For Rebecca, a button and banner featuring her new web site’s cute li’l ewe devil!

For Cheryl, a button in yarn to match her blog colors.

And two for Dot. One for her pattern site, Patterns by Dot, which has over 20 beautiful crocheted hat patterns! And she keeps adding more! :-) The pink hat in the button is a photo of her Perky Puffs hat.

And one for her blog, CROCHET by the hook. The original design for this one was by Dot herself, but I reworked it. The background is from a photo of an afghan she crocheted.

Excitement! Tiff has started a new web ring, Village Swappers, for members participating in any of the Crochetville Swaps. The button and banner for this ring are more of my digital creations.

And speaking of Crochetville swaps, I can now post photos of the bookmarks I made for my July-August swap partners, because they have both received them. :-)

I used size 10 cotton crochet thread and the following patterns.

Angela’s Cornflower Bookmark (free online)

Lavender Bookmark in the booklet How to Thread Crochet on a Roll from Annie’s Attic

Most of the thread I used was from an eBay auction lot and did not have labels. The ones I know are South Maid color #477 patriotic blue and J & P Coats Knit-Cro-Sheen color #1 white (both used in the cornflower bookmarks).

Over Labor Day weekend, we went to visit my mom. I crocheted in the car and in the evenings after dinner. The drive was six hours each way, and although I did half of the driving, that’s a lot of crochet time. I could scarcely believe that by the time the long weekend was over I had completed eight squares! That’s as many as I’ve done on this project so far, so now I have 16 finished.

On Sunday we had an oyster and crab feast at my sister’s house. We brought oysters and beer and she supplied the crabs, corn on the cob, and two fantastic desserts–rum cake and carrot cake. Yum! We all had a great time.

Without further ado, I present the squares.

#9 – Arch Stitch
Hook size H.
Easy.

#10 – Offset Cluster
Hook size H.
It didn’t take long to get the hang of making the cluster stitches even and pretty.

#11 – Horizontal Relief Stitch
Hook size I.
I was expecting this to be a lot more difficult than it was. It’s not my favorite square, but I did very little frogging (ripping out).

#12 – Open Ridge Stitch
Hook size J.
This one wanted to lean, but was pretty when finished.

#13 – Bushy Stitch
Hook size H.
The edges on this one are not straight (the end of each row is pointy), so getting the border rounds even was a bit of a challenge, but I made it work by using some double crochets and some single crochets on the first round.

#14 – Bushy Stitch
Hook size I.
This was a very easy stitch but the square didn’t want to be the right size. Tons of frogging. I went back and forth between a Prims H, I, and J, but finally settled on a Boye I.

#15 – Afghan Square
Hook size I.
During the first couple of rows I thought I must be doing something wrong because it looked terrible. But after the third row it started taking form and looking just like it should.

#16 – Granny Square
Hook size H.
Easy, of course. Classic.

Bonus! My mom was about to take a whole bunch of plastic bags back to the store for recycling. I caught her just in time. Now I have six bags full to use for plastic bag crochet. Can’t wait to try it!

These are buttons I’ve made recently for fellow crochet and knit bloggers.

For Vera:

The beautiful doily in this button was crocheted by Vera herself. You can see the original doily on her Doilimania page. She made it from a pattern in the Leisure Arts leaflet (LA2262) Star Doilies by Lissa Anmann, which I believe is now out of print.

For Christine:

The adroabe little sheep (who stole my heart, by the way) featured in this button and banner was drawn by Christine’s daugher.

For Stacie:

A floral and butterfly theme to coordinate with the great banner Stacie had already made herself.

I was excited to see photos of my two critter blankets on the list of blankets donated. It doesn’t take much to make me happy. :-)