Today I’m supposed to be editing a paper on forest economics, but it’s not very exciting and so I keep picking up my crochet hook instead. The particular piece of editing does not need to be sent back until next week, so the temptation to do something else (and more creative, although less lucrative) is really strong, especially since the dragon neck warmer commission is starting to take shape and I’m rather enjoying the scale pattern that makes up the bulk of it:

Dragon scales

The client selected yellow eyes, so those are inserted and there’s nothing fiddly in the pattern for about another 60 rows. My last post yielded some useful comments about having a few ‘attention grabbers’ on my future craft stall, and I may make another of these dragons for that purpose as I think it’s going to be quite striking. Anyway, here is progress so far (eventually there will be horns and spines too on the head):

Dragon progress

But that’s not the only thing I have been up to in the past few days. I decided as  a bit of light relief to continue making dish/wash cloths (without patterns) and I’ve added two more to the stock, that’s three since Saturday. These are fairly quick to make and are using up cotton yarn that I have quite a bit of, so they feel like a winner in terms of de-stashing.

This week’s cloths – too nice to use?

And finally, I want to share a piece of work that I made weeks ago, but has only just reached its new owner. As one of my random crafts of kindness, I responded to Pauline The Contented Crafter’s appeal for lovely things to go to Marlene, who is ‘In Search of It All‘. This is what Pauline wrote:

Marlene has recently moved into her new forever home and has been hard at work turning what might have been described as a pigs ear into a silk purse.  Marlene has a china cabinet and loves keepsakes.  I am going to [possibly make and] send Marlene a small New Zealand icon.  Would you care to [possibly make and] send her something that will represent you to her so that every time her eyes fall upon your gift, she thinks of you. Wouldn’t that be the grandest thing!

So, what better to represent me than some crochet? But I also really wanted to send her a piece of my paper porcelain plus I  wanted to acknowledge the lovely links we all share through blogging. So here is what I came up with:

A random present

Roses from scrap yarn

It’s just decorative, although you could use it as a pin cushion (voodoo roses, anyone?). The base is made from some British wool from Blacker Yarns and the crochet roses are made from some of the yarn oddments sent to me by Jenny at Simply Hooked along with the squares she donated to make another charity blanket. I’m rather pleased with the result.

Well, that’s probably enough hooky for one day, I’d better get back to work…