Warm Fuzzies

"Somebody needs a hug!"

As soon as I saw this pink version of TJ's free pattern for a knitted Gir (from Invader Zim), I knew I had to make one.  It took me a while to get started, but I finally got around to it, and here he is:

 

I attempted intarsia knitting for the first time ever while making Gir, and I've gotta say, there's really nothing to it.  I don't know why I harbored such a fear of it before.  Just goes to show you that sometimes, you need to suck it up, dive right in and take the plunge.  And now that I've gotten my feet wet with intarsia knitting, I've opened a door to a whole slew of new knitting projects that my pre-Gir self wouldn't even have thought of trying.

As long as I was making a pink Gir like bespectacled did, I couldn't resist making a cupcake to keep my Gir company.  The pairing was just too perfect to pass up.  But I had my fill of knitting for the time being, and so I decided to put down my needles and pick up a crochet hook to make Gir a little cupcake friend (so he can miss it after he eats it). 

Gir likes his cupcake.  Oh, but wait!  This isn't just an ordinary vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting...

See!  It doubles as a container.  The "cup" part of the cupcake is wrapped around a clean yogurt container.  Bloodredrose thought up the idea and wrote up a pattern for a crochet cupcake gift box (which is ingenious, by the way).  I followed her instructions for the cup portion, but since I did not have a lid for my yogurt container, I improvised to create a crochet top that could stand alone as a lid for the container (flatter top, longer sides).

I intended to make Gir as a gift...but...I just can't part with him now!  Am I the most awful person or what?  The good side of my conscience says, "You're a selfish pig.  How can you keep something that wasn't intended for you?!  You know that this toy would make the recipient very, very happy..."  But the evil side of my conscience says, "But he was your first intarsia project, he sings the doom song, *and* he can dance.  Plus, he can make bacon soap.  And he's pink.  Just look at him, he's so comfy on your bed already..."  And I snapped.  I just had to have him.  Shame on me.

Illustration Friday: Ghost

Wow, it's certainly been a while since I last participated in Illustration Friday.  Good thing I was able to get my lazy butt into gear this week and come up with something for this week's topic:

 

Poor little ghostie!  I often feel like him; I just love plants to death...quite literally.  Oh, how I wish they'd love me back.  *sigh* 

I woke up early this morning to add color and finish the illustration.  I definitely was not all there, though, because instead of spraying my finished drawing with fixative like I had meant to do, I grabbed a can of spray starch and gave the paper a good layer of that stuff (twice!) before realizing that I had the wrong can in my hands.  Funny...I kept thinking to myself that fixative didn't spray all splattery and blotchy like that the last time I checked...

So yes, you can't really see in the scan (thank the lucky stars!), but my illustration now has an interesting, erm, 3-D texture to it.  And actually, it's not entirely a bad thing.  Oh, and since I usually include one, here's the doodly sketch I made when I was trying to brainstorm what to illustrate (note that the boarded up window started out as a portrait...ah, how fickle the mind is!):

Flowers and a Puzzle Ball

I got the loveliest bouquet of flowers at work on Monday, looky here!

Aren't they gorgeous?  They're from a co-worker (who, by the way, has got to be one of the coolest moms, ever) in our Albany office.  She thought I deserved a little extra something because a matter that required my immediate attention came up after I had gotten home on Friday night, and I had to head back out and work a little later.  A thank you would have done the trick...I was completely floored when I saw the delivery guy with the flowers.  And they came in such a lovely cup, and with a matching saucer (I think the graphics are Kinkade reproductions), to boot!  I definitely owe her a nice thank-you gift.

Look familiar?  It's an Amish puzzle ball, or katamari.  I've also seen them called baby "grab" balls.  They're basically three tapered, pointed ovals sewn together and stuffed, and then joined in groups of four.  A great tutorial is available here.  I've always thought that they were absolutely beautiful, so, naturally, I jumped at the oportunity to make my own.

I initially wanted to purchase some sage green or lavender buttons to decorate the ball, but these gold ones really caught my eye.  You can't see them so well in the photograph, but the center consists of a cluster of gold-colored rosebuds.  I think they have just the right amount of sparkle...just looking at them makes me happy.

   

I carried the cut-out oval pieces, a bit of stuffing, and a needle and thread along with me in a little bag, and have been hand-sewing the pieces together during my subway commute.  It's the perfect little project to carry around for some fly-by crafting.  I've been warned that making them is addicting...and I've got to admit that I'm awfully tempted to make a whole slew of them (picture one of those ball bounce attractions for kids...but full of puzzle balls instead of those solid-colored plastic balls).  Bwahahahahah!

Sammy the Hedgehog (and Shroom!)

When I saw the Shroom in Crochet me, I knew I wanted one for my room.  I mean, it's a crochet mushroom that can double as a container, how cool is that?  Although I was super-tempted to make a nice green mushroom, I'm glad I ended up using up some pink scrap yarn that I had sitting around for a while (so I managed to free up some precious apartment space...hey, every little bit matters!). 

