Amigurumi Mr Drippy

This odd looking creature – Mr Drippy – is a character in the video game Ni No Kuni Wrath of the White Witch, one of my son’s favourite games.  The character has a Welsh accent that my son tries to imitate, he’s so cute and funny!  My son that is, though I’m sure many think Mr Drippy is cute too 🙂

The pattern is from Kitten’s Craft Blog, Linky.

I enjoy making knitted and crocheted toys, but I’m always nervous about embroidering the facial features.  One good trick I’ve learned over time is to view the toy in a mirror when placing the eyes, or anything else really that you want to be symmetrical.  It’s weird but it works!  Even with this though, I’m never completely happy with the finished result…  How about you, is there anything in the final touches stage of your crafts that you dislike?

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Amigurumi Butterfly

It took me less time to make this than it did to be able to pronounce the word ‘amigurumi’!

This is one of many lovely patterns from the book (Cozy) Amigurumi by Lan-Anh Bui & Josephine Wan.  If you plan to buy this book, try to get a recent (say 2012) reprint since the original, printed in 2010, has many errors.  The publishers were good enough to send me a link for all the errata, but the book just isn’t the same with yellow post-it notes all over the pages

Keep Knitting & Stitching – it’s The Doctor’s Orders!

When I found out that Colin Baker – aka The Sixth Doctor – was appearing at Spaceport yesterday, my mind was racing.  After getting the monsters to knit recently, I wondered if I dared to ask The Doctor…….

I have no restraint; I couldn’t resist!  Luckily, Mr. Baker was a good sport and such a pleasure to meet.  He told me to keep knitting & stitching, so that’s just what I’m going to do!  Thank you Mr. Baker, you really made my day! 🙂

(Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!)

Full credit and utmost respect to the team from Hyde Fundraisers who were in attendance.  Despite the sweltering heat they still donned their costumes and took time to engage with all of the children (and the adults!) and provided lots of photo opportunities.  They are amazing!

Crochet Collage & A Little Makeover

I’ve been unhappy with the name of this blog for a while now, so I finally took the plunge and changed it.  (It was formerly called scouseaspie.)  Just to confuse you further, I changed the theme as well 😛  Maybe one of these days I’ll actually get as far as adding a gravatar too and maybe a more detailed ‘about me’ page.  It’s only been on my to-do list for about eight months!

My crochet course finished this week – it was a lot of fun and well worth doing, we learned so much more beyond the basic stitches.  The tutor is a lovely and very talented lady and I really wanted to thank her by crocheting something for her classroom, though seeing as I’m still a beginner and not that good not as quick as I’d like to be, it had to be something small.  So I thought maybe a collage of some of the techniques I’ve learned…

Some of the pieces are ‘free-formed’, some are from patterns.

I discovered that novelty buttons are excellent at hiding dodgy stitches!

(Can you tell that I’ve been trying to experiment with different camera settings?!)

Ooh look, I used a prop too!

Hanging Crochet Flower Decoration

I seem to have a LOT of WIPs at the moment, mostly gifts that are almost done but just need those finishing touches.

That doesn’t mean I’m unfocused – I’m having so much fun working on each a little at a time.  Learning to crochet has opened up a Whole New World of Things To Make.  And I’m loving it 🙂

I do have a Finished Object to share though.  This is the Happy Flower Decoration designed by Lucy at Attic24.  Do check out her blog if you haven’t already, her patterns are so very, very pretty, beautifully illustrated and easy enough to follow even for a beginner like me!

I could quite easily become addicted to making these flowers!

Lazyitis?

Firstly, please accept my apologies if you have had multiple notifications that I am now ‘following’ you. Apparently my youngest son thought it would be very funny to click follow/unfollow on many of the blogs I read. I think I’ve lost quite a few people I was following, but hopefully I’ll find them again soon. Lesson learned – don’t leave the computer unattended when logged in

Anyway, about my recent lack of posts… Well I haven’t had much to post about. My crochet class is going very well and I’m really loving it, but I have little to show for it in the way of projects.  I did make a couple of pieces of amigurumi, but so far have failed to photograph them.  My knitting has been totally neglected, with about five different baby jackets in various states of UnFinishedNess.  There have been lots of Whole Days when I haven’t even fondled a ball of yarn, never mind try to manipulate it in to an actual item with needles or hooks!  I have Finished Objects from the past year that I saved for blogging about for quiet periods like this, but each time I open WordPress and click New Post, my fingers freeze.  I’m surprised I’ve got this far today!

What is up with me?!?  Is it the recent warm weather in the UK?  Is it the bug we (my family) all had a couple of weeks ago?  Is it crafting/writing block?  Or is it just Lazyitis?  I don’t know, I just hope it passes soon!

In the meantime, here is a little project I completed whilst I was supposed to be finishing my son’s sweater.  It was for my Mum’s neighbour, who hadn’t told anyone she was pregnant, and is so super slim that none of us noticed!  So I forgave myself for deviating from the sweater!  It is made with Sirdar Snuggly Snowflake – I love how this yarn produces a very soft and snuggly fleece.

