A couple more things I've done lately:


Cookies!

I spent most of Saturday baking. These are the cookies I brought to the Feast of Finger Foods in my department. I didn't check closely this morning but it looked like most of them got eaten yesterday.

Left to right:

Chocolate Chunk Cookies (the Martha Stewart Cookie magazine that came out in 2003 or so), Swedish Almond Fingers (Better Homes and Gardens Christmas cookie book), Toffee bars and caramel turtle bars (both from this year's Cuisine at Home cookies special) and white-chocolate-chip-cranberry oatmeal cookies (off of the back of the Craisins bag)

My favorites are still the almond fingers. The turtle bars are good but are a bit excessively sweet for me. The white-chocolate-chip-cranberry cookies, if I were to make them again, I think I'd add a bit of cinnamon (I added vanilla; the recipe didn't call for it but I thought it might be a bit bland without it).

Oh, and I finished something else:

"First I was a fossil,
I was petrified"



"Kept thinking I could never live
without tree ferns by my side."



"But I spent so many nights
thinking how the Cretaceous did me wrong
I grew strong
I learned how to carry on"



"you think I'd crumble
you think I'd lay down and die
Oh no, not I
I will survive
as long as i know how to love
I know I will stay alive
I've got all my life to live
I've got all my love to give
and I'll survive
I will survive."

(Okay, so it's not a perfect parody. But I think it's darn good considering it's purportedly being sung by a crocheted Triceratops)

Anyway, I finished Gloria. A couple of thoughts: even though the pattern specified 3 ounces of yarn, it took me less than 1 3/4 ounces of the Glitterspun (less than one skein). Also, if I were doing another one, I'd use a hook a size or two smaller - you can see the stuffing through her "skin" in some places.

Here's a shot, without flash, so you can see the "glitter" a little better:



One of the fun things about making toys is that you can use all kinds of funky yarns that you might not use for a garment. I'd never want a top or anything like that made out of Glitterspun (it's a wee bit scratchy, and also, largish-circumference-body plus glittery surface = appearance of even larger-circumference-body).

But it makes good dinosaur skin - the slight scratchiness seems right, and the glitter is kind of fun.

I embroidered her face (which is actually kind of a challenge on the open-ish crochet). I couldn't find buttons I liked for the eyes in my button box and I had used up all the black buttons that were of the appropriate size. And as it was 8 pm on Sunday night, I wasn't going to make a trip out JUST for triceratops eyes. So I embroidered them. I don't know if you can see but I added little white "highlights" in the pupils (with sewing thread actually; I couldn't find my white floss). Sometimes that helps if the embroidered eyes on a toy look a little "dead" when you're done with them. (I learned that from Margaret Hutching's wonderful teddy bear making book).