo. (It was supposed to also be my contribution to Saturday Sky, but that got seriously sidetracked.)

I know, it's not too clear. But I like it that way.