Dish Washing Gift Basket with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Dish Scrubbie

This little turtle came from a pattern for a square with a turtle in the middle, I simply used tulle (cut in 2" strips), made 2 shells (the pattern only called for one) and crocheted them together by adding the body. Because this basket was for a bridal shower where the bride and groom both liked turtles (the groom liked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the bride liked the zoo kind, to be specific.) I decided to put an orange headband on to turn into Michelangelo. Here's where I found the turtle square: http://www.crochetville.org/forum/showthread.php?t=113932

 These dish cloths are so simple to knit and require no purling whatsoever. Using No. 8 or 10 Needles,  cast on 3sts,
(K2, yo, K to the end of the row,) for every row until you have 50 st, Note: On the every round you will knit the yarn over as if it was a regular stitch. Once you have 50 sts (K1, K 2st tog, yo, K 2st tog, K to the end of the row.) Until you have only 5 sts left on your needle, For the nest row K1, K 2st tog, K 2st tog, (3sts left), Next row K 2st tog, K 1, (2sts left), Next row K 2st tog, cut working yarn and pull through the last st and tighten to finish off, then simply weave in the tails. Note if you want a loop to hang it by leave one tail extra long and don't weave it in. Then get a crochet hook (size G or H)  pull the tail partly through the corner so you have a loop, put this loop on your hook and ch until you have approx. twice the length of chain as the length of your desired loop, sl st into the corner of your dish cloth, (sc in each ch working in a round, sl st in the corner again) this step is optional for making the loop.

  I figured because of the title of my blog I might as well use Joy dish soap.

 

My "Craft Room" Storage

 This is how I store my fleece for baby blankets, it's already pre-cut and ready to go.

 

I roll them up and put them inside my Ikea Expedit bookshelf so I can see all the different fabrics at once and pull them out with ease.

As you can see I have no shortage of yarn, only storage for it. I have found that most of the time sorting yarn by color rather than by type is more useful.

Crocheted Tri-Bead Baby Socks

These cute little baby socks are very simple to make, so you can make a pair of baby socks for every occasion. They are great for beginners because they use only the simplest stitches, the chain stitch, single crochet and slip stitch.

Note:The actual socks I bought and I only crocheted the beads on.  Also your hook has to be small enough to go through the hole in  your bead. Most of the time the hole inside tri-beads are relatively large. To save on colored beads I use a clear beads in between all the colored beads. I usually use cotton crochet tread but I'm sure you could use sock or sport weight yarn etc.

 Special stitches: Bead Stitch=insert your hook through a bead, yo, pull through bead and loop. I'm going to abbreviate this st as bds
To start unfold the socks, with slip knot on your hook, (insert your hook into the top the sock (make sure you are inserting it into the knitting and you have more than just the elastic band on top of your sock), sc, ch 3, bds, ch 3,) Repeat all the way around the sock, the distance between your stitches is up to you,  most of the time I use 24 beads per sock depending on the size of the sock.