Busy busy

So, here I am, posting again after almost three weeks. Things have been so busy for me, and I've just been so darn tired lately.

So, I'm sure you're wondering how went the Amigurumi-Challenge. Not so well. I lost to another Pumpkaboo. Now, normally I'm unaffected by a loss, but this one was a bit ridiculous. I have nothing nice to say at all, so I won't. Just know that I lost.

However, I did come in third in the Knit-and-Crochet contest. Above me was an amazing Leafeon and and a giant crochet Kyogre. You can find them both here: http://brookette.deviantart.com/journal/Pokemon-Contest-Winners-492767444

Moving on.

Shortly after finishing the Pumpkaboo, I finished working on another ! Block. The green one.  Metal Cap.

Just two more to go.

From here, I've had a slight decline in my crafting, I went almost a week or so without really doing anything. I think part of that is because of fatigue. And the fact that I've been so absorbed in reading the Pokemon Adventures manga. It's so damn good. I suggest reading it to anything and everyone.

Sadly, I'm waiting for my order to come in for the Rub and Sapphire arc of the manga, it should be in tomorrow!

In the meantime, I finally decided to purchase one of these niffy things.

 

I had no idea what I was getting in to when I bought this - on sale, no less! It seems I may have found a new hobby - at least, for over the holidays. I can be cheap and make a lot of people their gifts. Hehe. It's just a bit hard on the hands at times - though, probably because I went a better part of this month not crafting with them. I also think I might go and buy the straight knitting loom set to make scarves with.

Anyway. This is my first attempt at using the knitting loom.

I used the purple ring for this one, thinking that it would be big enough for a child, turns out that it might not even fit a toddler. Well, now I know! (Yes, that is a Darth Vader Pig. I won it in a vending machine ages ago. <3)

For this one I used that stash of Red Heart with Wool that I have - in abundance because Alex's parents bought it for me at the beginning of the year. I double stranded it so that it came out thicker and warmer - these Canadian winters can be quite brutal!

This one I experimented with a little. Remember that cake-like baby blanket I made a while back? Well, this is the left over white from it. I had enough to make a full hat, because I figured I'd try not only double stranding this, but almost folding it in half at the end to make a super thick, warm hat. Except, I ran out of white. I thought it would be big enough to be a hat, but it didn't cover my ears. It would be good for a small child, just too big around. So, I decided, because it's so soft and warm, that I'd make it a neck warmer!

And now, I'm off to make people presents, and use up all that yarn that I really have no use for, as I really prefer just making amigurumi.

I will say this now, there probably isn't a high chance that I'll be updating again this month. With my Pokemon manga coming in, the baby shower being this weekend and the week after that is just so packed with things to do, I'm not sure I'll even have much time for crafting once Saturday hits. X.x

So, until next time!

Current Projects

After a long week of slaving away on the project for the Woodland Creatures amigurumi challenge, I'm close to done - the body, that is. So, I ended up getting overzealous at the start of this project. I didn't want to make it too small, and in the process, I ended up making it bigger than I intended.

Here, it doesn't look too big, right? Well, I didn't think so either. And as I kept crocheting and crocheting, I realized that I may have been a bit too ambitious. Sure, I wanted to make a bigger than usual amigurumi, but I think I over did it! After days of crocheting - off and on - this is where I'm at!

Just ignore the lumps and odd shape, it's not properly stuffed yet. As you can see, it's quite big. I'm hoping that I'll be finished making the length within the next day or so - I'm hoping I only have a few more rows left. I also decided to do something I little different with my stuffing. I used beige nylon - pantyhouse. I figured, it's a BIG project, and I don't want to risk any mistakes of stuffing showing through, even though I'm using quite a small hook.

I think it's going to be quite the adventure stuffing this in the end, however I have my trusty STUFFING STICK!

It's not really a stuffing stick, I'm just using it as one. In fact, I'm not even sure what it's intended for. It was in a collection of crochet hooks and knitting needles I received from a friend of mine a while back. Hopefully it'll work well in assisting me with stuffing this monster.

On another note, I've acquired wire. Yes, wire. This is going to be a fully poseable project!

