Squirrel Making

A few months ago I decided to try my hat at creating my own toy pattern. I wasn't trying to make something revolutionary but just something simple with simple shaping and one color. The little town that I live in celebrates a White Squirrel Festival each year and the owner of the consignment shop in town had been asking me if I knew how to make a white squirrel toy so I took up the challenge and decided I would make a pattern for a white squirrel. Above are Chris' and my sketches to try and determine the general shape. Evil Patrick is not related to squirrel making but rather a creepy manifestation of Chris' psyche.

The sketching helped me a lot with visualizing where I should be adding increases and decreases and was a great reference to look back at as I went so that I could judge whether I was really heading in the right direction. You can see where I scribbled notes as I went to keep track of what I was doing and, when it wasn't working, scratch it all out and start over. I definitely need more practice to get the hang of making up my own toy pattern. While I like how this turned out I feel that I hit a better cat note than I did squirrel. My next step is to modify the pattern to make a pirate squirrel like the one drawn near evil Patrick. I always loved making pirate monkeys and I think that pirate squirrels will be pretty damn cute, too. Really, everything looks better when dressed as a pirate. I think it's the eye patch.

The in progress and finished squirrel are below. I'm super happy with the tail although I think I could have stitched a Swiffer on it's butt and saved myself about 3 hours of tedium. In the finished product I also added a jaunty little scarf because the squirrel just seemed like it needed something to break up all that white. Plus it makes it look sophisticated and jet-setting and, really, don't squirrels sort of look that way in real life? Something about a fluffy tail makes an animal look fancy.

Squirrel in progress

Finished squirrel

White Squirrel

I've been talking with the super nice owners of the local consignment shop in town for a few months about trying to get some stuff in their store but I've been so crunched for time that I've put it off until now. Every year this little town has a White Squirrel Festival and when I ran into the consignment shop owner a few weeks ago he told me his wife has been desperately seeking white squirrels. They forwarded me a link to the pattern that they'd found online at Pixie Kitten. It was so crazy cute that I bought the pattern and made my own little white squirrel. I finally finished it up the other day and dropped it off at the shop this morning where it stands as a one of a kind toy (until I get around to making some more). White squirrels are so hugely popular here that I think these would sell crazy well. So one down, dozens more to go!

Zombie Card

Chris drew this awesome card to send along with my tiny zombie to our friends. He's drawn these sort of cards for several other toys that I've made and I absolutely love his style.

Tiny Braaaainss!!

I'm no stranger to zombie making as you can see above. I made that guy in January of 2009 from the Corporate Zombie pattern in Creepy Cute Crochet. That was probably my favorite pattern that I've made so far from the book.

Well, two friends of mine recently moved all the way to San Francisco. These friends had really liked my original zombie and we had joked that I would teach them how to crochet so that they could make an army of zombies and leave them randomly around New York City to create a full on zombie invasion and maybe make someones day more interesting. So I never got a chance to teach either of them to crochet but I decided to make them a tiny zombie as a way to say that we missed them and maybe I'll send them a few more zombies throughout the year and they can start their zombie apocalypse on the West Coast.


I'm really happy with how the tiny zombie came out. The Oreo gives you a sense of scale. This was a very tiny zombie. I wasn't sure if the pattern would hold up this small but I was pleasantly surprised. I think that the details are still cute and aren't so small that they get lost. I think the next zombie's going to be a girl just to switch things up.

Make Something Every Day in October

So last year Dabbled led the challenge for bloggers to create something new everyday for a month. I had high hopes to rise to that challenge but I totally sucked. But now it's October and I'm full of Halloween spirit and the weather is turning to that crisp, cool temp that just begs for knitting so this challenge came to mind. This time I hope to embrace it a little more fully. Especially since my mother-in-law just taught me to sew and bought me my very first sewing machine! I've already tasked Chris with sketching a monster for me to plushify.

I definitely have a backlog of crafted items that I've got to catch up on so I'll do the roundup here. First, there's a couple of items for my sister-in-law's new baby. A simple earflap hat

and a flowered headband.
I have plans still for a bunny like the one that I made my sister and maybe a few store bought things to round out the box.

Next, I've just finished a very late bachelorette present for a friend that just got married.
She wanted to avoid the overtly sexual presents that usually surround bachelorette parties so I made her a cute little hat and fingerless gloves. I love the robot motif and I hope that she likes it to. I have plans to line the hat tonight so that it looks a little more polished.

So that covers days one and two. For day three I'm thinking I'll knock out the bunny and then try moving into that scary new realm of sewing.

