Pepperberry Crochet

Turkey

Productive weekend, got a lot done, just didn't end up taking a lot of photos of my accomplishments. I also made this turkey, because I needed to do something a little more fun than filling orders. I'll be doing up a pattern shortly, although I think it will be one that incorporates some fixings. Raw turkey is a tad boring...

When I'm Stressed, the Amigurumi Get Weird

Of course, that would imply that the animals I make aren't weird to begin with, which I suppose is up for debate.

In the interest of speeding up the homebuying process, I've added an Evening Job to the Day Job. It's only a couple of evenings a week. It's not a bad job, but it has messed up my schedule a little bit. See, I have this really strict schedule I follow (I know, this is about to sound insane) where I do different chores on different evenings when I get out of work. Since the new job takes out two of my evenings, it has thrown me into chaos.

That doesn't mean I haven't been making stuff, it just means that I haven't been posting it while I try to get the rest of my life back under control. I think I'm good now.

These guys were made with my new favorite yarn, Aslan Trends Glaciar del Cielo, which is a sport weight cotton. Love it, it's like crocheting with an old t-shirt. The colors are great, too.

 

I like the facial expressions, especially on the bunny here. I'm not terribly happy with the bodies-- I slacked on the limbs, and even a bit on the bodies. I'd rather put a little bit of extra work into it and wind up with something a little more special. This guy will probably end up with my small number of "keeper" amigurumi while I plot a new body design...

Wednesday WIPs

Octopus Pincushion

After finishing with the Mendocino quilt (which I refuse to show a finished shot of, all of the quilters are going to laugh at me) I've found myself with a bunch of 1/8 yards of the Mendocino fabric. I also have a decent amount of wool felt hanging around, which you may or may not remember from this year's mushroom swap. On top of that, I've been buying bits and pieces of fabric here and there, so I've discovered I have a fabric stash. Some may think it small, but for a crocheter, it's pretty big!

Darling Mr. Pepperberry also gave me a Singer Simple for my birthday. Not that there's anything wrong with my vintage 7 Diamond (other than the fact it has only one speed, that being Warp) but the SImple has been, indeed, Simple, and I'm feeling more motivated to sew. Of course, I have to incorporate crochet into everything, so my first combined crochet/sewn project is the pincushion above. It's a 3" square of fabric and a 3" square of wool, sewn together and stuffed, and then edged in #10 yellow crochet thread.

 

This is a lined zipper pouch that I made. I am well aware that my color choices are a tad unfortunate, as is the angle I chose to photograph it from, but I don't care. I followed Anna Toborg's zipper pouch tutorial...sort of...and learned that the next time I make one of these I should actually follow the tutorial. I have an insane addiction to zipper pouches, especially Sew Mary Ann's, but it would be great if I could make some myself. Hence, the weird thing in the photo.

I've learned that in addition to following the tutorial, I shouldn't bother with fancy stitches on the exterior crocheting and just focus on squaring the piece as much as possible. With that in mind, hopefully my future attempts should be far more impressive!

As a last note, if you're interested in some fun graphic design, TheDieline.com has been featuring products from the 826 stores on the site all week. If you don't know what they are, definitely check them out!

WIPs This Week

Sadly, I haven't been getting a heck of a lot of crocheting done this week, thanks to trying to get some items into the mail, work craziness. Oh, and the Mr. and I are looking at houses. Craaaaazy. I had no idea that it was this complicated or this insane! It's certainly not helping that we're on a strict budget and have a number of requirements. I have to have faith that we'll find something eventually.

At any rate, this week I was working on a starfish rattle that didn't turn out terribly well. Even though I'm certain that I counted stitches on the legs, the legs are still uneven, so it's back to the drawing board with that one.

I also started a brittle star, which is going a little bit better, you can see it in the lower left hand corner. I'm not exactly sure why I'm so fascinated with them. I find them rather repellent, to be honest, yet I have one as wallpaper on my phone and I keep working on making them. Part of it is that the kind I'm making is not quite as scary. The ones that have the little extra tentacles on all of their legs are strange and frighten me a little bit.

With regards to the soap thing that I mentioned last week, the team at work and I finally made the decision to go ahead with melt and pour soap, primarily due to the safety factors. Individuals in my group are going to work on prepping soap inclusions, staff and some individuals from another room will be doing the actual melting, my group will pick scents and add in the inclusions, and then another group will work on packaging. In the end, I'm thinking it's going to be a nice team effort.

Hopefully, once we manage to purchase a house, I'll have the space for more crafts, including the cold process soap that I'm so interested in.

Giant Chicken? Not Quite

I had been thinking it would be really fun to make a bird that was at least partially covered in "feathers". In this case, it's more of a crocheted scale shaped (created by crocheting an hdc, two dc, and an hdc into a ch-3 space worked on the surface of he body). Unfortunately, mainly due to my color choice, I appear to have ended up with a big (around 8 inch tall) chicken. Certainly not what I was going for-- the initial thinking had been more "Large Tropical Bird" than anything else. I'm still interested enough in pulling this off correctly that I'm going to re work it. Perhaps as a pattern, we'll see how much patience I have.

I'm currently involved with a quest to finish up *all* of my acrylic yarn (and therefore not acquire more). This has made it rather difficult for me to get motivated to work on anything, as I've really come to dislike working with acrylic (other than Red Heart Designer Sport, which I still like) unless I'm using a really, really tiny hook. The result? My hands hurt. :P

On the other hand, Mr. Pepperberry and I have been enjoying tasty smores, so not everything is bad...

Clement the Bunny: Continued

Progress is, well, progressing on the bunny. The initial 8" tall C Hook bunny has been completed, and I'm satisfied with the look. I do still want to try out a sweater and maybe some other accessories on him. I'm also debating how to demonstrate the embroidery for the pattern. Normally I'm kind of a jerk and just say "refer to photo". I'll take some step-by-steps of it, but I'm wondering if I really need to include the actual pattern, maybe I can just write a description of the number of holes neccessary for counting. Hm.

In progress now is a larger G hook version. I was actually surprised that the scale up to a G hook really doesn't make that much of a difference in size, at least as far as the head is concerned. It's adding about an inch to the diameter of the head. The G hook bunny does appear that it's going to be quite a bit taller.

In other news, I'm currently baking chocolate chip cookies (Tollhouse, sub'd half the flour with whole wheat flour, this way I can feel sort of virtuous about eating them, kinda) working on totally awesome felt soaps with the guys at work (photos soon, I promise) and enjoying my weird burst of organization and structured work.

Clement the Bunny: Progress

I do not have a great talent for developing little lives for my creations as so many other crocheters and plush makers do. I think it's a little weird, to be honest. I can, however, acknowledge the usefulness of naming creations so that I can keep track of which bunny is which.

With that in mind, this is Clement. Well, Clement in progress. He's still lacking any legs, ears, or other accessories, but they'll be coming. I'm doing something a little bit different with this pattern. This particular photo is of the C hook version, as I have an incredible and abiding love of tiny hooks with worsted or sport yarn. I have had to finally admit that other crocheters do not feel the same way that I do about the wonder of tiny hooks, so the step-by-steps for the pattern will be done with a larger hook size and create a larger bunny. The main pattern instructions will also be written to create the larger rabbit.

Following a paranoia-inducing conversation with a crafter whose name escapes me at the moment, I also worry constantly about other crafters' use of materials such as safety eyes and small sewn embellishments when it comes to toys for children under the age of two. I'm going to create a third bunny, with a rattler inside, that has only embroidered embellishments.

Normally, I'm rushing through the patterns and everything else I create, but I'm really looking forward to spending some time working on this one. At last, I've rediscovered that I'm not happy churning out patterns and plushes, but would rather take the time to indulge my current obsessions. I also really want to improve the graphic design on my patterns to make them a more pleasurable experience.

Don't worry, I'm also at work on a tutorial for creating doll and bear accessories that will be posted up here. Any accessories I should focus on? I know we can all make scarves, but maybe sweaters, etc?

Creepy Wasn't What I was Going For

...It's just sort of where I ended up. I think the pink eyes have something to do with it. Back to the drawing board, I guess. I also think that if the pink eyes were on pink or green, they wouldn't be half as creepy, so that's where I'm going next. Obviously, the hair also looks better when I spend more time on it.

Not much else up. I'm headed over to MBCC tomorrow for advising, one step closer to actually starting class. The day job has been going well--we're still working on felted soaps and seed balls. I picked up the remaining supplies we need for the punch needle work tonight, so we should be able to start that tomorrow, along with repotting some portulacaria. Busy, busy!

Super Cool Crocheted Furniture

How cool are these? I so need one at home. And at work. And maybe 12 other places. It's got me thinking--I have a couple of skeins of macrame cord...

The maker's page is in...um...Dutch, I think, but there are some really amazing and inspirational items on there. Check it out...

Also, if you're looking for something similar, Regina at Monster Crochet designed poufs for the September/October 2008 issue of Crochet Today.

Snow Day!

Knitted Ice
Originally uploaded by Alison Friday

I have a snow day from work today (sweeeeet) which means I get to spend the whole day at home crocheting. I was on Flickr looking for a photo that would sufficiently express my glee and ended up spotting this art experiement from Alison Friday, in which she froze a piece of knitting and then provides photo documentation on Flickr. It is surprisingly cool, and a neat idea. I am going off to get some coffee, followed by making things!