The Pumpkin and Friends

Hey Blog Buddies,

How was your weekend?  Did you get to do some fun summer (or winter) activities?  We had really nice weather here, so we biked, sat out on the deck and played with Molly in the yard.

She's a fast runner, and

my panning skills are lacking.

 

One can always get a better shot

just before throwing the ball!

 

And since I'm a little behind in showing you my stitchy stuff, let's not waste another minute.  I worked on the pumpkin (Debbie Stiehler's design--you can see the finished model on my sidebar), and I finished my first football!  Here is where we last left it:

Not the greatest picture, but you get the idea.

 

And here is what it looks like now:

 

You can see why I called it a "football."

There are 16 sections to each football.

They all repeat, but the stitches are placed

a little differently on each one.

 

Here is more detail of the finished sections:

That was a lot of stitching!

 

Here are some close-ups:

 

The darker section is an eggplant-colored

metallic ribbon couched with orange,

then diagonally backstitched with alternating

light and medium shades of green.  Fun!

 

Debbie gives great instructions

for stitching plaid designs easily.

The bottom right design is one of the layered stitches.

There is never a dull moment here.

 

I'll save other close-ups for later progress reports,

because I can see this might get

a little repetitive.

 

The first "friend of the pumpkin"

is a quilted table topper.

 

I pieced the top months ago,

and it's been sitting on the dining room table

in an unfinished state ever since.

I thought leaving it there would shame me into

finishing it a lot faster than I did--obviously not!

Yay, for a long-awaited finish!

 

The final "friends" of the pumpkin are two crocheted bunnies

which I made to sell at my guild's annual holiday boutique.

I was originally going to make just one bunny,

but you know how rabbits are--they multiply!

 

Here's my first bunny:

 

See how forlorn he is all by himself.

He looks like he's been run over by a truck.

 

I had an extra skein of yarn left, so...

...now he has a sister.

DH has named them Donnie and Marie.

(No, he's not quite right, either.)

You'll notice that the tips of Donnie's ears are rounded,

but Marie's ears come to a point

as per the instructions--but it was ugly getting there.

I used Cascade Cherub DK yarn,

and I found it somewhat difficult to work with

because it tended to split quite a bit.

The pattern is from Simply Crochet,

a British publication.

I learned the hard way that a British double crochet

is an American single crochet!

 

I guess Donnie gave Marie a tour of the backyard.

They probably climbed the tree

trying to get away from Molly.

Don't worry--I rescued them.

 

I have a third (and last) bunny in the works,

but he will look a bit different--

perhaps a third cousin twice removed.

 

That's it from here.

Thanks, as always, for visiting.