A Wild Venonat Appeared!

After nearly a week of diligent work, I have finally completed my newest project! It took a while, and it was torture on the hands, but I worked diligently on it. I even made sure to take lots of pictures to show my progress. :)

It starts with this adorably fuzzy circle - one strand worsted weight, two strands of the purple fuzzy yarn. :) Luckily, because of the thickness of it all, I was able to work in a larger hook size - not that it felt much different on the hands at that point.

This is what it looked like as I was beginning my decreases - not so easy when the loops are a bit difficult to see. But, I managed! And it turned in to this fabulous ball.

Here is a very good lighting photo. My phone has been on the fritz with taking pictures. I might eventually invest in an actual camera. Anyway, as you can see, it's pretty big - bigger than the Ghastly I made ages ago, yet only the same amount of stitches I use in a Pokeball. :) I really need to find my measuring tape to see just how big this guy it - I'm not sure if I hid it on the cats or if they hid it on me. >.>

This was the next step, figuring out the face. It took a while, but I eventually got it. The teeth are sewn on with an actual needle and thread - I got annoyed at trying to do it with yarn on such a small piece!

And here we have the creation of the cute little arms - I know, they look nothing like they're supposed to, but I was trying my best! Besides, these look adorable. And claws just don't seem easy to make. :)

This was the fun part - making the antenna! I decided it would be a good idea to make them poseable, that and I don't think they would have stayed up without doing so.

Isn't it coming along nicely? Then we ran in to a problem, I really didn't like the eyes.

Even without eyes, he's still pretty darn cute!

There, now isn't that better? And guess what? I'm almost finished at this point! Just needed to make the feet and sew things on.

Surprisingly, I made the feet on my first attempted and they turned out pretty good! I had to write down the pattern so I wouldn't forget when I went to work on the other foot.

Last pose before he's finished!

Voila! Venonat lives in dark forests, in the underbrush, where very little light reaches. This is the best I could find, and it worked out perfectly!

As always, my works are for sale. However, I just haven't figured out a price for this guy yet. So, feel free to ask. :)

Also, be sure to check follow me on DeviantArt - sometimes I post teasers before I blog about them here. :) Also, somebody suggested to me that I start using Instagram..? What do you all think? I have no idea how to do it, though, so I'd have to look in to it.

And now my hands are in need of a serious break - I didn't realise a crochet hook could actually pierce skin, until I did it. >.> I also punctured my finger a couple of times with a yarn needle, even got under the nail once. So, that was an experience. Well worth it. :)

I also have some exciting news before I wrap this up. We get to find out the gender of the baby today! In five hours! I'm so excited!! We even have a friend coming from out of town to be there with us - she's really close to us. :) However, due to her coming down, she will be staying for a couple days. Which means I probably won't be doing much crafts. But, we shall see. She's the one I'm making the scarf for - you know, the scarf that totally got pushed to the farthest depths of my closet, yeah, that one.

Anyway, that is all for today!

One Bookend and One Scarf

I shall start off by openly admitting that I've been slacking the last day or so in finishing these Mario Stairs. However, I have gotten far enough to say that I only need to add the bottom panel to one of the two. :)

Here are both stairs nearly complete. It took a while, but it's slowly getting there. 

I found it much easier to connect all the stair pieces the second time around with the method I used of attaching to both side panels at the same time. The only thing that took a while was human error on my part - I cut out a piece, stitched everything on and attached it half way before I realized that it wasn't the right size. I ended up putting down the project for half a day, deciding I just needed a break from it.

However, at that point, I was nearly finished anyway. Today all I had to do was make this:

This took me a while to do, it wasn't difficult at all, just time consuming. About an hour and a half, two hours to complete - given, I was texting with a friend while I was doing it. I decided - once again - to use a new stitch I learned from the wonderful book I purchased from Etsy. This is called the "double brick" stitch, I don't think I need to explain why. 

I decided to make the entire panel brown - I was originally thinking of making the last ten rows green, to match the pipe - because after looking back at my picture of reference (a screenshot of the end of level) I noticed that the pipe doesn't down underground as it does in some of the newer games. 

Anyway, from finishing that, it lead to me this:

This is what it looks like from the back. I rather like it.

Here is a bit of an angled side view - sorry for the dimness of the picture, it's dark out and that's the best light my bedroom had, I was too lazy to go somewhere else.

A very nice side view of the completed bookend. 

So, hopefully tomorrow I will get my butt in gear and finish the bottom panel and attach it to the other set of stairs, then I can take good pictures of it holding up books! 

Moving on.

Today has been pretty busy for me - I had a bunch of running around to do, which led to me popping into the craft store again. I didn't get much. However, I did stumble across this:

I just couldn't resist, I had to have it! So, I did. I'm excited to get to making it. However, the pattern calls for knitting, but, it's nothing fancy, just basic, simple, straightforward knitting. I think I can manage that - I hope. 

