A Texas Kind of Spring: A Tutorial

In the last seven years the Hot Doc and I have lived in four different states. We met in California. Nice and sunny, "cool yourself off in the ocean" California. We married in Colorado, which is beautiful, and blue skied and big mountains, but it also snows there which scares the crud out of this California Girl! (I am scared to drive in the snow, I'm not scared of actual snow that would be weird.) We had our babies in Missouri. Missouri has super hot and humid summers and freezing, icy winters. (Ever bundle two kids up and strap them in their car seats while wearing huge puffy jackets? Not a mom's favorite thing to do.) And last, but not least there is Texas. Texas is...what's the right word...difficult. It's difficult to explain the weather in Texas, mainly because there is no consistency. Well, I take that back, there is one fact about Texas, it's hot. No, no, not like "wow, it's so hot out here, we should go to the pool to cool off," it's like, "Wow, it's so hot out here I am afraid that if we try to walk to the pool to cool off we might DIE! And that death would be in vain because once we got to the pool we would realize that the supposed "refreshing" pool is actually like a warm bath tub." When it's not summer, which is rare, the weather is all over the place! Last week we had a few days of high 70's, low 80's with humidity and now for the last 3 days it has been pouring rain and 50 degrees. It's confusing. But despite my confusion I decided we needed a bit of Spring in our lives, and I want to share with you this little Spring Chick tutorial!!

Here's what you need:

1.Yarn. I used yellow, pink, black and orange, but you could make your little chick whatever color your little heart desires.
2. Hook. I used a 4.25 mm, but once again it's whatever you want.
3. Felt.
4. Hot glue
5. Hair clip or headband

Stitches used:
ch- chain
sl st- slip stitch
sc- single crochet-
hdc- half double crochet
dc- double stitch
tr- treble- Yarn over hook twice, then insert hook into next stitch. Yarn over hook, then draw yarn through the stitch (there will be four loops on your hook) *Yarn over and pull through two loops (three loop remaining), yarn over and pull through two loop,(two loops remaining) yarn over and pull through last two loops.
dbl tr- double treble- Same process as the treble, except yarn over hook three times to start the stitch
trp tr- triple treble- Same process as the double treble, except yarn over hook four times to start the stitch

Are you thoroughly confused informed? Okay! Then we are ready!


Chick Body

Chain 4, sl st to form ring

Round 1- 10 sc into the ring

Round 2- 2 sc in first st, sc in 2nd st, 1 hdc and 1 dc in 3rd st, 2 dc in the 4th st, 2 dc in 5th st, 2 sc in 6th st, 1 sc and 1 dc in 7th st, 2 tr in 8th st, 2 dbl tr in 9th st, 2 dbl tr in 10th st.

Round 3- starting in the first stitch of the previous round, 2 dbl tr and 1 trp tr in st, ch1 and sl st in same st (this is your tail). I also pulled my starting string to close up the hole.

Wing

Chain 4, sl st to form ring

Round 1- (crocheting into the ring)- sc, hdc, dc, 2 tr, dc, hdc, 2 sc, hdc, dc, 2 tr, dc, hdc, sc, sl sp into next stitch.

Finishing

1. Sew wing onto chick
2. Use black yarn to make a little eye
3. Use orange yarn to make a little beak. (I just found the stitch I wanted to be the beak and attached yarn, sc, ch 1, sc, ch1, sl st all in the same stitch.)
4. Finish and weave in all your ends

Now, cut a piece of felt in a similar shape to your chick. Get out your hot glue and glue it to the back of your chick, hiding all your ends.

Then get your clip or headband and hot glue it to your chick. I like to put one last piece of felt over the clip or headband just to ensure it is going to stay.

Lastly, put it in Crazy Girl's crazy hair. Wonder where all that hair came from? (Just kidding, I know exactly where it came from. It's like lookin' in a mirror folks.)

Now go make some chicks! And as always, if you have any questions, please let me know!