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.

Adobe Premiere Pillow

The summer camp I grew up with means quite a lot to me--I consider it one of the best and most stable circles in my life, even though I typically only see and interact with the people in it from May to August. Having worked there 12 years, I've grown up around those folks and seen those folks grow up around me.

When our tech guy started, he was probably 11 or 12, and for the first three or four years, he didn't speak to anyone but his siblings (there are five of them total and all went through the program). I wanted nothing more than to be the one he'd open up to, but even when he nearly broke his ankle in capture the flag one summer, he never made a sound. During a staff meeting soon after that, our boss gave him the ruse of a heads-up-seven-up game to break his silence to all of the staff at once.

We grew closer after that--a lot of the staff didn't put forth the effort to get to know him even after his first words, and I quickly realized that he wasn't shown the appreciation he so readily deserved. He made sure all our computers, video cameras, and still cameras worked and were in top condition. He made sure the yearly video was compiled, edited, rendered, and playable across platforms. He made sure the theater where we watched or listened to anything was functional. But he's quiet and shy and standoffish, so no one realized how much he did.

I try to make sure he knows he's appreciated. He's a huge fan of Adobe products and I had a friend start working in the office a few blocks away the summer of 2013. That friend was able to get me into the company branded store and I picked up a Photoshop mnemonic pillow for him because they were sold out of Premiere. This year, I decided I'd make the Premiere pillow.

It took a lot longer than I anticipated.

I picked up a ball of Red Heart Soft in Black and one of Lily Sugar'n Cream in Soft Violet to get started. I worked in square rounds starting with four in a magic circle and increased on the corners until the square was roughly a foot across. I edged it in about an inch of the violet, made a corner using the back stitch, and did another inch to give the pillow some width. I made another black square the same way, edged it in about an inch of violet.

I used the violet to make an upper case P and a lower case R. The P used a bar of sc about four inches by a half inch and a sc arch about five inches long by half an inch wide. The R started with a bar of sc about three inches by a half inch, then I attached a partial arch about two inches by a half inch. I stitched them on the first square with a yarn needle.

Then I started joining the two pieces together along the violet edges, stuffing when only half of one side was still open. I didn't stuff it quite as much as I should have--the corners puckered--but it turned out very well and was received happily. I finished it in the van ride as all of us as a staff were delivering thank yous to various service sites on our very last day.

Fanime 2014

Second year as a seller definitely went a lot smoother.

We were indoors instead of in the convention center tent, for starters. A friend (PinkLemonadeGoddess) and I shared a table rather than each get our own (since there were many less spots than last year). I didn't have to produce as much product since I still had a bunch of cozy bases from last year--it was mostly cthulhus, roses, hair clips, soot balls, and customizing cozy bases to ramp up popular stock.

I did break my most-used hook, my F5/3.75mm, which is what I use for cthulhus and the majority of the rest of my popular products. It was a stupid plastic Susan Bates one--the only F I could find when I needed one--so I wasn't terribly surprised, but I did feel like my hardcore-crochet level went up a bit as a result. I have since replaced it, also with stupid Susan Bates, but at least this one's a proper metal hook.

I found a broken wire wrack at a second hand store (missing one folding leg) that worked perfectly as an inclined plane for displaying cozies when I put felt on it so they wouldn't slip. I still had my wire cubes, which I made an arch with to have a shelf above the table (cthulhus lived up there on a tin tray). Underneath I had a three tiered wire wrack with hair clips and such, a mug with long-stem roses, and a bucket of soot balls.

The soot balls were tricky. I'd intended to make soot ball cozies with a feathery yarn I'd picked up, but it was just too difficult to work with, so I ended up buying a couple packages of small Styrofoam spheres and googly eyes. I wrapped the yarn around the balls, gluing as it needed it, then gluing the eyes on. They sold pretty well.

Cthulhus and Roses

Unfortunately, I made about a quarter to a third less than last year because I was directly next to the realistic Pokemon guy. People were constantly crowding in front of and around his table, meaning there were always people standing in front of my table, but none were looking at it.

In the end, I was left with about half a bucket of soot balls, a handful of completed rose heads that hadn't yet been made into long-stems, some hair clips, and a bunch of cozies. The two cthulhu that didn't sell were my favorite of the batch, so I didn't mind keeping them.

I did get the standard increase of activity on Etsy following the convention and managed to get rid of a little more thanks to that, but it's been pretty dead as of late so I've gone back onto Vacation.

At some point I'll move the rest of my stock, but for that to happen, I'll need to be in the same state as my product and materials.

Katie's DirtyCapricorn Portfolio

I've been crocheting for about five years now. My mother tried to teach me while I was in Girl Scouts in elementary school, but she didn't know how to do it, so every square we tried to make turned out a triangle and we gave up. I taught myself during my time as an undergraduate at Pacific University Oregon, with the help of the Internet and Crochet Today! magazine.

Crochet makes a lot more sense to me than does knitting, simply because it's not linear and it's incredibly forgiving. Add stitches where you want, when you want. Don't like it? Pull it back out. Dropped a stitch or your hook came out of the active stitch? No worries, just pick it back up again.