Hope your creations are coming along better than mine 🙂

My first crochet project

Tada!  It’s a likkle bag!  A bit wonky but cute enough to be allowed house room 🙂

The pattern called for some stitches I haven’t learned yet so I improvised a little.  Although it would be quite easy to look up some videos, I really don’t want to learn from videos (yet) as then class would be quite pointless.  Besides, I might learn the stitches wrong plus I don’t want to skip ahead of others in the class, it’s nice that we’re all beginners together.

The edging called for ‘crab stitch’, I replaced it with 3 chains slip stitched into every second dc, and the flower used a few stitches I’m not yet familiar with, so I loomed a flower instead.  The loom is Clover’s Hana-Ami Flower Loom, a great little tool, so easy to use.  I hope one day I’ll be competent enough to combine crochet and loomed flowers together like this:

Doctor Who & Knitting – Things that me make go squee!

This weekend saw the unveiling of the Time Travellers Exhibition at Spaceport, with costume characters appearing to celebrate the launch.  If there’s two places guaranteed to bring out the inner squee in me, it’s yarn shops and Doctor Who exhibitions with live character appearances.  So off we went.

My hubby, being unusually observant, noticed that I had my knitting bag with me.  “Oh, you’re not bringing your knitting are you?” he groaned.  “Right I am,” I replied, “because if there’s a Cyberman or a Sontaran there, I’m gonna get them to knit!”  He just raised his eyebrows at me and shook his head a little.  I guess he was wondering if I was being serious or not, and probably hoping I wouldn’t get an opportunity.

I was squeeing loudly delighted when the first monster I saw was a Cyberman, and my son, finding the thought of a Cyberman knitting as hilarious as I was, promptly asked him to pose with the knitting needles!

Our next victim willing participant was the Sontaran.

The Pig Slave was very enthusiastic, and full of mischief too!

The Silurian Leader didn’t seem too sure what to make of these Ape inventions…

The Time Travellers Exhibition is being run in association with Hyde Fundraisers who provide costumes and props (as well as an immense amount of time, energy and patience) to raise funds for various charities.  They truly are an amazing bunch.

By the way, isn’t this just The Best Super Lambanana Ever!?!

I crocheted a Thing… & some Stuff…

This week we learned UK double crochet or US single crochet. (I’m so glad the difference between UK & US terms has been pointed out early on, now I can be on the alert for it!) I continue to be amazed at how fun and easy it to create 3D shapes with such limited knowledge and experience! After a bit of practice, I thought I’d try to make a little Critter, and this is what happened:

Feeling really pleased with myself for ‘free-forming’ something without a pattern, I proudly presented it to my son. He was quite underwhelmed to say the least. I told him, “It’s a Crochet Critter!” He replied, “It’s an unformed…… Thing……. with googly eyes…” I don’t care, I think it’s cute! Though I might treat it to some bigger eyes.

We also learned how to work colour changes and how to work from a chart. My first attempt didn’t go very well (the largest flower) as I worked the first round of dc into the chain, rather than the centre of the chain like I was supposed to, and ended up with eleven petals instead of the twelve the chart showed.

Here is some of my practice Stuff … Posted further down in the post because I didn’t want this picture appearing in the Reader!

There won’t be any lesson next week as it’s a Bank Holiday. That means a lot of time to practice. No more Things or Stuff though, not yet anyway. A Proper Project is on the hook and almost finished… I think it’s safe to say I’m enjoying learning to crochet! 🙂

Frogs, Frogging & Learning to Crochet!

Well, one frog anyway – this is Alan Dart’s Frog Prince which I finished a few weeks ago. One of the things I like most about Mr. Dart’s toy patterns is that he lists approx yarn weights required rather than 1 x ball of such a yarn, so you can use up your leftovers rather than having to fork out for more yarn. Hence why my Frog Prince is blue rather than green – a real stashbuster project! And my son seems to prefer him blue anyway 🙂

Other knitting projects just don’t seem to be taking off for me lately…  I was in hospital from the 15th ’til the 19th and found knitting Hard Work with a cannula stuck in the back of my hand.  What little I did do had to be frogged, the tension was awful.  I haven’t got back into the swing of it yet – a few projects cast on, then frogged after a few rows… Very unproductive!

On a brighter note, while in hospital feeling useless trying to stay cheerful, I found and was lucky enough to book the last place on a Crochet for Beginners course.  I’ve wanted to learn crochet for a Very Long Time, and just didn’t fancy learning through books and/or youtube videos.   Some things are just better taught face-to-face.  And I couldn’t have hoped for a better teacher – the lovely and extremely talented Ildiko Szabo.  We had our first lesson and here I reluctantly present my very first flower made with a crochet hook.

Ok, I know it’s dire and that in years to come I will cringe about it.  But right now I feel just a teensy bit of affectionate towards it!  The first week was all about the basics – choosing yarn, holding it, making a magic loop, etc.  We also learned the chain and slip stitch, and it was fun practicing getting the tension right while forming random shapes with just those two stitches.  It was a nice, gentle introduction to crochet and I found the pace perfect – not too fast or too slow, and I’m really looking forward to the next lesson 🙂

The best thing about all this though, is that I’ve finally motivated myself to learn something I’ve wanted to do for so long.  The only thing that was holding me back was me.  Perhaps it will motivate me to do all the other things I keep putting off – like learning to knit in the round, and de-cluttering the house…  Maybe…  🙂

Is there anything that you’ve been putting off and feel it’s finally time you did something about it?