strawberries & a ladybug

I am hopeless when it comes to actually growing a garden filled with strawberries. 
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And I have the most vivid memories of picking them by the pails-full in my Aunt Anna Mae's garden.  Row after row I would walk, diving for the big, red heart-shaped fruit.  Of course, my pail was pretty near empty as I would devour almost all of them.
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So.  I can't grow 'em, but Lesley Stanfield can sure design a pattern that looks like the real thing.  And her book is just filled with oodles & oodles of the cutest, buggy-flowery-almost-edible looking delights....

Adding tiny seed beads to mimic the seeds of the strawberry? --- beyond cute.

I used Debbie Stoller's Stitch Nation yarn (which I looooove, btw.  Soft from the get-go & the most fabulous of colors) and fluctuated between using my F & G hook.

Lesley's leaf pattern is my most favorite of leaf patterns & seeing all of the adorable 'little beasts' that she includes in her book -- I just had to crocheted her ladybug. 
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Adorable.
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So adorable that between our golden retriever puppy (naughty boy that he is) and the cats --- sheesh!  those furry, little rascals were/are under the impression that these stuffed items are actually toys intended only for them.  You can not believe how many times when crocheting the last details, the strawberries & ladybug would disappear from the sofa cushion only to find them in the mouth of some very guilty looking pets.

Now, on to her butterfly pattern.  Or caterpillar pattern.  Or Bachelor's Button flower...



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