The one on the left I purchased at my local craft store, the one on the right, Wal-Mart. The price difference, almost five dollars. But, oh well. Wal-Mart didn't carry as thick of wire. So, it's all good. I'm so excited to finish the body, just to work on the rest of him and make him as poseable as possible!

I've been working so hard on him, this happened.

It's not the first time this has happened to me, however, this was a relatively new hook - luckily I had a spare one! Hopefully it holds out until the end of the project - and many more! - but, if not, I bought another one. :)

And in the meantime, I've been needing to take breaks in between crocheting - a day off here and there. And in that time, I couldn't just sit around and do nothing. So, I figured I would start working on some of those plastic canvas ideas I had a while back - I hadn't forgotten about them! They are awesome.

It starts off looking like this.

Now, I bet you're all wondering, what the heck is that going to be? (It kind of reminds me of something from Harry Potter - Ravenclaw, even though it's blue and black) Before I show the next progress picture, I'm going to share what behind this looks like, because I think it's super cool!

Neato, right? And now, maybe this will answer your question of what the heck I'm making!

Looking familiar? I hope so! I've been keeping to a theme of plastic canvas projects - with the piggy bank, the book ends, and the pencil holder.

TADA!! Pretty sweet, amiright? It's the ! block (panel in this case) from the Mario 64 games! I did one for each colour. If anybody played these games as much as I did, then hopefully you'll remember which each colour did. Blue gave you the Vanishing Cap.

Green gave you the Metal Cap.

 Red gave you the Wing Cap.

And yellow gave you coins and other objects!

Now, let me tell you, these aren't small, at all. But, it's the only way I could work the pattern without it looking awkward.

See, pretty big. Now, I'm not sure if I'm going to just leave them as a single panel, or turn them all in to cubes. I'd love to make them into cubes, but, I'm sure we all know how tedious repeating the same project can be. At the very least, I want to make one into a cube - probably the blue one. I guess we'll see how I feel about doing the project over and over again from there - though, I do have enough of the sturdy plastic canvas to complete them all!!

Oh, I should probably share this.

This is the pattern I used to make the question mark, the rest I had to figure out on my own.

Now, on a new note, this Friday was Michele's last day with us at TADA. We had a small gathering for her, said words of praise and all that. Then, somehow, she throws me in to the spotlight on her special day. That lady is crafty, let me tell you.

And now that she's gone - though she will come back periodically for visits and whatnot - the group and associates want me to take over. I told them, as long as someone else is liaison between the clinic and the group, I can try my best to take over for the art courses. Until the baby is born. We'll be meeting this Friday as a group to discuss what we want to do. Michele is willing to stay in contact with the group until we're all back on our feet in terms of plans. I was thinking, as I've been gone for two years, that surely there are activities the group wouldn't mind repeating.

So, I'm going to look in to that, see if I can make a lesson plan that's a couple months of repeats until I get back in the swing of things myself. It's not a bad idea. But, we'll see on Friday.

And now, I leave you all with this.

Mario Themed Bookends and Ruffle Scarfs!

Hey there. So, I finished my bookend yesterday, but I had such a busy day that I didn't really feel like sitting down and blogging.

Anyway, here is the finished masterpiece!

Pretty neat, yeah? If you couldn't tell, I like Harry Potter. A lot. I spent all of my teenhood utterly obsessed with it. But, that is probably a story for another time.

Anyway, last night, I did manage to take a picture of one of my new scarves in a cool pose!

I just think Polar looks so cute in it. I took this rather late in the evening, but there was still enough light out for the picture to turn out good. I did post this to my Deviantart last night, but that's about it.

And I did manage to get this finished.

Now to just work on a nice picture for it. And to make the last two in the collection!! Slow and steady, I suppose.

Anyway, that's all I really have to post for now.

Until next time!

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.

Slow and Steady

Hey all! I know, I've been inactive this last week. But, that's because we finally moved! I love our new place, but we're still getting settled. In the mean time, I have been working on my plastic canvas project. And I've been taking lots of pictures of the process. But first, a picture of the near complete one!

I really love how it's turning out so far! Though, it has been a long process!!

I had to make a total of 34 of these little guys. I really like the pattern I decided to use, it goes well with the rest of it.

