After creating the Marshmallow Cat pattern, I decided to make it a friend. Meet the Tiny Turtle! Like the Marshmallow Cat, this little turtle is made all in one piece with no sewing and is perfect for using up small amounts of yarn. I'd say that this design is a little bit more complicated than the Marshmallow Cat, but it's still minimalist and oh so cute! If you've got an extra hour and some yarn on hand, I hope you'll give this sweet tiny turtle a try. 

It's always impressive to see a complicated, multi-piece amigurumi project. You know the one I'm talking about, with adorable little accessories and so many tiny details. They are definitely a work of art. But they're also a LOT of work. Sometimes I just want to crochet something simple. Something without any sewing or extra flair, just something quick, easy, and cute. In pursuit of such a something, I present to you the Marshmallow Cat! 

Now that we've moved (again) to a place that actually has winter, blankets have suddenly become way more valuable at our house. The other day I was looking for a blanket, when I realized that my kids had already swiped all of the cozy crocheted blankets in the house. So it was time to make one more! 

Have you ever wondered if you could take a crochet pattern and supersize it? Make it bigger somehow without having to redesign the pattern? Well, you can! By experimenting with the gauge a bit, you can get a completely different result. There are some pros and cons to doing this, but if you use it judiciously, you can make some really fun supersized projects! Since I just finished a couple supersizing projects recently, I thought I'd share some tips with you all about how to make it work. 

With a move looming on the horizon, I am *not* supposed to be buying more yarn right now. But the other day, I found myself at the craft store and, lo and behold, the yarn was on sale. ALL of it. It was all over the store, tempting me as I got the things that were actually on my list. I successfully resisted the siren call of new skeins until—like Odysseus—I got too curious and made the mistake of listening to their songs. I found myself holding a skein of rainbow yarn as it sang, "Buuuuy meeee! I am so beauuutifulll! I am self-striiiiiipinggg! Effortless rainbows will fly from your hooooook!" But unlike Odysseus, I wasn't tied up to the mast of ship, so the next thing I knew there were 4 skeins of it in my shopping cart. Oops. To justify my fibrous indiscretion, I vowed that I crochet with it ASAP. And thus was born the Rainbow Dreams Baby Blanket!

How NOT to design a new blanket pattern:
1. Sketch out a basic idea and start working on it, only to be distracted from working on it by moving cross-country with little kids during the peak of a global pandemic. Be sure to make the premise of the project unnecessarily complicated. 
2. Put the project in a weird spot when you're unpacking your new home and promptly forget about it. Be sure to lose any notes you have on the project. 
3. Remember about the blanket 3+ years later and pull it out. Start working on it, only to realize that you have no notes and can't remember the math you figured out to make the project possible. Pull your hair a little, but stubbornly persist by redoing all the math and redesigning it based on what you have already. Feel free to argue with a spouse about the mathematics behind it for bonus points. 
4. Finish making the squares you think you need, then arrange them all so you can realize that one entire section of squares is the complete wrong size and now you have to remake them all. Cry a little over chocolate ice cream while rewatching North and South. 
5. Doggedly persist in the project and remake said squares. Spend far too long arranging them and then finally start attaching them together. Realize partway through that if you calculate the number of stitches in each row, you'll have a completely different number at the top of the blanket than you will at the bottom, thus negating any rectangular properties you were going for. Come up with a methodology on the fly to hide this issue. 
6. Add a border and do a happy dance because it's finished! Then realize that you didn't calculate the width correctly and now it's skinnier than you wanted it to be. But at this point, you are NOT remaking it. So do a happy dance in spite of it all, because even though it's not perfect, it's still a cozy lap blanket and it is finally DONE. 

Joking aside, this project was not exactly straightforward. I had a vision years ago for a "Growing Grannies" scrapghan and there were definitely some bumps along the way, but I finally pulled it off! And since I ran into all the issues, I can now give you the tips you need to avoid them, should you be interested in making your own.