Hel­lo!

The tem­per­a­ture out­side is get­ting cold­er and the leaves are swirling in the wind… per­fect time to make a can­dy corn to cel­e­brate the glo­ri­ous fall weath­er! (Fall is my favourite sea­son, fol­lowed by spring.)

A quick search on Rav­el­ry yield­ed numer­ous cro­chet pat­terns for can­dy corn, but I could­n’t find a tiny one. So I thought I’d make one up and add my pat­tern to the can­dy bowl too! :D

Per­haps a pic­ture with my thumb and fin­ger would give you an idea about the size of this can­dy corn…

Any­hoo, here’s what I did…

I used:
a bit of worsted weight yel­low, white, and orange yarn
3.5mm hook
a bit of brown embroi­dery thread for mouth
two black 4mm beads for eyes
sewing needle
stuffing

First, with yel­low yarn…

Row 1: ch 4, sc in 2nd ch from hook, [sc in next ch], 3 sc in next ch, sc in the oppo­site side of pre­vi­ous stitch in square brack­et (the piece will be turned upside down), 1 sc in the same ch as the first sc, sl st in first sc. (8 st around, begin­ning ch 1 counts as a stitch)

Row 2: ch 1, sc in each st around, sl st in beg ch 1. (8 st around)

Row 3: ch 1, sc in each st around, sl st in beg ch 1. (8 st around)

Then, change to orange yarn…

Row 4: ch 1, sc in each st around, sl st in beg ch 1. (8 st around)

Row 5: ch 1, sc in each st around, sl st in beg ch 1. (8 st around)

Row 6: ch 1, sc tog over next 2 st, 1 sc in each of next 2 st, sc tog over next 2 st, sc in next sc, sl st in begin­ning ch 1.

Final­ly, change to white yarn…

Row 7: ch 1, sc in each st around, sl st in beg ch 1. (6 st around)

Row 8: ch 1, sc in each st around, sl st in beg ch 1. (6 st around) Leav­ing a 6″ tail, fas­ten off.

Stuff can­dy corn. Weav­ing tail through stitch­es at open­ing, pull tight and tie off. Weave in ends.

When I sewed on the eyes and embroi­dered the mouth, I left the knots and tail ends at the back, because I was going to attach a pin onto the back and it would hide all the tail ends.

Pinned!

Ready to take over the world! One can­dy corn at a time! Yarrrrrn.

Um. Any­way. Please let me know if you do try mak­ing this, and feel free to drop me a note if you see any mis­take or need clarification!

Have a sweet week­end every­one! :D

Accord­ing to our Hoops and Yoyo cal­en­dar, Sep­tem­ber is break­fast month! It is also back-to-school / end-of-vaca­tion month! So! Mr. Mini-Wheat is here to help stick moti­va­tion­al mes­sages on the fridge.

It is, as you might be able to tell, inspired by the talk­ing frost­ed Mini-Wheats. I’m not a big fan of Mini-Wheat myself (a bit too fibery for me), but I’m extra fond of these talk­ing Mini-Wheats because they remind me of the com­ic strips Mike used to draw.

I made a reg­u­lar sug­ary one and a straw­ber­ry one :D It would be fun to also make the brown sug­ar one and the new blue­ber­ry muf­fin flavour.

Here’s what I used:

Heavy duty jute twine (I would like to use a thin­ner twine, but that was all I could find at the dol­lar store).

6mm and 5mm hooks.

A small square of white felt, and dou­ble lay­er of a bit of pink fab­ric cut from a retired t‑shirt (because I did­n’t have pink felt).

Sewing thread in black, white, and pink.

Sewing nee­dles.

Two mag­nets.

And here’s what I did:

Twine is very stiff and knots can become undone eas­i­ly, leav­ing a longish tail in the begin­ning pre­vents the piece from com­ing apart. Also, I cro­cheted rather loose­ly through­out because the stitch­es are more tight when doing rows of slip stitch­es and, on top of that, twine does­n’t stretch.

Leav­ing a tail about 4″ long, ch 6.

Row 1: ch 1, sl st in each ch across through back loops only, ch 1, turn.

Row 2–4: sl st in each sl st across through back loops only, ch 1, turn.

Row 5: sl st in each sl st across through back loops only. Leav­ing a tail about 12″ long for sewing, fas­ten off.

Now I have a rec­tan­gle. It will be fold­ed in half and the short sides sewn together.

Then I cut out small pieces of the white and pink fab­ric and embroi­dered faces on them with black thread.

I then sewed the frost­ing faces onto the cro­cheted pieces before fold­ing the pieces in half and sewing the side edges together.

