The Walrus

Each summer, I have two interns learning how to be leaders and work with kids.  At the end of their month of learning, my co-leader and I give them a thank-you gift based on what we've learned about them or the inside jokes that developed with the kids.

For my second one this year, we had absolutely nothing.  It was the night before the last day and the only idea I had was to get her a stuffed walrus (because she was on her school's swim team and the kids had taken to calling her a walrus), but I couldn't find one anywhere.  Not Toys R Us, not the local drug stores that always have an odd selection of animals, not any of the specialty toy stores.  I even checked the local Petco on the off-chance they'd have a walrus chew toy.  Nothing.

So at about 8p, my mother dug out some brown yarn (I had none, which is why this wasn't my first idea) and I got working.  I worked it much the same as the head of a cthulhu plush, in rounds starting at 6 st.  I increased until 54 or 60 (really whichever one looked better) and instead of doing the curled tentacles, I ch'd 4 or 5 and hdc'd my way back; each new ch was connected to the previous row of hdc.  It didn't look the prettiest, but it worked.

When the body was stuffed and finished, I made a couple small triangles for flippers and a rough trapezoid for the tail.  Then I dug out some thin white and made some quick tusks (ch 10ish, sc back), sewed them under the lip bit and called it done.

She absolutely loved it.  Everyone was very taken by it.  I will admit it was rather adorable.  And it was then I got the request for a manatee.  But that's for another day.

Cell Case

In January, I finally upgraded my phone after four years from a "dumb" slider by Sony to a "smart" BlackBerry.  It was scratched within the first week.  I figured out why the screen was damaged: holding the darn thing to my ear, it hit my earrings.  I never figured out what scratched the back casing or chipped the shiny bits around the screen and keys.

But I did figure out how to prevent a lot of it from continuing to happen.

 I grabbed the leftover teal Red Heart Soft from the bolero, ch'd 20 or so, worked in round until it was tall enough, stitched one end together and had myself a sock for my phone.  The kids at work were super impressed that I did that all while they arrived in the morning.  My co-workers were amazed even though they'd seen me work on the baby jackets.  It was nothing special, just a solution to a problem.

And of course, less than six months after that, I had to revert to my old phone and it didn't matter.

Pictures to come.

Spock Bolero

When I realized, rather late in the semester that I would be walking in the graduation ceremony at my university in May, I scrambled to put together an outfit to wear for the big day.  A dress, of course, with teal tights, shoes and accessories.  But strapless dresses just beg for some sort of mini jacket.  So I started searching for patterns.

And found this maui shrug pattern.

I had a friend pick up Red Heart Soft yarn in teal, two balls, and got to work on a medium shrug.  I pulled it out twice, as the pattern wasn't as clear as it could be, but eventually figured it out and started cranking.  I didn't keep the tension perfect, so one end was wider than the other in the end, making one sleeve larger in the end.  It ended up a little long from sleeve-end to sleeve-end, but it was exactly what I wanted.

Which would have been perfect if they hadn't sold out of the dress before I had the chance to purchase it.  So I ended up wearing something else entirely to graduation.  When the dress was finally back in stock, I nabbed it (the last one to ever be sold from the original distributor).  By that time, the clip and earrings had gone to another lucky lady, so the dream pretty much fell apart.  And then the final nail was my mother telling me the colors didn't go together.

I've never listened to anyone else about color or pattern choices I make, but it still hurt to have gone through all the effort to be told it was wasted on the people to see it.  I still love the mustard/brown/teal combination and keep looking for opportunities to show off the outfit.

Pictures to come.

Mother's Day + Flowerpots

So, after the rose I made for White Day, I had a request for a Mother's Day rose.  It was simple enough and done fast enough that it worked out perfectly for my roommate.  She was out with her mother while I finished and I left it for them to find when they got back.  Both of them were very, very pleased wit the result, as was I.

That was just the beginning.

From there, I made a flowerpot full of roses for my mother, out of chopsticks because I lacked anything else or the means to get anything else while at school.  I worked on it for what seemed like ever, through superhero movie marathons, through packing and moving out, through when I should have been studying for finals.  There was superglue everywhere.  My fingers may have been stuck together a number of times.  I might have left superglue on the dorm chair.  I wrapped toilet paper around the stems to arrange the flowers within the pot because I had nothing else.

But I finished it in time.

And then my grandmother tried to pick it up by the flowers.

But it was gorgeous and appreciated and something that was added to the bookcase knick-knacks beside the stuffed cat made of fabric scraps and pom-poms to commemorate when my mother's flame-point Siamese passed away.

