Well I am finally healthy enough to be up and writing on the computer again, YAY!!! I never appreciated a healthy body until I didn't have one. Without a body you really have no ability to function in the world. So I am grateful every morning that I wake up and have the energy to get out of bed, and even if I am in pain, at least I can get myself to the bathroom!!
I made these eggs as a game for all the little munchkins in my life with the idea that it would help them learn their colors and help with fine motor skills. Each egg is a different color and comes inside two egg shells that are ringed with the color of the egg inside. The child has to match up the correct egg with the shells. My friend's four year old has had a blast with them. They are super easy to make and go great in Easter baskets :)
So the latest happenings have been that Aram and I got a new bird to accompany our other Parakeet, We named her moonshine to pair her up with sunshine the other birdy. They took a little time getting used to each other, but now seem to be best of friends. There is more noise in the house and the mess is more than double what one bird's mess was (how is that possible???) but I am happy to have more companionship in the house since I am here all alone during the day.
We got mostly moved into our new apartment when both of us got sick... I got an ear infection and Aram got some kind of bacterial infection in his sinus/throat/chest. so we have furniture with bins and boxes stacked underneath and around. I keep looking forward to the day when I can get up and move boxes and put away all this crap, but for now the best thing that I can do for myself is to rest. Everytime that I do too much I end up in major pain and/or sick, so I have to be really careful how much I do and surrender to the couch.
I have been able to make it to westwood these past four weeks to see Aram perform improv. He has always told me that he dreams of doing comedy, and so it makes me so so happy to see him realizing his dreams. He has been in this contest similar to American Idol call the X-ecution. He is down to the last six people and I think he has a good chance of being the last two people, especially since he has a huge audience vote. All our friends have been making the trek every friday night in bumper to bumper traffic to be there and raise their hands for Aram so that he can get through to the next round. Anyway, it has been fun for me to get to get out and LAUGH!! I honestly think that laughing this much has been a large part of my getting healthier. they say that Laughter is the best medicine and I believe it. I deal with so much pain every day that I think it is really important to counter that with a big positive for my brain like laughter. So I have been making more of an effort to find ways to laugh, watching funny shows on TV, or funny movies, I am working on starting a joke of the day to help create some levity in my life.

The other thing that I am working on is possibly writing a childrens book. Its all conceptual right now, but I have this idea for a series of childrens books about Clairybell the Dragon. So I am looking into that and have even started to draw some rough sketches of my ideas for the dragons. I have such a huge focus on children, I am just waiting until my leg gets better so that I can have some of my own!!!

I have not done that much crocheting in the last month, besides the eggs of course. I started to make some things and could not concentrate well enough. so I kept ending up with circles with 17st. I usually work in counts of five or six, so getting 17 is a bad number! so I put down my crochet hook and gave my body and mind some time to heal. My best friend Jewel found this new type of puzzle called KenKen, which is similar to sudoku, but you have to use math to get the squares to work out. so I have been spending some time working on KenKen puzzles which has been fun.

Mostly it has been somewhat difficult for me to deal with Aram going to work and being stuck on the couch all the time. I am dealing with boredom. What does a person do left at home all day on a couch with her leg in the air? I would just love to be in the kitchen cooking up things, but it requires too much standing on my leg. twice now I have gotten carried away baking things and felt the heavy cost on my health the next day and beyond. I think that focusing on writing a book will help stave off boredom. I have always wanted to write a book and I need goals and accomplishments.

what I am working on

I am not feeling all that well, health-wise. But I still wanted to share what I have been working on. I just finished my husband's valentine's present. I have been wanting him to have something for his desk that I made for him, and I thought that a potted flower might be too girly, so I came up with making him a potted cactus holding a heart. The letters "LLA" stand for "Lani, Loves, Aram". He has similar letters for me that are inscribed on the inside of our wedding rings. Aram says to me, "ALLAH" meaning "Aram, Loves, Lani, All, Hours" He thought that it might offend some people, but its our thing that we have together.
I am working on an ear flap hat for my friend. The yarn has stained my needles black and I thought that I read something the other day about something that people put on their needles that makes the yarn slide easier and it helps keep the tips nice, but I can't remember what it was or where I read it! If anyone knows what I am referring to, please help!
And then I am also working on this latch hook rug, I think that I figured out that I am about 1/5 of the way finished. I haven't worked on it much this week, but I do find it relaxing to work on. Its not very creative because I am just following a graph, but again its really nice and relaxing.
Well, till the next time!
Lani

