Crafty Mum - crochet pyjama cases

I've been teaching myself crochet for two or three years now, and this has been my most ambitions project yet.

In the Bumper Book of Crochet (from Dorling Kindersley - no affiliation) they have a pattern for a turtle back pack.  A couple of years ago my big sis (Seaside Belle blogs here) mentioned that her children might like a hand-made pyjama case for Christmas, but at the time I had a backlog of craft projects and not enough time.  I did remember though, so this year started to make the turtles,  I just left off the straps to make them pyjama cases and not backpacks.

I have to confess that this has taken me a very long time.  To begin with I started learning to make the first hexagons for the turtles back when I was on a pretty high dose of steroids, so I had terrible cramps in my hands and found any kind of craft work hard-going.  I decided to make one in fresh jungle type colours for my nephew (age 4), and one in Frozen colours (turquoise, pinks and purples) for my niece (age 6).  

I was making pretty good progress with the Frozen one, and had made the front of the turtle, the head, tail and all the legs, but somehow they didn't seem right.  It was only as I looked much more closely at the individual stitch instructions while completing the back of the turtle around the edge of the hexagons (away on holiday in August) that I realised I'd been using entirely the wrong stitch for all the other pieces - doing them in treble instead of double.  That was why they looked like cones instead of disks!  Once I realised this it didn't take me long to undo them and re-use the wool to crochet correctly.  I then had a plan to get them completed by the end of October, but failed because I hadn't ordered the zips.  I wasn't far behind though, and I think I can safely reveal them before I pop some pyjamas in them and wrap them up for Christmas ready for niece and nephew.

What's your latest project?  What's your next one?

My next one is to put some scenery on C's model railway which is looking sadly unloved and empty.  I've set myself an ambitious deadline of Christmas (ahem, that's not very far away!) to create a hillside, cliff, railway tunnel, cave for the dragon, and ruined castle.  I'll post again on here very soon and let you know how I'm getting on with that!