I actu­al­ly did­n’t quite “sew” the edges togeth­er. Because I did­n’t have a nee­dle with a big enough eye, I used the small­er cro­chet hook to thread the tail through the loops down the edges.

I only “sewed” one side togeth­er, leav­ing the top and bot­tom seams open. I weaved all the loose ends into the top and bot­tom openings.

And then I attached a mag­net on the back. And here they are, on the fridge! (They’re about 1″ tall.)

And a moti­va­tion­al mes­sage wait­ing to be found…

Hap­py Sep­tem­ber, everyone!

Final­ly get­ting around to post the pat­tern for Piña Cola­da :D They’re about 3 inch­es tall, and I’ve attached mag­nets on the back for mine.

This is not a com­pli­cat­ed pat­tern, but it has many parts to it, and I apol­o­gize in advance if there’s any mis­take — please let me know if you see any! Your feed­back is great­ly appreciated :)

To make Piña Cola­da, you’ll need:

• Small amount of worsted weight yel­low, green, brown and white yarn
• Small amount of DK weight white yarn
• 3.5mm and 3mm cro­chet hooks
• Embroi­dery floss in pink, brown, and black
• black round beads for eyes (I used 4mm)
• sewing nee­dles
• Stuff­ing

Pineap­ple: with yel­low and 3.5mm hook

Row 1: ch 3, 4 sc in 3rd ch from hook, sl st in top of begin­ning ch.

Row 2: ch 2, hdc in same st, 2 hdc in each of next 5 st, sl st in top of begin­ning ch.

Row 3–6: 1 sc in each sc around. Fill with stuffing.

(You may also want to sew on eyes and mouth before stuff­ing it, but I usu­al­ly like to decide on the place­ments of eyes and mouth after the amigu­ru­mi has been stuffed and filled, and then I hide the loose ends of the threads under the mag­net or pin that I’m going to attach on the back.)

Row 7: 2 sc tog five times, sl st into next st, leav­ing a long tail, fas­ten off.

Weave tail through each of the 5 st at the open­ing, pull tight and tie off. Weave in ends.

At this point, I also added the “eyes” of the pineap­ple by stitch­ing french knots all around, like so:

Pineap­ple top: with green and 3.5mm hook

Row 1: Leav­ing a long tail, ch 6, sl st into 2nd ch from hook, 1 sc in each of remain­ing ch’s, ch 1, turn.

Row 2: sc in 1st sc, sc in next sc, ch 4, sl st in 2nd st from hook, (cro­chet­ing back towards the begin­ning of row 1 at this point) sc in each of remain­ing ch’s and sc’s, ch 1, turn.

Row 3: repeat row 2.

Row 4: sc in 1st sc, sc in next sc, ch 5, sl st in 2nd st from hook, 1 sc in each of remain­ing ch’s and sc’s, ch 1, turn.

Row 5: repeat row 4, except omit ch 1 at the end. Fas­ten off.

Then, start­ing from the end that has just been fas­tened off, I rolled it up, like so:

Then I stitched it togeth­er, through all the lay­ers in the stitch­es below the “spikes”, using the tail I left in the beginning.

Sew pineap­ple top to pineap­ple. I had enough yarn left after sewing the pineap­ple top togeth­er, so I did­n’t tie off and just con­tin­ued using the same yarn tail to do the attach­ing of the two parts.

Then I attached the eyes with black embroi­dery floss and embroi­dered the mouth (I used brown embroi­dery floss). I like to use straight pins with black bead pin heads to try out posi­tions for eyes.

Now it’s time to make arms and legs, but they’re option­al. I made them for this pair because they’re wed­ding gifts and I like that they’re able to hold hands :)

Arm/hand (make 2): with DK weight white and 3mm hook

ch 8, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next ch, ch 3, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next ch, ch 3, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next ch, sl st in 5th ch from the begin­ning ch, sl st in each of remain­ing ch’s. Leav­ing a long tail, fas­ten off.

Leg/foot (make 2): with DK weight white and 3mm hook

ch 8, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next ch, ch 3, sl st in 2nd ch from hook, sl st in next ch, sl st in 5th ch from the begin­ning ch, sl st in each of remain­ing ch’s. Leav­ing a long tail, fas­ten off.

Then I stitched the arms and legs to the pineap­ple using the long tails I left, and weaved in all ends.

Now, on to the coconut!

Coconut — shell: with brown and 3.5mm hook

Row 1: ch 3, 4 sc in 3rd st from hook, sl st into the top of begin­ning ch.

Row 2: ch 2, sc in same st, 2 sc in each sc around, sl st into top of begin­ning ch.

Row 3: ch 2, sc in next sc, * 2 sc in next sc, 1 sc into each of next 2 sc*, repeat from * to * around, sl st in top of begin­ning ch.

