Late Christmas Crochet

So, I know that it's the New Year and Christmas is considered far behind us; however, don't think it's too late to post the Christmasy things I crocheted "last year".  If this gives anyone an idea for next year, there's plenty of time!  There isn't too much to say on the subject, but since this is my first post on crocheting, I'll try to expand.  

I don't think it's realistic for me to post tutorials on how to actually crochet.  I was taught a few years ago by my sister.  I was at Thanksgiving with my sisters, parents, grandma, aunt and uncle, cousins, etc.  At one point, everyone was gathered in the giant great room doing various things and it turned out that all the women there were knitting or crocheting...except me.  I can't say that it was love at "first hook", I've put it down and picked it up sporadically over the years.  Almost everything I post that I've crocheted will be from a pattern or a variation of a pattern or chart.  If you're inspired and want to learn, you can always find someone who knows how to teach you, but the internet is vast and ever expanding resource.

Cute Amigurumi Reindeer

If I've gotten the pattern online, I will try to always post a link to it at the bottom of the post.
 

The first project is a little amigurumi reindeer that I actually had started in 2010, got most of the way through it and "set it aside" out of frequent frustration.  I picked it up again and finished it before Christmas 2011.  A couple changes I made was that the pattern called for plastic eyes.  I don't have any, nor did I feel like buying them, "sew" I did my best shot at embroidering them on. Also, I didn't put a mouth on him.  I thought he was cute enough without it.  

If you don't know what "amigurumi" is, it is basically a small, crocheted, stuffed animal or figurine.  They're supposed to be cute. One of the frustrating things about it is all the many little pieces that you eventually have to sew together.  Something important for you to remember, even if the pattern doesn't say; if you have little pieces that need to be sewn on (IE.  ears, feet, nose, etc), always leave a long tail on the piece after fastening off.  That tail will be what you use to sew that piece to the larger whole.

 

Purple and Silver Christmas Stocking

This last Christmas is the first time that I didn't get to go home for the Holidays, so I crocheted my own stocking.  I did it in purple Holiday Homespun and silver Fun Fur because purple is my favorite color and I already had a skein of silver fun fur that had been given to me.  Both of these yarns were harder to work with than yarns I've used in the past, for various reasons, but I made it though.  The stocking is backward in the picture because I thought the back side turned out better than the front.  Often when making sock-type projects, there will be a small hole where the cuff, foot, and heel meet; which is what happened on the front of my stocking.

This, like the reindeer and the next project, is based on a pattern found at Lion Brand Yarn's website.  They have hundreds of free patterns.  I have found myself on their site for far longer than I'm willing to admit just looking and printing out patterns.  Just be careful, because they do have a tendency to post several of the same pattern in different colors and give it a different name.  Just be sure you don't print or download several of the same thing (I've done it once or twice).

The last project for this long post is a stuffed snowflake ornament.  It's a tad larger than most ornaments I usually put on my tree, but I thought it was cute.  It did get a bit tedious after a little while.  I had to make a lot of little balls then sew them together.  This time, I did take one progress photo.  Yes, I know what they look like, but the end result isn't bad.  

Snowflake progress

Finished Puffy Snowflake

As promised, here are the links to all three crochet projects:

Happy Reindeer: http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/80971AD.html?noImages=
Holiday Stocking: http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/L0116AD.html?noImages=
Puffy Snowflake: http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/80970AD.html?noImages=