Catching up

I have been a busy girl since June 2012! I have become addicted to swaps! I use them as way of forcing myself to not only finish projects but also as a way to make myself learn new techniques. And so far it is working!

Swap stuff:

I was a part of an anime swap around the same time as the 8-bit swap. I made a Tony Tony Chopper amigurumi (still love that word) from the anime “One Piece”. My fiance was sad to see him go. I used this top hat pattern and just kind of added rows to make it fit. The rest of him was heavily modified from a Russian pattern, but the blog doesn’t exist anymore 😦
Maybe I will write one someday!

Tony Tony Chopper

Next up was an “Alice in Wonderland” swap. I used this pattern (she has AMAZING patterns) to make a pair of queen of hearts colored handwarmers. I modified it slightly by adding an edging at the bottom.

I also made some stitch markers out of polymer clay! It was the first time I’ve worked with polymer, I love it!

 

Then there was the “Game of Thrones” swap! I love the books and I love the HBO series. (I was worried when I first heard they were turning it into a TV show, but when I saw the first 5 minutes, I was hooked!) My fiance and I had been trying to get all of our friends to read the books for years, even handing out used copies we found at various thrift shops!

For this swap I had a male  swap partner, which was a little bit of a bummer at the beginning because I wanted to make a dragon shawl, however I got my creative cogs going and I came up with:

 

Night’s Watch mittens and a dragon scale dust cloth! These were my first pair of mittens! I knitted them two at a time too and while learning stranding…there was a lot of swearing and frogging involved and I’m so glad they worked out in the end!

So besides all the swapping I did do a few other projects.

I made a Super Meat Boy plush for my fiance!

I made a Don’t Blink Doctor Who Polymer Charm for myself!

 

 

 

 

 

I made some eco-friendly wrap for Christmas this year:

 

AAAAaaand I finally got around to finishing my nephew’s mini Fourth Doctor, Doctor Who scarf

 

He loved it!

Like I said, I’m currently involved in a swap and have some coming up. I also am working on a baby shower gift and I am so super excited to get that finished and gifted. So there will be more posts from me! Until then happy fiber fun for all!

Pac Man Pillow Chart

I got a few requests for my pac-man pillow chart so I decided to post it.

The pillow was done using Tunisian crochet. If you look at my earlier post my first ravelry swap you can find out all about it.

I even decided to post a few other charts I worked on before deciding on the one I wanted.

And without further ado:

Nothing to do with fiber

I just wanted to share my favorite cookie recipe

Smitten Kitchen’s Crisp Salted Oatmeal Cookie

Seriously the best thing ever. I like to add dried cranberries or cherries and a little more salt on top.
 OmNomNom

What is your favorite cookie recipe, dear reader?

The more you know

Things you should know about me: I love to learn new things. Or as some people call it I’m flaky.

So today I’m perusing the interwebs in search of felting techniques. (I’m planning my first felting project for my latest swap: Alice in Wonderland.) I’m looking up yarns and I come across this forum on Cascade 220 vs superwash and someone mentions that with the superwash she can’t felt ends together. Someone else suggests the “Russian join”. So I go and look this is up (as a user of acrylic yarn for my ami’s this interests me). And I’m watching (and learning) and all I can think of is…Where do people come up with stuff like this?! I mean tying knots is one thing, coming up with the idea to just take two pieces of yarn, essentially thread them through each other to make an invisible join? Crazy.

Seriously, I mean just think about it. All the things that we do, all the things that our ancestors did, how?

Somewhere down the line, someone took some wool or cotton or fur or whatever, turned it into strings and wove those strings into cloth. It seriously boggles my mind.

So Russian join looks amazing and I can’t wait to try it on a future project! Now back to those felting tutorials 😛

My First Ravelry Swap!

So about a month and a half ago I joined my first swap. It was an 8-bit game swap. And now it is (pretty much) over (I have mine, she has her’s, but not everyone has gotten their stuff). But now I can post pictures! Yay!

So I did my first real Tunisian crochet project:

A Pac Man Pillow! One side has Pac Man and the other has the Ghosts. I decided that I really love Tunisian crochet. It goes so quickly! Though all the color changes on the ghost side was a bit annoying! And Oy (>_<) trying to make a design that I liked took days! So lucky that there are free cross stitch graph programs out there! (Seriously KG-Chart for Cross Stitch is a life saver!) Also, much thanks to Gegecrochet for her awesome tutorials on how to do TC color changes!

The other handmade was an Ultros amigurumi (who else loves saying that word, amigurumi) If you don’t know Ultros is from Final Fantasy, a video game.

And he was made from this design: Octopus  (except I made his head bigger)

And then this is what I got:

I know you’re jelly. 🙂 Seriously how cute is that dice bag and dice stitch markers?! Now what to make out of that soft gorgeous Malabrigo Finito yarn?! I’m thinking either wristers or cowl or small wrap.

So my first swap was a success, I say! I’m a lucky girl. I don’t have any knitting/crocheting friends, so I get and get to give yarn-related homemades very infrequently. And I have to say I really only enjoy knitting/crochet when I get to give it to someone who wants it.

