Don't ask me for things

Because it will take me half a year (or probably more) to get them to you.

I always get very flattered when someone asks me to make them something, and initially quite enthused to make it, but then I get stuck on a bit and the poor item sits languishing with all my other abandoned WIPs.  With this poor moose the part I got stuck on was the sewing of the pieces together.  Definitely the most horrid thing about amigurumi.  When I finally did get around to it it didn't take that long and it turned out super.  So super that Partner was lamenting the fact that I always give 'the good things' away.  Ha!

I had wanted to go down to a park to take some photos, but ran out of time.  Instead I utilised the weeds in my back yard.  It works though, eh?

I'm also going to note how delighted recipient was with moose. In fact, I made it so recipient could give it away to someone else, but recipient is considering keeping it for herself! Which I have taken as a huge compliment to me!

Pattern:  Moose.  Very good pattern, just look at his little nobbly legs!  I used coins in the hooves to keep the bottoms flat.  gave the feet a bit of weight too which adds to the stability of this top-heavy creation.  Googly eyes at the recipient's request, as the whole request was inspired by this card.
Yarn:  Random acrylic for the most part, the brown is Panda Magnum Soft 8ply.
Ravelled here.

~Tan


-Linking with-
Tami's Amis FO Fridays | Fiber Arts Fridays at Wisdom Begins in Wonder | Natural Suburbia for Creative Fridays | I've Made Friday at SusanD1408 Crochet Addict | I ♥ Fridays at Petals to Picots

bits

Here are some bits of a moose.

Look what I'm doing!  Putting money in the hooves.  20 cents was the perfect size.  I'm actually using 40 cents per hoof.  This moose is going to be cashed up.  More like moo$e.

Linking to- WIP Wednesday (Tami's Amis) | WIP Wednesday (Ambassador Crochet) | Yarn Along (Small Things) | Keep Calm and Craft On {Crafting on} (Frontier Dreams) | What you doing Wednesday (SusanD1408 Crochet Addict) | Hookin on Hump Day (My Merry Messy Life)

the usual suspects

the commuter project, aka Sailor's Delight.  All I can say is that it is growing, but slowly.


You might (or not, whatevs) also be interested to know that this is the first time ever I have had red toenails.  Oh I feel so pretty!!

the special request, aka a moose!  At least the beginnings of one.  I don't know about you, but whenever I get a request to make something, I get a case of the warm & fuzzies. Aww you think my skills are good enough??  This one is for a friend of a Chris, who gave said Chris this christmas card one year.  Said Chris liked the card very much, so Mr Moose will be a follow up gift.  This one will differ from the pattern as the requestor specifically wants googly eyes.  That just means this moose will be much awesomer. 

Trust me, that's its head. 

the skiller upper, aka Venus, my first go at tunisian crochet.  Ok ok, So I am halfway through row 2, but I am excited about this one!  It took me a couple of gos to get going, but now I think I have the hang of it.  It seems slow though, and using a 5.5mm hook with laceweight yarn feels weird and clumsy, but I'm sure I'll warm to it.  I know I said I might be using other yarn for this, but that's another story. 

I have yet to learn how to take photos true to colour.  fhaw;ghawjkhasbcv

the nearly FOs, a bunch of things almost ready to be gifted, bar a few buttons, ribbons, and blocking.  I also tend not to snip all my ends off post-weaving-in until after blocking.  Anyone else do this?  I don't know if I got this anywhere, but I like to think that blocking might 'set' the yarn, so that when I snip the tails off they won't go poking out anywhere.  Is that a 'thing' or did I pull that out of my arse?

And there we have it!

Linking to- WIP Wednesday (Tami's Amis) | WIP Wednesday (Ambassador Crochet) | Yarn Along (Small Things) | Keep Calm and Craft On {Crafting on} (Frontier Dreams) | What you doing Wednesday (SusanD1408 Crochet Addict) | Hookin on Hump Day (My Merry Messy Life)

WIP: roadblock

How annoying when you cant keep working on something because you need to do something else before you can move on.  Work on my Sailor Purples Shawl has been stalled right now because my purple yarn is not working for me.  I pulled this yarn out of a 200g bag of remnants I picked up from BWM containing mostly white, and some purple lace weight yarn.  Unfortunately it's a wee bit too thin for my liking.  I'm going to have to work with the yarn doubled, and I just haven't had time to rewind it.  Plus I wanted to dye the white remnants into other shades of purple, and arrange the order of all the purples into the most appealling pattern.  So, this shawl is on temporary hiatus.


Yarn, Y U So skinny?

