I'm loving this bird feeder from Regina at Creative Kismet. She took a thrifted bowl and added a crochet collar of twine and a chained hanging line to create the beautiful feeder.

By Lindsey North, projects intern

In September we launched a new feature: the CRAFT Crochet-Along brought to you by Lion Brand Yarn. Readers followed along online, live with Tamie Snow from Roxycraft, to crochet a cool Fuzzy Panda Amigurumi in three lessons, then entered their finished pandas in the CRAFT Crochet-Along Flickr Group for a crafty prize giveaway. Tamie's the author of Tiny Yarn Animals, she's extremely talented, and she created this fun pattern just for us CRAFT readers. Pretty sweet!

Download the Fuzzy Panda Amigurumi pattern in PDF format

It's a wonderful project for someone who's always working on the same types of knit and crochet projects. If you feel like you're endlessly making hat after scarf after afghan after hat, you should really try it. If you already crochet, it's a walk in the park, a lovely sunny day when the leaves are starting to turn and fall from the trees. And if you're new to crochet, the stitches are easy to learn, and as long as you use your stitch markers you can be confident your panda will turn out just like it's supposed to. Tamie gives row-by-row instructions the whole way.

So after I completed my little top-heavy, adorably fuzzy panda, I decided to challenge myself by trying to change the scale and making a panda party. At the moment, I'm playing around with both scale and color -- here's my original Pinkie and a larger-scale Rusty -- and I encourage everyone to do the same. Have fun with this cute little ball of fluff, make it your own.

Enjoy the other Crochet-Alongs in the future. It's a great way to make the most of the free time you may have in this busy season to do something creative and fun!

Your CRAFT intern,
Lindsey

• Related: CRAFT Crochet-Along home page

This three-scoop ice cream cone was crocheted in the late 70s by Pepperknit's mom. [Via Inspire me, now!]

Sarah London has just announced her mystery Christmas crochet project, which runs through the end of November. I'm in love with the idea of jumping in to a project without knowing what the end result will be!

As I said, it is our Mystery Project for November, so no reveals til the end, plunge in if you have faith, plunge in if you love to crochet and plunge in if you're looking to decorate with crochet this Holiday Season!

Maria Merlino, of Crochet Living, has transformed the peacock papercut into a fillet crochet pattern! Her work in crochet is creative and skillful, and she just happens to also be a member of the Guild of American Papercutters. Maria's pattern is the perfect intersection of two distinct craft medias, and I love that she created the crossover. And I love even more that she has offered to share it with all of our readers! A PDF download of the pattern, with two graphs and detailed instructions, is available for everyone, with only the condition that it be used for personal, not commercial purposes. For more of Maria's amazing crochet patterns, please visit her etsy and her blog. Cheers, and happy paper crafting!

By Meara O'Reilly, projects intern

Ever since I found out about Brazilian craft cooperative Escama (featured in CRAFT Volume 03, "Pull-Tab Crochet") and saw some of their work at Maker Faire a couple of years ago, I've been on a thread-crocheting kick. I just love the way that the process involves a sort of functional, enterprising spirit (what can I cobble together and how do I invent the stitches to do it?) as well as a really interesting aesthetic.

Once I learned the basic stitches and figured out how to wrap them around just about any object, I was off!

Apart from making this pull-tab wallet for the CRAFT Archive and a few demonstration flowers from the article, I started covering everything I could think of: hoop earings, bracelets, and yup, recycled bra under-wire!

I'm still trying to figure out the best way to secure the ends of my crochet (I've so far used beads and glue on the end of each wire to keep the stitches on) but I love the structure of these bra-wire necklaces and I think somebody could make something really beautiful with the idea -- baby mobiles or lampshades, anyone?

If you have nimble fingers, you should be able to whip up one of these knit or crochet masks in time for Halloween. Lee Meredith at Threadbanger has gathered up the coolest and weirdest knit and crochet costumes for the season.

Craftster user, azabuey, crocheted this fabulous Scrabble afghan as a wedding gift for her Scrabble-addicted friends. That is my kind of wedding gift!

These wee Halloween amigurumi patterns from Lion Brand Yarn would make for fun decor projects or teacher gifts. They've offered up a happy pumpkin, a ghost and (not pictured) candy corn!

This awesome cthulhu baby blanket was lovingly crocheted by Craftster user Fickle Pegasus. The velcro tentacles can hold onto toys so they don't roll away. [via Neatorama]

Kristin Rask, who runs the Plush You! show recently did an interview with Yummy Pancake, who made (among other things) this crochet Jägermeister bottle. Happy Friday!

This Wool Eater blanket looks so very complicated, but Sarah London's instructions make it seem easy. The colors are quite inspiring, and the texture is to die for!

It's been such a fun experience doing this Crochet-Along with you all! We've had some great participants who have made some incredible dolls.