The very first thing I made was a dice bag for myself, which I haven't even done a post for on my blog and still use today. It was a simple rectangle (not a triangle) out of thin, silky white synthetic yarn. I made smaller rectangles to form the sides, eyeballed it, and combination single crochet and whip-stitched them together before making a couple lengths of chain stitch for the drawstrings.

While with knitting, I made lots and lots of boring scarves to give people. With crochet, I am able to give them something they not only like, but use (or at least keep around). Highlights include the following:

One holiday season, I made tiny stuffed cthulhu for all my close friends. They continue to be one of my most-request items and are simple to convert into other plushies, such as Despicable Me minions or the titular character from The Lorax.

Coffee cozies are unbelievably easy to make and even moreso to customize with colors and felt to evoke character. Best sellers include designs from Star Trek, Harry Potter, Sailor Moon, Pokemon and Avatar: The Last Airbender. These are my top sellers on Etsy.com (shop currently closed).

I made a rose for a White Day gift (part of Japan's Valentine's celebration) and made the happy mistake of letting friends see it. Soon I was making rose after rose and flowerpot after flowerpot for Mother's Day, and the long-stem version was my top seller at Fanime's Artist Alley in 2013.

Accessories from hair clips to keychains have also been something of a success for me, especially batches of two-tone heart hair clips.











Other projects have varied from scarves to baby sweaters and boleros to shawls, dice bags to cell phone cases to teapot cozies. I have even stitched an amigurumi DiscWorld and a Bender (from Futurama) beanie.

Bamboo Hooded Scarf

I started working on this a few days after Fanime because I'd found this wonderful Bernat Bamboo yarn that
was so soft and luxurious. I've always wanted to make a hooded scarf for myself but never found materials that I would really appreciate.

After much research and ogling different projects floating around the Internet, I started. And pulled it out after a few rows. And started again, only to pull it out after even more rows. And started again to pull it out again. Finally I figured out to start with a chain tall enough to reach from the back of my neck to the top of my head, sc back down it and then put three in the last to round the corner and sc back up the other side. This formed the backside of the hood.

I sc'd five rows and dc'd one until the hood was large enough, then switched to the scarf. I opted for one just long enough to tuck or tie, with the idea that I would attach a snap or button to keep it closed, offering warm protection for the mouth.

The tassel is probably my favorite part, made from nine chain strands, braided to make three and then braided again for a thicker rope. I also plan to stuff the very tip so it sits correctly on the head.

Somewhere in making the hood was when my palm started tingling and I flat-out stopped crocheting for several months. This was the only project I took cross country with me to Boston (woo, grad school), and didn't touch again until September or so, when I tried slowly strengthening with no more than six rows per week.

Then I started working typing 40 hours a week. I didn't touch it again until January 2014.

I ran out of yarn part way into the scarf and had to postpone even further. While home for winter break, I picked up the last skein I needed and finally managed to power through on Valentine's Day. It's been a long time coming, of course long enough that the cold has passed and I have to wait until next year to try it out.

Eeveelution Cozy Set

My biggest order on Etsy was for a full set of the Eeveelution coffee cozies. It was exciting!

I had a few leftover from Fanime: Leafeon, Glaceon, Sylveon, so those were easy to put together for the package. Some I had the cozies completely done and only had to glue on the felt for the faces: Umbreon, Espeon, Flareon. And some only had the base of the cozy done, so I had to crochet on the border color and either cut out and or just glue on the faces.

They turned out really well and I was really glad that someone liked them well enough (via an incomplete picture set online, no less) to trust me for a full set.

I'm lucky to have so much inventory left over to allow my wrist ample time to sort itself out.

Tiny Totoro

A coworker jokingly asked if I would make him a Totoro when he discovered that I crocheted well enough
to work shows and sell what I stitched. I surprised him by slowly working my way through this tiny Totoro by the end of the summer.

It was simple enough. Starting with leftover grey yarn from the Bender Hat and my trusty cthulhu hook, I made a magic circle of six, increased to twelve, and maintained that for eight or so rounds. I cut felt to appear as the whites of the eyes, punched a hole in it, put a safety eye through it and then clipped it into the body. The ears were chain and single crochet except for a half double at the turn around to flare it out. They were stitched on using my yarn needle and the tail. I cut short pieces of grey and pulled apart the strands, pulling them through the cheeks and tying for the whiskers. Then I stuffed it and decreased to the end like with the cthulhu (using the back stitches) so he would sit without falling over. Finally, I hot glued on the white felt stomach and puff-painted on the accents.

My kids were taken with him, the coworker was surprised but appreciative and I was proud, as it's the first thing I've managed after babying my wrist.

Carpal Tunnel

Temporary placeholder while I put together my portfolio.

Lace Choker

My Vampire: The Masquerade LARP character found herself with something of paramour who gifted each of her personalities their own choker. Because our game doesn't often get actual visuals for things like appearance, weapons or costuming, I opted to go ahead and try to make one of the pieces as described by the other player.

