St. Paddy's Day Treats

Green food! These radioactive-looking treats are lemon-cheesecake bars.

At least, they were supposed to be. I poured the lemon filling in too quickly and it did not float on top of the (also green) cheesecake layer, but instead stirred it up in chunks. Still tasty, and green.


Green colored, cinnamon-clove flavored marshmallows -- hand-beaten. My electric mixer broke right as I started to beat the sugar syrup.


This is my surprisingly useful hand-mixer -- thanks Mom! =) However, it is tedious and uncomfortable to beat marshmallow syrup by hand and I will not be doing it again.


Another example of why flash is not always your friend. Benign hand-mixer becomes Medieval torture device casting ominous shadows when flash is applied.

Drink up, festive folk!
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St. Paddy's Day Crochet

Paddy not Patty
Some green and white colored, Irish-themed crochet projects for St. Patrick's Day.



This one's a leaf motif pot mat I found here. It came out nicer than I expected in the variegated green and white thread. Also a good example of why flash isn't always your friend.


Three-leaf clover button hangers from a shamrock pin pattern. I made a loop out of the loose ends so they can be easily slipped over buttons (I was too lazy to get out my glue gun and find pins). The patterns are for yarn, but I used doubled-up crochet thread to make button-sized clovers.


More clovers, in four-leaf and three-leaf varieties. Making these out of variegated crochet thread is nice but a touch difficult. The thread needs to be doubled in the middle of the right color to get it to line up all the way through. The mini one in the upper right of the pic below, and the four-leaf ones in this pic, are from a pattern similar to the three-leaf, which you can find here.


Some more clover varieties. The bottom left is from this pattern, also for yarn. I did not double the thread, but I should have.



I made these using a pattern I found last year. I have been unable to locate a working website for the pattern, therefore I'm pasting it below.

Shamrock Pin or Fridgie 2 1/2" X 3"
Design 2002 by Catherine Lindsay

You'll Need:
Green bedspread-weight cotton thread,2 strands held together
Size "O" steel hook
Small safety pin or magnet strip
To Make:
Leaving a 6"-long tail,ch 4,join with slip st to 1st chain to form loop.
Rnd 1:Ch 1,sc in loop,(ch 3,sc in loop)3 times.Join with slip st to 1st sc(4 ch-3 loops).
Rnd 2:Ch 1,(in next ch-3 loop work[sc,hdc,dc,trc,dc,hdc,sc])rep around.Join with slip st to 1st sc(4 leaf motifs).
Rnd 3:Ch 1,(sc in next sc,hdc in next hdc,2 dc in next dc,3 dc in next trc,2 dc in next dc,hdc in next hdc,sc in next sc)rep around.Do not finish off.

Stem:
Ch 8,sc in 2nd ch from hook and in next 6 chs.Slip st in next sc.Finish off.

Finishing:
Using 6" tail,sew small safety pin to back of shamrock,or glue on a magnet for a fridgie.

Evil Bitch-Monster of Death notes: for my tight stitches, this pattern takes about 32 feet of thread, doubled over to 16 feet. For looser stitches, probably a few feet more.

Next year, I'll look for hunter green and kelly green crochet thread. Read More......

Angel Crochet

An angel I made for my co-worker's birthdate present.



Wings, halo, and body.


I used size 10 white crochet thread, a steel 7 hook, white glue, a funnel, and shellac spray to give it some water-proofing after the starching.

The pattern is here: Lora's Angel.
Evil Bitch-Monster of Death's Wings, Row 7 correction: Ch 3, turn, dc in same st as turning, (ch 1, dc in next dc) 10 times. Ch 1, 2 dc in last dc. (11 ch-1 loops)


Shellac gives the finished product a bit of an ecru tint that doesn't show very much in the first picture.


I may test a better "clear" sealant from an art store on the next couple of angels. Oh, yes, couple. After presenting the angel to my co-worker, I received requests from my other coworker and boss for angels like this one. They intend to use the angels as tree-toppers, which gives me until December. Plenty of time to play with LEDs.
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