In the year 2012

It’s New Year’s Eve, and time to have a look back at what I’ve been doing for the past year.

Compared to earlier years, it’s been a pretty bad year for Bugs and Dudes. I completed the patterns of two bugs that had been finished for months, so I’m not sure if they really count… The second firefly and the cranefly:

All I have is an unfinished bug and a half set of Australian dudes, of which only the koala is completely finished:

The pattern for the Kitty Princess was finished and published…

For Easter I crocheted a bunny, but I was too late to get the pattern ready. Now it’s one of the patterns that are stuck in my broken laptop But she’s very cute, and I really want to finish the pattern in time for next Easter

I also made this sweet little bird’s nest for Easter, from leather string, yarn and beads for eggs:

During the summer nothing much happened. I had to work a lot and the house was being fixed up and painted, so not too much time for crochet. I learned a new crochet technique, hairpin lace. My first project:

Then came August and the London Olympics. I decided to participate in the Ravellenic Games on Ravelry, and used the opportunity to finish a lot of old projects that had hibernated for months (and years!).

Plus I made two new things as well, some potholders in horrible colors and a pair of wristwarmers with a bit of hairpin lace in them:

Later I made a seat warmer so I wouldn’t freeze my butt off while I was away on field trips. Same pattern as the potholders, only bigger, and then felted:

Then the fall semester started for real, plus I’d just moved into a new apartment and was still trying to get organized, so I didn’t really crochet anything for months.I finished a hook holder for my Tunisian crochet hooks that had been in progress since some time last year:

I just barely managed a new set of Halloween Dudes in time for the holiday, with only a week to go:

Then it seems that my inspiration came back, and with a vengeance. Of course, my exam period were right around the corner, and naturally all I wanted to to was crochet. I finished a jellyfish I’d been working on since summer, the Compass Jellyfish:

Hooked on jellies, I started two more immediately after finishing the first, but sadly none of them are done yet. I had hoped to finish one more pattern this year, but work and holiday preparations took more time than I’d expected. They will be done early next year, though

Last night I experimented a bit with nalbinding, I expect the last new craft I’ll learn this year If all goes well there will be more of that next year. Perhaps I can make socks and stuff

So my goals for this coming year? Finish a lot of old projects before starting new ones! I also have a very important project that I can’t tell you much about yet, and as always I expect that school will keep me too busy to make all the things I plan to. We’ll see

 

I hope you’ve all had a nice holiday and wish you a Happy New Year

Jellyfish pattern!

I did it again! I finished a crochet pattern when I didn’t think I’d have time. Just finished with the first two of my three exams this year, and I guess I didn’t really prioritize the second one. Heh. But the pattern is done, and I am now ready to focus on chemistry  

Anyway. About the pattern. This thing was actually so complicated that for the first time ever, I had to make a pattern chart. I just hope it’s understandable. If not, please contact me and I’ll try to explain with written instructions as best I can It’s mainly the color changes on the bell that cause problems, the construction itself is fairly straightforward. Because of the stripes I had to move the increases around so that the red lines wouldn’t get all crooked, and some of the increases are even made in two colors. For this reason I rate the pattern as intermediate, but it shouldn’t be a problem if you are comfortable with a lot of color changes  

The tentacles were a challenge for me, both because I had to make so many of them and because I had some trouble getting them right. This kind of jellyfish (the compass jellyfish, Chrysaora hysoscella) has four ruffled arms and twenty four really long tentacles. I decided to make only sixteen of them, as I felt it looked crowded enough and twenty four crocheted tentacles would be too much. You always have the option of using yarn strands if you don’t want to crochet all those tentacles  

I think I started working on this some time this summer, so it’s taken me quite some time to finish. In the beginning of November I visited Berlin for a week, and I brought this along because I can’t go anywhere without something to work on. Didn’t get much more done while I was there, but to my great joy I actually got to see these jellies up close and alive at the aquarium! It was really cool, I’m still excited about it  

See, aren’t they pretty? They might not look very much like the one I’ve made, because I modeled mine after a picture and a description in a book I have. Later, after I’d made most of the parts, I realized that they vary greatly in color, and the placement of the 24 tentacles is very different. The book (and Wikipedia) says that the tentacles are placed on groups of three around the edge of the jelly, but the pictures on Google shows that that’s not necessarily true. So I don’t know. I had to make a decision about the design, and this is what I ended up with. You feel free to experiment with the pattern