Crafty craziness

I've been crafting like a madwoman over the last few days. I have a couple of friends getting married on August 8th in my hometown, so I'm making their wedding present, and my dad asked me to make him a laptop case for his swanky new 17" MacBook Pro, which he wanted me to finish before he leaves on a trip on August 10th. I want to finish it before I travel back to the townships because I have to sew a lining and I don't want to have to carry all that extra material.

Anyway, first the wedding present, because I find it the most exciting. I wanted to make some potholders because I figure it's a nice utilitarian thing for a newly wed couple. Of course, I didn't want them to be boring traditional potholders, so I thought first that I'd make the "Skullholders" by Kacy Fallon from the Happy Hooker. Skulls aren't really their thing, however, so I thought I'd play the nerd card and make them Star Trek potholders, since they're both fans. I found only one Star Trek logo chart on all of the interet, but it was too big, and the grid lines weren't scaled properly, so I made my own! I'm using double knitting because even though this chart is better sized, I think knit stitches are smaller than crochet stitches with the same yarn... and in general, colourwork with knitting is cleaner looking. At any rate, here's what I have so far, on both sides:





I'm using Lily's Sugar 'n Cream, which is very reasonably priced and very pleasant to work with. Also, it's cotton, which is a good material for something that will be handling hot objects. I'm not sure how I'll finish it off yet (probably with a crocheted border), but I'll probably post the chart as a free pattern at some point.

Next, the laptop case. I sent a few designs to my dad for him to choose his favourite, and he picked Phazelia's laptop case (only available on Ravelry, unfortunately). The design is very simple. It's a bunch of interlocking hexagons which are crocheted together to make a case. The inside is lined and it uses a velcro closure. The pattern didn't have much information, so I graphed out the hexagon placement for myself, just to get it straight in my mind:



As you can see, it requires 17 hexagons. I've finished about eight of them, and I'm already getting sick of it. I mean, it's not very interesting... just rounds and rounds of single crochet. It doesn't help that I feel really rushed. I'm planning on making the trip next Tuesday (in 6 days), so I have to get all the hexagons done this weekend. Anyway, here's what I have so far... despite the easy construction, it's pretty neat looking:



I also finished off a couple of really easy and fast projects last week, and started a new one besides those mentioned above. I made "Slouchy" by Alexandra Tinsley with a good portion of the rest of the Marble Chunky I used for the cloud bolero. I like it a lot, though it's a little warm for this weather (not that that's stopped me).



I also used up some scraps I had lying around to make a cute little headband using the Simple Lace Headband pattern by Mellissa Mall. It turned out ok, though my colour choice wasn't brilliant (not that you can see that from the picture).



Finally, I started making a Skylla by Dale Hwang from The Anticraft book. It's bright green and awesome, and I've done everything except for the tentacles, but it's going to have to wait until I'm done all that other stuff.



There's some weird stuff going down in that picture... don't even ask...