I whipped up a quick little cupcake last week for a sweet girl turning 2 years old. Unfortunately, me throwing my back out and the subsequent appointments that followed interfered with me being able to give it to her on her birthday. But I thought I'd go ahead and post it here, just for giggles. I'm not entirely happy with how the cherry on top turned out, so I may take it off and do it over.
Woohoo for an FO!
Since I couldn't bring my sewing machine on my recent vacation, I was forced to limit myself to buying fabric and crocheting. Despite having about a 101 unfinished projects already, I decided to go ahead and start a new one. Today I finally finished it: an amigurumi sheep from this pattern for one of E's little friends who happens to be obsessed with sheep. He ended up a bit bigger than I had anticipated, and I'm not 100% happy with how I did his face (I think white on black may have been a mistake), but overall I think he's pretty cute.In case you're wondering, I used one strand of regular old acrylic yarn and one strand of nylon eyelash yarn (some Lion Brand "Tiffany" that I found in a clearance bin for $1!) to make him fuzzy.
I decided to make a pancake breakfast with sausage this time around, just to change things up a little. I'm realizing that making the exact same things over and over again isn't nearly as much fun as making up something new each time. I think I'm going to have to get over that little mental hurdle though if I plan on selling more stuff for the holidays. I'm way behind on all my crafty stuff since I've been out of town. I'm going to try to catch up this weekend, so stay tuned. ;)
One thing that many people don't realize is that, as simple as some of these things look, a lot of work goes into the finishing of each individual piece. For you non-crafty types, finishing basically refers to weaving in all the loose ends after you're done knitting/crocheting something, sewing/seaming pieces together, adjusting the shaping, and just generally making it look nice and presentable. It's pretty much the least fun part of making anything, especially to me. In fact, for some items, like the sushi set or the bacon pictured below, it takes me longer to do the finishing than it does to make the piece itself. Bleh.In any case, I thought it might be interesting to show what some of the stuff I make looks like before it's 100% done. Here's the before - a lovely mess of loose ends and whatnot.
And the after, a delicious yarn bacon! Who could resist?
These still need to be blocked a little, but I'll save that boring explanation for another boring post.
One bad thing about making things in sets is that I have to wait until I finish every piece before I can list them in my store. But I finally have a bunch of stuff that's ready to go up, or pretty darn close. First up, is another set of veggies. I replaced the turnip with corn on the cob this time. I'm actually really really proud of the corn because I worked really hard to come up with a pattern that would have the texture of the niblets. I debated whether or not to do the stalks this time, but it didn't seem worth the extra work.
In the future, I may just include both the corn and the turnip, but I really wanted to be able to list some new items today. Also, I don't want to have to raise the price. I made a slight change to the carrot top from last time to make it more leafy.
I'm also very close to being done with a set of fruits. I've been a bit stumped for fruits to make besides the pear and strawberries I already had. I finally settled on an apple and I'm working on a lemon right now. This set should be up in the shop in the next day or two, along with a set of sweets.
I'm thinking that the apple might make a cute teacher's gift come Christmas-time, so I may make some more of those to sell individually. Also, I know there are people out there who like/collect apple stuff. I'm also in the midst of working on some pumpkin hats, since fall is finally upon us. And I'm getting ready to do a big batch of baby leg warmers too.
Here's another bit of crochet food that didn't quite turn out. It's supposed to be a pear, but it ended up kinda gigantic and looks more like some sort of gourd. I'm going to have to tweak the pattern a bit to get it to be more pear-sized.Other than that, I've been very busily working on other food items that I'm hoping to get up in an Etsy store very soon. Stay tuned.
Now I just need to work on a cup of coffee and maybe a carton of milk. Thinking about pancakes too.
It's been a long time since I've done any crochet - or anything crafty at all, for that matter. The month of June was just super insano busy. We had a parade of out-of-town guests, and then went out of town ourselves for a while. With all that going on, I've been in a bit of crafty withdrawal so I went on a bit of a tear this weekend, especially since I'm all fired up about the idea of opening an Etsy shop. I've already got one hat almost done, but I'll confess, I'm easily distracted by new things. And lately, I've had the idea stuck in my head to make some play food for E, especially since she's been putting toys in a old pot that I let her have and stirring it with a spatula like she's cooking. I know I'm super-biased, but it really is quite cute.So this weekend I decided to go back to the inspiration for this blog and whip up a few amigurumi items. Some are from the book that my wonderful friend Meighan gave me, Amigurumi Super Happy Crochet Cute. Others are variations of pictures or patterns that I've found online. I cheated on some of the leaves and stuff and used felt.
Most of it is pretty self-explanatory. The two circles on the left are tomato slices that are going to be part of either a sandwich or a burger. I'm about halfway through making a fried egg to go with the bacon, and I'm planning on adding a pat of butter to the toast too. I may do some pancakes too, but it's hard to find the exact colors (and I'm trying really hard not to buy new yarn). More to come...
