Yarn Monster vol. 1

In mid-December I found myself unexpectedly without anything brainless to knit during a work meeting. This posed a problem. I have to manage my focus level very carefully on long calls: if I pay 100% attention I will burn out in about 40 minutes, if I fall below 60% I'll lose track of what's going on. Offloading 25% of my mental energy onto easy yarncraft lets me stay engaged for as much as two hours. In desperation, I grabbed my trusty purple crochet hook and some scrap yarn and started making a hexagon. By the end of the meeting I had a ten round motif. I dug out some other leftovers and started making it sisters. They combined to form this:

Baby yarn monster, Portland 12/15/17.

and I lost my mind. I love everything about this little proto-blanket. I love using up my scraps. I love how quickly each motif stitches up. I love randomly selecting where to attach them and how colorful it is. I love its portability. 

I crocheted my way through San Diego, Chicago, and New London over the holidays. Since returning home I've dug out more scraps and continued to add to it. My plan is to make a ~4" x 6" blanket that I can use on my side of the bed. Sadly, our cat army would ruin any yarn-based blanket left exposed so it will have to be protected between quilts.  

Yarn monster in San Diego, 12/19/17

Yarn monster in Chicago, 12/24/17

Yarn monster in New London, 12/31/17

Finished Fatty Lumpkin horse

I finished my crocheted n-gon horse quite a while ago, but never posted a picture. This post is to remedy that. I'm very happy with how he turned out, I think he's really cute. He's pretty big. I used thicker yarn than the pattern called for and I suspect I'm not the tightest crocheter around. Consequently, he isn't really structurally sound on his own. I put paper towel tubes in his legs and neck and used string to keep his feet from splaying out. That all contributes to his majestic charm. He spends his days monitoring our goings on from the platform at the bottom of the stairs. 

Fatty Lumpkin crocheted horse

Fatty Lumpkin crocheted horse

Fatty Lumpkin progress

I've been making tracks on the crochet motifs for my Fatty Lumpkin horse. The final stuffed animal is assembled out of 17 pentagons, 15 hexagons, and a handful of heptagons, quardragons and trigons. The final product, crocheted and assembled by a pro, would look something like this:

Fatty Lumpkin, as crocheted by the designer.

 So far, my pony looks like this:

16 pentagons

 It took me a while to make the first pentagon because it wouldn't lay flat, I had to decrease some of the double crochets to half-double crochets, but I sorted it out. Now I can do about one motif per episode of Daredevil. Or Deep Space Nine, depending.

Cool crochet pony

I find myself, for the first time in a long while, without a fiber project. I finished Dad's hat and Mason's hat and I don't feel like anyone else is in urgent need of a hat. Summer is coming, yo. I'll get a picture of Dad's hat before I send it off, I'll have to beg Carrie for a picture of Mason's.

Below is the current state of my stash:

 I want to turn the medium weight subset into this without, you know, a whole lot of effort.