This was a tricky little bigger to work with, especially sewing it on, but I managed successfully! And I only had to make two, which was good.

In hindsight, making all the stairs as one and then connecting them to the side panel was a baaad idea. And I learned from my mistake.

It was not fun trying to see the other side panel on to this, as it liked to move as though it were an accordion! You can imagine the frustration of this. Like I said, it was a bad idea.

And here we are with the back panel on, but it a still not complete! I didn't have any more canvas left at this point, so I started on the second set of stairs, which I tackled in a completely different way!!

I decided it would be a smarter idea to attach the two side panels to the stairs at the same time, doing the top stairs and bottom indent - which was the hardest part on the first stairs - first. and let me tell you, it has been much easier to work with.

I am hoping to finish these by the end of the week - hopefully sooner! But, I have a lot of appointments coming up in the next couple of weeks, all for the baby's sake. :)

However, I finally bought more canvas do that I can work on this whenever I have the time! Sadly, the craft store didn't have the sturdier canvas I prefer to use, but the stuff I bought will do the same thing - I just don't like the feel of working with it, it's so...flimsy.

But, good news! When this project is complete, I have a couple more lined up.

Yesterday, I went out for lunch with a close friend of mine, and then we went to the mall. And during our mall trip, my friend bought me these!!

Aren't they awesome?! I have a bunch of yarn like this that my grandmother gave me - I call her Nanny, Nan for short, and is how I shall henceforth refer to her as, I just wanted to let you all know that Nan is my grandmother.  Papa is my grandfather. Anyway, my Nan gave me a bunch of yarn like this, but only pinks, whites and a ...maroon colour, I think it is. I think once I'm settled in my new place, I'm going to take picture of my yarn stash, as tiny and insufficient as it is!

Also, more good news! While I was at the craft store today, I found more of this stuff!

This is the yarn that I used to make the Ruffle Scarf! I just couldn't resist buying more of it. I had so much fun making the last one, that I just had to make them in all the colours the store had in stock - I'm tempted to go back and get one more of each colour. 

And yes, I will be selling these once I've made them - I think $15 is a fair price. :) If anyone is interested, please feel free to let me know. :)

And I think that is all I have to blog about for today. 

Wow I just realised, this is probably my longest post yet! I chalk it up to being inactive for a week. Hopefully you'll hear from me again in a few days!! 

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! :)

Nautical Potholders and Warp Pipes!

After such a busy day yesterday, here I am finally posting. And with something completely new and finished, to boot! But, first I shall start off with the potholder.

This is as far as I managed to get yesterday - twenty-one rows in, so about half way. It's actually a lot harder on the hands than I initially thought it would be, so I was working on it off and on yesterday.

However, this is what I spent a majority of my time doing, in between crocheting and packing.

Pretty cool, eh? You'll have to excuse the lack of proper colour, my camera decided today that it didn't want to work properly. The green is actually this colour.

Also, the proportions are slightly off, but I didn't have any pattern to follow, this is done completely from the top of my head. But, oh well, trial and error, if I ever do this again, I'll know what to do instead, hopefully.

And now, for anybody interested, here are the pictures I took of the progress. You'll have to excuse the quality of the pictures.

I decided to try and make the seem as invisible as I could, I think it turned out alright.

  

Just a simple bottom, nothing fancy.

The bottom one I made first, only to discover that it was too small. The second one was a bit too big, but it worked out just fine. They also remind me of Xena's weapon, the Chakram. I love Xena. <3 She was my idol growing up.

I just really like how it looks like a tap hat here. I was calling it the Mad Hatter's hat. Which I might do one day, now that I think about it.

I decided to add this as a bit of support in the inside - and realised that I should have just made one piece like that, instead of two separate ones. Oh well, next time.

 

This was my last long piece of canvas, I didn't think it would fit, but I so lucked out! 

Because this was the last stretch of the project, it felt like it took forever to complete! But, I did.

The finished product!!

I think that is all I really have to blog about right now. I'm probably just going to update my DeviantArt and spend the rest of the day crocheting and packing. 

Hopefully I'll finish my potholder for tomorrow!