I needed a new train project, and because I have three niecicles, but have thus far only made two hats, niecicle numero three needed a hat.  So, I cast on a Lindsay Hat.  True, I could have chosen something a bit more complicated (because of my awesome knitting skillz), but I really like my train projects to be easy peasy Japanesey.  I like the way this hat has a rolled turny-uppy bit (brim?? :P) so it doesnt matter if it's a bit long. 

Also diggin' the poolin'

Oh, and I started one more thing.  What could it be?

I've been rewatching Sherlock (which is, like, one of the bestest shows ever), and in the special features on the blu-ray Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (I am such a crappy fangirl, I didn't even know Gatiss was Mycroft.  doi) talk about adapting the books into the show.  I was inspired to check em out.  I managed to find an audiobook of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes.  I realised I should have started with one of the first novels (omg there's one called A Study in Scarlet) or something, but this book is still good because it contains an assortment of cases in bite sized pieces (around 40 mins each) so you get a bit of flavour for what Sherlock is all about.  I'm quite enjoying it!  It's fun listening for all the bits Moffat/Gatiss picked out and put into the show. 

MF could not get any cuter. (via)

-Linking to-

WIP Wednesday (Tami's Amis)

WIP Wednesday (Ambassador Crochet)

Yarn Along (Small Things)

Keep Calm and Craft On {Crafting on} (Frontier Dreams)

What you doing Wednesday (SusanD1408 Crochet Addict)
Hookin on Hump Day (My Merry Messy Life)

WIP(s). Taking Stock

Holey Moley I have a lot of WIPs.  A LOT.  I think I lamented this fact a while back, but again, the amount of little project bags dotting my living space has made me feel anxious.

So today I wanted to air them out, and hopefully full disclosure will set my mind at ease!   I warn you that you might actually be bored to tears by this, and I'm sure a lot of you will be all 'TL;DR' but whatevs!  This is mah blog and I'll do what ah wahnt!!

Imma start with the newbies.

1.  Blissful Flowers Shawl.  Making this for my crochet biatch, Ang for her birthday in May.  Her choice of pattern and colour (the colour is very difficult to photograph, its a lot nicer in real life).  Such a clever construction!  A way to make a billion motifs without having to cut the yarn!  Genious!  I am enjoying the challenge of a new pattern.  The pattern is from Kristin Omdahl's  Seamless Crochet.

Brought to you by my super exclusive and very fashionable Pandora vinyl tote!

2.  Baby set.  Another first, my first time working a Japanese pattern.  At first I was like waaahhhhhhh??  I'm usually quite good with diagrams, but the back of the bonnet had me stumped.  For a day.  Then I was all, whatevs, I got skillz, Imma do this!  And I did.  

Brought to you by my awesome Dark Days Down Under tour tote I picked up at the book signing!

3.  Neat Ripple Scarf.  Just grabbed a left over skein of King Cole to try this Lucy pattern out. I'm planning a ripple blanket (pfft after I get through my current WIPs) and seeing which ripples turn me on.  Though I love Lucy, this pattern just wasn't pressing my buttons, so I think i will opt for the ripplier Ripples of Happiness.  Happiness > Neatness anyway, right?

Bow down before my blurry photography prowess!!

4. Amigurumi BTTF Delorean.  Seriously, no joke.  Freestylin' this for my man.  I got so excited he actually asked me to crochet him something, I thought, woooo fo' sure!  I made the bonnet and the windscreen, then run out of puff because I couldn't work out how to make a slope.  Watch this space though! 

Brought to you by my spiff Yarn Bucket!

To clarify, this is a Delorean from the Back to the Future Animated Series. Yes, there was an animated series! 

What up Marty? (via)

And some other stuffs you may have seen before.

5. Hitchhiker.  Nothing new here.  Move along.  

wait wait WAIT! I keep this project in one of my home made GRAB BAGS.  Yerr I made these myself.  Pattern here.  If I can make this, being a spaztasitc sewer, so can you!

6. Gauzy Gathers Scarf.  Haven't actually touched this is aaaagggeesss.  Such a shame because it will be such a cute scarf.  I did a few rows when I got my new bamboo needles, and the yarn likes the bamboo much more than ickle plastic, but it's so fiddly I moved onto different garterlicious knitting projects and left this one to hiberate.  Sweet dreams little scarf.

Brought to you courtesy of this lovely plastastic flower tote!

7. Stepping Stones Cardigan.  This is a FAIL, with a capital F.  I can think of other 'F' words I'd like to use in relation to this cardigan too.  It's not that bad I suppose, but just so FFfffffrustrating that I spent SO LONG on it only to discover it doesn't really fit.  I am just leaving this one alone in it's bag so it can have a think about what it has done.

