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!

Scandalous Stretchy Skirt

I bought some pretty ugly (in my opinion) stretchy fabric off the "rotten rack" a while back.  Finally, I decided to try and make something out of it.  One of the reasons I held off is that the summer is my busiest time of year... and, to be completely honest, I forgot about the fabric.

Originally, I thought I had pinned something off of Pinterest that would show me how to sew properly with stretchy material, but alas, I hadn't.  I did a quick search and found this blog post show casing a skirt that seemed easy enough for me to figure out.

First thing I did was buy the correct needles.  Back in October when I made my Halloween costume I didn't bother to use a different needle and I hated life because of it. Live and learn, right?

This was SO MUCH EASIER to sew than that costume.  Seriously. It was incredibly easy to make this and stitch it together.  It's a little short for my taste, so I'll be measuring better next time I make one of these (this won't be the last one, I can promise that!).  When I first sewed it together, it looked too short for me so I tried to cut a different black fabric to add at the top.  However, it wasn't the same material, so even before I tried to sew it together it was fraying and pulling apart.  Basically, the new black fabric wasn't going to work for this project... womp womp.  But that's ok! The skirt turned out fabulous as is.  Also, it's super duper comfy. Perfect for summer!

Ignore the facial expression, I was staring into the sun. :)

Yellow-Bellied Chickens!

For some reason, two of my friends have chickens.  No real reason why they do, aside from the obvious ones that they're awesome and free eggs.  So for their birthdays (which were close-ish to each other) I decided to knit them chickens.  First, though, I made one for my Grandmother because she used to own chickens.  (Also, I know the chicken isn't yellow-bellied...)

I found what seemed to be an easy tutorial from Ravelry.com (lots of good patterns on there - free and for sale).  Now, I say that at the beginning of every attempt for all my projects... and then I usually find the hiccups as I go along.  I have a thing for finding patterns that push me to learn new things... regardless of how painful the learing process.  So, this one had two elements I didn't know - the mattress seam stitch and then I-cord legs.  Luckily, it came with instructions for those of us that didn't know what an I-cord leg stitch thing was.  The mattress seam stitch was easy to find on YouTube.

First off, the pictures on the tutorial don't make you realize just how TINY these things are.  I'm used to 6-7" for a small toy when completed - this was maybe 4".  I know, I know... had I read the tutorial fully it warned me of this fact... but reading it and seeing it are two different things.

See? It's about the size of a pear. Plus, I really need to cave and buy Fiber Fill. I'm using old packing materials.

Next were the wings.  I thought I could do it... but in reality, I didn't know what knitted cast on meant. Awesome... another thing about this pattern I didn't understand. Sigh. So, I did some research and found a great YouTube Video that helped me figure it out.  Rather proud! First try and both came out as pictured =)

The beak required me looking up this video to help learn the Knit Front to Back concept. I wasn't too bad at it... but I'll need to practice it more for the next two I'll be making.

The rest of it was rather easy to knit. I enjoyed it... even if it was tiny.  Can't wait to knit more!

Front view - adorable!

Side view - the wings came out nice.

Shake your tailfeather... which came out rather well.

Domino can't help but sniff it... looks too real.

She's not impressed. Sigh.

Thoughts? Suggestions? All welcome!

UPDATE: I made another one! Look at how cute he turned out... love the color combo =)