If you want to start now check out the lessons here.

Giveaway Results!

The Winner of 1 signed copy of Tiny Yarn Animals by Tamie Snow:

Flickr user : SugarCoatedCreations

The Winner of 1 signed copy of Feltique by Brookelynn Morris and Nikola Davidson:
Flickr user: crissybell

The Winner of 2 skeins of Lion Brand Alpine Wool Yarn:
Flickr user: sumrsprite

The Winner of 1 copy of Lion Brand Yarn Vintage Styles for Today:
Flickr user: loves2design


The Winner of 1 CRAFT T-Shirt:
Flickr user: Ernessa_Theodora

Check out the rest of the amazing entries and post your own picture at the Crochet-Along Flickr Group Pool.

It has been a huge pleasure to this with you I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!
For more wicked amigurumi patterns check out my website Roxycraft and take advantage of my 50% off sale running until Sept 30th!
Enter Code "CAL2009" to get your discount.

First, take a good look at the ball band. It has a ton of great information to get you started in the right direction. You can see what all the symbols mean by going to Skein Lane Studio and Yarn Standards.

Look at the yarn's weight (lace, fingering, sport, dk, worsted, aran, bulky, chunky - each yarn brand is different though) and the suggested hook and needle size. You can see general yarn standards for weights and suggested hook and needle sizes on Yarn Standards as well as suggested gauge.

Now here is the tricky thing - we all knit and crochet differently and with different tensions (how tight our stitches are) so for me I like to knit worsted yarns with size 6 needles tops. And I often crochet it with a size D hook. And it also depends on the type of fabric we want to create. Do we want a tight thick fabric or an open fabric? Not to mention all yarns are not created equal so some yarns are spun tight and others loose. You have 1 ply, 2 ply, 3 ply, etc ply yarns all wound up different ways. And then there are fiber types. Some fibers look a lot better knit loose while others tight. Alpaca will drape heavily and straight wool will have a bit more bounce.

I make sure to look at the weight they say the yarn is, what the suggested needle size is and then what the gauge is. Those are the big indicators of what the yarn will knit up like. All the same it's always best to get it wrapped around your needles/hook and work a few short rows to see what it's like. The yarn shop I used to work at had a huge basket of yarn just for this purpose, so crafters could see what the yarn worked up like and if it would be right for their pattern.

The easiest thing to do is to knit with the recommended yarn and needles/hook recommended by your pattern - but who does that? In an ideal world sure, but we work with what's available, what's on hand, what's in our stash or our local yarn shop. Yarns get discontinued too, so sometimes it's just impossible to find.

I found this great "Thinking Beyond the Pattern... A field guide to yarn substitutions" on Knitty.com about doing yarn substitutions. And this is wonderful to know. I think that was the number one question I was asked while working at the Yarn Exchange "what yarn can I use for this pattern?"

So to recap - swatches are your best bet, experience will help you get a feel for it, there are standards but they don't always apply, once you figure out how to do yarn substitutions you are golden for any project.

I hope this helps and that you will be well on your way to grabbing the right hook the first time around!

The Lion Brand Yarn Studio in New York is collecting hats and scarves for The Partnership for the Homeless, a organization committed to helping New York City families in need. From now until December 1st, let the staff know you are working on a hat or scarf for the charity and you'll get 10% off all yarn, hooks, needles, and supplies. Once you finish making all your hats and scarves, drop them off at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio. As a thank you, you'll receive a 20% off coupon for your next purchase.

Starting October 1st to November 22nd, the staff of the Lion Brand Yarn Studio will be knitting and crocheting scarves in the window during operating hours to donate to The Partnership for the Homeless. (We'll post some pics of these when it happens!)

For more information, visit the Lion Brand Yarn Studio blog.

Gabriela of Josefina Y El Amanecer created these fun crochet elf slippers. She's included a pattern for creating your own. Some of her blog is in Spanish, but most is translated, and the pattern is universal. Thanks, Sylv!

Of course we need our mittens and gloves when taking walks, but there are many times we need are fingers, say when we are turning compost piles, taking pictures, or drawing little sketches of squirrels running around the warmed up soil.

These are really fun to work up because they are both simple, cute and really quick. How can you make a pair of fingerless mittens in just an evening? Well, you just let a little knit fall in love with a little crochet and then you have some great little fingerless mitten critters to keep your hands nice a toasty warm in a snap.

Brimmed Beanie
By Juliene Ford and Jamie Chan

This brimmed beanie is a fun cap with stylish small brim, different from the hats we typically find ourselves knitting or crocheting each year. Dress it up by adding your own embellishment to it with special stitching or a crochet flower!

Download the PDF for the Brimmed Beanie
(Note: If you are having problems viewing the PDF, please right-click on the link to download the file to your desktop or read directions here.)