Lots of Newness :)

Well I have a lot of changes in my life since my last post. My husband and I bought a new car and moved into a new apartment. Its all been wonderful, albeit challenging for my health. We had been living with friends of mine for the last year and so neither of us have any furniture and so moving into our first apartment together has been really like starting over. We had to by all new furniture and kitchen ware, and everything. I am starting to feel like this is more like home and having a little more time to be crafting. I am making a latch hook rug (my first ever) for our apartment, working on Valentine's presents for my husband and trying to build up an inventory of amigurumi critters to sell on my artfire and at our local swap meet (I have a friend who is selling them there for me at her booth). So here are some of my projects from the last month.
The bear came from a pattern from a book I got for Christmas called Amigurumi Two! and I have used it more than any other of my amigurumi books. I find her patterns really easy to follow and I like her choices of animals and things to make. I tend to improvise as I go along, so there are my own touches of course. and the heart came from Owlishly. I have used her patterns before as well and I always like them. I am a little torn, however because I have this debate going about free patterns. some designers are very clear that they do not want you to use their designs for profit, ie if you make something that they designed then you cannot sell it, only make it for gifts or personal use. I can see from their point of view that they came up with an idea and they don't want tons of their design out there being sold and they are getting nothing for it. however, on the other hand, as I am learning this new technique and style of crochet called amigurumi, sometimes I have a vision of what I want to make, but I don't know how I can do it without following a pattern first and then expanding on what I learned later. but I would still like to be able to make some money for what I made. and then I am wondering if I made any changes to the pattern, does that make the original designer's request that I not sell it null and void? anyway, my answer to all this has been to try and stay away from other people's designs and just make up my own thing because my conscience just can't take it. I am waaay too honest of a person to be able to just ignore some designer on the other side of the country's wishes, lol.
Anyway, I am really happy because I got to make cookies today and it is the first time in four years that I have been able to bake in my own kitchen. It feels like some kind of accomplishment to have come out on the other side of divorce and traveling across the country from place to place and living kind of like a very lucky vagabond for four years to now having my own place to live again. with cookware that is mine, cookie sheets that are mine to cook with, it feels like a little bit of heaven. Now while I am healing from the rattlesnake bite and have to be at home all the time resting, is the time for me to get to indulge my creative passions and domestic bliss.

Great Green Tea

I just wanted to pass this on out to anyone that might benefit from it. Recently everyone in my house has gotten the stomach flu and it has been really nasty, poor things. I have been waiting to catch it because I have a weakened immune system.... I took immune suppressors for nine months because of my rattlesnake bite and I seem to catch everything that goes around. I was talking with my friend this morning and she helped me put together that the difference between me and everyone else is that I have been drinking green tea (about two cups a day). Green tea has lots and lots of positive attributes, one of which is that it fights germs. It helps stave off cancer, lowers chloresterol and blood pressure, is great for dieting because it burns fat and helps prevent demetia. So i encourage everyone to start to drink green tea to help fight the bugs.

computer laid to rest

My computer had a terrible incident with a glass of water last weekend and it has been laid to rest and gone to computer heaven. It was an awful day already starting with me not sleeping at all the night before and then my husband waking up with the stomach flu. he stayed in bed all day and right now we live in a teeny tiny room together where he sleeps on the bottom bunk of a bunk bed and I sleep in a cot that I take down everyday. so without being able to take down the cot, cause I still needed to have a place to rest with my own health not being very good and I need to have my leg elevated. so space was small in the room and we were all on top of each other. It really was a miserable day. Its terrible when the sick person has to take care of the sicker person! so as I leaned over to get some air in the room, his glass of water tipped over and fell all over my desk, and bed. and my computer as well. so we let it rest and dry out and when we started it up yesterday, no screen came and it made the most awful of beeping sounds. ugh, so it was a terrible, terrible day. I am glad that there aren't too many of those!

so I have lots of new projects to show off and patterns to publish, but I will have to wait on that until we get our new computer. I can use Aram's computer, but not really to upload my pictures and things. We are planning on getting a new desktop, and I think it will be good cause it will be more reliable than these laptops that I have been using the last five years, I am done with laptops. I feel like a computer should last more than two years right? I have heard not, but jeeze!

