Coming Up for Air

These last few weeks have been a terrible hurricane of being sick and gulping lemon-honey tea, and trying not to fail my Japanese class. As of yesterday, I have officially completed an entire semester of Intermediate Japanese in 5 weeks! How well I did is another question, I am afraid, but I guess that will work itself out and what not. [Update: as of this posting I got an 86% on my midtermy final nonsense so HURRAH]

On a happier note, I have managed to get in a lot of crocheting craftosity within the last few weeks in my stolen moments of free time. Here are some samples of my sundry small projects...

 Here are my apple cozies! They are cute little fruit hold-ey type things that stop fruit from getting bruised in your bag when you are taking it along for a snack. The red one is mine, and I gave the blue one to my mum. Found the pattern on Ravelry, and you can find it here. (You have to have an account, but it is free, and totally awesome!)

This is a bookmark I made for my Japanese textbook, because we always have to flip back and forth between the workbook and worksheets and the textbook and the dictionary. It is really easy because all you have to do is make a heart from this super simple free pattern, and then tie a piece of yarn in a complimentary color on in the length you need for whatever book you have in mind.

I am afraid this is a rather poor picture, but here are my crocheted Mary Jane house slippers. They were a quick Saturday morning project, and while I started off a Ravelry pattern, it was just looking ...off. So I made up my own. Here it is:

Mary Jane house slippers (for a woman's size 8-9 for narrow feet)

Chain 3
R1: Dc 12 into furthest chain from hook.
R2: Dc 2 in each around :: 24 sts
R3-R5: Dc in each around :: 24
R6: Dc in each for 15, leaving 9 uncrocheted.
R7: Ch 2 to turn, and then dc in each til end. Repeat R7 until the slipper is long enough to just meet around the back of your heel. Then, finish off and sew together the back to form a slipper!

Finishing touches
In another color, slst to start at the heel. Sc2tog around for 2 complete rounds. Finish off. For the Mary Jane effect, slst on one side of slipper, ch 20, slst by original slst and finish off. Sew a button on the other side from the slsts and you're done.

If I was going to make these again, though, I might want to sew in a lining for a sole on the bottom because depending on how much I have been on my feet the knots of the crochet can be a little uncomfortable. Happy hooking...

This is an adorable et petit coin purse. It is a great beginner project, and I just whipped it up on a 45 minute BART ride. The pattern can be found here.

Well, I was planning on putting a whole lots more about cooking and thrifting and all that, but as this draft has been sitting in my to be posted pile for a few days, I think it best to just get it out into the world, and follow up with more soon!

Cheers <3