The holidays are approaching; as can be noticed when you go shopping and the Halloween, and, gasp, the Christmas decorations are out!  For knitters and crocheters the holidays are nearing because any gifts to be made take time.  I have quite the queue of items at Ravelry waiting for me.  Some highlights are Miffy of Dick Bruna, Brainslugs of Futurama, and a cupcake hat.  I’m also considering making a Luigi pillow to go with my nephew’s Mario blanket that I made for him last Christmas; the reason this blog exists!  I need to do some yarn shopping before starting these projects and then I’ll be ready to start!  I have been working so intensely on Snuggles for The Snuggles Project but am now ready to move onto something else.  I’ll be sure to throw in a Snuggle here and there using the left over yarn after finishing some of the projects.  Changing gears is always nice, it takes things that were old and dull and makes them new and interesting again.

Speaking of The Snuggles Project, I’ve completed some more Snuggles again.  I’ve been making them all double stranded, one strand always some color of Lionbrand Homespun yarn.  The Snuggles are so soft using the larger N hook and the Homespun yarn.  The purple and pink on the right is Katmcab’s Hexagon Snuggle but without the scalloped edge.  Then I added a scalloped edge to the brown one from the previous post.  I ran out of the blue just when I finished the last bit of the edge- whew- very close call.  I didn’t have another blue like it in color or texture.  Although many of the Snuggles are made with scraps of yarn I really don’t want them too look very haphazard; the Snuggles are intended to go home with the cats when they are adopted from the shelter.  I would hate that the family who adopts it ends up with something ugly and they decide to throw it away.  I’m not all that impressed with the brown Snuggle now but I’ll keep the pretty scallop edge in mind to spice up other Snuggles.  Lastly, I have a Fishy Mat by carly*original designs that I started on the plane returning from my vacation.  I made the blue circle on the plane without the pattern so it turned out a wee bit larger than it should have.  I ran out of the blue Homespun when I got to the tail and decided to make the tail in another color.  I recently attended a knitting Meetup in Newington at Starbucks and one of the group members had brought a bag of yarn she wanted to pass on.  I dug through the pretty colors and picked some Homespun type yarn in bright colors.  I felt it was a nice addition to the Fishy Mat.  After adding the tail I wanted to break up the blueness of the body and decided to add an eye in the same bright colors.  The eye could have been bigger but I’ll do that for the next one.  Now I’m contemplating a mouth.  I also messed around with the tail to make it more pointy and swishy.  One day I’ll figure out how to write my own pattern so I’m not altering other people’s patterns.  It’s on my to-do-list.  Here’s the big fishy: