Warm Fuzzies

Hershey Bar Bookmark

I was dying to make one of these ever since I saw it.  What a clever idea!  I'm not a fan of chocolate (I know, I'm some kind of freak), but I wanted to make a chocolate bookmark so badly that I *gasp* went out and purchased a Hershey bar.  I let Kyle do the hard part (eating all that chocolate). ..and then he immediately threw the wrapper away, even though I specifically told him to save it.  I mean, I spent a good 5 minutes carefully cutting the back of the wrapper with an X-acto knife.  What freak takes that much care in opening a candy wrapper if she didn't have bigger, better, plans for it?!?  He said it was a reflex.  Suuuuuure.

At any rate, my wrapper was retrieved, albeit a little crumbled and ripped in more places than I would have liked.  The tutorial is really great in explaining the process, and I followed it very closely.  The only thing that I did differently was use an X-acto knife instead of the tip of a mechanical pencil to score the foam; I think this substitution makes it easier to make clean lines.

I like how the brown foam gives the chocolate bar some depth.  After cutting out the bite mark, the bookmark turns into a pretty convincing Hershey bar.

Before I left for work in the morning, I left the completed chocolate bookmark on top of a book that Kyle had been reading.  He said that he thought it was a real candy bar when he first saw it.  But his dreams of eating a candy bar for breakfast were shot when he saw the post-it note that I left him.

The drawing's supposed to be me with cat ears.  Yeah, don't ask, I did it in 10 seconds.  Kyle says it's "Evil Shirley."  I don't think she looks evil!  Anyway, back to the bookmark: here's a shot of it in action.  (The picture's a little dark; I took it when I got home at night, so the lighting wasn't too great).

Making these would be the perfect excuse to go out and buy a case of chocolate bars (heh, if chocolate's your thing).  I know I'm tempted to make a couple more...after all, you can never have enough chocolate bookmarks.

Little Mousie Pincushion

Heh, seems like I've been making a lot of feline friends lately, so I decided it was time to change things up a little.  Inspired by a project I saw while flipping through a magazine in the book store, I used scrap yarn to crochet a little mouse pincushion.

Since I didn't have any excelsior or sand on hand, he's stuffed firmly with cotton (I've heard that this, too, helps keep pins sharper).  I made his little whiskers with the bristles of an old kitchen broom, and his ears are cut out from an old scarf and sewn on.  You can't really see in the picture, but his noise is an embroidered "x".  For his tail, I just knotted the starting end of the yarn. 

But this little mousie isn't entirely content with staying inside his little nest all day and letting himself be stabbed with pins.  When nobody's looking, he likes to go out and explore...and search for cheese.  (Port Salut is his favorite).

But he always returns to his nest at the end of the day, so I'm none the wiser.  He's a sneaky little one!

A Pair of Amineko: Crochet Cats

I've caught on slower than all the other crafters out there, it seems.  From my oh-so-fastidious online research, I have deduced that a great many people jumped onto the amigurumi bandwagon by making an amineko from this pattern around this time...last year.  Well, better late than never, right?  Here's the first amineko that I crocheted:

Like his mommy, he's a lazy butt.  He sleeps on the couch all day.  He's actually asleep so much of the time that we refer to him simply as "the cat," since he's never awake long enough to hear his name called, much less answer to it.  He's cool to have around because I can pretend that we actually own a cat.  For example, "The cat is *always* sleeping on the couch.  No matter how much I yell at him, he just won't move" or "I don't understand how the cat can sleep all day and not weigh 500 pounds."  Haha, I'm so easily amused.

When a couple of friends visited, they really loved "the cat."  But I wasn't ready to part with him...after all, who would keep the couch warm for me?  So, alas, they went home empty-handed, and cat-less.  But not for long.

Meet Tina.  She's sister to "the cat".  Shortly after she was born and photographed, she was stuffed into a cold cardboard box and shipped off to the other side of the country to her foster parents (previously mentioned cat-less friends).  Yes, maybe it was cruel, but it was for her own good.  Although she barely had a chance to get to know him (he was sleeping when she was born), she misses her brother and desires to really get to know him one day.  We all miss her, and hope to fly out to Seattle sometime, and have a little reunion of sorts.  But until then, the two must go their separate ways.  I can't be sure, but I think "the cat" has become slightly more withdrawn ever since Tina left.  I may have even seen a little tear in the corner of his eye.

Cleo the Mini Moopy Bunny

I've been wanting to make a mini moopy ever since I came across the pattern that Carly  generously shared on her blog.  So I finally had a go at making one this weekend.  Using scraps left over from making the drawstring lunch bag, I present...

 

...Cleo.  She may be lean and green, but she absolutely detests fighting.  Cleo likes to climb tall plants and sit by window sills to catch a bit of sun.  The living room window's a frequent haunt of hers because she so desperately desires a tan.  (Cleo's always been ashamed of her pasty white skin).

But alas, Cleo's skin remains fair as can be; some things just weren't meant to be.  It's okay, little Cleo, no need to fret.  You're still as moopy as a bunny can get!  (Bwahaha, I'm a poet, and I didn't even know it!)

Cleo's ears are a little wonky because I used her to work on my machine sewing skills, which, needless to say, still needs a lot of work, hehe.  For an extra dose of sweetness, check out the other great renditions of Mini Moopy on flickr.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!  Muah!