About the Authors:

Juliene Ford has been crocheting and designing patterns since 2002. She recently placed in the juried California Creative Arts exhibit at the 2009 California State Fair with a purse that she designed using crochet, knitting, and sewing. Details can be found on her blog, www.stitchify.com.

Jamie Marie Chan is a crafter, shop owner, and educator in San Francisco, Calif. She runs Urban Fauna Studio, San Francisco's only green-certified fiber arts workshop and Mary Jane's Attic an online hand dyed fiber web shop.

It's Week Three of the Fuzzy Panda Amigurumi Crochet-Along! Hope you guys are having as much fun as I am!

*for last weeks lesson, "Assembling the Head", click here.

This week we're finishing up by assembling the body and attaching our heads and bodies together. This is the satisfying part!

Yay! That's our last lesson and now it's up to you to finish up your own Fuzzy Panda!

GIVEAWAYS!

• 1 signed copy of Tiny Yarn Animals by Tamie Snow
• 1 signed copy of Feltique by Nikola Davidson and Brookelynn Morris
• 2 skeins of Alpine Wool
• 1 copy of Lion Brand Yarn Vintage Styles for Today
• 1 CRAFT T-Shirt

5 Winners will be chosen from the CRAFT Crochet-Along Flickr pool at random (only pictures of finished dolls will qualify) to win a prize! Entries must be uploaded to the Flickr pool by September 28th at 12n PST and tagged with "CRAFTCALCONTEST". Winner will be announced next September 28th, 2009, 12n PST

Get More Roxycraft Patterns on Sale Now!
From now until the end of the month, enter code "CAL2009" when you checkout on Roxycraft.com for a 50% off discount on patterns!

Crochet Cat Toy Pattern
By Kristin Roach

I am so happy to be here with all of you for the next two weeks. Guest writing for CRAFT is such an honor! Thank you so much to Natalie and all the wonderful CRAFT team for having me. I am so excited about the next two weeks and all the fun projects, tutorials, and inspirations I get to share with you.

My name is Kristin Roach and I am visiting from Craft Leftovers, my craft blog all about using up my leftovers craft supplies and inspiring others to do the same. Learn to create uniquely wonderful handmade projects using what is on hand. There are free patterns, tutorials, book reviews, interviews, and general musings about stash. In the next two weeks I'm going to share with you some of my favorite ways to use up yarn leftovers!

Today, get started using up yarn bits with a cute catnip mouse. Needing under 20g of yarn and a catnip pillow, it's just the thing to use your yarn ends up and make your (or your friends') cat really happy!

Materials

1 catnip pillow
10g or less of Color A worsted yarn
10g or less of Color B worsted yarn
Size D hook

Directions

Learn how to start your crochet project with a magic loop (adjustable loop) on Crochet Me. Don't have a catnip pillow on hand? Learn how to make your own catnip pillow.

This pattern was first featured in the September issue of Craft Leftovers Monthly, a print extension of Craft Leftovers!

Saturday is World Wide Spin in Public Day! That's tomorrow, so grab your spindles and find a Spin in Public event to visit. If you already know how to spin, get out there and try to teach someone who has never tried it. If you don't know, it's the perfect excuse to learn. Oh, and many thanks to Manspun for sending us the info on the event. Little did he know that I have a special place in my heart for men who spin! I'll be profiling him tomorrow, so check back for that!

In honor of WWSIP Day, I want to introduce you to two of my friends, Buck and Greg. They are obsessed with spinning. For them, every single day is Spin in Public Day! They run a roadside fiber stand in Monte Rio, a little hamlet on the Russian River in Sonoma County, California. Their shop is called Two Guyz Spinning, and Tuesday through Sunday, the "Two Guyz" set up their wares and set up their wheel, and then they spin.

What I love the most about them is their unconventional take on fiber arts. Buck and Greg are dedicated to living from the earth, and that includes their yarn-making techniques. Their unique take starts with the fibers that they spin. They spin sheep's wools like dorset and churro. They spin other animal fibers like alpaca and Kashmir goat. And they spin plant fibers like flax, bamboo, and hemp. The yarn Greg is showing off in the photo is some of his wolf yarn, and its just to die for. Buck and Greg take it to the next level when they spin fibers like wolf and wildcrafted bison. Collecting bison is tricky, because conservation laws prevent taking wool from any of the national parks like Yellowstone, where the herds live. Instead, the gatherers wait for the bison to leave the boundaries of the park to calve, and then take the fibers that are left behind.

Last Friday, Natalie and I got a tour of the NYC Lion Brand Yarn Studio on 15th Street in Manhattan. Zontee and Patty showed us around their rotating window display, their luscious yarn offerings, and told us all about the classes and events that take place in the studio.

Subscribe to the CRAFT Podcast in iTunes, or download the m4v video.

Natalie also took some awesome pics at the studio, check out her Flickr set! Pictured aboe is Becky, Natalie, and Zontee.

