ETC Design Challenge -- Summer Magic!

Etsy Texas Crafters is having their monthly Design Challenge right now! The theme is Summer Magic! So what magic does Summer hold for you?

I entered three items in the Design Challenge. My Neapolitan Stripe Scarf:

Market Bag in Marshmallow (a brand-new design!):

Partly Sunny Motif Scarf (another brand-new design!):

All of my entries are available for sale at The Lavender Lizard! And there are tons of other great entries! Please stop by the challenge page and vote for your favorite! (The link to the poll is at the bottom of the challenge page.)

Oh, and the top vote-getters will win prizes, one of which I'm donating -- their choice of my 3pack lip balm holders! So please help us decide the winners by voting and look for the August Design Challenge -- Elements! Thanks!

ETC Design Challenge -- Chinese New Year

This month's ETC Design Challenge was a real stumper for me. Chinese New Year? How will I translate that into a crochet design??? My head was swimming.

Luckily, Christine of pinuppixie, the Design Challenge Coordinator, sent along a link to inspire us.

Reading the info, I found out that the Lantern Festival parades often include huge dragons made of silk and bamboo. Well, that cleared my head -- I had just bought some silk and bamboo yarn and had not made anything with it yet. Perfect! Unfortunately there is no red in this brand of yarn (red is very symbolic for Chinese New Year.) So I got a couple of bright colors and decided to make a long scarf in a wave pattern to symbolize the color and movement of the dragons.

Here's my entry:

Also I quickly created a prize to donate to one of the top 4 winners -- it is a strand scarf with the same yarn and a little bamboo/cotton/acrylic for texture:

Come check out all of the entries and vote for your favorite. (The poll will close on January 27.)

Happy Chinese New Year!