Pepperberry Crochet

Busy Weekend

I was busy this weekend, but in a good way.

On Saturday, I headed over to my LYS, Seed Stitch Fine Yarn, to pick up some new yarn. I freely admit that I don't go there nearly frequently enough (sadly, my hours and their hours don't match up well) and once there was reminded again of *why* I enjoy buying yarn there. I picked up three skeins of Savanna yarns alpaca/linen/wool blend. Not only is it amazingly soft, but the colors have this great muted look to them. They remind me of my Luray teacups. The funny part was that they were having a sale and I didn't end up getting any sale yarn.

Even though I've had the photos on my computer for a while and been ready to work on it, it's taken me a couple of weeks to get around to doing up the Leggy Octopus Pattern, but that's complete now, too. That was a fun pattern to work on, and to make. I really like the look of the stuffed legs. I've also settled on a pattern template that I'm happy with. Now I just need to go back and convert the old patterns to the new template. It's a graphic design decision, more than anything else.

Along with everything else, I'm in the process of tuning up my email templates and etsy templates, so it's given me plenty to do this weekend. I finished one other pattern, which I'll be releasing later this week.

Octopus

New octopus... this one with legs.

Apologies for the recent distraction, but I'm getting back on track...

Squid Pattern

It's official-- the Squid Pattern is available.

Octopus / Pentapus / French Knots

Finished this guy over the weekend....erm, while I should have been working on the ladybug...

As you can see, I've finally grasped the french knot. I was so overjoyed, I covered this five legged octo in them!

New Green Wool Squid, Other News

I want to start out by apologizing to anyone who reads this via feed, I've had some Unfortunate Photographic Incidents over the last couple of days. Namely, I have a new phone, and tried to download the Typepad updater to it. Unfortunately, that resulted in every photo I took being uploaded to the blog, whether I wanted it there or not. This might not have been so bad, except that the photos were upside down! Grrr... I am updating Twitter more often with the new phone, so if you're really all that interested, hey, I'm there.

In far more interesting news, if you're in the Boston area, I have some new items at Magpie, in Davis Square in Somerville, so you can head over there for your crocheted needs. I also highly suggest that you head over there for any of your gift giving needs, Magpie sells goods by independent crafters and artists exclusively and they deserve support!

I'm finally finishing my transition over to natural fibers, so I present the green wool squid. I know, thrilling, isn't it? I realized how much I miss making squid, so I've determined to make some new squid, as well as some new octopi (including some more natural looking ones). I also need to work on some new patterns, we'll get there, slowly, slowly.

It's great to be back from DC, we're still getting settled back in and reassuring the cats that we're here. Iggy (iguana) is still sulking, but he'll get over it...

Custom Holiday Octopi

Custom order for the holidays.

Squid

I realized that it's been a long time since I looked at the design of my squid and made any changes. I finally sat down last night (now that I'm finished with all of the Required Projects) and made a squid for the first time in a while. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I've adjusted the triangaly things on top of the head a little bit and slightly adjusted the shaping.

I also did something I've never really done before--I grabbed my stopwatch and timed myself working as fast as I possibly could, to really make sure my pricing was accurate. It wasn't. I've known for a while that I underprice my work, and I've been trying to correct that (sorry, everyone. ;)), but I didn't quite realize how far off the mark I've been. It was definitely interesting to get a look at what pricing would look like depending on which pricing formula I used. There are certainly some that would make it quite expensive!

I've put this guy up on etsy. He's about 10", not including the legs. I'm working on a whole crop of little squid to put up there. It's going well, and they're a lot of fun. I'm off to a bridal shower for a relative, but I'll be working on stuff all weekend. :)

Back on the whole cupcake thing...

I think it's become pretty obvious that I probably need a new blog for the baked goods obsession. ;)

Today, we made peanut butter and jelly cupcakes at work with the consumers. I cheated this time, because the oven at work is really weird and picky, and mixes bake a lot better in it than from-scratch recipes, probably because mixes are less sensitive. I'll try to get a photo of them.

To make them, we used the Duncan Hines White Cake mix, but used 3 whole eggs instead of 3 egg whites and added a teaspoon of vanilla. The peanut butter buttercream (which is more pb than sweet) was approximately 1 cup smooth PB, 1 stick butter, some powdered sugar (I don't know, we poured it in from the bag) and some light cream (again, I don't know) creamed together with a wire whisk. If I had access to a hand mixer, I would have used it, but another group was using it.

After baking the cupcakes in our wonky oven, we filled a pastry bag with warmed grape jelly, put a fine tip on it, and squirted grape jelly into the cupcakes (only a little) from the top, then covered it with the frosting.

Deeeeeelicious.

I still have chocolate cupcakes at home (I would love to try them with the peanut butter buttercream, I think I'll bring a couple of unfrosted ones to work with me tomorrow for the extra frosting) and I'm making Rice Crispy treats tonight to bribe my coworkers with.

Octopi

For the first time in a while, octopi! I was in the mood to do something a little different, so here they are.

I saw Mr. Brooks last night. Incredible thriller about a murderer, really enjoyed it. Also, I went to Tapas again, yay! Although they were out of the chorizo special that I love, boo.

Still eating cupcakes.

Ninja Squid, Mac and Cheese, and other important topics

Here's an incredibly large ninja squid I just got around to photographing. He's for a custom order. And I am now aware that ninjas do not, indeed, have red headbands, an impression I appear to have picked up from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but it's all okay, because it's removeable and could easily become a sash.

I also took out this book "Hard Crochet" from the library. A large "amigurumi" Groucho Marx on the back cover proves that the concept, at least, has been around since before I was born. I'm looking forward to having the free time to look through it, which probably will not be happening this week.

In the Culinary Experimentation Department, I made homemade mac & cheese this week. Truly delicious (I thought) until one of my coworkers brought in some for a treat. Hers was truly decadent, with several sticks of butter and four different cheeses. Hmmm, back to the drawing board.