Sew I See!

A while ago, in an effort to re-acquaint myself with basic crochet, I crocheted several dishcloths. I still haven't woven in the ends and given them a whirl in the sink, but making them did the trick of getting me interested in crochet, again. I spent part of the weekend (ok, way too much of the weekend) looking through free patterns online (and hoarding them away for future use), and I found a few that looked especially interesting. Now I just have to match the yarn in my stash to the patterns. Oh, and figure out how to translate the patterns into finished objects. My crochet know-how is still very limited, but the only way I'll learn new stitches is to try them. I think I'm going to start with this scarf -- or this one , which is basically the same thing-- but that's only if I can figure out the "love knot" (aka "lover's knot" or "Solomon's knot"). I gave it a quick try last night, but I didn't quite get it. What I saw be

After thinking about it for a long time (as usual), I finally got around to sewing a few rag quilt-style throw pillows. When I snapped these photos, the light was a little low, and they turned out a bit blurry. Maybe I'll take and post a few better ones, one of these days, but I thought I'd better share what I have so far, before I forget to blog about them altogether. ;o) I used a variety of fabrics in colors and prints that coordinate with the colors in the rug and sofas in our living room. There's a lot of tan/beige, cream, and brown in that room, with accents in green and rusty red. The fabrics I used ranged from denim and flannel to cotton blends. I followed the usual rag-quilting procedures. Each pillow is basically two (very) mini rag quilts sewn together around the edges and stuffed with fiberfill. You could get away with one mini rag quilt per pillow (using a single piece of fabric for the pillow back), if you wanted to speed up the process, but I thought it&