Wash Cloth

I got bored and knit a wash cloth using this pattern.  I used an acrylic yarn... which... was a bad choice.  It's super rough and would be a terrible wash cloth.

It's 7.75x7.75. Huzzah, a good size!

 
If I do this again I'm using a softer, durable yarn that is a solid color. The multiple colors doesn't show off the prettiness of the pattern.  Booo.

Ignore the cat hair on it... but it's hard to see the texture of this pattern.

Thoughts?

He likes to pinch.

I've been in a crafting rut trying to make a dalek for my hubby for literally three plus months, but stalling out around the head part.  It's not a fun pattern, to be honest. I wanted something fast, simple, and cute.  Since it was going to be for my hubby, I thought of his favorite Honda commercial where a crab goes "I like to pinch" - he uses it as an excuse to pinch people. Sigh.

I went on Pinterest and found a free crab pattern that worked beautifully.  Super easy, relatively fast, and very cute.

The claws!

One issue (and it's not even a big one) - the pattern doesn't tell you to make two claws. I did everything and realized I was missing something... d'oh! Oh well. Easy fix.  

This was a really quick project... which is something that I liked.

The hubby didn't want a mouth on him. He asked for a mustache, but then changed his mind. Hmm.

Look at the legs. So cute.

He took a ride on the Domino...

Since I gave up on his Dalek, I made the crab a beanie out of the unfinished Dalek head. 

It's pretty awesome as a beanie.

Thoughts?

UPDATE: I crocheted a blue crab.... A Maryland blue crab... Tee hee. 

He's so cute. 

The yarn I used was different material, more slick so he turned out to be a smaller gauge than the red one.

Hooray crafting!

Dead Mouse Catnip Toy

Remember that mouse I made in July? Well, some family got two new kitties and I remembered how easy the mouse heads were for that pattern... so I decided to knit four different colors of the mouse heads and stuffed them with stuffing laced with catnip!

Since it was just the heads, I decided to make the eyes X's... hardy har har.

No ears, just a mouse head.

Seriously, this is a fast, easy project for a family member.

I know my kitties loved playing with the bag that I stored the heads in to help keep it fresh.

I made three colors... hoping the kitties like them!

Thoughts?

Baa Baa Black Sheep

Now, when I look through Pinterest, I find PLENTY of baby oriented crafting ideas/gifts.  I don't have baby fever or anything like that, but I did find an adorable Crocheted Lamb Baby Mobile that I wanted to make. Not the mobile part, just the lambs.  They're so cute!

Crocheting the white part was hard... really hard. I lost count a lot during the body part and it still turned out OK.  The best part was if there was an issue, I gave myself a long enough tail to fix it... and the yarn is so fuzzy you don't see the mistakes in the pattern!

It's adorable! But I wanted this one standing up straight so I stitched the legs on differently than the original pattern.

I don't like how the face turned out. Cute, but no. It makes me think of a dog, not a lamb.

Since I didn't have the eyelets that the pattern mentioned I embroidered a face on it... and I don't like it. So this one is mine and promptly ordered the eyelets for others...

I made one for everyone for Easter =)

The little fuzzy bodies look like snow balls! Here are four lamb waiting to be stitched together. 

Ignore the giant tub of cat nip... I have plans for that.

Four little lambs - two tan, two gray. So cute!!

I think I'm going to make another one for me... Or undo that ugly embroidery on the first one. The eyelets make them look so much cuter!

Hoppy Easter everyone!

Choo-Choo Baby Blanket

Originally, for a friend's baby's 1st birthday I wanted to do a simple design using fleece I already had around the house.  Unfortunately, I didn't have enough fleece to do the simple project. D'oh!

Since I had a snow day and a stash of fabric, I started looking on Pinterest for an easy train themed baby quilt. SO MANY OPTIONS! I eventually settled on this one and started going through my fabric stash for boy friendly colors.

After an hour of mixing and matching, I settled on seven different fabrics to make the stripes at varying widths and train cars. I mimicked everything from that design mentioned above, but added a couple differences.

I love how this part came out. =) Pre-appliqué, of course.

I wanted his birthday on it so it'll stand the test of time (in theory, no clue how this will be received).  The other change was the engine needed little puffs of smoke... so cute!

Post appliqué - adorable!!

It's much larger than I thought it would be. Oh well. 

For the back I ended up getting new solid fleece for it since the light blue I had didn't match the front of the quilt. One of the ideas I used from Pinterest from another project was quilting down each seam of the stripes using a different pre-set stitch.  It turned out great since I used a mustard color for contrast.

The stitches are different on each seam.

Up close of one of the stitches.

Finished product! So cute!! I love how it turned out.

I'm rather pleased with the finished product.  Thoughts?

ExterminaKNIT

Remember the Christmas crafty post?

Well, I didn't finish all my gifts back in the Fall because I had friends who I wouldn't see for a while (SOME people left the country!) so I had extra time.  They're HUGE into Dr. Who. And you know what's easy to find?  Dr. Who knit patterns! (as if the internet isn't already full of non-knit Dr. Who items).

So when I came across this gem on Ravelry, I had to make it. The instructions are well written, but I highly recommend using the .pdf format and not the .txt. Since it starts with 114 cast on stitches (DANGER - LARGE KNIT TOY ALARM going off) I scraped the knitting idea and found an easier (and smaller!) crocheted Dalek pattern which was a better size.

It started out OK... but I stalled out on Round 9. Sigh.  It took another couple weeks of motivating myself into starting it again... luckily, that's when a snow storm hit! Hooray! Perfect excuse to not go outside and to craft =)

One of the many things I had to look up during this pattern was FPSC and this video helped a ton.  Short, sweet, to the point.  Not sure the purpose of that stitch in this pattern though. Maybe shaping purposes? The top part is where I used the FPSC stitch.

I now have a hand-puppet Dalek. EXTERMINATE!! RAAAAAA!

Once I got to the bobbles, I started making a mistake.  Not really sure how I did it, but I went from 60 stitches to 30.  Ugggggh!! I increased them during a gray round to get it up to 60 again, but it made an obvious mistake... I'm just going to pretend that Daleks are voluptuous and have curves now. OK? Ok. 

The boy tried to make me feel better about it... "Just stuff it really well up top, then smooth it out." Well, that was a good plan, and did help some, but I think if I just did the stupid pattern correctly, I would have been fine.

When comparing it to the patten it's not *that* bad or different. There wasn't great explaination on how to crochet over or around the bobbles... hence my random pinching in round and losing stitches.  I think.

But I prevailed! And found I don't like crocheting 4 stitches in a round. Ugh.  But the plunger looks OK, the arm isn't great.

Not entirely happy, but not mad either.

The eye entertain mes as well as the dome lights on the top.

The curves aren't too noticable now.

My biggest complaint is how freakin' big he turned out to be. And this was the small pattern!! Ugh. I'm discouraged, so I'm not making a second one for a while, but knowing me, I'm going to revisit this pattern and conquer it properly.  I tend to do multiples of a pattern... never one. Sigh.

Bailey was scared and hid by the couch. Shocking.

Domino wasn't too sure of this thing looking at her... so she got close.

Oh noooo! The Dalek EXTERMAKNITTED Domino!

Thoughts?  I'll most likely make another one in a few months... maybe it'll be red... =)

UPDATE: I made a red one! 

Pre-plungers, etc.  Not a bad shape this time around!

I'm not happy with how droopy his eye is still. The arm and plunger look good though.

Face on he's cute! The eye still annoys me.

The dome lights and gun are fun.

UGGH IT STILL DROOPS

Thoughts?

Cross Stitch Just Got Real

I have a lot of math inclined friends and family, so when I found this on Pinterest, I had to make it for their birthdays!  There wasn't a tutorial just an image, which made things harder.  I decided to show how I made this since there isn't one already.  Sidenote:  If you're into cross stitch and have a sense of humor, this website is for you. =)  They also have great tutorials and detailed "how to" images for cross stitch newbies such as myself.

If you don't know how to cross stitch, and I didn't prior to this project, I recommend watching several YouTube videos on the basics of cross stitch.  I like to think that all the yarn work and sewing I do has helped me get a better understanding on most stitching/yarn crafts.  But realistically, watching several videos was very helpful.

*Disclaimer: Realistically, I didn't make a pattern. I eyeballed an image of the original project on my monitor and wildly started stitching, hoping to be correct. Here's hoping you can navigate my "tutorial."

Materials I used

- 22 Count Aida Cloth from Michaels (15" x 18" - you'll have PLENTY left over - enough to make one or two more)

- Wood Hoop - 6"

- Embroidery thread and needle (I have a 45 Hand needle pack from Singer and used the needle with the largest eye to make life easier)

Once I put the cloth on the hoop, I trimmed it off to make life easier when messing with the thread.  After looking at images of trimmed cloth, I think I went too far. Oh well - the beauty of having a large piece allows me to make mistakes.  But then I remembered that my lovely hubby bought me an obscene amount of embroidery thread from an estate sale... and there was a smaller wooden loop inside!  I used the smaller loop to help me start the project to ensure it was centered.

The trick was starting the with bottom of the S and then ensuring that I kept along the same lines when making my stitches (no marking of the cloth necessary - but does require paying attention a lot).

It doesn't look like the font from the pattern.  But I'm OK with that.

I used the same color thread because why not? But if you're craving color, use whatever makes you happiest.  One of the main reasons the font doesn't match is because I didn't make the X that's traditional for cross stitch.  I just did \ marks and it looked really good! When I tried to do the X (note the minus symbol) it left spaces.  So I stuck with the diagonal stitch because it looked better.

