I’ve been very busy with yarn the last week.  Last week my sister-in-law taught me how to cast on, knit and purl on some circular needles which she let me have afterward.  She also gave me three grocery bags full of yarn, mostly wool and cotton and pretty much all hand dyed.  She has her own business making baby and kids outfits; Holden’s Landing.  I really enjoyed figuring out the knitting.  I knit two random squares/rectangles and changed my mind on both so they were each frogged.  I didn’t want to just knit for knitting’s sake, I wanted to learn while actually having some goal.  I finally found a project at Lion Brand; the Royal Pet Afghan.  I’ve made one of the four squares so far.  Working in the Homespun is as much a headache in knitting as in crochet.  I have a couple crochet projects running at the same time, so to mix things up I’ve worked on those.  I’ll probably start the next square soon.  I’m glad to have been able to make sense of knitting so quickly as I’d heard that once your learn crochet or knit it’s hard to learn the other.  I’m definitely not as fast and still kind of awkward holding the needles sometimes.  I realize that there will be a learning period and reflected on how long it took me to get really comfortable with crochet.  Depending on how often I knit I will improve accordingly.

I started working on the Futurama brain slug.  The large one is very large!  Approximately 6 to 7 inches tall.  It took a massive amount of fiberfill and scrap yarn to fill.  I finished it yesterday and all it needs now is an eye.  The project instructions show an eye cut from felt and sewn or glued on.  I was thinking to crochet some circles to keep it all truly crocheted.  Still mulling that one a bit though.  Might be a fun Halloween costume; add some straps and wear it on your head!  Next I”ll have to try the little brain slug companion.

I joined a Crochet-Along hosted by The Itsy Bitsy Spider.  I have two pumpkins in mind so far; one in an orange sport weight and another in a variegated yarn from my sister-in-law;  I think it’s wool.  I’m half way done crocheting the orange pumpkin and I’m eager to finish.  Last night was a crocheting marathon between finishing the brain slug and starting the pumpkin over the course of 3 hours.  I need some customization ideas for the punkies (a coworker of mine spoke English as a second language and couldn’t say pumpkins- I love punkies!).

I have so many projects in my mind right now!  Along with the current projects in knit and crochet, I have a pillow in mind to complement the Mario blanket I gave my nephew last year for Christmas.  I have my experience from last year and would like to improve on the method I used to make it (square by square/pixel by pixel).  I recently learned how to do Tunisian Entrelac in the round via My Life in Knots.  Entrelac in the round actually produces what is to be seen as diamonds, not squares like a pixel image would be.  I have to print out my image and plan out the colors and what order to crochet them in.  I’m ready to start this project after hunting around for a softer peach flesh tone.  I was finally lucky at AC Moore and found Caron Simply Soft Light Country Peach.  I cannot wait to start this!  I’m sure I’ll have it on the hook by this afternoon!