I have another swap going out this week. It is anime related and I’m only making one yarn-related handmade, but it is awesome and detailed and I will have pictures up in a week or two.

Anyone else into doing swaps?

I haven’t blogged in forever

Seriously.

I have been knitting/crocheting though and even posting on Ravelry! Just not doing the blog-y part.

Things I’m working on:

Doctor Who Scarf. If you are a geeky knitter, like me, then you have made one of these Tom Baker scarves or you’ve at least thought about it. I am making a kid-sized version to give to my nephew. (pattern)

I’m also working on some geek swap items. One for an 8-bit and one for an anime. Can’t post pictures now, but definitely once the swap is over!

Finished items

The owl and bunny hat were a gift for a very good friend of mine having a baby. The bunny hat is for now, the owl is for a few months from now. She just had him a week ago and apparently everyone at the hospital was oohing and ahing over it. 😀  *beaming. (owl, bunny)

And to continue on with the Sandman Comic, Endless #2 out of 7- Death! Again, for my sister. (my own pattern)

Well that’s about it. I couldn’t do much last year, as I was battling with my right wrist to cooperate. But I now use safety measures when it comes to knitting/crocheting. Wearing a brace, using ergonomic handles and taking breaks frequently.

Well that’s it. Better get back to my swap project.

arg

I’ve been working on the same project forever. I need to learn how to knit/crochet with my feet to speed things up!

Previous projects

Okay so I’ve been back and forth on the Market Bag…The one mentioned in the previous post didn’t work out. I have no idea what I did wrong…so I went in search of other patterns. I have found something I like but I’m using it as inspiration and doing my own thing! For The First Time Ever! Love those “first” moments.

But I thought I’d share most of my previous works. Yes! I’ve actually finished things! (Crazy, I know, but it is true and I have photographic evidence!) 🙂

This is my yarn life!

My firsts on a loom

My first project ever. A scarf and hat made on a knifty knitter round and long loom. Looms are awesome for simple projects, you can whip up a scarf or hat in no time at all. Unfortunately, they are a bit limited, but if you visit the purling sprite, she has a ton of great ideas for patterns and various stitches.

Sassy scarf

My first knitting needles project: a drop stitch scarf in Noro yarn. I. Love. Noro. The color changes is so fun. (I’ll let you in on a secret…my new bag will be made with Noro yarn…shhhhh) Drop stitch is super quick, and what better way to show off those colors than with a scarf!

Knitted sackboy and Olivia

So I guess I’m going to keep with the theme of Firsts! So…this is my first…complicated project? My first softie? My first time using “saftey eyes”? LOL. I had to make numerous copies of his hands, it looked like some sort of weird chop shop. Pattern

Another sackboy but this one is crocheted

This is my first crocheted project. (I know I just dove right in…it wasn’t easy.) I am definitely a fan of crocheted softies. Pattern

My first yarn bomb

This was done last week for International Yarn Bombing Day. I’m fine with yarn bombs as long as they aren’t destructive or left up too long (yarn breaks down and starts to look gross).

Okay I think I’m done with “firsts”.

Crochet sandman doll

My sister is really into Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. So I made her this for her birthday. Now I have to make the others, apparently 🙂

Crochet chococat

One of my close friends and I love Hello Kitty. So I made her a little crocheted Chococat.

Another drop stitch scarf

This time with much thicker yarn.

Flower headband

Pattern

Crochet coaster more to come

So that’s it. That’s almost everything I’ve done. There are a couple of other things, which I’m saving for when I open my Etsy shop.

So hope you enjoy and if you need any tips/pointers/patterns, let me know.

guess what I’m making now!

I decided to put all those other projects on hold.

Why?

Who knows.

What I do know is that it is finally SPRING! Which means that farmer markets are going to get rolling. And how can I shop at the fm if I don’t have a beautiful new bag to put my purchases in?

So I have been working on that. It is taking FOR-EV-ER. All those chains…I tried to knit one and kept failing. I seem to do better with crochet…or maybe I’m just that out of practice with knitting. 😦  Anyway, I’ll have pictures of the bag soon…as long as I don’t see any new shiny things.

I taught myself tunisian crochet!

Unfortunately, my first project incorporating this new knowledge…didn’t turn out quite right. Somewhere along the middle I increased my tension and so my panel is wide on the ends and thinner in the middle. I have no idea how to fix this…so it’s basically back to the drawing board.

Le Sigh.

On a more upbeat note:  TC is really easy! (Seriously buy yourself a TC/Afghan hook and YouTube it) The only difficult part is multiple color changing midway through a pass…Oh and weaving in ALL those ends! I felt like I was never going to get done! Also, I’m glad that I learned this lesson on a small scale project. I plan on doing a blanket soon and I would have been eating-out-of-the-ice-cream-container-upset if I realized halfway through that my tension was off!

Once I get over my disappointment and terrible sleep schedule I’ll give my tc kindle cozy another try.