And then everyone else wanted one.  For every occasion.  My grandmother for her birthday.  My aunt for her birthday.  My boss for her 'thanks for picking up the reins' present.  One of my mother's friends for some reason or other.  So many flowerpots.  They're easy, though.  Each rose takes about 20 minutes.  Calyx about 10-15.  Assembly another 5-10 each.  And then putting it all together in the pot, of course.

I graduated to from toilet paper and chopsticks to floral foam and hot dog sticks.  Work much better.  And gel superglue is much better than liquid superglue at keeping off your fingers.  Toothpicks help for application, too.

Great Old One

So the army of cthulhus I made was obviously inadequate, because I felt the need to make yet another.  This was not entirely my idea; a friend was making a scarf out of Lion Brand Fun Fur in white.  She threw the leftover at me and said to make something to make her laugh.  The clear choice was to make a cthulhu out of it, so I did.

Following the same pattern, same hook, same everything, just with Fun Fur for the head (I switched to a thin red yarn for the body and hood I added).  In hindsight, I probably should have just done the tentacles in the Fun Fur, but then I wouldn't have a puff-ball of an Old One hanging about.

He's adorable, gathered a lot of attention and laughs and was frustrating like nothing else to make.  The fur kept getting tangled and in the way and just generally knotted an obnoxious, but it was worth it in the end.  Working on this project actually inspired me to use yellow fur in the future to make a Lorax.  Time will tell, however.  As of yet, I've been unable to find it in yellow.

Zaage Scarf 3

This was a bit of a disaster.  I had rose and blue yarn I'd gotten from the Dollar Tree and didn't know what I was going to do with it, so the obvious answer was to make another scarf for my Vampire: The Masquerade character, Zaage.  Only I used all the yarn.  And there was quite a bit more than I thought there was.

It was a brand called Rhapsody in a dusty blue and a dusty rose.  I did a bunch of different patterns I don't recall at this point that ended up sagging a lot more than expected, which only added to my problem.  By time I was done, the scarf was about 4 inches wide and 25-30 feet long.  The ends were rose, the middle was blue.  It had to be wrapped several times around.  It was really a bad plan.

This thing was so terrible it almost doesn't deserve a post (especially this long after making it).  I did wear it for a good while, though, until I finally got fed up with having to wrap around and around.

And since then, it's sat in the closet with the other multitudes of scarves I've used for the character.  I really need to stop actually making scarves each time something happens in-character to the one I'm wearing.  It's really the only time I wear scarves to begin with...

Pictures eventually.

White Day

For Valentine's Day, I received (quite by surprise) a duct tape rose.  I've never liked giving or receiving flowers (unless they're potted or can otherwise be planted and even then I'm still not excited about the idea) because it's a waste of money and it's rather depressing to watch something so beautiful die.  Plus, is that really the message you want to send to someone you love or care about, or who's in the hospital recovering?

Anyway, I was absolutely tickled that I didn't have to give this flower schpeal of mine and wanted to return the gesture.  So I searched for a pattern for a relatively realistic long-stemmed rose, as I really had no idea how to go about such an endeavor.  While there was a super-detailed, super-delicate one available via Etsy, I went with this one, as it was simpler and free-er.

For the flower, I used an E-4/3.50mm hook and white Sugar 'n Cream yarn.  I didn't have a yarn needle to secure the bottom after rolling it up, but I made do with my C-2/2.75mm hook and stitched a little more to keep the outside edge of the spiral from coming up.

For the calyx, I used the same E-4/3.50mm hook and a green medley Sugar 'n Cream.

Being a college student, and one without a car, I had to make due without a pipe cleaner or other wire.  I substituted a chopstick as the stem.  I had to work it slowly into the flower and through the calyx then remove the blossom and push the calyx down the stick so it was out of the way.  I then poured a little super glue into the hole in the blossom, dribbled a bit around the end of the chopstick and inserted the stick into the flower, checking to make sure it couldn't be seen through the petals.  I dribbled a bit more glue around the chopstick and pushed the calyx up so it met with the blossom.

When that dried, I tied the green yarn onto the bottom of the calyx and wrapped the rest of the chopstick, securing the yarn by dribbling superglue around the bottom of the stick and on the yarn.

It was a real quick project, very adaptable, very easy.  I sprayed the flower with a little floral body mist and sent it off for White Day.  In Japan, Valentine's Day is basically broken into two days.  February 14 is for girls to give the men in their life handmade gifts.  March 14 is for guys to return the favor with gifts that are typically white.  I like that it divides the responsibility and doesn't focus on love or significant others necessarily.