Eight Days of Hanukkah Crochet-A-Long

I have been inspired by my fellow amigurumi makers to turn my little dreidel pattern in to a Crochet-A-Long.

Hey, Claire, what's a Crochet-A-Long?
That was my question, and the answers I got made it sound like fun! A crochet-a-long is when a designer, like me, says, "hey, everyone, lets all make a pattern together, and when we're all done, we can see all the awesome ways we interpreted it and all the things that we all did!"

Oh, that sounds fun! How do I participate?
It's really easy! Yesterday, I posted a free pattern to make an amigurumi dreidel and gelt in honor of Hanukkah, which starts tonight. It's a quick pattern - in an hour and a half, I made two entire dreidels and some of the gelt - and can be done using scraps - the finished product is about 4 1/2 inches tall and 2 inches wide. And when you're done, you can actually sort of play dreidel with it! :)

A what and what?
A dreidel and gelt! A dreidel is a four-sided spinning top used to play a gambling game, and the gelt is what you gamble for. The links will take you to wiki for more information, including a standard version of the rules, but here's how I learned to play as a girl (it's slightly different). First, you spin the dreidel. A traditionally dreidel has one of four Hebrew characters on the sides, and you'll get one of the four as your result when you spin the dreidel: gimmel, hey, nun and shin. If you get gimmel, you get all of the gelt in the pot. If you get a hey, you get half of the pot. If you get nun, nothing happens, and if you get shin, you lose all of your gelt! But never fear, because it's nothing all that valuable - we always played for either pennies, candies - especially M&Ms, or for true "gelt" - those chocolates wrapped in gold to look like coins and sold in little net bags. Whenever candy was involved, eating your stash was entirely allowed, so generally the game ended when all the candy had gotten eaten. :) However, if you want to play, I suggest you use wikipedia's rules rather than mine, because the ones we used when I was a kid are a little dysfunctional (all that "take all the pot! lose all your gelt!" makes for a lot of back and forth. Until you eat it...)

Here's what you'll be making.


To join the Crochet-A-Long:

Step 1: Get the pattern! You can either:
a. Copy it from the blog post about it
b. Download it from Ravelry: download now
c. E-mail me at unforth (AT) yahoo (DOT) com, subject "Hanukkah Crochet-A-Long," and I can send it to you as a PDF attachment.

Step 2: Make the pattern! Have fun! Use scraps! Make crazy faces on the four sides to represent gimmel, hey, nun and shin!

Step 3: Share what you've made! Post your pics on Ravelry, upload them to the Curiously Crafted Creations Facebook page, share them on Flickr or Photobucket or whatnot (and send or post the link), or just e-mail them to me at unforth (AT) yahoo (DOT) com. Once I've got permission from folks to use their pics, I'll share them right here on my blog!

Step 4: PROFIT! As a prize, I will select 1 lucky person who participates in the CAL to receive their choice of one of my other patterns for free!

To be included in the lotto, finish your dreidel by the end of the Festival of Lights - that's December 9th! I know, not much time, but it's a short pattern, promise.

Once again, Happy Hanukkah, everyone! :)