Elephant Earmuffs

So I've been very busy. My friends know I swore off swapping for a couple months, and then...

Anyway, I angeled for a really nice gal who's stuffie was whisked away from her in Little Visitor. I guess its part of the risk, but what a shame!

Anyway, I decided to make her a stuffie and buy one for her, and I think I assembled a nice package for her.

Part of the package was this adorable little elephant that I named Aliya (Sri Lankan for Elephant) - created from Romansock's cute little Pocket Elephant pattern:



But an elephant lives in the jungle! What was she going to do in Michigan? So I made her some winter gear!



These are her earmuffs, because I imagined an elephant would lose a lot of heat through her ears!

So if you'd like to make some cute earmuffs for your elephant, here's the pattern:

Start with the left side and chain 7. Do 9 treble crochets into chain #4. Slip stitch from the last treble crochet into chain #1.

Then, create the middle of the left side - single crochet back to chain #7 on the half moon side. In effect, this is what you are creating:



Then you're going to chain 7 and repeat. The only difference is you are going to anchor each treble crochet onto the single crochet stitches in the middle with a slip stitch.

So in effect, the instructions look like this: Chain 7, create treble crochet in chain #4, slip stitch into single crochet row, create treble crochet from the top (where you just slip stitched) and anchor into chain #4 with a slip stitch, and repeat until you have 9 total. When you're finished with the last treble crochet, anchor it with a slip stitch to the end of the single crochets.

Then you're going to create the brace at the top of the earmuffs. This one's easy - chain 10, single crochet 10 stitches, and chain 10 into the single crochets so you reach the end of the line.



Now this is where it gets a bit tricky. You're going to repeat the same steps you did to make the first muff but you need to make sure that you face the bottom/foundation chain to the middle! If you don't, you're going to end up with a twisted muff on the right side. And don't feel bad if you have to try it a couple times - even I had to and I designed the pattern!

(In case you forgot or prefer the shorthand, here's how to make the muff: ch 7, 9 tc in ch 4, sl st ch 1. ch 7, *tc in ch4, sl st to sc #1, tc in sc #1, sl st to ch 4* Rep * until 9 tc, sl st ch 1. (make sure to face bottom chain to the inside!).)

This pattern is also registered in Ravelry (look for me as cfbandit).

Ravelry, or how I've forgotten how many projects I've done

So, the new buzzword in the knitting community is Ravelry. I finally climbed the 20K + waiting list and got in and have been amazed at just how awesome it really is.

Worth every bit of the hype? Absolutely! Want to know what a particular yarn looks like knitted up? Just search for it and hundreds of projects pop up. Looking at a pattern? See the comments everyone else made about it - and the potential yarn substitutions.

But the most amazing part, at least to me, is the part where you enter your projects, past, present and future. After going through the Yahoo group photos and the photos from my blog, my flickr account, my photobucket, my 360 and craftster, I've realized how many projects I've forgotten that I did since I give so much of my knitting away.

So I've just been overwhelmed with entertaining memories of my old projects. This weekend I'm going to try my stash - which will so help me predict what yarns I'm going to need in the future. I'm sure DH will appreciate that!