I can't believe I'm going to do this, but in an effort to shame myself into finishing some of the umpteen projects I have laying around, I'm going to catalog all of the current Works in Progress that I have going. Some have been laying idle for years. This might turn into a series of posts. First up, a stuffed rhinoceros. I started this as a gift for a friend's baby. He's almost 2 now. Oops. I had a really good start, and I'm actually about 75% done. But doing all the little pieces and sewing it up just doesn't seem to appeal to me. Maybe I'll finish it in time for my next kid.
Then there's a couple pairs of booties, also intended as baby gifts for children who are definitely too big for booties. The pink ones are super close to being done. I just have to sew the soles on, and then add a button for the t-strap. It's just...the soles seem to be a big small for the top part of the shoe, and I'm annoyed/embarassed at how off the sizing is in general. And YES, I did a gauge swatch, and it still came out all wonky. The green stripey one, well, I made the one and it was enormous and I got discouraged and abandoned the other.
I feel compelled to mention that both of these booties, as well as some others that I attempted before came from this evil book, which had gorgeous pictures and made it seem like it would be so easy, and if it weren't so damn expensive, I would probably chuck it out the window or maybe set it on fire. This book is largely responsible for my hatred of following patterns. Grrr.
Next up, here's a hat that I started about 4-5 months ago for Evy. This is actually the second attempt, as the first ended up unraveled.
Here is an amigurumi bunny that I started a while back, when I first got obsessed with amigurumi. I don't know why I didn't finish this guy. He's about 90% done. Just needs another ear, 2 arms and a leg. 
This is a scarf I was making as a Christmas gift for my brother's girlfriend. I'm actually going to see her next month in California, and now I'm debating whether I should still try and finish this to give to her or just make something else entirely. Argh.
This is the dishcloth that I started a couple weeks ago. It's actually almost done (the picture's old). It's the easiest, most mindless project I've got going, which is probably why I've been working on it the most lately.
What else? Hmmm...Oh, there's the needle roll, but I won't bother posting a picture since that post is fairly recent. not to mention that nothing's changed since the last time I wrote about it. Still working on the cables...boring.Ay, I just remembered this sad project.
It's the bottom half of what was going to be a cardigan and pants set, made from a felted sweater. The problem is, after using the sleeves to make the pants above (which still need to have an elastic waistband put on), I realized that I don't have enough material left to make the sweater. And now I have the added issues of E being too big and the weather being too warm out for wool sweaters. *sigh*
Last, but not least, I have this sleeveless top that I was going to give as a gift for my mom's birthday...5 years ago. Egad. I'm also not that far from done on this one. I don't know what my problem is. Maybe I can get it done for Mother's Day this year.
I think that's actually everything for now. I have a few pairs of knee socks that need to be converted to babylegs for a friend, but I'm actually going to knock those out tonight. So all in all, not great, but not as bad as I really thought it was going to be.
We were on vacation in the midwest for the last 10 days, and in my rush to make sure we'd packed all the baby-related nonsense we could possibly ever need, I totally forgot to bring something to work on. In fact, I didn't even bring a book to read, let alone a crafty project. I think I went through some major withdrawal while we were gone. But now that I'm back home, I, oddly enough, don't feel like starting anything back up again. I took out the amigurumi bunny I was working on and realized I have one ear(?) and one leg(?) and I have no idea how I made them, so making a matching pair might be problematic. I also just didn't feel like crocheting at all. I'm almost freaked out by this lack of crafting desire.However, the disinterest in yarn-related stuff may stem from the fact that I'm newly obsessed with baggo. I played baggo (also sometimes called 'cornhole') at a barbecue this past weekend and now I'm totally hooked. For the unfamiliar, it's pretty simple really: two teams of two people each take turns tossing four beanbags onto an angled board with a hole in the middle. You get 1 point for landing it on the board and 3 for in the hole. There's a million variations, but if you're playing "Nancy Rules" like we were, you have to play with a drink in your hand, and do a little dance if you get it in the hole. You also get 2 points if it's on the rim. I'm trying to convince T to that we should make our own boards this weekend, and I'm also debating whether I should attempt to make the beanbags myself or just buy them on ebay. I'm really tempted to make them myself since it sounds like a relatively easy little sewing project, but I'm nervous that if I do a shoddy job, they may explode all over the place. I also worry that if I start buying fabric, it may open a scary new can of worms.
