One More Reason to go to Setsucon

One more reason to go to Setsucon... go find the booth selling these beauties!!

Tangela

This was actually the first pokémon that I wanted to make; although, everyone told me it was super lame and not even worth having.  Well, too bad!  It looks super adorable... even though I made it too big to fit in a pokéball. I'll just have to minimize my pattern a smidgen!

Charizard

Well it was an adventure and now it's bad ass.  Need I say more?  Oh yeah the pattern is all mine, baby!

Knitting For the Penguins

I've crocheted a lot of penguins over the years, and I've even collected a lot of great knitted penguin patterns!  Now instead of knitting penguins, it is time for everyone to put up their needles and knit for penguins.  There are little innocent and adorable penguins out there cold, wet, and covered in oil from spilled tankers.  These little critters need help in the form of Pajamas after they have their bath.

Check out this link for more information and penguin pjs patterns!

Mini is Magic

You know how giagantic Pokémon magically fit into baseball sized pokéballs?  Well double the magic and decrease the size of the Pokéball and you get you're very own Key-chain Pokéball!!
The pattern is my own design... and fairly simple.   :)

Hidden Inside

PROJECT FINISHED!  Yes, I can finish a project occasionally as well as stare at those poor souls that fell by the wayside, unfinished and unloved.  But anyway this pokéball knows how to do a slow strip to reveal the Togepi treasure inside.  :D 

So the typical pokéball that I am now a Boss at making and the pattern is a product of my imagination.

Then the little fellow peaks his head out to say hello...

...and Togepi Lives!!

Now for something totally different in my crafting experience...
I have never made a key chain before but this was too precious to resist!  This mini-Togepi was my first attempt at a Pokémon sized critter, and he was so cute that I couldn't rip out the stitches.

These three projects are all my own creation and pattern.

A Burst of Color

My latest project is going to be a burst of color!  A queen sized quilt made out of the leftover hand dyed fabrics and a couple of store bought colors to splice between my own dyed ones.  This entire project was conceived when I went on a family quilting getaway and didn't have a project to work on.  Sure I had some fabric, but what to do with what I have?  Eventually I really want to make a Broken Star Quilt out of Batiks, but since I had only one weekend and no pre-washed batiks means that will be put on hold... for now.  Luckily the first night I found a quilt book and bought it.  It had this pattern in it: 6" squares in a crosshatch pattern with a border of circles within squares.  Since I have so much hand-dyed fabrics leftover I just started cutting up the blocks and soon enough I will have enough to make my quilt! 
 

Dabbling in Pottery

Super intense times from 10am to 3am locked in the pottery studio, yielded me 30+ vases, bowels, mugs, and more ceramics.  Sadly three or four pieces were lost to the kiln but this fabulous piece survived :)  This is one of my first vases: the required 6.5" tall before firing with a nicely defined foot.

Jealousy is a Squirtel

 

After seeing the Pokéballs, Oddish, and Pikachu crochet masterpieces, one of my coworkers asked very nicely for a belated birthday present.  So in a day or two I whipped out another one of my customized pokéballs and made up a pattern for Squirtel.  Lets just say that he was so happy that he got me a couple of commissions and the above pattern was his facebook profile pic for a couple of days.

In a strange series of events we discovered that one of my summer coworkers has an irrational fear of octopi and squid.  And in an absentminded attempt at being nice one of my other coworkers made us all summer-ish name tags.  Unfortunately they were beach themed and had octopi on them.  So for terrorizing my coworker, I made the name-tag-giver a squishy octopus for her to take home.

This is my first crocheted hat, a beanie with the colors of the Green Bay Packers!  (I could care less but the guy I made it for was on cloud nine just thinking of football).  I mean what do you crochet for men?!  No matter how well you know them and how much you stalk their fb page, there are very few options for a quick gift.  Afghans are fine, but squishy octopi are not.  So a hat is a combo of stylish and practical that a guy could like... right?  Or maybe it just gets their hat covered in hair gel and their expertly styled hair is all messed up.  Whatever... he better appreciate my 3 hours spent on this hat!

A scarf specialty crocheted for my boss who visited a university.  He was so happy to get this little piece of memorabilia that I still get random text messages from wherever he is with it on display. 

Penguins that Talk!