Using the same hook as for the Nerenya sweater and some baby weight synthetic white yarn, I whipped up this 1.5 to 2-inch height rectangle. With a slightly larger hook, I made a chain with lavender yarn to serve as a tie closure threaded through the cut out design along the bottom. By cutting strips of leftover black felt from Fanime and stitching them together for length, I made the middle accent. Finally, I pulled a necklace with a lavender chain and mirror pendant from the collection I inherited from my grandmother and wove that through the cut out design along the top.

It's simple and effective and evokes the feel of the piece perfectly.

This is my first and possibly last full project after Fanime for a while, as I've come to realize that the pain in my wrist is more than fatigue brought on by crocheting for a month straight.

Pictures to come.

Fanime Stock 5

Cozies.  Oh glob, so many cozies!  I really hope they hit it off as bracelets/armbands as well.  Not everyone drinks hot beverages from coffee/tea shops.

I've drawn out all my roughs so I know what each character cozy is going to look like.  I've got something like 80 designs and have estimated I'm going to have about 370 cozies by time I'm done generating stock.  I've started by making the base color cozies, ch 36-38 and sc 9 times around (sl st + ch 1 at the seam to make it even), and will add the edge contrast after the bases are made.  That way I'm not constantly switching yarn and figuring out what color needs to go where.

I've done pink, grey, some green and a lot of orange so far and will be taking my tub with me while roadtripping these upcoming weeks.  I will have a right mess of cozies in the coming days.  I probably need to buy another skein of orange, yellow, white and a few others.  White's an incredibly popular color based on the designs I've done.

After the contrast color is added, then I get to have fun with felt to make the characters come to life.  Totally looking forward to that part.  Super glue, thread and patterns everywhere!

Fanime Stock 4

Hearts and bows, oh my!

The hearts were very easy and paired together as laid out in the picture, will make very lovely hairclips.  I need to steam and press them before attaching them to the clips so that they lay flat, but that'll take all of a half hour.  Mostly waiting for my huge, unabridged dictionary to flatten them.

The bows are super cute.  The one pictured was a test, ch 50, sc back and forth to the desired height (occasionally using only the backloop to give a good scrunch point), then add the contrast along the top and bottom edges before sewing the ends together and wrapping with the contrasting yarn to make the "knot" and hide the seam.  Those will go either on barrettes for hair wear or pins for bowties.

Fanime Stock 3

Roses.  Roses as far as the eye can see.

I might have gone a little overboard on roses.

For all the bobby pins, snap clips, barrettes and pin backs, my plan was to have a selection of roses, bows and hearts.  Except I didn't stop to figure out how many and what color of each before starting, just figuring I'd use a bunch of older yarns to get rid of them.  And I ended up with a lot of roses.  I'll probably have to clump them to use them all.  They'll probably look better that way anyhow.

The larger ones I'll make calyxes for and attach to hot dog sticks for long-stemmed roses.  I'm sure those'll be popular, but I probably need to make more red and white ones.

There's a handful of bows at this point, just an easy ch 25, turn and sc back across for 24 st until 3-5 rows high, folding in both ends and stitching together before pinching and wrapping yarn around to make the 'knot.'  I'd like to make more and slightly larger ones for the pin backs to make bowties.

I've just started on hearts, which are thinner and more curly than I expected.  I think I'm going to have to double them up and maybe even poke a little stuffing in them to make them do what I want them to.  They'll work out in the end, though, and look lovely on snap clips.

Fanime Stock 2

I told myself I'd wait to try nalbinding until after Fanime so I'd have plenty of time to make all the stock I'll need.  Which of course meant I started obsessing over it.  Bought a couple needles (one of which was a custom order, the other coming all the way from Estonia) and some wool.

So, I told myself I could make a coffee cozy bracelet after I'd made 10 cthulhu.  Which I was good, I waited until I'd finished.  Except I had two different needles and two different colors of yarn.  And I had to try all of them.  So I ended up with four cozies, which wasn't too bad, and discovered how to move the yarn relatively quickly.

I taught myself with the magic of YouTube (how I seem to learn everything these days), specifically the Oslo Stitch tutorial found here.  It was easy enough, though I'm still trying to figure out how to taper the starting and ending edges so they're not so blaringly obvious.

The grey yarn didn't work as well as I thought it would, just because the white strand has to loop perfectly to not look like a random explosion of yarn with this stitch.  But it's a learning experience!

More adventures into nalbinding to come around June.

Fanime Stock 1

And so the great generation of stock begins.  Still haven't heard anything about either my account or when Artist Alley tables will be available (and staff is doing their very best to hush me), but I'm making stock regardless.  If I don't get a table, these goodies will be available on Etsy.

First batch of stock is 10 cthulhu plush of various shades.  For this batch, I tried to stick to typical colors for the great old one, but obviously that didn't go exactly as planned.  I think the green/orange/cream one is actually my favorite here, and not just because it's orange.  It's just a nice blend.  The brown one comes in a close second, because something went wrong in the increases and it both sits at a jaunty angle and cocks its head at you at a jaunty angle.