Crafting withdrawal

I have been so busy with school and life lately that I haven't had much time for crafting or swapping. I'm having a month break soon so I plan to catch up on many crafty things.

I've been meaning to make a TARDIS SWEET TARDIS xstitch for about a year now. It's quite the overdue birthday present so that will be near the top of the list.

Pattern available from easy seller: oregonstream

For myself, I plan on finishing the Gryffindor scarf i'm crocheting to wear to the midnight screening of The Deathly Hallows.

In progress shot of scarf.

Does anyone know how I can stop picking up stitches all the time? It's a problem I have every time I make a scarf and other than counting stitches each row (which I do NOT want to do!) i'm not sure how to stop. I'm seriously considering dropping by an old ladies crochet group at church one day and begging them for help!

NCIS crime scene scarf

Last year I watched 3 episode of NCIS in a row having never watched any before. I mean, it was just another crime show, right? WRONG.

After those 3 episodes I became a crazy obsessed fan and went and bought the first 2 seasons on DVD. And now I craft for the show. My dream is to crochet a pillow with Gibbs Rules on it - just like Kate references in the pilot.

I wanted to make a crime scene tape scarf and there are plenty available online, even free patterns - sadly, all way beyond my abilities. So instead I turned to crochet. It took a really long time to make this as I cannot follow a crochet pattern either. Mid way through I gave up on the pattern and went back to basics.

For the lettering I cut out felt letters and stitched them on. I think that it turned out looking fairly cute. Or at the very least you can tell that it supposed to be crime scene tape. Right?