Tis the season to get crafty, tra la la la la....

Thanksgiving is my favorite time of the year... but Christmas is a close second.  I really like giving people gifts and since I've become crafty I've enjoyed making things for people.  I started making the knit items almost a year in advance as I originally wanted to knit all my friends a scarf.

See? Beautiful green one sided and pink on the other scarf! Way too time consuming.

I eventually scraped that idea as it was too slow, boring, etc.  Eventually, it morphed into making toys that reminded me of certain friends.

I pulled out an older pattern to make for some friends.

As Christmas drew closer, and I ran out of time, I postponed giving people things until their birthdays, etc.  Lazy... I know.

First up - a couple friends of ours thoroughly enjoys Mario Bros and requested I crochet them a Goomba.  However, when they originally asked I didn't know how to crochet but since I acquired a while crochet hook kit back in September I've learned... and surprised them with one.  Again, I found a free pattern on Ravelry.com.  I had to look up a YouTube video on what a Magic Ring was, but that was worth it as it's a really cool skill for crochet.

When making the pattern, I ran into a little problem... I lost count when crocheting one of the feet. So he's a little... lopsided. But it still looks OK (I think) and I did better on the next ones.

Next ones you say? Well, after I made him I realized that some of our other friends would like them too.. so I made a mini army of Goombas...

AAAAHHH RUN AWAAAAAAAY!! I crocheted Domino an army!

Well, the Goombas weren't enough. I asked the hubby what other friends would like a crocheted gift and he asked if there was another Super Mario Bros pattern I could do.  Luckily, Ravelry is FULL of free patterns and I found the 1-Up Mushrooms... which I promptly made several for friends (and us).

They're super cute and easy to make. My phone camera turns the green a funny color.

So I made another one. I still need to work on my crochet skills... all my projects come out different sizes, ugh.

I didn't just crochet two mushrooms... I ended up making about seven of them - either red or green depending on the friend.  Carpal tunnel, anyone?

And once I was SICK of making mushrooms, I moved on to different friend... the one who likes penguins.  For some reason, I couldn't find a decent free pattern for knitting but I did find one in crochet. There were a couple techniques that I used on the star post but were rusty for those one, so YouTube helped with those but overall this was a taxing pattern.  I made some alterations (ex: didn't do the legs portion and didn't make 4 feet as two looked great on the bottom) and then the white part slip was weird.  It worked... but I stitched it on wrong and lost count at one part so it's... off. And I hate googley eyes on crocheted/knit toys so I just did black yarn.

I liked him even with all my changes. But I felt he was missing something...

....So I decided to crochet him a Santa Hat.  I didn't use a pattern for that - getting better!

But enough toys! Remember the Moebius Scarf I made? Well, I made another one for someone else for Christmas and then I made a tiny one for my bro in law since he likes math (I didn't think he'd wear a scarf). It's just small enough to be a desk ornament.

I tried to use the colors of the school. See how tiny it is? It was really hard to do on Size 3 circular needles with only 10in cables. Talk about painful.

But I think it looks pretty cool for a little desk topper. 

I didn't do a lot of sewing this year and I regret that.  Maybe I'll make a table runner next year for friends/family.  Or I'll do something with clay... or Baileys. Oh the choices!

Happy Holidays! I hope you enjoyed my review of patterns =)

Sonic... the Hedgehog!

Shockingly, Pinterest is fueling my knitting love.  I found an awesome knitting pattern for hedgehogs. Hedgehogs seem to be the latest hipster animal.  First came owls, then foxes, and now.... hedgehogs.  But I've always had a thing for hedgehogs.  Sonic the Hedgehog was my favorite video game as a kid.  My first cat was named Sonic and I really wanted to name Bailey Tails originally (but she's not a Tails so it worked out - eventually I'll have a Tails and Knuckles....).

Also, the hubby got me a stuffed Tails!! He brought it home when I started working on this... fate? Yes, of course.

Let me clear: I am a new knitter, a novice at best. So, while I am critiquing the tutorial, I freely acknowledge that the fault might lie with me as I maybe wasn't ready for it.  

With that being said... The tutorial seemed simple enough but I wasn't a big fan about the make 1 right and make 1 left nonsense.  She had a tutorial linked to how to do it but it wasn't good enough for me.  Plus! She didn't explain how to do it in the round.  I had to practice it a couple times before it came out OKish.   Maybe, just maybe, if I had used a non-slick yarn that would have also made it easier.  But why did things the easy way when I can do it the Laura way? *grumble* So I Googled it and found a better visual of m1r and m1l from New Stitch a Day (love that place!)

I'm not going to lie. I started this project, got around 4 rounds into it, and stared at the tutortial for the next week and a half.  I couldn't get the courage up to try and complete it. I even restarted it a couple times to motivate myself to knit Round 5.  No clue why it bugged me so much, but it did.

The tip of the nose is weird. I don't think I did it like the tutorial wanted.

You can see it better here... weird with the m1l, m1r.

But once I got over my m1r, m1l fear it went ok into the belly (which ALSO had those lovely symbols).  Another thing that isn't written clearly is the last round on the belly to make 5 stitches. I misunderstood it and did something else.  I will give the tutorial credit for having detailed pictures to other knitting techinques that I didn't know (p2tog tbl for example).

 Somehow, I screwed up the final 5 stitches on the belly.

It worked out later with the grey body, but it wasn't easy. Had to add random stitches to make it work.

Now, the body. Ugh. I had all the materials for the project, but there isn't a clear way to get the new needles onto the head/body combo in the tutorial.  I ended up taking a break here and tried reading it multiple times until it made sense.

And then.... it did. A lightbulb went off. (I think too much with these tutorials sometimes).

He's super cute.

The nose still looks funny. No amount of stuffing could fix it. Although, I will admit I should have used more.

You can see that I had a hard time in the beginning attaching the grey to the teal.

Soooo... here's Sonic! I'm going to make a couple more for others =)  I loved the teal and grey combo! (For those that know me, this isn't shocking).

Aren't his ears cute? He looks like an ardvark or anteater. Sigh. I'll pretend it's a hedgehog.

Dominio wasn't sure what to make of him.

"He smells funny."

"Meh, I'm more important than that."

Such a cutie.

Thoughts?