But, this is a project that I'm going to have to show some self-restraint on and wait. I still need to finish the other bookend. And I'm still slowly working on that scarf for my friend - I've let her know I've been neglectful of it. I think I'll be able to work on it easier when she comes to visit me - we live in different cities. 

Also, I want to work with the yarn that I purchased the other day, in fact, I have already started!

I worked on this on the bus ride to and from the comic book store - and at it! The slip says the colour is Lava Red. 

I don't know why, but I'm absolutely in love with these scarves and I can't wait to make the rest of them! I'm just glad that it doesn't take too, too long to make.

Once again, these awesome fellas shall be for sale - $15 each (plus shipping!) - for anybody that is interested. I will also be posting them on my DeviantArt.

http://wykked-as-syn.deviantart.com/

Feel free to peruse my account - there is so much more posted there that isn't on here, mostly because a lot of it was posted long before I even started this. I think eventually I might make a couple of posts containing stuff I've already made, either has a reference to something I want to do, a comparison, or just straight-up a "flashback" post.

Oh well, we'll see what the future holds.

I'm hoping that by the end of tomorrow I will have finished the bookend, and maybe another scarf - or two!!

Until then.

Nautical Pot Holder and a New Project!

After much work yesterday and this morning, I finally managed to finish the Nautical Potholder I have been working on. I forced myself to sit there and do as many rows as I could before needing a break. Eventually my hands adjusted and I managed to finish it this morning, some time before noon.

I even made it six rows longer than the pattern called for - mostly because I felt it was too small, even for my hands, which are quite tiny. I really like how it all blends together.

Anyway, after packing and going through boxes that never got unpacked from the last move, I found a completely unused sheet of plastic canvas! Needless to say, I started on a project that has been running through my head since I was working on the Coin Block Piggy Bank. 

Awesome, right? I wasn't sure if the sheet of canvas would be enough for what I wanted, but it turned out I was able to make four of these pieces, with canvas to spare!

I know I said I really didn't want to start any more projects until after the move, but I just couldn't help myself! However, I think I'm going to have to wait to finish this idea, as I will need more canvas to continue on, however, I shall do what I can until then! 

I am very excited to do this. I even used to my plastic canvas stitches book! It took me a bit to figure out which square pattern I liked the best and would work well with this image, I finally settled on this. 

However, I ran into a slight dilemma. This particular square pattern calls for a 5x5 square. As you can see on the cut out sections of the stairs, they become 4x4. So, I need to find a new pattern to use for making this a 3D figure - I didn't quite think this through before I started it, I never really do, though. So, I'm going to have to study my new book and see if I can find a 4x4 square pattern that is similar to the 5x5 one, for consistency.

I also realized that in trying to make this accurate, I may have complicated things for myself. As you can see, the lip of the pipe is one square bigger than the shaft, meaning that I'm going to have to cut out and work with a simple square width piece. That ought to be fun. =\

Anyway, now I have to figure out how wide I want these figures to be, which will probably have to wait, as I don't have many scrap canvas pieces that I can work with. Unless I get lucky and find another unused sheet, or even just a partially used piece. 

But, in other news, I've been finding a bunch of old projects from when I first got back into crafting. It's kind of neat to see just how far I've come since January. However, I had a bunch of Pokeball coasters and a Pokebox made, and I can't seem to find them anywhere! D= The coasters were kept inside the box. 

I know I took those with me to Anime North, along with a bunch of Pokeball amigurumi I made. I still have to amigurumi, but all my plastic canvas work is nowhere to be find, so I'm hoping it's just misplaced - as I'm still not finished packing - and that I didn't actually leave it at the convention. That would suck, and I don't think I'd want to redo them again. :(

But, I think that is all I have to post for tonight. I do plan on working more on the boa scarf, hopefully I'll do that tomorrow. I am trying really hard not to start any new projects until after the move, even though I have a million ideas going through my head of plastic canvas creations, and some crochet ideas. Luckily, I am too broke from moving to even afford anything for a bit - I can't tell if that is good or bad. Oh well.

Oh, one more thing, if anyone actually reads these, it would be wonderful to get some sort of feedback. :) And perhaps a follow on my DeviantArt, maybe? =D

Good night, all! :)

From the Middle Baby Blanket!

So, it took me a bit longer to finish the baby blanket than I thought it would. I blame the fact that I had to run around the city looking for a third ball of the yarn I was using. At the end of the second ball, it only measured 15 inches from the middle.

However, I lucked out and the only place left to look carried it - the last ball, to boot! 