A couple weeks ago, I was IMing with Mee and she innocently sent me a link to a site with some books of amigurumi patterns. There was all sorts of cute little animals, as well as garden gnomes and flowers...and thus, a new obsession was born. So what the heck am I talking about? For those of you that don't know, amigurumi is a japanese term for cute little crochet dolls or critters, usually made in the round from the top down. I started poking around, searching on google, and I realized that this would be an excellent way to use up a lot of the cheapo yarn that I don't have any other use for. In fact, the more I surfed, the more I couldn't believe that I had never stumbled upon this before! Besides being a good way to use up all the random odds and ends of leftover yarn, amigurumi are also very quick and easy to make. Gotta love anything that's easy and FAST. One odd thing I discovered though is that there aren't a ton of great patterns out there, at least, not free ones (yes, I am a cheapskate). There's a lot of people who are creative and talented enough to come up with their own patterns (the best of which are for sale on Etsy), but it seems like the rest are making them from a series Japanese pattern books that seem to be readily available on the west coast. Grrrr. I found the books both on Ebay and on Amazon Japan, but I'm not sure I'm ready to spend $20-$30 for a book that originally cost about $10. Actually, I probably would spend that much if I didn't know that A) it would only feed my compulsion to buy more crafty amigurumi-related stuff, and B) T would kill me.I finally found a pattern that I thought was both easy to follow and very cute - the Amineko Cat. It turned out pretty well (see above), for a first effort, although it did end up being a lot bigger than I expected. I kinda assumed it'd be little, like beanie baby size. It's actually more like a regular stuffed animal, maybe 20 inches long. I think this is one of the first times I worked on a project nonstop from beginning to end (usually, I get bored halfway through and abandon it to start something else). I'm actually a little bit proud of myself.
With that under my belt, I decided to try my hand at making my own amigurumi without a pattern. I'd seen these very cute little birdies on another site and figured I could wing it (no pun intended...well, maybe a little intended) just by looking at the picture. Well...it didn't go so well. I won't say it looks bad. It's just...weird. For one thing, it's not quite as round and bird-like as I was aiming for; it's more bullet-shaped. The other problem is that I put the face and wings on before I put the tail on, and they're not quite lined up right, so it looks all crooked. I took one wing off to reposition it and haven't gotten around to putting it back. I'm thinking about pulling the face off too. He looks like a demented baby bald eagle.But I've already moved on and started another critter with some super soft yarn that was leftover from a blanket I made. I'm not quite sure what it's going to be yet. Maybe a bunny? Or maybe just some sort of random made-up animal. We'll see.
Here's another bit of crochet food that didn't quite turn out. It's supposed to be a pear, but it ended up kinda gigantic and looks more like some sort of gourd. I'm going to have to tweak the pattern a bit to get it to be more pear-sized.
Now I just need to work on a cup of coffee and maybe a carton of milk. Thinking about pancakes too.
Then there's a couple pairs of booties, also intended as baby gifts for children who are definitely too big for booties. The pink ones are super close to being done. I just have to sew the soles on, and then add a button for the t-strap. It's just...the soles seem to be a big small for the top part of the shoe, and I'm annoyed/embarassed at how off the sizing is in general. And YES, I did a gauge swatch, and it still came out all wonky. The green stripey one, well, I made the one and it was enormous and I got discouraged and abandoned the other.
I feel compelled to mention that both of these booties, as well as some others that I attempted before came from this evil book, which had gorgeous pictures and made it seem like it would be so easy, and if it weren't so damn expensive, I would probably chuck it out the window or maybe set it on fire. This book is largely responsible for my hatred of following patterns. Grrr.
Here is an amigurumi bunny that I started a while back, when I first got obsessed with amigurumi. I don't know why I didn't finish this guy. He's about 90% done. Just needs another ear, 2 arms and a leg. 
A couple weeks ago, I was IMing with Mee and she innocently sent me a link to a site with some books of amigurumi patterns. There was all sorts of cute little animals, as well as garden gnomes and flowers...and thus, a new obsession was born. So what the heck am I talking about? For those of you that don't know, amigurumi is a japanese term for cute little crochet dolls or critters, usually made in the round from the top down. I started poking around, searching on google, and I realized that this would be an excellent way to use up a lot of the cheapo yarn that I don't have any other use for. In fact, the more I surfed, the more I couldn't believe that I had never stumbled upon this before! Besides being a good way to use up all the random odds and ends of leftover yarn, amigurumi are also very quick and easy to make. Gotta love anything that's easy and FAST. 
With that under my belt, I decided to try my hand at making my own amigurumi without a pattern. I'd seen these very cute little birdies on another site and figured I could wing it (no pun intended...well, maybe a little intended) just by looking at the picture. Well...it didn't go so well. I won't say it looks bad. It's just...weird. For one thing, it's not quite as round and bird-like as I was aiming for; it's more bullet-shaped. The other problem is that I put the face and wings on before I put the tail on, and they're not quite lined up right, so it looks all crooked. I took one wing off to reposition it and haven't gotten around to putting it back. I'm thinking about pulling the face off too. He looks like a demented baby bald eagle.
