Easter carrots

Hello, my dear bunnies!

Let me introduce one of my oldest projects to you. While working as a language tutor at a leisure centre, I made different things for the littlest kiddos: colourful mittens for colours and winter games, snowballs, puppets, clothing items and THEM. It's funny to learn numbers and addition with carrots :) There are plenty of carrot patterns around the web, but there is always room for another one :) It's a good way to use green scraps (not really scraps scraps but more decent 7 to 10-metre scraps). But enough, let's get down to business.

Carrots measure about 10 cm with leaves or 6 to 7 without them.
You will need some green DK yarn and some orange (or yellow, or red - depending on the amount of carotene in your veggies :)), a bit of fiberfill and a 2.5 mm crochet hook. Or you can use any leftovers and hooks you have, just pay attention to the gauge and tension (rhyme-rhyme).

I write patterns in US terms and abbreviations, so, according to them, you will use:
- ch. - chain,
- sl.st. - slip stitch,
- sc - single crochet,
- hdc - half-double crochet,
- dc - double crochet,
- BLO - back loop only,
- FL - front loop,
- dec. - decrease (2 sc crocheted together),
- inc. - increase (2 sc worked in one stitch),
- Rnd - Round.

Start with green. I plan to use the carrots as decorations, so, they have a little green loop among the leaves. In case you don't plan to hang them, you can omit this step and begin with 6 sc into a magic ring.

Green: Ch. 6, sl.st. in the 5th ch. from the hook and the last chain,

do not finish or turn: ch. 1, 6 sc into the same ch. as the last sl.st.,

sl.st into the 1st sc, fasten off, weave in the end.

Join orange. The carrot is crocheted in spiral rounds. Work the 1st Rnd into BLO and all other Rnds into both loops. There's a nice tip to make the joining almost invisible:
Pull a yarn through the loop, ch. 1

and start work from the next st.

Thus, your last stitches will go into the same st. as the ch. 1, and the first circle will look neat and cute, like this:

Orange:
1 Rnd: inc. around = 12 sc,
2 Rnd: (inc., 2 sc) - 4 times = 16 sc,
3 - 4 Rnd: 16 sc,
5 Rnd: (1 dec., 6 sc) - 2 times = 14 sc,
6 Rnd: 14 sc,
7 Rnd: 3 sc, 1 dec., 5 sc, 1 dec., 2 sc = 12 sc,
8 Rnd: 12 sc,
9 Rnd: (1 dec., 4 sc) - 2 times = 10 sc, stuff now and very firmly, because we're going to distribute this stuffing along the whole carrot,
10 Rnd: 10 sc,
11 Rnd: 2 sc, 1 dec., 3 sc, 1 dec., 1 sc = 8 sc,
12 Rnd: (1 dec., 2 sc) - 2 times = 6 sc,
13 Rnd: (1 sc, 1 dec.) - 2 times = 4 sc,
fasten off, weave in the ends. Now, roll the carrot between your palms to shape it and distribute the fiberfill. Hooray!

Turning to the leaf part. I designed 2 types of leaves, plain and lacy. The first type is easier to make, but the second looks more true to life. However, you can choose either option.

Start by joining our green yarn to the FL of the green stem.

Leaf 1:
*Ch. 10, sc in the 2nd ch. from the hook, 1 hdc, 2 dc, 2 hdc, 3 sc, sl.st. into the next FL*.

Repeat from * to * 5 times more (or as many as you wish :)), fasten off, weave in the ends.

Leaf 2:
*1) Ch. 6, sl.st. into the 2nd ch. from the hook and the next ch. (2 sl.st, 3 chs);

2) ch. 4, sl.st. into the 2nd ch. from the hook and the next ch. (2 sl.st., 1 ch.);

3) ch. 4, sl.st. into the 2nd ch. from the hook and the next 2 ch. (3 sl.st.);

4) ch. 3, sl.st. into the 2nd ch. from the hook and the next ch. (2 sl.st.);

5) sl.st. into the remaining ch. of ch. 4 from 2);

6) ch. 3, sl.st. into the 2nd ch. from the hook and the next ch. (2 sl.st.);
7) sl.st. into the remaining ch. of ch. 6 from 1), sl.st into the next FL*.

Repeat from * to * 5 times more, fasten off, weave in the ends. Phew!

For those of you who prefer schemes and can read them, here's a short schematic representation of the leaves' patterns:

It's been a long and difficult post (I could have made 6 or even 8 carrots instead!), but, I hope, you'll like it.

P.S.: As you might know, my patterns are now available at Amigurumi Patterns. Stripey is quite a popular guy, so, this quick project is partially devoted to him. His leg joining is still haunting me. Is it understandable? Or should I make a more thorough tutorial for this very part?

As I'm airing my brain between term papers, I almost don't crochet. These days the best remedies are "The Sims 3" (my protagonist girl is already widowed with 6 children, one of whom is gay and one bisexual; the older boys have 2 degrees each and the younger are planning to go to college, and other random curious stuff) and "Zeus" (went to bed at 3 a.m. on Monday and had to get up at 5.30 for work). You see, absolutely no time for crochet :) 

While the designs are getting ripe in my head, I'm making presents for my friend in Cambodia. Her son desperately needs a minion and she needs a pair of socks, due to the climate, lacy and cotton. Last year I made a basic minion doll. I was so in love with that bare-bottomed guy from "Despicable Me 2" that I decided to make it naked and crochet all details separately: gloves, boots, overall and goggles. But... It just didn't turn out right. I was absolutely in no mood for redesigning it, taking into the account the amount of time it took to fit all the proportions. So, here comes pattern time. Most free patterns have many felt details which is absolutely against my nature (I used to crochet the eyes because of this little conservative bug). And then I came across AradiyaToys minions and thought, "Ok, girl, it's quite cool to save money and use free patterns or design your own ones, but there are people who have already invested their time, skill and effort in the things you need. Why not support them?" And bought all her minion patterns at once :) So my son is already walking around and asks when I'm going to finish Stuart and make an evil minion and Stuart, and Tim for my "little baby boy" (sweet little baby who has my shoe size). Oh Gosh, on Sunday, I told you!

The spring is slowly coming to town, and it's high time to sow strawberry. Sowing and planting is a funny quest for me. I don't have a green thumb, so every year is disappointing. In 2013 all my herbs were eaten by ants, the only survivor was melissa and it grew so well last year that I shared it with the neighbour. The yellow and red carrots were the size of radishes, though sweet, and the ant worked their way on the carrot beds too. Last year I got some terrible allergy to an unknown thing presumably something in the garden soil, and after making several beds and discovering large red spots on my legs I left and only returned in summer. However, I replanted some strawberries and they survived and dried about 150 kg of apples and they were good. This year I got plenty of seeds: snow peas, sunflowers, napa cabbage and bok-choy, strawberries, radishes and several types of squashes. There are some beautiful flowers, too. Unfortunately, Russian post prohibits to send seeds and colourful carrots aren't popular among Russian companies, so, I dream about getting the rainbow carrots pack from Canada one day...

And it's time to resume my Korean learning and CAE preparation... And... Why are there only 24 hours in a day and I have to sleep over 6 hours a day to keep sanity?