 This cute little penguin were originally based on the LionBrand Penguin Pattern but I then I adapted it so that he can open his trap and talk!  Oh my its like Happy Feet!  They can sing!!  Well anyway he was initially intended for my coworker but since she left suddenly without telling anyone, he got to stay with me for a little while longer.  But now he's found a happy home with one of my friends who's favorite animal is the classy penguin.  Come on he is classy, he's wearing a tux!!

Tidy Up Time

I completed another couple of half finished projects in order to gift them to my coworkers on our last night/dinner together.  This Packman got his eyes and mouth to give him a full range of muching movement.  And soon he will be joined by a cute little ghost that he can gobble up at a whim!

Summer Streak

Over the summer I have made way too much stuff.  Yes I know that seems hard to imagine, but luckily they were all for specific people so I don't have a lot of random creations piling up everywhere!  :)  The two Pokéballs I made last October were finally gifted with their Pikachu and Oddish occupants, made by my lovely former roommate of awesomesauce.  The Pokémon are all her while the Pokéballs are my own pattern and creation.

A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away

R2-D2 is one of the most loved characters in the Star Wars Universe.  Most people like to say their favs are Han Solo or Obi-Wan Kenobi while hating on Luke, Jar Jar Binks, and (young) Anakin but this crafter's favorite is the fiery and faithful little droid.  Now what's better than an R2-D2 hat?  (well maybe a Jayne Hat but I have one already).  This was the pattern I used from Ravelry with slight deviations, but I think I'll make up my own now that I have a basic idea of the what one could look like.  :)  All in all, this was an excellent craft and the friend I made it for was ecstatic to get it!  Now I just have to make her a Snow Wampa amigurumi with a removable arm.

This is my masterpiece:

The Last Project

The last project before the storm, aka before summer prematurely ends, is origami madness!  I made about 150+ origami creatures for a school project but then I thought why not have a little fun with it.  I already had the Star Trek Origami Book and my favorite ship is the Klingon Bird of Prey... so why not run with it?

Big Blue

From humble beginnings as a mere 12 inch square this afghan has grown into something Big and Blue in 155 days (that's about 5 months!) each colored blue Caron yarn is 15 rows in a granny square pattern.  It is approximately --- inches across although the corners are a little stretched out so it's actually a little bigger.  This afghan is almost too big for a king sized bed!!  I'd have to weigh it to make sure but I used about nine or ten POUNDS of yarn! My only regret is the visibility of the dye lots in the lightest blue yarn.  I wish I had put in a middle row of a darker color to break up the two different colored Azures.  So much for Caron yarns not having dye lots!  Regardless there is no way in hell that I am ever EVER going to rip out all those rows to fix it.  Clearly it was an artistic choice, like pairing off white with white.  I must have subtly wanted to pair the lighter Azure with the Cape Cod while the blue gray Azure meets the Ocean Blue and the Midnight Blue makes a great border to the entire afghan.  So it was all on purpose... clearly...   :D

This is an aerial view of a king sized bed, notice anything blue and afghan-ish about it?

Too big for business, the stretched out corner of this afghan can reach the ground when there isn't anyone under the covers! 

Old is New, Preserved for Posterity

This tissue box cover was the very fist project I did in my clothing and textiles class in early 2008.  I used the same yarn that I had left over from my afghan so that it would match my room decor nicely.

Something Old and Something Blue

While looking for old clothes to donate I ran across some of my old crafting projects.  Before sending them off to a nice home, I needed to document their awesomeness.

This is the second knitting project and scarf that I ever made.  It was an experiment transitioning between different needle types and yarns.  It's also my first crochet project since I edged it with a basic slip stitch.  However back then I was working on  zero knowledge of what crocheting was and I thought I was being inventive.  Least to say I had to rework the edge of the binding before I could donate it, although it does make a very good scarf!

Years later but still years ago, this project is a little clutch that I made to go to my first formal.  It almost matches my dark maroon dress, although it ultimately proved more practical to just bring a little black clutch than this furry contraption.  It was made on the smallest kniffty knitter hoop with dark purple Caron yarn and an evening color funfur.  The handle was a maroon ribbon that was quad braided into a nice clutch.  This was actually made over winter break in January 2010.

Snood Number Two!

