Dragons and Skulls equal happy crafters

     While I'm crafty there are skills that I just can't seem to master. Crochet is a big one of those. I want to learn, I've tried to learn, it's just a skill that doesn't stick in my brain apparently.

     However it really stinks when I see things that I'd love to create and
know that not only can I not make it, but that if I attempted to, it would be a huge, lumpy pile of yarn with eyes.
      When I saw the free pattern on Facebook for a Night Fury, I threw out an offer to my entire friends list that I'd be more then willing to barter a purse of their choice for the little guy.
     I was really pleasantly surprised when in minutes someone took me up on my offer.
     The wife of a high school friend is a crochet artist. Anna of Custom Crochet By Anna and in a few emails we had a deal!
   



     When asked what she wanted in return, she wanted something with a flap, in black and purple with skulls.
     I had all those colors and patterns in my stash, however I didn't have a pattern for a purse with a front flap. I adapted my tee-shirt purse pattern to add a flap and ran up a prototype in a muslin. I really wasn't sure that the flap would work correctly at all.
   Construction went well after the prototype, well with a bit of a hiccup (get it Toothless/Hiccup How to Train Your Dragon).
     I had an idea of stripes when I was in the planning stages. So I cut and stitched 3 inch strips the purple and the black and sliver together, about 6 of them. Perfect,...until I went to press the seems flat. There was melting and smoke, gunk to clean off the iron, and finally a new iron, so not defeat but a minor set back. *the old iron was OLD and on it's last legs. Once it was turned on it went straight to nuclear, even though it was set on the lowest setting and then wouldn't turn off and had to be unplugged and set outside for saftey,*


     I finally came up with something that I really liked  that had a stripe. It had an interior of skulls and great pockets.
     It also had an adjustable strap.

     I love how this came out, it's a seriously good thing that Anna mailed out Toothless and the hubby feel in love with him so quick, cause I was all about keeping this baby.

     So after all this, I ended up with a
 a present for the hubby that I couldn't do myself, and a great new pattern to put into my rotation.

     I'm working on a color
    combo right now that I'm not sure of but in this style just is really working for me.

I'm also deep into my revamp of my workroom. I'm loving it. It's already seeming lighter and brighter and I'm feeling very good about how it's all coming together.

     *Rory & Amy Auction update*
My auction for the One Fund Boston (found here) went well, the stuffies sold for $31.01 and the lovely winner asked that I round things up to $50.00
The lovely winner, who has asked to remain nameless, then contacted me and asked me to donate the pair to a "good cause", so we haven't seen the last of Rory & Amy.