After many years of trekking around the world with the hopes of catching sight of this very shy creature my efforts were finally rewarded with a brief encounter.  Sadly, the timid nature of the wild Prowlopus led to photos that were more flora than fauna so I was left with the task of documenting the event in another medium....I present to you Paul the Prowlopus.  For those of you unfamiliar with the Prowlopus, this fascinating creature is a cross-breed of Proboscis monkey (nose and tail), Owl (face, body, and wings), and Octopus (legs).

This rendering will soon live in the home of a dear friend that has always yearned for a chance to see the Prowlopus in the wild but unfortunately was unable to join me on this most recent adventure.

Since most of our Christmas things are in storage back in the states it was time to start fresh.  Given that it is our first Christmas as a married couple I decided to crochet our stockings (and stockings for two creatures that are members of our family...a spider pig pony and a zebra cow kitty).  I made my husband's first (his is the furthest left) and apparently forgot what size hook I used for it when I made mine as his is noticeably larger than the rest...doh!  I used this pattern from lion brand lionbrand.com/patterns/81061AD.html?noImages= and played around with the stitch types for the leg, foot, and cuff.

The more colorful ones are my favorite as they are done in the color schemes of our pseudo children and my husband insisted on traditional colors for ours.  The tree topper hanging out in the middle is Christmas Wizard, the one decoration I grabbed on our last trip home.  It is supposed to be an angel I think but it always looked like a wizard to me...

My favorite part of our decorations is the paper tree I made...it has a layer of light green paper in a triangle-ish shape underneath and then I made a ridiculous number of dark green snowflakes for the tree and red snowflakes for ornaments (I was going to keep going and make a string of yellow lights but couldn't get my hands to cut any more).  All the paper is left-over scraps from the speech and drama program I teach in with the star being from a wedding invitation...yay free!!!  To get an idea of scale it is about 2.5 ft tall by 4 ft wide...

So a while back I created a creature for my now husband that is part Spider, Pig, and Pony (http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=325196.0) and he (Spider Pig Pony) has since become a bit of a mascot for our family.  One of my husband's hobbies is home brewing and thus last year's Chirstmas present was born!  We always joke that if he ever sells his beer the name of the brewery would be Brewery Spider Pig Pony so I embellished a label with felt and embroidery floss.  For good measure I embroidered SPP on the cap. 

My sister is due with her second son in March so the baby crafting has begun.  I made this blanket using Johanna Moore's Baby Blue Spiral Baby Blanket pattern I found on Ravelry.   It is a very easy and repetitive pattern but I learned how to do surface crochet to do the brown lines that highlight the swirls so that was very motivating to finish.  I am thinking of adding some ribbon tags around the edge although I haven't found any that I like yet.  I plan to also make booties, infant gloves, and a hat to match in the brown and trimmed with the teal.


wide-shot


close -up of the center detail

My 3 1/2 year old nephew needed a new winter hat so I asked him what kind of hat he would like (bear, puppy, monster, elmo) and he chose a green bear (green is his favorite color).  We compromised on a brown bear hat with a green cap on top.  Given that his head is almost as big as mine I used this pattern from lion brand yarn http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/70318AD.html?noImages=0&r=1 for the hat and this pattern http://prepstercrochet.blogspot.com/2008/12/brown-bear-beanie.html for the face (although only loosely).

I am in the midst of planning a craft-tastic wedding for myself and my partner to take place in a small town in upstate New York while we reside in Singapore.  Knowing that I still wanted it to have those hand-made touches I decided that I could get the most bang for my checked luggage buck by crafting the flowers and centerpieces.  After much trial and error with different floral motifs I decided to keep it uniform and stick to the mollie flower (http://littlegreen.typepad.com/romansock/2009/04/mollie-flowers-the-tutorial.html).  I covered a foam ball with green duct tape and used straight pins to attach the flowers and the leaves (in case I want to dismantle it to use the flowers for something else).  Not having a clue where to find a bouquet holder here I used the next best thing: a plunger that I duct taped to the ball.  The handle was a bit long so I had that cut down at the plumbing supply store.  I then crocheted a cover for the plunger and tied a bow on it.  Not sure how I feel about the size and color of the bow so I may try crocheting something to tie around it to keep with the motif.  Sorry for being so wordy...on to the pictures. 



Questions, comments, concerns welcomed!

So the following creature was born a little over a year ago and has taken on quite a little personality (including being the mascot for my running group)...He combines my fascination with Spider Pig from the Simpsons Movie and my boyfriend's running joke about his fascination with all things pony.  He is 50% Pig (head and ears), 50% Pony (maine, body and tail), and 50% Spider (legs).  He enjoys flying, running, and beer.

Here are a few photos of my little buddy: