Back to knitting! After a long while. Honestly, my arms started to hurt after a 3-hour stint of knitting on the couch. Due to all the crochet, other muscles seem to have been used. Ouch!

The hat is crochet. Made with beautiful yarn from Lamana. Single crochet , with a bit of hdc stitches for the rim. And of course with the flower, which I add to every hat I make (so far).

The scarf is knit, as already mentioned with a simple pearl-pattern (2 knit, 2 purl, alternate every two rows). It is a loop scarf, knit in the round.

Detail of the pattern:

The set is warm and comfy, non-scratchy. The only problem is that the yarn is a bit fuzzy and my black winter coat is covered in yellow fibres. It looks as if I had a fat ginger cat that likes to sleep on my coat!

Also, in the beginning my husband used to say in a whiney voice: “Maja, where are you?”, an hommage to the animated series “Die Biene Maja” and the male protagonist Willy. Ok, so I look like a bee. I am sure the queen bee of crochet in my household!

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Not exactly.

Those are partyhats for cats.

What? Yes, partyhats for cats.

A friend of mine specifically asked me for them. I used some cotton yarns I had lying around, with no specific pattern. I started from the rim and then went up, decreasing along till there were only a couple of stitches were left. The pompom consists of a couple of single stitches into the last stitch.

I added the long strings so my friends could were the hats as well since I knew that the cats might have served just as a shady argument to make those hats. And boy, I was so right! Another friend told me that the two girls wore the hats more often than the cats!

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My new addiction is Pinterest. Have you already tried it? It is awesome since you can organize interesting things visually. If you save them to your booksmarks list, you tend to forget them. Especially for crafts Pinterest is heaven. Or hell. Because there are so many awesome things on it that you sometimes do not know where to click first. At the moment it is still invite only but feel free to get in touch with me, I can send you an invite.

I cam across some crochet baskets and gave it a try this week. It is really easy to make them. Only single stitch. The important thing is that your gauge is really tight. This makes the basket stiff and it holds its shape nicely. Since I did not have any suitable chunky yarn, I took 2 strands of cheap acrylic. Et voilà!

The rim is simply folded. Which ist not necessary but still, it adds stability and looks neat.

Close-up of the crochet.

This basket is quickly made and if you make lining, this makes a nice bread-basket for example.

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My last article! Week 52. My project is officially over. My yarn stash officially not a tiny bit smaller. Oh no, it is the same size than last year. But hey, that’s ok. I can totally live with a huge yarn stash!

Last item of my project is a crochet panda bear I made for my brother. It is quite small, I did not even stuff the arms and legs.

Finally I was able to take pictures with a proper camera, I stole it from my husband.

The project was fun. I learned a lot. And I made so many items I did not post here since I did not want to bore my handfull of readers to death. I guess I made 50 hats alone this year…

So first day of 2012. Which will be a super-exciting year for me! And hopefully a happy and prosperous year for the rest of you. I would like to keep on crocheting as much as before, try out some more complicated patterns and start writing my own patterns as well. I guess if I made it through this project (and believe me, I never thought that I would make it!), I can do this as well.

Thank you for following me through my projects! Thank you for coming. And see you soon!

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Phew, it is over. Well almost. One more day tomorrow then I can finally stop eating those big amounts of yummy food I am constantly offered. At least until New Years’s Eve.

Here is a hat I made for my mum. Made with soft Merino, 100%. The flower can be taken off and used as a brooch.

For my little sister I made a muffin and since she made ones with pink frosting a couple of times this year, I used pink yarn.

And a crochet bag for my mother-in-law. She somehow came across the black bag I made during summer through a Google search and asked me for it. This time the bag even features a magnet snap so it can be closed properly. Instead of forcing my sewing machine to deal with the thick bag, I hand-sewed the lining into the bag. Hope it stays there!

After making so much for other people during the past weeks, I am now knitting some things for me. Yeah, knitting! After I started knitting again after months of crochet, I got a sore shoulder. Muscle ache from knitting!

I would have loved to make more but the past weeks had been pretty hectic and I could not fit in more. Next year I will definitely plan and buy and make my gifts in September.

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What? Next week it’s Christmas? Noooooooo! I have not a single present ready yet. This will be a very interesting week then.

Here I present a little turtle I made as a little good-bye present. The only problem is that the turtle’s head is a bit too heavy so it tends to fall over.

Made with Catania yarn and a 2,5 hook, after a pattern from the great magazine I mentioned a couple of times already: Crochet Gift List.

If I ever make a turtle again, I will fill its body or the hind legs with dry beans so it does not tip over that easily.

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I really love chunky yarn – not only are your projects done in (almost) no time, they also look much more interesting. Have a look at this scarf with a shell pattern from my so far favorite pattern book “The complete book of crochet stitch designs“:

I needed 6 skeins of yarn for the scarf. It is not gigantic, enough to wrap it twice around your face though so you can be warm and cozy. Eeh, keep you warm? Actually you would not need that right now – it is really warm for December. When I was little we had tons of snow at this time, now we have green landscapes.

Working hard on some presents for Christmas, a first blister is slowly but surely developing on my right thumb. I’ll make sure to take a picture when it gets worse. And eventually starts bleeding!

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Finally I was able to use the lightbox my husband and  I built two weeks ago. I think I need more light, there are still too many shadows. But still better than not being able to take pictures right?

I made a couple of headbands with bows this week. Those bows are easy to make, basically they are just a rectangle in single stitch which I then sew together in the back and wrap the tail of yarn a couple of times around the then created circle.

Here is one in hot pink.

I am always amazed how simple single crochet can look so interesting. The yarn always plays an important role. Beautiful yarn does not always need an elaborate pattern.

And one more crochet bow headband in grey, made with 100% cotton yarn left over from my numerous hat projects.

They look really adorable and are quick to make (without having to pay much attention to the stitches) so I guess I will be making some more and put them in my Dawanda store, Nadel Verpflichtet.

So now back to my secret Christmas projects!

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Owls are a big trend right now. Yesterday I bought a cute brooch with a tiny purple felt owl.

Here is a owl in the colors of Franconia, red and white. I am absolutely puzzled that I have a huge amount of red cotton yarn, no idea where is comes from. So I made an owl which is not really a realistic depiction of the living species but still looks cute.

The pattern is from the crochet magazine my husband bought for me recently, where the panda from week 43 was from.

Only 4 weeks to go until Christmas. The next weeks will be spent with the crafting of gifts. Though I cannot publish the results here since presents need to stay secret until the 24th. Which means I need to double my efforts to finish 5 more items before the project “52 weeks – 52 projects” is over.

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Only 6 weeks left and the project will be over!

Here is one more baby hat. It looks definitely weird without the baby. I wonder if it looks better ON the baby… My brother asked for it, for a friend. I really hope I get a good picture of the baby wearing it (Hello little brother!).

This morning was spent on building a lightbox since I am having a hard time with taking good-looking pictures due to lighting problems. Pictures of my awesome lightbox (big thanks again to husband for doing most of the building) will follow ASAP. Now I need to prepare for next Saturday, when I will sell my hats and other crochet items at a local hand-made market: Sewing my label to the hats, adding price tags, making some quick last projects. If you want to pay me a visit there (I would be delighted!), check on Facebook, I’ll post the details there.

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