The web and world of print aren’t lacking in optimistic articles that advise forgetting 2009 and looking forward to 2010. Well, I’ll jump on the bandwagon for the second half of that (forget 2009? how about we all just learn from it instead?) After I wrote the last post on my 2009 health challenges, I looked at my Flickr pics for reminders of all the good things that happened amidst the bad:

–Halloween craft work for Better Homes & Gardens and The Today Show

-day trips to Storm King, Westport, the North Fork and Atlantic City

-bike rides to Jamaica Bay/Far Rockaway, The Cloisters and one around my hometown of Pittsburgh, a ride that was on my to-do list for years

–cheese crocheting for a Fromager, big gay ice cream truck-crocheting and a subsequent Serious Eats gift guide

-being part of a Chashama art show and the Plush You! show in Seattle

-becoming friends with peeps at Abrams Books/STC Craft and introducing the Safety Cones to Kata Golda’s puppets and helping STC Craft and BurdaStyle with DIY Design and a Pie-bake-off benefit to boot

-participating in Parking Day with Safety Cone Adventures, where I met some great people and made some connections that continue to have a wonderful domino effect

-discovered Only Make Believe, a great organization to volunteer for, and one that made my birthday extra special

-used a lot of my sick-at-home time for reading, writing, perfecting my knitting, sewing and crochet skills, baking and cooking

And there are many creative and exciting things in the cooker, including some big magazine and book news (!!!), all of which will be written about here…

All of this is to say: I have good reason to feel fortunate. When the holidays were approaching and I still wasn’t getting better, it was sad to think of spending my first Christmas away from home, and worse than that, in the hospital getting tests done. Even with frowny lump of coal in tow, not even look-on-the-bright-side Alicia could have turned Christmas-in-the-hospital around. (Okay, maybe I would have written an adventure story for frowny lump of coal amidst all the wires, needles and beeps, but I wasn’t looking forward to tapping into even more creativity via melancholy and soaking my notebook with tears).

Luckily, I started to feel “well” enough to make the trip to Pittsburgh (and did NOT have to go to the hospital YAY YAY YAY!), and continued to get better and better while in Pittsburgh. Big “phew.” While there, I got the idea to crochet a fortune cookie, based on some felt ones I saw in Martha Stewart last year. I bought a fortune cookie at the mall food court so that I could match the color of the real thing to appropriate yarn, and lo and behold, the fortune was perfectly relevant! (Have you noticed that most fortunes aren’t really…fortunes? More like declarations). It reads: “You have a deep interest in all that is artistic.” And there was a smiley front at the beginning and end of this sentence. T’is true! Ha.

Anyway, after the jump, the super easy pattern for a crochet fortune cookie. I wish you ALL good fortune in the new year and beyond…

Supplies

G hook
Red Heart TLC Essentials yarn in “Sandstone” (or red and pink for V-Day fortune cookies)
6mm black beads and black embroidery floss
5/8 inch white ribbon

Directions

Leaving a long tail, ch 2 and make 8sc in the 2nd ch from hook. (8)
2sc in each around. (16)
2sc, sc around. (24)
2sc, sc, sc around. (32)
2sc, sc, sc, sc around. (40)
Fold in half and sc together until there are 4sc left. Sl to next sc and finish off.

Pinch the cookie at the center, and with long tail and tapestry needle, sew across the (2sc, sc) round on the bottom side to “gather” the yarn a little and keep the pinched part in place. With embroidery floss, sew on two beads along the (2sc, sc, sc) round, spaced about 3sc apart. Sew on a tiny mouth one round below. Cut a 2.5-inch piece of white ribbon and sew onto the inside of the cookie. Ta-da! May good fortune follow you everywhere, i.e. put him in your pocket STAT!