Crochet Earwarmer and Infinity Scarf

One of the tricks you learn as a crochet addict is how to pawn off all of your creations on unsuspecting friends and family members.  Unless you have a particularly chilly neck, there's no way you could possibly need all of the scarves you end up making.

I usually choose to give away my creations as Christmas and birthday presents to give a purpose to my craft.  Ahem, hence those hats... This year, I was inspired by Mrs. Micawber's Ribbonberry Stitch and decided to make an infinity scarf and ear warmer for my soon to be sister-in-law.

This stitch looks complicated but it's actually really easy.  Compared to some of the other patterns I've attempted recently, it was incredibly fast to complete.  

For the scarf, I followed the ribbonberry pattern exactly, crocheting until it was a nice length and then using a slip stitch to connect the two ends.  For the ear warmer, I started with just two slip stitches, and added another stitch each row until it was sixteen stitches wide.  Then I followed the ribbonberry pattern, except leaving 2 slip stitches at the beginning and end of each row instead of 4 slip stitches.  

Once the ear warmer was long enough (I may or may not have used my own head to measure) I started decreasing one slip stitch each row until I was down to two stitches.  Then I chained on about 15 to make the loop.  I finished it off with a button from my button jar.  What, you don't have a button jar?  Does that make me the weird one or you?

Personally I love this stitch, it makes everything look much fancier than your basic crochet stitches but is still really easy to do.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have a blanket to finish that I've been working on for, you know, the past eighteen months or so. Somehow it isn't even halfway done...

Workday Crafts

So this week, the wellness committee at my office decided to have a holiday craft party as a way to relieve stress.  And also as a way to make sure we trampled glitter all over the place.  No, seriously, there is now a trail of glitter leading from the kitchen into my office.  Which I love, of course.  Can every day be office craft day?

A stocking hung by my corkboard with care.

And a glitter and tinsel filled ornament hanging off of my fishbowl.  I now want to buy all of the supplies from our craft day and make all of the ornaments for my tree next year.  Wouldn't a tree covered in blue and silver (or maybe red and gold) bulbs be really pretty?  

And appearing on my blog for the first time, Sirius the fish!  Yes, he's named after a Harry Potter character.  And yes, he was super confused by his new bowl bling.  This is him giving it the stare down and deciding whether it's a friend or foe.  Eventually he got distracted by his own reflection and then started blowing more bubbles for his collection.

P.S. My office voted Sirius "Best Animagus" during our staff awards this year.  I almost died of laughter.  Of course, most of my co-workers are not Harry Potter obsessed and did not get the joke.  Le sigh.