Since I picked up more crochet thread when I was in Nevada, I decided to make another snood but this time in gold.  This pattern was incredibly easy and simplistic while still looking really good when all was said and done.  Also it's not as thick as my last snood so you can actually see the color of my hair.  It looks like I'll be wearing the gold snood with my purple Renaissance Dress and my silver snood with the blue one.  It took me about two or three days of intermittent crocheting and it turned out wonderful!  I used a 2-hook and Royale Metallic Cotton Crochet Thread Natural/Gold, size 10.

Afghans, Afghans, and Online Scrapbooking

I feel like I've constantly crafting, which is probably because my king sized Granny square afghan is almost done, only 10 more rows aka 20-30hrs left!  With any luck I'll get that done over the summer so I don't have to constantly transport it back and forth between the apartment!

Then my brother's Settler's of Catan afghan is almost done.  I'm in the last stages of putting all of the 124 hexagon's together, which is exciting.  Unfortunately it looks a little narrow, possibly because I might have crocheted a couple of the ocean squares with an H-hook instead of a J-hook, but then again you can't really tell the difference between the blocks so maybe it was just the one tile that I already redid *crosses fingers and hopes*  In order to fix this narrow problem, I plan on squaring off the afghan (by making half hexagons and odd shaped triangles) and then double crocheting a thick border all the way around in Caron ocean blue and/or some of the resource colors ( I have plenty of that left over).  Who knows by the time I'm done with it, it might turn into a double bed sized afghan!  Also this afghan's one year anniversary is quickly approaching!  Although I doubt it will get done in that amount of time :/

Lastly I have found myself awake in the wee hours of the morning watching episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 6's musical episode is fantastic!) while scrapbooking.  Instead of the traditional glue and card stock book, I'm making the entire thing online at Shutterfly.  After uploading pictures, writing the text, designing the page, and all of the usual work made easy by electronics--they will print out the pages, bind them together it a book, and ship it to my door!  It's fast too.  I made a 20 page documentation of my trip to the south west in 3 days or less.  I never had to print or paste a thing.  Plus I can scan in things like tickets and the like to put into the book too!  My favorite thing to do is scan in the hotel's complimentary pad of paper (that I always collect) and then center the text box onto the pad of paper!  It looks like you're writing on the notebook diary-style but it's clearly written and you don't have to go through the trouble of using your best calligraphy pens or hand writing, spell checking, or worrying about wanting to change it later!  Very cute!  I've already started my second scrapbook the same week!  Plus they aren't that expensive (although it sucks because I already own the stuff to make it by hand--minus the printed pictures of course!)  On sale the 12" x 12" scrapbook with 20 pages costs $38.99, without the sale $50-60 and $1.20 per page after the initial 20 pages.  Plus with any order over $30 you can usually get shipping free!  It's a great deal and I can't wait to put in my first order!!

Summer Snood

Several hours on a plane can make someone go snood crazy.  My snood is based on this pattern and it is pretty easy to work up.  Unfortunately it takes more than one skein of Royale Metallic Silver Crochet Thread, size 10 which I learned the hard way.  Luckily there was a Micheal's in Las Vegas.  It was hilarious when I gave them my zip code, let's just say they had never gotten it before!  Anyway I got the entire thing whipped up in less than three days of sporadic work except for the last row where you crochet in the elastic.  Frankly after a cockroach decided to run around my new project while trying to avoid capture and the eventual flush, I'm not exactly sure I want to put the finishing touches on it.  However it does look extremely cute!!  So maybe after hand washing it, I will put in the elastic.  :D

June 1, 2011 Update:

Here it is all pretty and finished!

Addiction 2.0

In two days I've made two choker necklaces!  Can anyone say addiction and too much time?

Byzantine Knot 16 inches: Started and Completed April 30th

Double Spiral Knot 18-19 inches: Started April 29th, Completed April 30th

Mobius Knot 15-19 inches: Started April 2 and Completed April 26

Chainmaille Necklace!

I'm done with my copper/aluminum chainmaille necklace!  Saturday night with a brand new episode of Doctor Who in front of me, I finished my first piece of something-I-would-actually-wear jewelry, despite the episode being weird and random... but it had Mark Shepperd in it so everything will be okay in the end.

My necklace:

 

or in a coil: