Knitten Kitten!

I recently bought a pair of US 3 double pointed needles off Amazon for a couple different patterns I bought off Esty.  The main reason I bought them was because one pattern in particular needed 5 needles... which none of the stores around me seemed to have. Sigh. So I caved and bought these beauts... for $10 (ouch).

Anyway, the pattern that I wanted to knit was from Etsy called Telepathic Kitten by Cheezombie.  I forget how much it costs, but it's so creepy/cute looking.  It called for funky yarn which I happened to have a bunch of from a yard sale.  I thought "OH CUTE, FUNKY YARN" - when I should have thought, "OH CRAP, FUNKY YARN. THIS WILL BE HARD TO KNIT." Silly Laura.

See that little puff ball to the left? That's the kitten body. Too freakin' puffy... I've lost count of my stitches so many times. Ugh. 

Also, there was a new element in the pattern called Wrap and Turn... so I headed over to YouTube to figure it out.  I couldn't find a video that showed it in the round, only with straight needles.  Sigh. I also looked at New Stitch A Day's Wrap and Turn tutorial to help me figure it out. The more knowledge, the better, right?

I stuffed it using scraps of old yarn.  I've been knitting so much I had a bunch left over and I didn't want to waste it.

Well, it wasn't easy knitting it because of the yarn... but it also knit together in one piece which was different for me.  What I mean is I knit the body and the head together versus stitching it on later.  It worked well enough... but there was another aspect that didn't make sense to me - at round 40 it stated to use scrap yarn for k12 then removing it to pick up and make those crazy ass eyes.  So, I contacted the person who wrote it to ask her what the heck that meant. SO HELPFUL.  She was pretty awesome about answering my question and I figured it out... slowly. (Later I found this blog post which explained the concept well enough - I used the creator's advice since she did something a bit different but this is good for future reference for other knitting stuff).

You can kind of see the shape of the kitten. The white yarn is the scrap yarn for the eyes.

Can't even see it! Stupid fluffy yarn.

Using the tips Cheezombie gave me and winging it, I was able to make two eyes. Then I made the four legs. At this point, it looked like a deranged llama. 

Domino does not approve of me spending so much time knitting. Silly kitty. Also, as you can see the eyes are buggy. Very buggy.

Ta-da! The finished product.  You can see in the background on the monitor what it's supposed to look like... and it's close. But it still looks like a deranged muppet.

The tail came out well enough... used pipe cleaner like it recommended, but I couldn't find the end because of how fluffy it is.

So badly this thing wants Domino's love.

Domino isn't impressed... still. Sigh.

I think I'm going to try my hand on another one for myself.  This one is a little too... Raven's themed for me ;)

UPDATE: I made one in Eagles colors for myself and tweaked the pattern so it looked less like Beaker from muppets mated with a furby and more like a kitty. Then I made two more... And no matter what it comes out creepy! Ugh. 

 Maybe the collar would help them look more kitty like? Who knows. 

Mother Day's

Happy Mother's Day to all you mommies (including you pet mommies)!

I had been knitting a lot lately so I wanted to sew a little for all the mommies in my life.  There was an adorable pattern I found on Pinterest that I had been eyeing and finally bought it off Etsy.  Totally worth it.  The best part? I didn't know anything about paper piecing and the woman who created the pattern had FREE videos on how to do paper piecing. Amazing, right? Super easy to follow as well.

My mom's gift was easy - horses.  Fawn and Jerry are the horses that I grew up with and they're still kicking (literally - they knocked Dad's dog Luca upside the head a couple months ago when he wouldn't leave them be).  

Here's Jerry, the one-eyed wonder.

Fawn's coat isn't looking too hot here, but you get a better view of Jerry's head poking out.

Since the pattern gave me two angle options, I made Jerry one way and Fawn another. Even though Jerry's a gelding, they're in love and it's adorable.  You can't put them in separate pastures or Jerry jumps over the fence to be with her.  So, I had to do two.

I'm finding that I'm not good with paper piecing and doing it the traditional way. I don't stitch to the paper... ever. I should practice but doing it the correct way, but for these pillows I cut out the big chunks and folded the paper and eyeballed the stitching. I bet all you real quilters are cringing at the thought of me doing it that way, but it worked.... sort of.

