And Granddad, light up the place And if you pull my card, you pull the ace And if you ask me, turn up the bass And if you play defender, I could be your hyper space so

My parents have loved to play the board game Sequence with their many grandchildren for decades (oldest one is well into the 30s and youngest just turned 18).  So much so that I wanted to make a quilt for years but could never find playing card fabric that depicted each and every playing card without being overlapped AND would be a proper proportion.  

Just before the COVID lockdown occurred back in March 2020, I found a pattern on Ravelry that depicted the playing cards in Tunisian crochet.  I had never tried this technique and this was a BIG project so I gave myself a huge completion window for my father's 80th which occurs in February 2023 but ended up giving it to both my parents this Christmas.

There were some changes.  The crocheted card designs are drastically simplified as compared to real playing cards. The  wild card space in each corner was changed to a NY Yankees logo as my mother has been a fan all her life despite moving to Boston for college at 18 and remaining there the rest of her life.

Finally I changed the border to reflect the family surname rather than the word sequence plus the treatment of the jack card.

This was the first post;COVID Christnas we celebrated with everyone.  My brother's family flew in from Australia and the oldest grandchild just had twins a couple of months ago.  

Brothers out there with sisters, peep it Years and years you try to keep her a secret

In celebration of a successful formal recruitment at the wearers' school, I am finally posting pictures of a joint order.  Apparently at this university, the Chi Omegas do a lot of functions with the Sigma Chis.  So much so that the ΣX boys are little brothers and the ΧΩ girls are the big sisters.

This is much different than in my day.  While my sorority definitely tended to pair with certain fraternities at my university, it was not a formal joining.  We were free to affiliate as individual members of fraternities as Little Sisters. Favorite guys of our sorority were called Keymen rather than Little Brothers. 

In any case, the Chi Omega is a Sigma Chi Big to a specific Sigma Chi and he is correspondingly the Chi Omega Little to her.  ΧΩ colors are red and yellow and ΣX colors are cobalt blue and yellow.  I assumed they would want yellow as one of the colors as it ties in with both of their groups but they decided to eliminate yellow entirely and go with each of their other colors ie the red and cobalt.  They also wanted the big/little relationship embroidered on the sleeve.  My machine does not have that capability so the embroidery was done by hand using a running stitch.

What she asked of me at the end of the day Caligula would have blushed "Oh, you've been in the house too long" she said And I naturally fled

So like many of us over the last 24 months I have spent a LOT of time at home.  I was so bored that I learned how to crochet.

I had seen the African Flower hexagon technique that was used to make an owl.  I used a J 5.25 mm hook and worsted weight yarn of various colors  Once I learned the stitches, it was amazingly easy.  I knew the hexagons were large but had no idea I would end up with a HUGE stuffed animal.

I then decided to make the same pattern using Kappa colors of dark and light blue since our mascot is an owl.  I did not want such a huge owl so used a much skinnier fiber and smaller hook.  This time I used a 1.5 mm hook and  #10 crochet thread.

What a size difference the hook and fiber make!  I found it much harder to crochet with this thread and tiny hook as opposed to the yarn and larger hook.

Here are the 2 owls together.  They don't match at all but I wanted to show their proportions.

I have decided that I am officially hooked!

Well, just plug me in just like I was Eddie Harris You're eating crazy cheese like you would think I'm from Paris

 So I had a request to make a pillow from a particular outfit that a little child loved but outgrew.  It was a long sleeved sequined t shirt and coordinated velvet leggings.  The sequin design was pretty cool as when sequins were all overlapping downward like roof shingles, this Eiffel Tower appeared.

When you run your hand over the sequins so they overlap from bottom to top, a heart appears complete with the phrase Love Paris.

I used the front of the shirt for one side of the pillow and the back to be the base for a big monogram L.  The letter was cut from the leggings and stitched with a variegated thread to make it pop from the t shirt color.  I also used the leggings to make all the piping.

This will be a delightful addition to a girly-girl bedroom!