the fierce and friendly dragon

the fierce and friendly dragon is approximately 10" from the tip of his tail to his snout, 3" from the tip of his toes to the ridges on his back, and 6" across his wingspan.

did you notice the oxford comma? that's right, i used the oxford comma. take note; i generally reject it completely.

the fierce and friendly dragon may be my favorite crocheted goodness so far. he's just so cute! i mean, he's got wings! and purple ridges down his back! and his face has so much personality! and i'm using a lot of exclamation points!

i learned how to front-post crochet when doing his wings. instead of going through the V at the top of the stitch, you work around the post (which sounds obvious, i suppose, but it was new to me). it gives his wings their underside ridges.



in other news, i also learned how to crochet in a spiral last night. not a hard technique, but a little tricky to keep the yarns from tangling as you're working all the colors simultaneously. now to just find a good use for it.

the plan, success

i missed today's sunshine, so better photos will be coming tomorrow. :)

worth the money?

so on a whim last night, i changed my cell phone plan to include a data plan. i've held off on doing it because i really don't need to check my e-mail all the time. or facebook. or whatever. but then i decided it might be worth the money to give me something to do when i'm sitting in the breakroom at work. it's worth a shot, right? at worst, i decide it's not worth it and go back to a cell plan without it. now if i could just figure out how to get a soft return out of this phone for better formatting ... :)

garden update

i'm pretty sure my fourth of july tomato won't live up to its name.




but at least it's working on it. progress is good.




speaking of progress, my cucumbers are coming along nicely.




and my purple spikes are starting to bloom!

i have the best friends

it's impossible to photographically portray the fabulousity that was yesterday. but i can show you the strawberry lemonade cupcakes that added to the fun. :)

growing jalapenos

the plan

i went home to see my dad for father's day. on monday i drove straight to work, giving myself some extra time in case i hit bad weather or traffic delays. so i ended up at the store about an hour before my shift started. what was i to do? shop the clearance yarn, of course! this is Patons Grace yarn, 100% mercerized cotton. i bought some in other colors a few weeks ago, and i'm quite pleased with how it works up. so i picked up these three colors on monday. the gal who rung up my purchase has seen one or two of my crocheted projects and asked what i was making now. i told her i had no plan, i was just buying it because it was on clearance. that was true. then i came home tonight and found the perfect pattern. i mean ... the. perfect. pattern.

yup. three cheers for clearance yarn and awesome plans.

it's a little monster!

it's a cap!

i'm working up a new piece of amigurumi nonsense. currently, it makes a nice cap for my ball of yarn. :)

it's a love/hate thing

i absolutely love flowers. they're showy, but they've earned the right to be showy because they're so stinkin' gorgeous. however, there's a vase of roses and baby's breath on the dining room table that i hope wither and die soon. they are killing my sinuses!

mmmmm ...

grandma's peanut butter cookies.

three cheers for awesome mail

i came home last night to find a treasure wedged into our mailbox. my initial bafflement as to how my mail carrier got it wedged in was quickly replaced with absolute excitement when i realized it was from patti. patti sent me something? it was destined to be awesome.

and awesome it is.

inside & outside of my new bottle cap jewelry are shown above. it's strung on a lovely ribbon and string necklace, and it's going to compliment my green work polos perfectly. i shall be wearing it today with absolute glee and flipping it over halfway through my shift so both sides are properly showcased.

also in the box was the delightfully illustrated The Ballad of the Pirate Queens (by jane yolen) and some scrumptious muffin-as-personal-parfait ideas. (you know what else everybody likes? parfaits! have you ever met a person, you say, "let's get some parfait," they say, "hell no, i don't like no parfait"? parfaits are delicious!) and the fact it was all tied together with a simple string and a scalloped note reading "thinking of you"? love it!

and for the record, i think the noun form of baffle should be bafflementation instead of bafflement. because obviously the awesomeness of a word can be judged by the quantity of its letters.

it's all in the timing

my plan for tomorrow morning is to make grandma's peanut butter cookies. with four simple ingredients, they're practically gluten free without even trying. practically. apparently i need to be careful about the kind of vanilla i use. my first thought is to leave the vanilla out completely, as the amount called for is minimal. but then i think - i could at least look for bourbon vanilla, which is gluten free. (depending on who's talking, it doesn't have to be bourbon vanilla to be gluten free ... but i'm comfortable searching out bourbon vanilla to make them guaranteed gluten free. i mean, why make them if they won't be enjoyed because of a slight possibility, right?) so i figure i'll try kroger first. there's a chance they'll have it. and then if they don't, i'll swing by whole foods. there's an even better chance they'll have it. if they don't, i could go to trader joe's. i know they sell a bourbon vanilla, but i've heard mixed reviews on it.

