361/365 - Crochet Pot Holder

Not the best photo, but it'll do... My latest crochet project has been to make a few pot holders. I think I'm getting tired of them, though, so it's time to go back to the octagon-motif afghan for a while.

352/365 - Crochet in Progress

This was the beginnings of a cotton pot-holder. (I love the red against that aqua!)

(This was a cheat, as far as Project 365 goes. Technically, I took this on October 2nd instead of the first of the month.)

348/365 - Stack of Octagons

This is a stack of octagon motifs for the afghan I'm making.

334/365 - Octagon Motifs

These were my first five motifs for my current afghan (the Moorish Mosaic Afghan pattern). I'm currently one round away from finishing my tenth (of thirty) octagon motifs-- then there are a bunch of squares and triangles to fill in the empty spots.

The best part of this project-- you never know exactly how the next motif will look. Each one is unique.

(The paper slips pinned to the octagons are to allow me to put them in the order recommended by the pattern, if I like. Identifying them at the end would otherwise be fairly time-consuming, I'm sure.)

327/365 - Sunny Seaside Mosaic Afghan

I've started a new afghan!  (Well, I think it's worth an exclamation point. ;o))

The pattern is called the Moorish Mosaic Afghan, and I'm tentatively calling mine the Sunny Seaside Mosaic Afghan for no reason other than that the colors somehow remind me of... well, a sunny day on a seaside--  not necessarily our local beaches, though...

(This is my first project to require stitch markers, thus the little container of colorful snippets of leftover yarn.)

That was my first motif in the basket.  Each one is the same shape/stitches, but worked in a unique variation of colors.  It's proving to be an interesting project, because you never know exactly how a motif will look until it's done.

324/365 - "Ananas" Doily

This was my first attempt at a larger doily (larger than about six inches in diameter). I was pretty happy with this one, though it proved more complicated than I thought it would. (I guess I sometimes don't focus enough on the pattern. It is shameful, I know. ;o))

321/365 - Palette

These are the colors of yarn I'm using on my current afghan project. (The one on the bottom right looks darker here than it actually is, though it is a dark blue.)

306/365 - Cléa

This is a brand of crochet thread I haven't tried yet-- but I've read good things about it, and now I have some just waiting for its turn. :o)

305/365 - Ananas Doily, Not Yet Blocked

I haven't blocked it yet, but you can get the general idea. :o)

(The thread isn't actually this color at all, by the way. The adjacent photo in my Flickr photostream is more accurate.)

302/365 - Ananas Doily in Progress

This is my first larger doily... And by "larger", I mean larger than approximately six inches in diameter.

I was fairly proud of myself until I saw that it was marked as "uncomplicated". (The reason it took me so long to see that was that the text was written in German. Fortunately, there was a diagram. Diagrams are officially my preferred form of crochet pattern, now. I actually turn up my nose at the written ones and seriously consider if I like it well enough to wade through all that messy text.) This doily got only two stars out of I-know-not-how-many. Oh well, I guess a doily doesn't have to be difficult to be worthy of pride.

P.S. "Ananas" means "pineapple" in Swedish and apparently also in German. There are pineapples in this doily pattern, though they weren't visible at this point.

299/365 - Reclaimed Yarn

...Reclaimed from two thrifted sweaters.

This was my first time to buy a (second-hand) sweater with the intention of unraveling it for the yarn, and I was happy with the results. I'll definitely try this again. It's not worth the effort for just any yarn, but for nicer yarns, I think it is. (Plus it's just kind of fun to do.)

291/365 - Pineapples

I've since finished this shawl. It was kind of a pain to crochet. The pattern seems easy enough, but for whatever reason, I managed to make mistakes all too often. I usually wouldn't find them until I met them going back across on the next row, so there was a fair amount of ripping out and re-doing.

Still, the pattern does turn out to look nice, if you're a fan of the pineapple design.

278/365 - Polymer Clay Do-Dads Painted

These are the same polymer clay do-dads a couple photos back-- only now they've been painted to resemble metal. Since I used a brown mixture of scrap clay, I started by painting them black. Then (once they dried) I dry-brushed metallic paint-- just enough to highlight the non-recessed portions and reveal the texture. (Oh, and I sealed it all with a clear, matte, indoor/outdoor acrylic coat. It's not strictly necessary, but I think it might help the paint to last a little longer.)

I'm happy with these results! Now I just need to get around to restringing the wind chimes. . .

276/365 - Polymer Clay Do-Dads

I played around with some scrap clay, (clay-dedicated) cookie cutters, and a handful of texturizing tools and came up with these. I planned to paint them (which is why any-color scrap clay was perfectly fine) and later attach them to some wind chimes that were either missing sails or were in need of a little sprucing up.

269/365 - Novelty Yarn Granny Squares

This was my first time crocheting with novelty yarn. Using the knitting loom, novelty yarns were a little challenging, but nowhere near this messy to deal with! I wanted to use up some of the fluffy yarn I'd bought on clearance back before I'd really learned to crochet. (I won't be buying more, no matter how good the deal is. It's just not fun to crochet with. However, I already have a good bit of it in my stash...) These are sewn together, now-- just need to finish putting the two sides together to make a cushion from them!

266/365 - Hexagon Afghan "Finished"!

At this point (July 7th), the hexagon afghan was "finished"! "Finished" because I still had (and, well, have) a lot of loose ends to weave in and trim. However, because I'd finished the hexagons and half-hexagons-- even added the border-- I declared it "finished".

This was a very enjoyable project, once I had the pattern down pat and was confident with joining new colors of yarn-- but whew, there are a ton of tails to weave! I tried crocheting over them, but with this pattern, I just wasn't satisfied with how that looked (or how secure it felt), for most of the rounds. Oh well! That's just part of the craft.

254/365 - Crocheted Bookmark

This is made in a way very similar to the "Queen Anne's Lace" scarves I made last year. (Actually, the patterns may be exactly the same. I haven't checked. If there's any difference, it's minimal.)

Thread crochet is nice for summertime-- no bulk of yarn on your lap.

250/365 - Crocheting Away

I continued to work on my hexagon afghan, a bit at a time. . .

231/365 - Hexagon Progress

This was my progress on the hexagon afghan as of the 2nd of June-- with my feet as a reference for scale. ;o)

I've added a fair number of hexagons since then. Maybe nearly twice as many? I'm not sure... I think I'll be done in a few more weeks, going at my current pace.

217/365 - Flower Garden Hexagon Afghan

This is a progress shot of my latest crochet project-- a hexagon afghan. (I actually uploaded this one to Flickr last week, so you may have already seen it there, but I'm just now getting caught up to that point in Project 365.)

Blogged on Sew I See.