So, finishing off the last couple of rows took up most of yesterday - it's a lot more time consuming than it looks! But, I managed to do it.

As you can see, it's huge - it ended up measuring just over 20 inches from the centre. I was thinking of finishing it off with a row of white trimming, but I'm not too sure. I do have the yarn to do so, though! So, feedback on that idea would be greatly appreciated!

As you can also see, I'm wearing my awesome Ariel and Prince Eric leggings - I love Disney so much, classic Disney, I should say.

Anyway, just ignore the mess in the background, as you all know, I am in the middle of packing and whatnot. Also, my cool scarf collection in still just hanging around, if anyone is interested. =D

But, I think that's all I have to post for today, nothing exciting going on and no new projects underway. Just the ones I've been procrastinating on. That pot holder just relaly hurts my thumb area after about a row or two, so I've been slowly working on that. And knitting a few rows of the scarf whenever I have the urge - which isn't as often as it should be!

Hopefully I'll have something else to post before the end of the week, which is when I move. Until then, take care!

On Going Projects

Today is just a quick post of the things I'm working on. I suppose I'll start with the Nautical Potholder - which I haven't done too much more on, maybe five or six rows, as it really hurts my hands to do more than one row at a time.

However, I can happily say that I felt confident enough to continue on the scarf I was working on, I managed to get three inches down without incident, which is good. I really need to start putting an hour or so a day aside to work on it. 

Now comes the exciting news. The other day, my boyfriend and I were out shopping with his parents, and his mother decided to buy me this really soft and adorable yarn for making a baby blanket!

 

It's Bernat Baby Blanket. IT's so soft and thick, it will be extremely warm for when the baby comes! She bought me two balls of this stuff, just in case one isn't enough to finish the blanket. It was super sweet of her!

This is how much I've finished thus far.

I've just been following the crochet pattern on the back of the label that came with the yarn, it's called "From the Middle." It should be somewhere on the Bernat website if anyone is interested.

From the centre, as you can see, it measures nine inches, the pattern says to finish off entirely when it's eighteen inches from the centre. As I'm already more than halfway through the first ball of yarn, I'm thinking I'll have just enough to finish this project - which is going by super quick!! Depending on how much yarn is left over when I reach the recommended length, I might just continue until it's gone. 

Gosh, I just love how the colours look all blended together - even though the pattern calls for three different colours of yarn, with switching colours every two rows. 

Anyway, I have more exciting news! At the beginning of the week I order a plastic canvas stitch book from Etsy. It came in! I was so excited for it, but I'm out of plastic canvas since my last project, and I don't want to buy anymore until after the move. 

I left it in the wrapping with the shops name on it, just in case anyone wanted to go take a look at her stuff, she has so much, especially for plastic canvassing.

I am so excited to start using this book, my projects are going to rock now! 

Anyway, that's all I have to post for today. I must get back to packing - which I've done a lot of, today! - and crocheting - which I've also done a lot of today! 

I'm hoping to be finished the blanket by tonight or sometime early tomorrow. I noticed on my DeviantArt that my next post will be my hundredth deviation, and I want to make it something special. So, I figured, why not something that means so much to me right now - the baby blanket! <3

Until it's finished, I don't think I'll be working on much else. But, be sure to check back in the next day or so for more posts, I'm sure I'll be finished soon!

Coin Block Piggy Bank and New Projects!

Last night I finished the piggy bank I was working on, after I worked up the nerve to cut up the fabric I was working with - got it right on the right try. :)

I would have posted last night, but it was the pay-per-view wrestling and I decided to watch that, instead, then I went straight to bed. And while I was watching wrestling, I was working on my scarf, as well, and somehow managed to mess up there a few more times. I got really upset and just put it down again. I don't know how I feel messing up, but I do. It's stupid. And annoying.

But, anyway, here is the finished project!

I scrounged up whatever change we had lying around the house and put it inside, just to be able to say I used it!

I really like the way it turned out as a whole, even if my sewing skills suck. I had thought of making more of these, but I decided I probably won't, unless someone requests one. :)

Anyway, having put the scarf down for a bit - probably a few more days - I decided it was time to start using up the last of my cotton yarn. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to use the nautical twist cotton yarn for, then I found a pretty simple pattern that I thought would make it look cool. I was right.

I really like how this is starting to look. I'm about a fifth of the way done, I'm only on row 8, the pattern - which can be found here: http://stitcheryprojects.com/2010/08/15/the-best-crocheted-potholder/ - calls for 43 rows. I am hoping that I will be finished it by tomorrow.

In other news, today is the day that we decided to start packing, only ten days left until the move! So, I figured it would be a good idea to go through my bins of yarn and really organize them - I rummage through them without care more times and a but of balls got tangled. After spending about an hour organizing and reballing some of my yarn I finished. And in the process I found some Bernat Softee Chunky yarn - with the patterns still attached to them! 