Presented to you inside a lovely pink foldable flower tote!

8. Aran Toggle Wrap.  This was supposed to be a gift for mum, for her birthday in SEPTEMBER LAST YEAR.  Oh I am a terrible daughter.  Butbutbut there's only so much green mock seed stitch a girl can take! 

Shamelessly presented in a Glassons shopping bag, which is slowly growing too small for this behemoth of a project!

9. Pink Bear.  I made this during some lessons I was giving to my crochet biatches.  Crochet biatch R chose the pattern, but I don't think any of us finished it!  Mine just looks weird, like a cow's udder, so I am not feeling very enthused to keep going.

Again, courtesy of a home-made grab bag!!

10. TARDIS. Oh the TARDIS.  This is one of the first things I ever started making when I taught myself to crochet.  But then I got distracted by all the pretty pattens.  A running joke in my family is someone asking me 'so how's the Tardis going' and then me punching them in the face.  Never fear, my Tardis is going to be epic when it's finished.  I will have a wooden box made for the inside, and the top will come off as a lid and I will put things in the box! 

TARDIS lives in a shoe box.  Sowwy TARDIS.

11. Summer Garden Granny Square afghan.  Another project started early on in my crochet career, when I was dazzled by brightly coloured grannies and had no notion of the agony that is weaving in ends.  I now have a deal with my mother, She gets this as a gift if she weaves in the ends!  Fair enough right?

Kept in a rather fetching The Age shopping bag, available annually with your copy of The Age (probably the Sunday edition)

So, all my WIPs in their respective project bags lie in wait in a tub in my lounge room, next to a much lovelier looking tub filled with recently acquired yarn that will one day become a ripple blanket.  If and only if I can make some headway with my current projects.  But then again, there's no crochet police so maybe I will just start it anyways...

Linking with WIP Wednesday at Tami's Amis.. go go go!

ETA:  Linking with Ambassador Crochet too - why not!!

FO! The whole tooth

ahahaha I'm so punny.

My FO's are so few and far between :(  Though I have many WIPs at the moment so they should emerge from the chrysalis of WIP-hood into the wonder of FO-ness soon.  I hope.

This one was a real quickie.  A friend recently had her wisdom teeth out, so I made this for her as a kind of welcome-back-to-work-hope-you-feel-better type gift.

Attempt 1.  I thought I'd be clever and fudge the pattern a bit.   I made it bigger and when it came time to divide for the root I ch 4 or so across so it wouldn't pinch it toghether.  That, together with the too big safety eyes and terrible embroidery, resulted in something I wouldnt be proud to give to anyone.


boooo hissss ugly tooth.  you have no place as a gift.

So, this one now belongs to The Kitten.

take that ugly toof!

Attempt 2.  I followed the pattern for the larger size this time.  I opted out of the safety eyes, and attempted to embroider some anime esq eyes.  I think it's a slightly better result, but eh!  It might have been cuter if I just made the itty bitty one.  Oh wells!


o hai!

My friend was happy, althought it is sitting on her desk UPSIDE DOWN and looks like a rabbit. Like this:

Mosey on down to Tami's Amis for, I'm sure, more impressive FOs than mine!!

WIP - Poe-tay-toe?

Hiya.  As usual, many more WIPs for me than Fins... I've started two more things this week. 

Numero one.  I've been getting my amigurumi on.  Woo!  I won't tell you what it is yet.. can you guess?

I've been told it looks like a potato.  Hence the title to my post, which reminds me of this LOTR scene. Well, it didnt really happen like that but you get my gist. 

via (Also, all you whovians out there, have you seen this cool pic of Space Gandalf? hehe)

Numero two. My mother had this brainwaive of making the three grandchildren (my nieces) a little cardi each for chrissy.  I've been trying to teach her to crochet, but she is quite absent minded and doesn't like following patterns.  So I've been told I need to make three of these by Christmas.  Below is progress on the first one, I think I have about 5 rows to go, and only a couple of hours work.  Easy Peasy!  The pattern is Urban Girl Cropped Cardi.  I'm using Carnival Soft 8ply, just an acrylic, but look at the size of the ball it comes it!! Aieeee!  I have to carry this mother on the train!