Maneki Neko: Fortune Cat

Using JustJussi's wonderful pattern,  I made a little maneki neko so that he might beckon some good fortune toward my apartment (and me!).

I used 100% natural wool to knit him up, and hand felted him only enough for him to be nice and fuzzy (and even that took more than an hour!).  I omitted inserting a plastic cap as per Jussi's instructions, only because I didn't have a plastic lid handy...but my cat ended up being able to sit up fine.  Because the felting process shrinks the fabric and I didn't want the embroidered facial features to be distorted, I waited until after felting to embroider his face and the darker parts of his ears and feet. 

So this is what he looked like before I stuffed and felted him, from the front:

And from the back:

The pattern doesn't call for a tail to be knitted, but I made one.  It's just an i-cord, around 3 to 3.5 inches long.  Easy peasy. 

I searched all over Chinatown to buy the coins for his neck, and finally found some over the weekend.  The vendor charged a ridiculous amount for them; the two of them cost a dollar!  They're worth like, five cents.  Even less.  If I went to China, I could probably get a hundred for a dollar.  Oh well.  I purchased them anyway, but I was bitter about it.  Hey, a dollar can buy a pound of ripe, juicy nectarines right now. 

I had wanted to purchase a nice ribbon to tie around his neck, but when I saw this red and gold rickrack on sale for a dollar a yard, I was sold.  So here he is sitting in his permanent home on the bookshelf:

And here's the money shot:

Haha, I just love his little tushie.

Modern Painting

I decided that the bare wall in the bedroom had to go; it's had its heyday for a year, but it's about time for it to retire and me to start decorating.  I've seen lots of modern paintings on sale in stores and online, and always thought it'd be fun to try my hand at creating one, instead of buying one for several hundred dollars.  So I purchased four decent-sized canvases, some black gesso, and some white acrylic paint.  Then I spent some quality time with a ketchup bottle.  (Alas, no french fries were involved).

Each canvas is covered with two layers of black gesso.  I diluted the white acrylic paint with a bit of water (you could use acrylic medium if your studio's well-stocked), and transferred the paint into a clean flip-top ketchup bottle.  I arranged the canvases into a rectangle (the edges of the canvases touched), and then turned the ketchup bottle upside down so that the white paint dribbled through the hole.  Then I walked around the canvas.  And then I ran.  Sometimes I skipped.  (I couldn't resist, okay?)  I actually started to run out of paint pretty quickly, so I diluted it more and more.  This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it helped give the painting some texture.  And then, when the bottle was emptied of all it's contents, I squeezed it a couple more times.  This created small spatters all over the canvas.  All that's left to do now is let the painting dry, and hang it on a wall.

So without the prerequisite of having any artistic skills whatsoever, I made a fun painting that looks pretty good on an empty wall.  And honestly, trying to hang the canvases so that they are straight and evenlly spaced is the hardest part of the project. I think this would be a great project for kids, and just about anyone who can run around in circles and not get sick.  Or if you're really lazy, you could just stand there and create circles with your arms, but where's the fun in that?

The bedroom's still pretty lifeless, but at least the painting gives it a boost in the right direction.

Mr. Dangly the Monkey

I knit a Mr. Dangly a little while ago, but he was too shy to have his picture taken until today.  I caught him while he was monkeying around on one of the few plants I was able to keep alive for more than a month.  (*big* accomplishment for me).

 

I used the remnants of a cheap brown worsted acrylic yarn for his body, and Lion Brand Jiffy in camel for the contrasting color.  With the exception of converting the pattern so that it could be knit in the round to avoid a lot of seaming later on, I followed the pattern exactly as written.  He turned out to be a perfectly rambunctious little monkey. 

But Mr. Dangly's not as young as he used to be.  Hanging around on plants all day for every single day of his life has made his arms sore and his back hurt.  So when nobody's watching, he'll go and rest his back against a wall, and meditate the finer points of being a monkey.  He's actually quite the intellectual.

Illustration Friday: Clean

Here's my contribution to this week's topic.

   

Hehe, and he's not usually a black cat!  I was walking near Times Square the other day, and saw an advertisement for a Mary Poppins musical.  Something inside me clicked, and I knew that I had to illustrate a chimney-sweep.  So it shows "clean" in two ways: the chimney is now spotless (on the inside, at least, heh), and all of the other cats hanging out on the roof are clean (well, cleaner than the sooty cat!). 

I haven't worked with watercolors in a while, and I really enjoyed painting with them.  Quite some time ago, I read a beautiful quote upon passing that read something like "watercolors go where they want; you can coax them and plead with them, but the colors make their own path."  I wish I had written it down, because I probably really butchered the quote, and am unable to cite a reference because my desperate (and pathetic) research attempts didn't yield any results.  But I just had to share the quote because I think it really captures the essence of creating a watercolor painting.  I love how the color runs around, exploring the paper on its own whim.  Hmm, well, I guess painting with a drier brush would give me more control over the paints, but using a really wet brush is so...freeing.

Oh yes, and here's my concept sketch of the illustration.  I actually like this sketch a lot, it's nice and clean. 

I don't know why I've taken to sketching things out with ball-point pens...maybe because I always have one in my purse.  I've been drawing on random bits of napkin, the back of bills (oops), envelopes, etc etc during my subway rides to work.  Haha, perhaps it's time for me to purchase a sketch book, huh?