But my finished mushroom was smaller than I thought it would be; the opening on top is less than two inches wide...my dreams of stashing candy in my mushroom quickly disappeared when I realized that I wouldn't be able to fit more than a couple pieces inside.  So I moved onto Plan B: make something fuzzy to stuff into my shroom.  And that's how Sammy the Hedgehog came about.

Sammy fits perfectly into the cap of his shroomy (sh-roomy, get it?  heh) home, although he's known to pop his head out of the door from time-to-time so that he can scare innocent passers-by.  He's a little too mischeivous for his own good at times.

Sammy is crocheted with a size 1 crochet hook and beige sport weight yarn, using the tried and true "wing-it" method.  And look!  He has two little ears, too.  For his spiky hair, I made two loose pompoms by wrapping some dark brown embroidery thread and beige yarn around two of my fingers.  I then sewed the pompoms to the body base and attached some beads for a nose and eyes.  And the result?  My own mini-hedgehog pocket pet, complete with a mushroom travel home.

When Sammy's not jet-setting around the city, he likes to sit on top of his house and enjoy the view (a couple of inches makes a huge difference for a little hedgehog).

Ahhhh, life is good!

**********

You can now make your own Sammy!  After putting in a few hours of work this past week, I managed to write up a pattern for him.  I would love to see your finished Sammies, so please don't be shy, and send your pictures/links right on over.  Have fun making him, and I hope you have even more fun taking him around town for pocket hedgie adventures!

Download Pattern for Sammy the Hedgehog

Crocheted Spider Web Earrings

I was walking around the city the other day when I saw a woman with the loveliest earrings buying a newspaper.  The splash of lacy silver had caught my eye, and I stopped in my tracks and shamelessly shuffled over to her side to take a closer look at them.  They looked like those beautiful spider webs that you sometimes see while hiking through the mountains.  And in the middle was a black spider.  The spider surprised me, you know, the same way that finding a roach in an unexpected hiding place would surprise me...I must have thought it was a real spider for a split second, because I gasped.  She must have heard it and noticed that I had been staring, because she turned to face me, pointed to her earrings, and said, "Martha Stewart."

Huh?!?  Before I could ask her to elaborate, she was already out of my sight, having rejoined the hoard of people out and about during their lunch breaks.  But I made up my mind then and there that I, too, would have earrings like that.  I went home and googled "Martha Stewart spiderweb earrings," and got nothing more than a bunch of eBay auctions back as results.  Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, because the pictures in those auctions didn't exactly match up to the earrings that I thought I saw.  I thought the earrings were more delicate than bold, if that makes any sense at all.  So I decided to try making a pair for myself.



Here are my spider webs, complete with a cotton embroidery-floss spider.  At first, I thought I would wrap some wire a la loose God's Eye style to make a spider web.  But then, while looking for Halloween decoration ideas, I stumbled across this very nice crochet spider web table topper pattern (so cute! Did you see the candy cauldron that goes with it?).  I put two and two together, and decided to crochet wire to make the spider webs.  Instead of the yarn suggested, I used thin (32 gauge) non-tarnish silver wire, and a US size 9 (1.25 mm) crochet hook to make the web.   I loosely followed the table topper pattern for a few rounds to make the web for the earrings.  (As an aside...man is it hard to crochet with wire this thin!  And I thought crocheting thread required concentration...).  And for the spider, I pulled out four strands from a piece of black embroidery floss (usually made of 6 strands), and just double knotted the floss directly onto the web.  I trimmed the ends down, and voila!  8 legged spiders. 

I attached the spider webs to fish hook bases, and I had my very own pair of earrings.  I put them on immediately, and couldn't wipe the smile off my face for the rest of the day (heh, doesn't take much, does it?)

I made a couple more to give to a few friends as what I like to call 'happy' gifts.  For no special reason...just because.  It makes me happy.  And I hope it makes them happy, too.

Knit iPod Hoody

Wow, it's October already.  Summer had a few fleeting gasps of life throughout September, but now fall appears to have its feet firmly planted in the ground, and will not be chased away without a sound fight.  The fresh, crisp autumn air has replaced the sticky, humid warmth of summer.  I would even go so far as to say that it was chilly today.  Time to take those scarves and light sweaters out of the closet and show them some love.  Nothing quite says fall like a hand-knit scarf or garment in a warm autumn color, wouldn't you say? 

And you know, not only humans appreciate knitted garments in the fall.  Let's not forget the iPod...modern man's best friend, or so it seems.

      

Oh yes.  iPods get chilly, too.  And, you know, since humans are already obsessed with dressing our other best friends -- dogs, cats, rabbits (!) -- with cute clothing, we might as well indulge the iPod, right?  And what better gift is there for the pampered iPod of today than a knit hoody?  I rest my case.

I made my iPod hoody using these easy-to-follow instructions.  The hoody is more than just decorative...you can store your earphones (or in my case, earphones and remote) in the hood for easy access later.  Haha, it's functional clothing for the stylish iPod.