Somewhat Sidetracked...

But not much!   I took a little break from the Hygge project while we dealt with some flu in the house.  Now I'm back on track and so excited to be getting back to work!  I'm having a blast finishing up the Rainbow Barf Cat scarf!  It ships to its new home this afternoon, I hope!  Just have a few finishing touches and some ends to weave in, and it's done!  Here's the project so far:

 As you can see,  there is still an hour or so of work to do, getting the face on just right, and weaving in the ends,  and sewing on the front paws.  It's definitely recognizable as a Pusheen cat, though, right?  I will admit that even after frogging it halfway back, its 4 stitches short somehow.  This happens to me every single time I use an amigurumi style pattern.  Regardless of counting stitches,  moving stitch  markers each row, etc,  I still end up short a few stitches.  It generally comes out right in the end,  somehow.  Don't ask me how.   Check out the image below for a great look at the detail of the pattern stitch used in the scarf.  Super simple but gives a fun texture to the scarf!       

On to the Hygge Home Project!  I've spent some time with some cheap yarn practicing this new stitch.  It's not hard to DO, it's just hard to remember WHERE to do it!  Ordinarily, your single crochet goes in the space between the stitches of the previous row.  Not so in this case!  This stitch is worked directly into the center of the previous row's stitches and ends up looking remarkably like a knitted item rather than crocheted!   I love this stitch and I'm wanting to make a blanket using this stitch and a super bulky yarn, just to see if I can do it.  I wonder....(see, there I go again, off planning another project before these are done!  It's a curse, I tell ya!)  

Now that I've gotten more practice with the stitch, I can quite happily go on to finish my pillow this weekend and mark off my February project as completed,  if a bit late.  January's project?.... weeelllllll lets just put a pin in that one , shall we?  Check out the images below for a detailed view of the new stitch and my progress on the actual pillow!

Not bad, for a rookie, huh?  Next post, I'll tell you how I got those little colored stitches in there.  I might even include a video!  The technique is so simple that I can't believe I never thought of it myself! Until then, Happy Hooking!