Mini Knitted Christmas Sweaters

I found a very cute pattern for a mini Christmas sweater ornament on Craftsy.  I had a little yarn left over from making some finger-less mitts so I worked up a few of these for coworkers Christmas gifts.  I decided not to work decreases in the arms to make it a little less complicated.  Very fun pattern and it made a super cute finished project.

Odin taking a look.  He get so curious when I put things in the window to take a picture.

Little kitty feet

Two of them finished with some duplicate stitch and little paper clip hangers

Little Thread Bears

My latest mini project.  The larger lighter colored one is about 2 inches tall and made from size 10 crochet thread.  The smaller darker blue one is about an inch high and made from sewing thread.  Making the larger one first helped me understand the pattern and construction.  Both use this free pattern from Sheep of Delight: http://sheepofdelight.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/free-amigurumi-pattern-polar-bearling.html

Tiny Crochet Hearts

This is another pattern from Wink's blog: http://www.acreativebeing.com/2013/02/04/free-pattern-little-hearts/

I thought they would turn out perfect in miniature.  2 strands of sewing thread held together, 1.3mm hook.

Some things I learned working these in miniature:

• With the small steel hooks, there's a taper to the hook so you have to make sure the threads stay very close to the hook part or the loops will come off bigger than expected.  This was a bit difficult when working double and triple crochets.
• Don't use a very long thread - it will get snagged up.
• When using a double strand, use the two ends as the tail and leave the working end connected in a loop.  If you need to add additional length, pull another length through the loop so the two loops connect - that way you don't have to tie anything.  Only works once though.
• Work a lot slower than normal with exaggerated movements and twist the hook more than you normally would to pull the loops through each other.

Mini Mandalas

This will be my contribution to Mandalas for Marinke if I can get my act together.  They're worked on either 1.3mm or 1.65mm hooks using sewing thread.  The smallest pink one is worked using two strands held together and the largest rainbow one is four strands held together.  I think the blue one is probably three strands but it was the first one I did so I don't remember.  These are not the best photos - still working on figuring that part out.  Took a few more just holding them in my hand, I think those came out better.  I wet blocked them with a little starch to help them hold their shape.

The pattern for these is free from Wink.

Bonus photo of my little "helper".

All of Odin's blinks are winks.

Teeny Tiny Little Crochet

I've always been fascinated by ordinary things done on a very large or very small scale.  Examples of large scale crochet are fairly common as t-shirt yarn becomes more popular.  I haven't seen much on the small end yet.  My smallest steel hook is a #10, 1.30mm.  It's too small to use for even the smallest crochet thread I have so for a while I've been thinking about using it with sewing thread or embroidery thread and seeing how small a project I can make.  I started with a single strand of sewing thread, but that turned out to be too loose and hard to handle so I held 3 strands together and it seemed fairly proportional.  Splitting is a bit of an issue but surprisingly the thread sticks to its fellow strands pretty well.  Having a lighted magnifying glass stand comes in handy for little things like this.

I haven't done anything too exciting yet, just a little test piece but it would be fun to think of little projects to work up in the scale.