Wednesday, December 23, 2015

'Thong' Bookmarks and Candy Cane Ornaments



My fingers have been really busy for the past couple of weeks.  I was afraid I wouldn't finish these little guys I wanted to make but I did -- just under the wire.  I came across this really cool tutorial for crocheting a 'thong' bookmark using string and beads.  I made two last year just before Christmas and was really happy with the way they turned out.  So, this year I decided to make more of them and use more string colors and various beads, etc.  One thing I noticed while working on these is the lighter colors of string make them much easier to work on.  The hardest of the colors shown was the deep red.  It's just harder to see the tiny loop in the crochet chain that you need to slide your small size 7 (1.65 mm) steel crochet hook into.  Live and learn.  The woman who posted the Book Thong pattern is Donna Hulka.  Many thanks to her for allowing others to use her pattern!  Her tutorial with pictures is here.   You do need to be a member of CrochetMe.com but it's free to join.

Here are my versions.  I took two different photos because the first three bookmarks were ones I needed to mail out of town.



The next five I just finished -- literally a half hour ago.




Hope the recipients like them.  It was fun selecting colors and beads for different individuals.

My second project was my annual 'make an ornament' for my three nieces.  This year I decided to go with this simple crochet candy cane pattern.   You can find it here on Yarnspirations.com.  Just click on 'FREE PATTERN' on the page and a PDF will pop up for easy printing.   My three candy canes are below:




If you have pets, they might think the candy cane ornaments are toys so I had to be careful around our dog, Cooper.  He thinks anything soft and squishy belongs to him.

Now, I have to get back to going through the usual promo for my latest book which went live on Audible today.  I'll be posting about it here.  Soon.     

No comments:

Post a Comment