More Activity to Come!

I've been taking it ridiculously easy this past year.

My wrist was really giving me trouble and I wanted to be absolutely sure it had time to heal before I started moving forward with projects again. While all that happened, I've graduated with my Masters degree and started my first real full-time job, so there's been a lot of changes on this end. Further complicating things, the majority of my yarn stores are on the opposite coast from me, so it's no so simple a task these days to pop into my room and grab the skein, stuffing, or embellishment I want.

However, I think it may just have been a repetitive stress injury instead of full-blown carpal tunnel, so I've been trying to pick back up to a reasonable project pace. One of my goals for 2016 is to complete at least one project a month--and I'm on track so far! I feel guilty for having neglected this log of mine, so I'm adding onto that goal that I'll have to update within a week of completing the project AND clear out this backlog of completed projects I've got. From 2 years ago. I'm awful.

But that'll change.

2016-02: Unkillable Cacti Project

Since my roommates and I moved into our apartment in September 2014, we've tried to keep plants.

We inherited Frank the aloe vera from previous roommates. He lived in the kitchen window for maybe four or five months. I noticed one night the plastic bag we had him on was moving and promptly discovered our kitchen windows had no seals. Of course, by then it was too late.

I bought Hilda the bromeliad to try and replace him. She did pretty well, even after being mailed from Home Depot. She had a gorgeous red bloom and everything. And then one day she just fell over. Root rot.

We planted some columbines. They never sprouted.

Going into the 2015 holiday season, we stopped in Home Depot on a whim to escape the cold while walking around the shopping center and came out with Doug the Irish redhead cactus and Opal the little lady orchid. The radiators in our apartment are too high, and when we're not home to open the windows, it's often 90 degrees inside. Opal bud-blasted while we were gone over Thanksgiving, then dropped three of her six leaves. I took her to work for a stable environment. When I got back from my brief trip home for the holidays, one of Doug's three heads was covered in white and starting to deflate. I dug it and its rotted root out, treated what was left with cinnamon, and carefully observed and dosed the two remaining heads with soapy water spritz from a spray bottle to fight the mealy bug. The rest was gone within two weeks.

Long intro aside, I decided it was time to give my roommates plants our apartment couldn't kill. I was stumbling around the Internet and came across a bunch of crochet catci patterns and knew I'd be making those immediately. I cranked them out in less than a week to have them as Valentine's Day gifts, stretching my available yarn and stuffing to their limits.

Most of our guests don't even realize they're fake until the cacti come up in conversation. One of our neighbors recommended we put googly eyes on them. I'd do it in the future.

I followed the patterns, but I adjusted for smaller yarn weight and hook size, and often went by what the product looked like than what was prescribed. I find these are very freeform and very easy to make granted you have a little bit of yarn, a little bit of stuffing, crochet hooks, and a yarn needle. I did have to run to the craft store for the tiny clay pots, but they're cheap. I opted to super glue them on because that was what I had, but hot glue probably would work better, especially for ones that aren't spherical--I had to stuff the pot for the three-prong cactus because it didn't sit on the rim of the pot like the others did, and that pressure kept overcoming the bond between yarn and pot.

2016-01: Sharks Bowties

When I went to Strand in New York city, I picked up a book full of crochet patterns. Over the summer of 2014, I asked my mother to pick a pattern she liked and for her friend to pick a pattern she liked so that I could make the both scarves. I started on my mother's then, got about six inches into it, and just didn't pick it up again. It wasn't a hard pattern, but it was a time-consuming one, and it wasn't great for my wrist.

I didn't touch them again until August of 2015, when I brought the yarn back with me. My mother's is still sitting on my dresser, but when I couldn't figure out a holiday gift for my mother's friend that year, I decided it was finally time to crank out her scarf. I started it around Thanksgiving and had two false starts before I really got going, but again, it got pushed aside and pushed aside.

I finally picked it back up on my 6 hour flight home for the holidays and got about half of it done. I did not finish it in time to give it to her (and was really lame about giving her the false start as a teaser). I finished all but the final touches, of course, on the plane back across the country. It took me another two weeks to finally put the finishing touches on it, which my mother later helped me decided were misguided. She took it back home with her to give to her friend after a visit in February, promising to cut off my misguided decorations before doing so.

Anyway, this scarf was done with sparkly teal yarn and a bowtie pattern. It's simple single crochet the whole way through, but most doesn't build off the previous row, instead leaving chains that get gathered to form a window with a bowtie in it. I added thick black, teal, and orange tassels to seal the deal.

The original iteration used black yarn on the bowtie gathering portion, but that just looked like margarita glasses. My solution was to tie black thread around the "knot" of the bowties, but that just looked awful, and my mother promised to remove them with a seam ripper before gifting the scarf (I tied one on each side of the bottom five bowties, double-knotted, so there was no way I was getting them off any other way).

Bottom line, I got my first monthly project of 2016 done.

Pictures to come!

Liliana

When one of my best girl friends asked how I felt about becoming an auntie in the somewhat near future in the summer of 2014, I didn't expect to become one as quickly as I did. Her and her soon-to-be husband are expecting the little one in November; I was among the group who received phone calls before the general Facebook announcement went out in March when she confirmed they were expecting.

And I dragged my feet all the way up to the baby shower I couldn't attend (being on the wrong coast) and managed to fail to complete a baby set for them in time. It was only a week late, though, and I personally think it was worth the wait.