By Lindsey North, projects intern

As readers of CRAFT and MAKE know, finding materials for projects can sometimes be challenging, if not downright maddening. I've spent hours online looking for very specialized materials that appear to be as mythical as unicorns. And even when you know exactly what you're after, you have to surf the web looking for the best deals.

To make CRAFT's Crocheted Wooden Bowl project by Vickie Howell, I remember hunting for yarn made from pineapple fibers that would be used to crochet around the wooden bowl to add decoration and color.

Pineapple fiber yarn! Come on! Where do you find that?

I searched online and learned that pineapple fiber is commonly called pina or piña. I called every yarn store in Sonoma County and then started calling the bigger stores in San Francisco. I couldn't find what I wanted.

So I did a general search and found Knit Purl, a store in Portland, Oregon, that carried the whole line of alternate-fiber yarns. These were made from various barks and leaves, and dyed with amazing colors; the saturation and hue reminded me of a florist's shop. And they had pineapple yarn! Theirs is called fique (fee-kay) and is made from a relative of the commercial pineapple plant. The store owners were very helpful, as they allowed me to pay over the phone and shipped the yarn to me. Knit Purl is the place to go for strange and awesome yarns. At this point in my crafting career that has been my greatest acquisitional challenge.

I had a blast working on this project after I found the yarn and some wooden bowls that didn't "cost an arm and a leg." (I would have a hard time spending big bucks on something I'm just going to drill holes in.) Returning to the Craft Lab, I measured and marked the points where I would be drilling my wooden bowls. (Measuring is very important and should never be skipped ever if you are a trained professional.)

Then I crocheted my way around the bowl, slowly decreasing as I got closer to the base. I ended the last ring around the base, and wove the end back in. This bowl looks totally awesome when it is full of fruit -- or balls of hard-to-find yarn.

Your CRAFT intern,
Lindsey

Jessica of Happy Together created these adorable crochet crowns and shares her pattern so you can make your own. She's also included a boy-style crown so the little fellas won't feel left out!

Over on Crafting a Green World, Becky Striepe has added a new addition to her Yoga for Crafters series, this one focused on tackling the aches and pains that come with hours of knitting or crochet, perfect for our Cozy Up to Yarn month.

Head on over to the Etsy shop Tiny Tangerines and you'll be in cute heaven. Crafter Kelly Burghardt designs and crochets the most adorable baby hats shaped like owls, cupcakes, cows, and more. I got a chance to catch up with this busy designer and mom to find out more about her new crafy biz.

Please tell us what you make.
Custom crochet hats sold at tinytangerines.etsy.com.

How long have you been crocheting and how did you get started?
I've been crocheting for about a year now. A friend of mine taught me the basic stitch needed to make straight lines, but you can only make so many scarfs before it's time to learn something new. About two months ago I taught myself how to crochet hats by watching youtube videos and I fell in love!

Your crochet hats for babies are adorable. What was your inspiration for creating them?
My daughter (born via emergency c-section) was blessed with a rather large head. All of the cute little baby headbands and hats we would buy for her looked too tight and seemed rather uncomfortable, so I decided to start making my own. When I posted pictures of them on my livejournal all of my mommy friends wanted some for their little ones too, some even suggested I open and etsy shop. I had no idea my hats would be so popular. I am so lucky to have found a way to help with the bills, while staying home with my daughter and doing something I really love.

How do you come up with your patterns?
It started with the owls and cupcakes, two of my favorite things! Now whenever I see something that makes me "awwww" my next thought is "how can I translate this into a hat?"

Do you have a crochet tip you can share?
Play with your stitches! Some of my favorite tricks have come from what I thought was a mistake.

Are there any other crafts you like to do?
I try to put a crafty spin on everything I do. I'm known for bringing theme cupcakes to every event I'm invited to. I reconstruct all of my clothes, paint silly patterns on my nails, and I've had my hair every color of the rainbow! I also love sketching, painting, sculpting, and any art project I can get my hands on. It feels so good to create something you can be proud of.

Magically Clean Eco Tawashi
Crochet this pretty and practical acrylic sponge to clean your dishes without soap.
By Narumi Ogawa

A Japanese friend introduced eco tawashi to me about 5 years ago, when he asked me to make a crochet motif with 100% acrylic yarn. He explained that the yarn is made of very fine synthetic fibers similar to microfiber, and that this fine-filamented material is the key to magical cleaning. The acrylic sponge is scratch-free, and you can use it not only for dishes, but also for the bathtub and shower, for washing a car — basically anywhere you want.

The best part of using eco tawashi is that you can do dishes without soap. This way, you save lots of water and you don't need to use synthetic detergent, which drains into our lakes, rivers, and oceans. If your plates are a little greasy, add some baking soda or vinegar, and you'll be surprised by the results.