anyway, my plan for tomorrow morning is to make grandma's peanut butter cookies. so i need to search out the vanilla today before i go to work. and i'm thinking i should time it so i can swing through chipotle for lunch. that way even if i completely strike out with the vanilla, it's not a wasted trip. :)

garden thief

the crime.




the culprit.

just to say i did

i worked up this lacy motif today using some leftover yarn. it's from a crochet afghan book i found in my bookcase. i like it. a couple dozen of them strung together into an afghan would look elegant, classy even, if worked in a solid white or cream. i don't see myself creating a couple dozen of these, let alone taking the time to string them together. i knew that going in, but i worked it up anyway. just to say i did.

change of plans

saturday night as i was leaving the store, the check engine light came on in my car. since automotive repair is not my area of expertise, i figured i'd spend my day off getting it checked out. so i got up early this morning to be at the shop when they opened (gotta love the first-come, first-served, no reservations mentality). halfway there, however, the light went off. i pulled over and re-started the car ... the light didn't come back on. so i took her for a bit of a drive and re-started the car again ... still no light. so i went and got the oil changed instead. and now i think i might lay down for a nap.

too loud for the hoa?

i have a scarf done for one of our trees. have i shown you that, yet? the scarf is striped in five bright colors. very bright. i love it. but i have to wonder if it's too loud for the home owners' association.



perhaps this yarn would be more acceptable?


i'm still going to sew the bright scarf onto the tree this fall, but i'm not going to work up the second one until i can safely judge the hoa's response.

slow sunday

i'm off work today, my roommate's off with her boy, and i'm feeling fairly uninspired to be crafty. correction: i'm feeling fairly uninspired to be crafty in a way that doesn't involve me going out to buy new tools, and i'm trying to avoid buying new tools right now. so what to do? well, i took a nap. because every lazy sunday deserves a noontime nap, right?

good things, june 11

- getting holiday pay when i wasn't expecting it.

do i need to list more? i didn't think so. :)

dying gracefully

blooming radishes

i planted two kinds of radishes: cherry belles and watermelon radishes. the cherry belles had a quick turnaround, about three weeks from planting to harvest. the watermelon radishes, however, are supposed to be in the ground for about ten weeks. ten weeks! now in fairness, they're supposed to end up being about 4" across - very large for a radish. but ten weeks? okay, i can be patient. but then they started blooming. blooming radishes? that seemed ... strange. so i pulled a couple of them up.



at about the same size as the cherry belles, they're definitely not as large as they should be, which is fair since they're supposed to be in the ground for another two weeks.


while the color inside is gorgeous, hopefully more time in the ground helps their texture. these ones were pretty tough. the spiciness was lovely, though. :)

off I65

i took back roads home yesterday. generally i drive about 100 miles on the interstate. yesterday, i drove about 25. mostly it was cornfields and farmhouses; it was lovely, really. i enjoy that kind of driving.



then, when i was almost home, i came around a corner and saw this building. it was perfect. so i turned around, pulled over and shot some photos.

decision made

so i couldn't decide whether i should blog about kindergarten graduation, playing with my camera at a baseball game, today's ride home or my blooming radishes. but since blogger won't let me upload photos, they will all have to wait until later. :)

food with faces

a couple of weeks ago i posted a close-up photo of my newest crochet creation. i thought it was a pretty ambiguous photo. april, however, immediately knew it was a cupcake. she's smart like that. what made it even better was that it was her cupcake! i made it to commemorate her tenth anniversary at work. the photo above is courtesy of april, as i forgot to shoot anything but close ups. :)



and it's pretty hard to celebrate without some sort of baked goodies, so i made tasty treats, too. :)

food with faces ... so much fun.

tulip tree blooms

for thirty years i lived in a house with a tulip tree out front. not once did any one in the family notice that it actually gets blooms on it. blooms that, amazingly enough, look a lot like tulips.

thirty years.

zombie's brother

one of the gals at work requested a zombie, so i whipped one up this week. i've been doing a lot of crocheting and needed a break from dodecahedrons and flowers. plus, i just can't bring myself to try another headband that i'm going to end up ripping out completely. :)

next up: zombie's other brother, a request from a previous co-worker. and then perhaps a small lion. or a penguin. i like the idea of a lion with a fuzzy mane. yes.

blooms

i had really hoped that the entire stalk would bloom at the same time, but burt has other ideas. his third bloom opened this morning, and by the time i got home tonight his first bloom had faded.



this bloom isn't attached to burt, and it just finished opening today, too. i got a new camera today, and this is the type of photo New Camera allows me to take that Old Camera did not. it makes me very, very happy.

burt's progress

a second flower has opened!