I really want to make this:

I read over the pattern quickly and it seems simple enough to make, like, super simple. So, I think after I finish the Nautical Potholder, I'm going to start working on a baby blanket, it will be perfect for when my little bundle of joy arrives!! <3

I was thinking of using these two colours - as they are currently the only bulky yarn colours I own.

Though, I'm not too sure how I feel about using the green. But, I think it's a light enough colour that it will work out in the end, besides, I can't think of anything else to really use it for. So, a blanket for the baby would be perfect.

Let me know what you all think! Remember, just feel free to comment with any tips, criticism, advice and what-have-you. I love feedback of any sort!

Thank you all, and hopefully I will be back tomorrow with more things to post about!

Coin Blocks and Failures

I'm going to start this post of with the good news, which will hopefully cheer me up as I write this out.

Yesterday I started on making the squares for the Mario Coin Block piggy bank that I want to make. Now, here is the reason I didn't end up post about it last night. On top of having a rather busy day, I decided I wanted to try difference plastic canvas stitches - not that I know too many, but I'll be learning more soon! - which took up a fair amount of my free time yesterday. Mostly doing it hole by hole.

Here is the comparison photo between the two:

 

I really like how the one on the left turned out. A lot.

I made the first one by following this pattern:

 
I can't remember where I found it, or how designed the pattern. But, I can say it's not mine. At all. However, for the second one, I decided it would be easier to draw out the pattern that I wanted to use - basically just a longer stitch version of this one that I copied on to graph paper. See:

So, I'm not entirely sure if I can claim that pattern as my own, seeing as I just modified a pattern.

Anyway, I'm thinking that my piggy bank will be done in the style of longer stitches - it's faster and it looks much better, it makes the question mark pop out a lot more. However, now I just have to figure out how I'm going to make the slit in the top for coins to go in to. Also, I have to figure out if I want to have a trap bottom opening, or just make the top so it can open and close. Decisions, decisions. Any suggestions on this one?

And now, I shall move on to what has irritated me - though, it has diminished quite a bit. So, I was working on that scarf for my friend, when something went horribly wrong. I'm not even sure how, but one of the knitting needles slipped and I lost a couple of stitches. I mean, I tried to fix it the best I could, but I still ended up with these unsightly holes and I have no idea what to do about it. It's slightly upsetting.

So, I decided to just finish my row and put it aside for now - I know better than to work on something when I'm feeling agitated and upset. I may or may not attempt to work on it some more later in the day. However, I did message my friend and show her this picture, she said she liked it, and that made me feel a bit better. But, I still feel bad for messing it up in the first place. So, if anyone has any tips on how to rectify this mistake, please, please let me know. :)

Angels and Rainbows!

Hey, everyone! I can start off with some good news, I finished the second angel last night, however, it was late and I was too lazy to post about it.

Here it is:

 The lighting in this picture is far from good, despite my best efforts. Even though it was around noon when I took the photo, it seems like it will be a very gloomy day here, today.

I decided it would be nice to pose this one on the stove instead of near the sink, just as a reminder that it can also be used as a pot holder! And for some reason, I just wanted to take a picture of it hanging. 

I think this one turned out much better, especially now that I had practice doing it. See:

I'm still very proud of how both of them turned out. Though, the ball of yarn I used went from this:

 To this:

Not sure what I'm going to do with the left over balls, as they're so tiny. However, I do have a full ball of pink, and one that looks like this - it's called Nautical Twists:

I'm sure I'll figure something out soon enough. If anyone has any ideas, though, I would love to hear it! Sp far I was thinking of just making more angels, but I have nobody to gift them to, and I doubt anybody would want to buy them. Oh well, something crafty will come to me eventually!

Moving on, I started making a boa scarf this morning. This is my progress so far:

I really love how all the colours mess together, and it's different looking on both sides, slightly. Though, knitting isn't my strong point, I have only messed up once. I dropped a stitch somewhere, and I'm not entirely sure how, but it's all good. As this is going to be for one of my best friends, she's confident in my knitting abilities. And naturally, she's lenient on my mistakes, as she knows knitting is something I'm still (re-)learning how to do.

I used to knit a bit when I was younger, but nothing more complicated than what I'm doing now. And it was never very good. I liked crocheting more as a child, though I never stuck to it. It was something I dropped for almost fifteen years. In fact, I stopped crafting all together for that long. But, I've decided to get back into it. Especially now. :)

Anyway, I think that's all I really have to post for now. Be sure to check back often for updates, I forsee that I shall be crafting a lot in the future. :) And don't forget to follow me on Deviantart! - http://wykked-as-syn.deviantart.com/