On Fawn's you can see that it didn't work out with the right eye and ear.  But the rest was pretty good.

The right eye/side is driving me nuts. But she's super cute.

On Jerry's I made a lot more cuts on the chunks before stitching them together to make sure it was even angles, etc.  It worked better.

Jerry only has one eye so it's supposed to look like this on him. But his is SO much batter!

Looking back on the horse pattern I should have added a tail. But ehhhh. I still LOVE this pattern. I might make another set for others.

Super cute. Love this pattern!

Mom in law was a bit different.  She doesn't have a specific animal that she goes "EEEEE" over (maybe cats... but not like me, obviously I'm the Queen of Crazy Cat Lady Town) but I wanted to have pillows for her that would make Dad in law happy too.  So I looked back at the sewing machine cover I made and made a pillow version of it.  The hubby seemed to think that would be the best option for them and their home.

On the left pillow I stitched Orion, minus his bow.  On the right are the dippers.

Big and Little Dipper.

Orion looks better here.

My Grandmother loves quilting items. All times.  She used to go to Lancaster, PA and buy the prettiest quilts and hang them on her wall, put them on all her beds, and give them to us.  I blame her for my original interest in quilts and mom in law for my love of attempting to make them.  When I was looking through the Etsy shop for the Peeping Horse, there was a Peeping Duck pattern. Sold - I knew she'd like them.

I made four ducks total.  One was a practice set and I took them for our couch and the better ones I gave to her.  I did the first one as the male mallard, but I wanted the second one to be different.  After Googling a couple pictures, I finally decided that I could use a cheetah type fabric to mimic the feather pattern of the female mallard.

This is my practice duck. The nostril is killing me. She's hooked on quack. =D

I love how the female mallard is taller than the male.  These were the better two. Sigh. Need to practice more with paper piecing!

Thoughts? Hope your Mother's Day is a great one!

Ooohh Halloween!

I used to hate Halloween. When I say hate, I mean loathe.  I thought it was stupid, not worth my time, etc. Very Negative Nancy about the whole thing.  Within the past three years though I've given my hatred and started embracing the holiday for the fun that it can be.

Last year, I went as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.  I found a dog's turtle costume for the shell (golden retriever sized) and then used a dress of my own that I know fits well as a template for the green dress that I wore.  The mask was the hardest part and looked pretty bad. But, last year at this time, I was very new to sewing and my skills were rough. Very rough.

But I still think my costume looked better than the ones I found online...

Mine (you stay classy)

Theirs. A-hem.

But I digress.  This year I wanted to do something feminine, like the ninja turtle dress, but again fun and not-so-slutty.  I found this gem on Pinterest but could not for the life of me find the pattern anywhere (only a former listing for it on etsy).  

So dorky. So cool.

So I again busted out the same $7 Good Will dress (that I look pretty smokin' in) to use as a template.  I found grey stretchy fabric and some regular black from Hobby Lobby.  Let me get this out of the way: If you're never sewn with stretchy material before, practice first.  I would have saved myself so many headaches and cursing fits if I had. This material sucked, I ended up stitching multiple holes by hand and getting frustrated beyond belief. I find out later that I also was using the wrong type of needle... *facepalm*.  Each of my projects I tend to learn something new about sewing...

Notice the circle and plus sign template? Highly recommend doing that if you're serious about making this costume look awesome. I also Googled an image of the original Game Boy just to be safe (didn't want drunk nerds at a Halloween party yelling at me!)

  

Since I don't have much in the way of boobs, I added straps so I wouldn't give everyone a free show at the party.  That being said, the dress is also a lot looser and longer than the original one on Pinterest.... and I'm OK with that.

Now, I could have left it at that but my hubby wanted me to jazz it up a bit. I found a couple days before Halloween Tetris and Pac Man fabric, but it wouldn't have gotten here in time. But I'm definitely keeping an open mind to buying a yard of that and just stitching it to the screen next year.  What we did instead worked... but I think it actually took away from the awesomeness that is this costume.  We used Blockus pieces (a boardgame) glued to a white piece of paper and safety pinned onto the screen. =\ As I said... should have just left it as it was.

Ahhh well... live and learn. Happy Halloween!