Itty Bitty Designs: 5K Fan Giveaway

Itty Bitty Designs: 5K Fan Giveaway: 5000 fans you say? I cannot even believe it. When I started Itty Bitty Designs I never knew it would grow into the amazing adventure that i...

A good start should come with EYEBALLS!

Who doesn't love a nice pair of balls?

As this is my first blog post I feel I should introduce myself, so I'll keep it short and sweet. I'm CuriousTiff, I'm a crochet FANATIC! I make all kinds of unusual things including toys, infant and child wearables and other household/misc things. You can find my group page on facebook at www.facebook.com/CuriousTiff . I have only one pattern for sale at Ravelry, where I am also known as CuriousTiff. I'm a huge fan of pattern testing as well.

I have an obsession with Ravelry that is borderline psychotic... BUT! No worries, I've got a good therapist...

First things first, about these balls I keep talking about... 

What a good way to kickoff my blog than with a free pattern! Yay! Tonight I've whipped up something special for Halloween. It's a pair of eyeballs that serve as a bookmark! It's a quick pattern and comes together easily and here it goes!

Eyeball Bookmark:

Supplies:

• worsted weight yarn in black, blue (or whatever color you want the iris part of the eye to be, I used blue), white and red

• Size F hook

• small amount of polyfill or stuffing of some kind

• a tool (like a chopstick or something) to help stuffing get shoved in a tiny hole

• yarn needle
• stitchmarker

Special Stitches/Techniques:

• Starting in the round with a MAGIC CIRCLE or Adjustable LOOP. Here is an awesome video link to learn how to do this... once you learn the magic circle, crocheting becomes magical I'm telling you.

• Invisible single crochet decrease. You can use this tutorial here, by PlanetJune.com to learn this wicked awesome stitch. You could also use the regular single crochet decrease as well, but it's a bulkier stitch.

Eyeball Pattern (make 2 eyeballs):

Round 1: Starting with black, sc 6 in magic loop, changing to iris color on the last stitch. (6) Tighten loop.
Round 2: 2 sc in each st around, changing to white on the last stitch. (12)
Round 3: 1 sc in next st, 2sc in following, repeat around. (18)
Round 4-6: sc in each st around. (18)
Round 7: 1 sc in next st, scdec in following, repeat around. (12)
Round 8: Sc in each st around, changing to red on the last stitch. (12)
Round 9: Scdec around, FO leaving a long length of red (you want this a little longer than you want the length of your bookmark). (6) Stuff with the polyfill and then sew opening closed leaving the long piece of red for later.

Finishing:

Once you have finished both eyeballs, take a length of red yarn (18" will do), and pull it apart in half. Thread your needle and embroider nerves onto both eyeballs.

Attach a couple more varying lengths of yarn to the red part of the eyeball to give it additional nerves hanging. I grabbed the ends and teased it a bit like we used to tease our bangs in the 80's to give it a frayed frizzy look.

Attach the longest piece of yarn to the other eyeball, and the other eyeballs longest piece to the opposite as well. This is where you can determine the length of the bookmark part of the eyeball!

Finish by giving the nerves a good haircut (making sure you don't cut your connecting strings!) to make it look creepy, and then show it off!

Now for a bit of business: You are free to use this pattern for personal use, but do not replicate this pattern and sell. You are free to sell items made from this pattern, just please give me pattern credit!


Hope you enjoyed my KICKOFF to CURIOUSTIFF! Check out my links above and I hope to see ya'll real soon! :)