I am really excited about all my new projects, I have a mobile for my friend's new baby with birds on vines with little flowers. I have this great little game that I came up with that is expanding on a pattern that I got from Amigurumi world by ana paula rimoli. It is eggs in the carton, six of them. the shells are white and split into two halves, on the edges of the halves they are lined with the color of the chick inside. so when the child plays with the eggs and takes them apart, they have to match the colors in order to put it back correctly, its a good way to teach the child their colors. I tested it on my friend's four year old (I thought he was a little old for the game) but he just loved it! He also liked cracking the eggs on people's heads and watching the eggs come apart. soooo cute! I plan to publish the pattern (the original idea and pattern came from ana paula rimoli like I said, but I changed the pattern quite a bit to fit the eggs better, and making it into a game and color coded was all me :) I am excited to sell the sets of six at the swap meet as well, I think they will make a great easter gift.

Mamma Rabbit Pattern

I used Red Heart Soft Baby Steps in White, one skein is enough to leave extra left over.

I use Magic Circles to start all my patterns, and I highly recommend everyone learn it because it really makes the circles tight with no hole, but you can use the ch 2 then sc 6 in 2nd ch from hook method, or any you are comfortable with. Here is a good tutorial where I learned how to do it, honestly I could never go back to doing it the other ways! http://www.thecraftytipster.com/magic-circle.html

I am also a fan of the invisible decrease, I used to get these unsightly bumps and I learned this great technique and now my decreases look flawless. so here is another tuturial to help about learning that technique; http://www.planetjune.com/blog/amigurumi-help/invisible-decrease/

I used suncatcher safety eyes. I just love them, I think it gives the amigurumi's that I make a whole other level of personality. you can get them fairly inexpensively at www.suncatchereyes.com

Head

Magic circle 6 ch, join with sl st

R1 inc >1 every ch (12)

R2 Sc 1, inc>1* (18)

R3 Sc 2, inc>1*(24)

R4 Sc 3, inc>1* (30)

R5 Sc 4, inc>1* (36)

R6 Sc 5, inc>1* (42)

R7 Sc 6, inc>1* (48)

R8-18 Sc in each sc around

R19 Sc 6, dec<7+8tog*>

R20 Sc 5, dec<6+7tog*>

R21 Sc 4, dec<5+6tog*>

R22 Sc 3, dec<4+5tog*>

R23 Sc 2, dec<3+4tog*>

Attach safety eyes now and Stuff

R24 1Sc, dec<2+3tog>

R25 Sc 2tog around, Bind off

Body

Magic circle 6ch, join with sl st

R1 inc>1 every ch around (12)

R2 Sc 1, inc>1* (18)

R3 Sc 2, inc>1*(24)

R4 Sc 3, inc>1* (30)

R5 Sc 4, inc>1* (36)

R6-10 Sc in each around

R11Sc 5, inc>1* (42)

R12-15 Sc in each around

R16 Sc 6, inc>1*(48)

R17-22 Sc in each around

R23 Sc 7, inc>1*(54)

R24 Sc 8, inc>1*(60)

R25-27 Sc in each around

R28 Sc 8, dec<9+10*>(54)

R29 Sc 7, dec<8+9*>(48)

R30 Sc 6, dec<7+8*>(42)

R31 Sc 5, dec<6+7*>(36)

R32 Sc 4, dec<5+6*>(30)

R33 Sc 3, dec<4+5*>(24)

Stuff, stuff, stuff!

R34 Sc 2, dec<3+4*>(18)

R35 Sc 1, dec<2+3*>(12)

R36 Sc 2 tog around, stuff some more Bind off.

Arms, make 2

Magic circle 6 ch, join with sl st

R1 Sc in each around (6)

R2 Sc 2, inc>1, Sc 2, inc>1 (8)

R3-5 Sc in each around

R6 Sc 3, inc>1, Sc 3, inc>1 (10)

R7-10 Sc in each around

R11 Sc 1, inc>1*(15)

R12 Sc in each around

R13 Sc 2, inc>1* (20)

R14 Sc in each around

R15 Sc 2 tog around

Stuff, Bind Off

Back Legs (make 2)
Magic circle 3 ch join with sl st
R1 Sc 2 in each around (6)
R2 Sc 2 in each around (12)
R3 Sc 2, inc>1* (18)
R4-5 Sc in each around.
R6 Sc in next sc, dec<2+3>