Row 4: ch 2, 1 sc in each sc around.

Row 5: repeat row 4. Fas­ten off, weave in ends.

I sewed on the eyes and embroi­dered the mouth (I used pink embroi­dery floss) at this point.

Coconut — flesh: with worsted weight white and 3mm hook

Row 1: ch 3, 4 sc in 3rd st from hook, sl st into the top of begin­ning ch.

Row 2: ch 2, sc in same st, 2 sc in each sc around, sl st into top of begin­ning ch.

Row 3: ch 2, 1 sc in each sc around. Leav­ing a long tail, fas­ten off.

Put coconut flesh into coconut shell, so it looks like this:

Using the tail left from the white part, I sewed the shell and flesh togeth­er by mak­ing a few stitch­es around, being care­ful that the white yarn is not show­ing through the brown shell, i.e. sewing through the stitch­es that are on the inside of the shell. I sup­pose one could also attach the shell and flesh togeth­er with a blob hot glue at the bot­tom, that might be more straightforward.

Last­ly, make arms and legs and attach to coconut.

So here we have it -

“Piña!”

“Coladaaah!”

I real­ized that coconut in Span­ish isn’t “cola­da”, like I’ve always thought. I found out that “Cola­da” actu­al­ly means “strained”. But coconut need­ed some mag­net­ic alpha­bets to pose with. Hence the picture.

Again, I hope the pat­tern is clear. If you come across any prob­lem or need clar­i­fi­ca­tion please drop me a note!

Pat­tern for a chest­nut! Pret­ty sim­ple and straight­for­ward. I sup­pose the fin­ished size is about the same size as a typ­i­cal chest­nut. I jot­ted down this pat­tern while I was mak­ing it, and I’m new to this pat­tern-writ­ing thing, so I apol­o­gize for mis­takes if there is any, and please let me know if you spot them. Your feedback/comments are much appreciated!

So, any­ways…

To make a chest­nut you’ll need:

• Worsted weight yarn in tan and brown (I used Red Heart Super Saver)
• 2 beady eyes (I used 4mm)
• Pink embroi­dery floss
• 3.5 mm cro­chet hook
• Tapes­try nee­dle, sewing needle
• Stuff­ing

Note: the chest­nut pic­tured is turned inside out, i.e. wrong side is fac­ing out, because I liked the shape of the wrong side bet­ter than the right for the chest­nut. It’s dif­fer­ent for dif­fer­ent yarn and dif­fer­ent amigu­ru­mi, I think.

Pat­tern:

Row 1: with tan, ch 3, 4 sc in 3rd st from hook, sl st in top of begin­ning ch

Row 2: ch 2, sc in same sc, 2 sc in next sc, sc in next sc, 2 sc in each of next two sc, sc in next sc, sl st in top of begin­ning ch 2.

Row 3: ch 2, sc in same sc, 2 sc in next sc, 1 sc in each of next 3 sc, 2 sc in each of next 2 sc, 1 sc in each of next 3 sc, insert hook in top of begin­ning ch 2, drop tan yarn and pick up brown yarn, yo and pull through loop to com­plete sl st. Fas­ten off tan yarn.

Row 4 — 5: ch 2, 1 sc in each sc around, sl st in top of begin­ning ch 2.

Row 6: ch 2, 2 sc tog 3 times, 1 sc in each of next 2 sc, 2 sc tog 3 times, 1 sc in each of next 2 sc, sl st in begin­ning ch 2.

Stuff chest­nut. You might also want to sew on the eyes and mouth at this point (before stuff­ing it), but I pre­fer decid­ing the place­ment for eyes and mouth after the amigu­ru­mi is stuffed and shaped. I usu­al­ly make mag­nets or pin, so I hide the thread ends at the back where I would attach mag­nets or pin.

Row 7: ch 2, 4 sc tog twice, 2 sc tog over last sc and top of begin­ning ch 2. Fas­ten off, weave in end.

Sew on eyes and mouth if you haven’t already.

And there you have it, a chest­nut! I made mine into a fridge mag­net by attach­ing mag­nets to the back…

… and it makes sure I don’t lose the recipes I’d like to try but haven’t got­ten around to make (like this pan­cake cake I picked up at Ikea!)…

I used those very strong mag­nets that look like watch bat­ter­ies, and by putting an extra mag­net behind the fab­ric I can wear it as a pin! Here it is “pinned” on my show­er curtain…

Oooh, or it can be made into a key chain or cell­phone charm… strung togeth­er with cro­cheted fall leaves per­haps? Here’s a love­ly free pat­tern of fall leaves on Craft­Styl­ish)

Or it might just sit on your desk and smile at you while you work…

Any­ways, hap­py crocheting!