I went back to my favorite baby pattern collection, Doreen's Baby Gems, and repurposed the same one I used for Nerenya a few years back so that the little one could have her very first Sailor Moon cosplay. (The wedding will be a cosplay wedding, where the bride will be Neo Queen Serenity and the groom will be Captain America--Liliana, of course, will be the Small Lady.)

After much debating, I settled on bright but still subdued pink and blue with pastel yellow and a white with an iridescent shot through it.

I followed the jacket pattern, just switched between the blue and the white to give it the sailor uniform look and left the sleeves off. I did the bow as I do most of my hair accessories and cozies--chained enough to make a loop the right size, then alternated SC and DC around until it was the right height before gathering in the middle and winding a very long tail around to make the "knot".

I also followed the bootie pattern, switching for the white stripe, of course.

I ditched the bonnet pattern in favor of a simple baby beanie, however, in increments-of-6 rounds and adding stuffed spheres and twisty chains for the trademark meatball head look. For the spheres, I started with a pink magic circle, switched to the yellow and picked up the back loops on the first round only to give the appearance the hair shields were actually set over the hair.

I used PlanetJune's Love Hearts for the transformation locket on the heart and AmiNation's tiny crescent moon pattern for the moons on the boots and stitched them on with the yarn needle. It was pretty difficult supergluing the ends so that they wouldn't be scratchy, but the trick was to press the end onto the glue rather than let the glue soak into the end like I usually do.

Finally, I stitched the bow onto one side of the jacket and made a white chain loop just big enough to fit around it and attached that to the opposite side of the jacket to basically made a large, toggle-style button.

Chibi cosplay perfection achieved.

Digby

When my roommates and I first moved in together, we went down to a local tavern for dinner after the big moving day. It happened to be trivia night and the first thing that popped into my mind when asked what our team name would be was "stegosaurus". Except the roommate doing the writing wrote down "stegosores". It stuck. Our apartment mascot is the stegosaur. Our wi-fi's named after it, all our party invites on Facebook have to feature a themed stegosaur, my roommate who collects action figures bought a plastic stegosaur that lives on our TV table.

But during the summer, I started crocheting our real stegosore mascot.

I used Lily Sugar'n Cream in Cottage and the vague memories of the elephants I made a few years back.

I started with 4sc in a magic circle and continued around about 8 times before starting to increase. I'd add 3 in approximately the same place to make a hump on one side until it was the right size (about 30sc around), sc'd around about 3 times, then started to decrease (again on the same side to bring the hump back down. I stuffed it when it was closed enough to hold the stuffing in. When it got down to about 8, I sc'd around about 3 times, added 6mm safety eyes, sc'd around 2 more times, then decreased so it closed off.

I used the same pattern for the legs as the elephants--4sc in a magic ring, increased to 8, sc'd around about 5 times. I stuffed them and sewed them on with a yarn needle.

For the tail spikes, I made 2 chains of 10 and just pulled them through the end tail. I put a dot of superglue on each side to hold them in place.

For the back plates, I made a chain of about 35, but worked in a corner every 3-4 chs to make it roughly zigzag. I stitched it on at the valley points with a yarn needle.

He lived on the living room table about a week before the action figure collecting roommate brought out his Star Lord figure to ride on Digby's back. They've lived mostly peacefully on the table since, minus the times Digby gets rowdy and throws Star Lord onto the floor--often at seemingly random intervals.

Noah

It didn't even cross my mind when I met a coworker's pregnant wife over the holidays that I'd need to get on another baby sweater, so when he started talking about "any day now," I ran out to Michael's for Bernat Softee Baby in Little Trees and got down to business.

I tried another of my choice baby patterns, this time in 101. It was a bit stop and go for a while, moving forward and ripping back out and so on. The pattern wasn't as clear as the others have been, but eventually I figured it out and made my way through it, slowly given I could only manage one or two rows a day with my wrist.

I opted on a white and blue ch strand for the "belt" to keep the sweater closed, but something that contrasted a little more would have been better. A darker brown, maybe.

Unfortunately, I didn't complete it in time to deliver it before he went on paternity leave, but most of the office had already seen it by time he came back and it was quite the hit. I was very impressed with how smooth and uniform the pattern was--I often get somewhat transfixed by things like that, so I was very happy with how it turned out.

Doodlebobs

There were quite a number of folks on my gift list this year, and with them being all over the place, I needed something small I could easily mail or pack to take home with me over the holidays. I settled on wine charms, because they fit all the requirements and offered the challenge of being something I hadn't attempted so far.

I picked up a package of Lion Brand Yarn Bonbons in Beach, a string of Bead Landing Bits and Baubles large hole glass beads, and a package of hoop earrings about 2 inches in diameter.

To get started, I roughly followed the pattern I found here, but once I had the foundation chain on the hoop, I branched away. I used two colors for each of mine, doing the foundation chain and another row in one and then the last row in the contrasting color. I didn't add beads to all of them, as I didn't have enough, but I sc'd through the beads on the last row on the ones I did add them to.

It was pretty easy once I got the hang of it, though being able to move the hook/yarn through the opening of the hoop was pretty essential to prevent yarn twisting. I tied groupings of 4-5 together with festive ribbon and sent them off. For the ones I gave at home, I tied them into the ribbons of other presents or just hung them from the tree.