R7-13 Sc in each sc around.
Note: Change to working back and forth in rows.
R14 Ch 1, turn sc in first 6 sc; leave remaining sts unworked.
R15 Ch 1, turn, sc in first 4 sc; leave last 2 sc unworked.
R16 Ch 1, turn, sc in first 2 sc; leave last 2 sc unworked.
R17 Ch 1, turn, sc in first 2 sc, sc in unworked sc in row below; leave 1 sc unworked (3)
R18 Ch 1, turn, sc in first 3 sc, sc in unworked sc in row below; leave 1 sc unworked (4)
R19 Ch 1, turn, sc in first 4 sc, sc in unworked sc in row below (5)
R20 Ch 1, turn, sc in first 5 sc, sc in unworked sc in row below (6)
R21 Ch 1, turn, sc in first 6 sc; insert hook in edge of work and draw up a loop, insert hook in unworked sc in row below and draw up a loop, yarn over and draw through all loops on hook (edge-sc2tog made); sc in next 4 sc; insert hook in next sc and draw up a loop, insert hook in edge of work and draw up a loop, yarn over and draw through all loops on hook (edge-sc2tog made); do not join (12)
Note: Change to working in rnds.
R22-23 Sc in each sc around.
R24 1 Sc, inc>1* (18)
R25 Sc in each sc around.
R26 Sc 2, inc>1* ( 24)
R27 Sc in each sc around.
R28 Sc 3, inc>1* (30)
R29 Sc in each sc around.
R30 Sc 9, dec<10+11>

R31 Sc 3, dec>4+5* (24)
Stuff Leg lightly
R32 Sc 2, dec<3+4* (18)

R33 Sc in next sc, dec<2+3*>

R34 Sc 2tog (6)
Bind Off

Ears, make 2

Magic circle 3ch, join with sl st

R1-3 Sc 2 in each ch around ending with 12 st (12)

R4-9 Sc in each around (12)

R10 Sc 5, inc>1* (14)

R11-13 Sc in each around

R14 Sc 6, inc>1* (16)

R15 Sc in each around

Bind Off

Nose

Magic circle 3ch

R1 Sc 2 in each around (6)

R2 Sc in each around

Bind Off

Tail (I used a fuzzy yarn I have lying around, but you can use the same white yarn as the rest of the pattern)

Magic circle 3 ch join with sl st
R1 Sc 2 in each around (6)
R2 Sc 2 in each around (12)
R3 Sc in each around

Bind Off

Sew all parts tightly together as per picture.

And your done! Enjoy your Bunny Rabbit! If you have any questions, please feel free to email me!

Key:

R=round

Sc=Single Crochet

sl st=slip stitch

st=stitch

ch=chain

Inc>1=increase one single crochet

Dec<1 3="decrease">

I'm Married!

Well, I managed Christmas and getting married the next day! It was a beautiful ceremony and all my friends and family (and new family) all helped so much to make it a real wedding occasion. You all can watch it online if you are interested at www.qik.com/herschen and the video is titled something like wedding. So now it feels wonderful to be married, actually not that much different, but that not much different is a wonderful feeling. Aram treats me so well and we have a great relationship, I am way happy. Now Aram and I are looking for a new place to live, we have outgrown living with our friend in the kids bedroom, we are ready for our own space, everyday we keep saying to ourselves, 'We can't wait until we have our apartment!' My health is a lot better and I have the energy to be looking for places to live and things like that. I actually was able to go out and see a movie last weekend (Avatar, it rocked) and coffee the next morning, although it meant that I slept literally all morning and afternoon today to catch up on the rest I didn't get this weekend. So that is pretty much my personal life in a nutshell, not all that exciting :)
I got four Amigurumi books for Christmas, and I am loving them, although its funny because I have been all about making my own designs. My next post will be the pattern for the rabbit, I suppose it is a little early for Easter, but maybe this will help people get a leg up! I am planning on making a dozen eggs and a dozen baby chicks in egg cartons.... but before that I have LOTS of presents to make for people and lots of requests. But I decided for my own sanity to do one amigurumi for someone else and then one for myself, otherwise I just feel like I am a work horse and I don't want it to lose its fun for me. I should be ready to start selling again at the swap meet and I want to have a stock of amigurumi's to sell there when I can start up again.