I had fun with this one.  My t wasn't great, but the parentheses were... and they're harder.

The squared symbol isn't too great either... but this is still cute to me.

Once I finished the actual math equation, I put the original wooden hoop on it so I could add the explaination for the joke (so those of us not-so-math-inclined can giggle too!).

Not a fan of the crease in the cloth from using a smaller hoop. 

I used the website I mentioned earlier to figure out how to remove the crease... but it bugged me.

It looks like italics.

Instead of stitching "shit just got real" like in the original, I did "..." which I thought was funnier.

For the only part that required color, I asked the birthday boy specifically what color he loved.... and he said Cerulean.  Even in my big bag of thread, I didn't have that EXACT color, but I had something that was close enough to thr crayola crayon color he wanted. Then I decided to use a different border stitch, waves didn't make sense for him, but I thought this one was up his ally... and there were instructions.  Always a plus!

The border stich up close. The side is just zig zag, but the main border is the tutorial mentioned above.  However, I winged the corners (all by myself!). 

For the corners I started by making an L shape, then stitched twice at a 45 and once at 65 degree angle meeting at the corner of the L.

Domino, per usual, isn't impresesed.  Actually, quite jealous of me neglecting her for this.

And for the finishing touch was centering it in the frame.  This is when it would have been useful to leave extra cloth on the edges... and trimming it later. 

And initialing it would be smart. Oops.

All wrapped up and ready to go!

And then I made another one and actually did traditional cross stitch (X's for everything versus a slant /). I also measured and marked where the exact middle of the cloth then started with the h.  Parts definitely came out better, but I didn't want to do the same border.  Looking on Pinterest for a second time for cross stich borders yielded a better result  than the first time around (it also fueled by my new desiree to get better at this stuff).

Since this peron's favorite color is red, the thread I selected was a rich, dark red.  I then went for something simple... since the point of this isn't about the border, but is about the funniness that is this equation.  I used this as a rough guide, but I decided to only do the bottom. I counted 14 squares in from the wooden hoop on each side to make sure it was starting equally and marked the dead center for the fancy design.

I made the little design at the bottom... just went with it on the left then mimicked it on the right. No clue what I really did.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

Dice Bags Tutorial

My wonderful counterpart decided to purchase an obscene amount of dice for his D&D group.  Well, once he ordered this huge box worth of dice, he wanted somewhere to store them (for him and his friends).  Since I was looking for something to do with Nina, I hopped on the opportunity for a New Year's project!

Pinterest wasn't really help with finding tutorials for drawstring bags for dice.  After some Googling, I found several good tutorials, which this one won as a guide, but I used grommets instead of the sewn seam with ribbon.  Considering how often these bags would be tugged on, etc., I wanted to make sure the drawstring part was sturdy.

I love that I didn't need to buy fabric for this since I had a dice pattern one from another project... although I ended up buying some grommets and thin faux leather string.

The blue fabric is actually a thicker fabric than the cotton dice one.

I cut 12"x5" strips for the bags then stitched the dice material right side together first.  Then I cut a 2.5"x2.5" square of batting to make the next step easier. I wanted to embroider each person's initials on the bag and even practiced it a couple times before doing it.  Considering I've never really done it before, I'm rather proud.

As usual, Domino isn't impressed with my embroidery work.  The L is the best, which doesn't surprise me at all.

Notice that I embroidered the letters first BEFORE I stitched the right sides together? Made life easier. After embroidering, I pulled the stitches through the back then stitched the fabric right sides together like I did for the dice fabric earlier.  After turning it inside out I then slipped the dice fabric inside, turned the tops down and pinned them together so I could stitch the seams together at the top.

Love how the stitching at the top ended up looking. 

See? Nice little bags.

Then came the grommets... again, a new thing for me.  We went to Michaels to buy them, but they're called eyelets there... not grommets.

And the "gun" or eyelet punch was crap. Paid $20 for a piece of equipment that didn't work properly (kept sticking and ripping larger than needed holes in the fabric).  We wasted 10-15 eyelets because the stupid clamp punch thing didn't close correctly and broke the eyelets. I had the boy do it since it required strength and it wasn't working right. He ended up gluing some of the eyelets in place so the bags wouldn't rip futher, etc. 

See the two different ways he did the eyelets? I liked the six spaced evenly so he continued with that. 

This is one of the best laying ones. 

Scrunched up nicely!

He glued caps that looked like locks on the ends. Looks good! 

Thoughts? I think we did a pretty good job! And as soon as I finished this I realized I didn't make him one (D'oh!) so I had to make his on another night.

I'm surprised at how easy the J was.

He wanted his to look different so I went with a brown and black speckles fabric I had. Looks nice with the orange!