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!

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?

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 =)

Moebius Scarf

It's been a while and I blame several things for that. In the summer I tend to be very busy thanks to work and then I went on several vacations =) It was wonderful. However, now that Fall is here I am going to be crafting up a storm for everyone's Christmas gifts.

While on one of them, I learned how to knit a moebius scarf! FYI... a Moebius scarf ends up being half purled and half knit when looking at the finished product.  The twisted cable within while you're knitting every stitch is how this happens.  It's pretty awesome I think.  I had originally looked at the idea of it from this blog post (which explains what it is in great, math-related detail) as well as several Ravelry patterns, but seeing it done made me want to do it immediately.  As soon as I got home I went out and got the correct set of circular needles and started at it.

The top is stockingette stitch and the bottom half is garter stitch.  Such a cool pattern.

For those of you interested in doing it this YouTube video is the exact method I learned.  The circular needles that are used in the video can be found at KnitPicks.  I bought a pair of metal ones from Michaels which work fine, but if you're serious about circular knitting I would go with the KnitPicks one.  The cables are easier to manuver.

See how it knits and spirals? So cool.

But once you've cast on and gotten through the first two rounds, which are super weird, you just keep knitting until you like the length! It's super easy and comes out looking really cool.  Hooray!

Domino, as always, isn't impressed with it. But I am! =)

It lays nicely. Smaller than I thought it would be. Hmm... 

It's smaller than I thought it would be. I think it's because I cast on 100 stitches... maybe I'll do 130 next time.

Thoughts? I might make two! Hooray Christmas gifts!

Hookers Unite!

For my birthday, a good friend of mine bought me a complete set of crochet hooks and his lovely girlfriend (who crochets) proceeded to give me loads of yarn!  Here's to another hobby with yarn!  So excited!! Many of the items I wanted to knit I couldn't because they weren't knit... they were crocheted.  NO LONGER AN ISSUE! Yesss! Bring on the crafting season!

Since I had some time to kill I learned to crochet this week and did a granny square (in Philly Eagles colors, of course) and made a star.  Those videos were super helpful and great.

Rather proud of this... first try!

The star isn't as good... one point wasn't done correctly. Oh well! I'll make another soon... =)

Thoughts?

One blindingly white mouse

Remember how I learned to knit for a mouse pattern? Well... it dawned on me the other day that I knew everything I needed to know to make the pattern!

Because I'm stubborn I made some changes.  I wanted to make six of them in Christmas colors to make them Jingle mice (and even put bells in them).  So I needed to learn how to stitch in a pattern... or, the easier way, just stitch in the letters.  Once again, YouTube gave me two different videos - one doesn't have audio and the other is out of focus.  Siiiiigh.

However, these things take too long to make six of them.  Also, I'm not a fan of how large they are.  Maybe these will be ornaments with family member's first intials on them?

Side view.  Very stiff little guy.

This shows how large it is and the nice J I stitched on.

As always, Domino isn't impressed. Although, she does want to play with the yarn.

Thoughts?

UPDATE: I've decided to make them all to spell JINGLE. The 'i' came out fat because I was watching Netflix while knitting and got distracted. Whoops. 

Also, I switched the colors to make it more festive when I finish them all. 

UPDATE #2: I finally finished them all! See what it spells? =) I'm proud...

The 'e' isn't the best... but the others are pretty good lookin'!

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.