An onto the CITY WATCH AUDIO BOOK CHALLENGE!  (Part 1 here)  I am now onto book 2:  Men at Arms.  I believe I have only read this once, so it is lovely to go over it again.  I'm really terrible with books, after finishing one I forget the detail right away.  I am generally only left with an impression of whether or not I liked the book, and a couple of images that really stuck with me. In this case it's largely Carrot and Angua.  There isn't as much Vimes as in Guards Guards, but its still very good to see how he is developed.  And of course Sybil.  Love Sybil. 



The City Watch Audio Book Challenge.  Progress:  Book 2 - Men at Arms.

And finally, here's a cool Pratchett flowchart I found on Pinterest!  A handy little tool if you're interested in Discworld and don't know where to start!  Because of this list I found out that I'd missed the short stories!  Shameful, I know.  You can read Theatre of Cruelty here, it has a funny exchange between Carrot and Death.  Perhaps I will re-read the Death books next...


linky

Remember to stop by Tami's Amis and Yarn Along for more yarny and literary delights!

FO! Turtle Power!! WARNING: TONS of pictures

This project has been a long time coming.  My lovely littlest sister has been very patiently waiting for her birthday present since March.  (Wel, I say patiently...)

I started an amigurumi teenage mutant turtle for her in February.  And while I didn't have any trouble reading the pattern (well, nearly no trouble), it required a lot of concentration.  A HUGE step up in complexity from my frist amigurumi attempt: a cupcake.

One of the reasons why the turtle took me so long to complete was because you had to sit and read the pattern for every single stitch.  Unlike a shawl or a scarf, where you can pretty much memorise the pattern and hook away without batting an eye, I needed to read every single line of the pattern.  This is probably not news to an amigurumi expert, but it certainly slowed me down.

The pattern is by Kathleen Early cleverly called Tortellini Tortoise.  You can't fool me Ms Early, I know a TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE when I see one!

I found the pattern easy to follow, but if you try this, you're in for the long haul!  Also, stitch markers are your friend!!

Here is how it all comes toghether...

First you make the legs.  This got me excited because they were easier than I expected, and they have little toes!  And look at that shaping, the knee and calves are defined!

Unfortunately one of my legs came out larger than the other.  I'm pretty sure it was my tension (not a mistake!!) and I didn't really notice until they were stuffed and sewn togehter. 

Then you make 7 of these. 

You join them all toghether to make the shell.  I made an unintentional modification here (read: mistake) by crocheting through both loops instead of the instructed BLO (back loop only).  Ooops.  In any case, I think it gave the shell a nice ridged effet.

It was at this point where I really slowed down.  I mean, so may bits to join and ends to weave in.  You also need to make 6 little triangles to fill in the gaps between each of the shell bits, and then you crochet a big circle for the underside of the shell.  grrrr.

Then you make the chest piece, which is 8 pieces sewn togheter.    Intentional modification here.  What I'm calling the boobs (the circle bits) made accrding to the pattern came about a bit small for me (see the right boob pictured below).  So I added an extra round (see left boob).  You can see the proportion of the boobs on the picture in the pattern.

Then you sew those bits together.

Then you make the crotch, which is just a squre and is sewn onto the legs.

Then you make the sides and sew those on. More squares.

Then you make the arms.  These were fun, see his little thumbs!


Unstuffed

Stuffed

Here is an idea of him coming toghether.  

The pattern is actually for a puppet, so you also make these little inserts for the arms and head for where your finger goes through.   You hand goes up the back behind the legs in front of the shell, and you can make his arms and head wiggle.



Finger insert for arm.

You put the insert inside the arm to create a cavity.  You do this for the head as well.

This is how it will work.

The head.

At this point I got a bit over taking pictures of everything.  Also I would generally work on this at night, not ideal picture taking lighting.  So the rest are pretty much the turtle complete! 

He has a hollow belly, the idea is you can store his bits and pieces in his belly.  So you make all the coloured bandanas and weapons and store them insite!  I love that you can dress him us as any of the turtles by switching his bandanas and weapons.

Like so:

Bandanas, wrist bands, belt buckle (including my very special wonky embroidery skillz) and weapons for each turtle.



My favorite weapons are are Raphael's sais.  I had some cool silver yarn for all the metal bits.

And (finally), introducing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!!
MICHAELANGELO!!!

 LEONARDO!!

 RAPHAEL!!

 DONATELLO!!

 

And a back view.

Phew!  I am super proud of myself, despite the fact that there are TONS of imperfections.  I will most likely not make another one of these any time soon!! 

Ravelled here.

More pics on my flickr.

I feel that my posts are complete without an appearance from The Kitten.  In the course of creating the turtle, my bag of polyfill would be brought out from time to time.  I'm not sure why, but she really liked it.