Bunny Done!

The bunny is done. I modified the pattern a little to make the bunny a smaller since I didn't have enough yarn for the full size. I also changed to ears from crochet to knit and knit them in two halves that where then seamed. I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out.

The beginnings of a bunny

You can't really tell from this photo but this is going to be a bunny, if all goes well. This little toy is a heavily modified version of the Caron One Skein Bunny. The original pattern makes a bunny about twice his size and that was just a little more than I wanted to take on, plus I didn't have enough yarn for that. So I scaled down the head and body from the pattern and then made the legs and arms more like the arms of the teddy bear that I just finished.

I'm sort of winging the ears though so that might take some trial and error. They're going to be big, floppy ears with pink on the inside to add a nice bit of color and cuteness. I'm hoping to have this one finished up this week so that I can start on the third toy this weekend. I haven't decided what to make next. I've got a very cute pig pattern from my page a day calendar so I might give that a try.

Bear is Done!

The bear is done! How cute is he? Man, I really wish I got to keep some of these. They're just so hard to part with sometimes. I really love how he came out. I had my doubts for a few moments when I was seaming him all together but he really is adorable. And I just love how he will always look like he's reaching out for a hug. One down, two to go!

Another Adorable Pirate Monkey

I am totally in love with making these pirate monkeys. They are just SO cute. I swear I have to keep one for myself eventually. I made the one above and sent it to our friends' adorable little man Memphis for his first birthday. Chris drew the card which Memphis won't even notice but we know that his parent's will really like. So I just got the photo below from them saying that he loves his new little pirate monkey. I'm super proud. I love knowing how something that I made was received. It kills me that I can never be there to see them open these presents so whenever I get any kind of feedback and, especially, a photo this freaking cute I just fill up with warm fuzzies.

Quick Crochet Scarf

Last night I really wanted to make something and that something needed to be quick and it needed to be cute and it needed to be simple enough that I could make it and finish it while watching and still enjoying a movie with Chris. This scarf was a perfect match for that. It resembles a scarf that I was given a couple of years ago by my sister-in-law that has since unraveled from overuse. I'm super happy with how the scarf came out and it's so nice to finally be making something for myself.

The scarf is made with only the treble stitch. It's about 20 stitches wide and made on a size J hook. I alternated four rows of each color. I don't have the ball bands anywhere so I'm not sure of the exact colorways but both yarns of Lion Brand Vanna's Choice.

Now I have something to keep in mind if I'm scrambling for gifts in the middle of December.

On a side note: yes, I still have christmas lights up in the apartment. I refuse to take them down while it's still anything like 17 degrees outside. I need something to cheer me up in the depth of winter and colorful blinking lights always do the trick.

Christmas Monkeys

I finished crocheting these adorable monkeys for my nephews. They are based on the Daddy Monkey pattern in Amigurumi World. I'm so into pirates right now and I think that these monkey's look absolutely adorable in pirate garb. I especially like how the little gold earrings look. That was Chris' suggestion.





Since I made a little pirate figure for my nephew Aiden earlier this year I wanted to give him something different. That's how I ended up with the Monkey Man superhero! So cute! Chris sketched out the plan for me to help me visualize what colors would be where and how the mask would look. I hope they like them!

Pirate Pal

After about a year of knitting/crochet I've finally made something for my husband. He fell in love with this pirate pal pattern when he first saw it months ago. I've kept it in mind to make for him but it took forever before I actually got started on it. The pattern is from Lion Brand Yarn and he's made of Lion Brand Wool-Ease. It's very quick. I crocheted this for him in just one day. He's adorable and a fun thing to have around the house to hug when you're having a bad day.

First Crochet Sale!

I sold my first ever knit/crochet item!





















It's the little pirate that I first made for my nephew. I was so excited about the sale that I didn't take any photos of the new pirate or the little card that Chris illustrated for it. This is my photo of my nephew's pirate. They were nearly identical so the new photo would look exactly like this one anyway. The buyer left positive feedback and I hope that the friend she gave it to enjoys it.

I have to admit that I feel a little stalkerish tendency from this. I wish that I could badger the crap out of the poor girl and find out what her friend thought and did she like it and what did she say and did she like the card that Chris drew and did she maybe give the little pirate a name, etc...Crazy stalker tendency. I'm just so used to making things as gifts for family where I can totally badger the crap out of them because they're family and that's part of the deal. But even without excruciating details I know that the buyer was happy and I'm happy so yay etsy!

Mother's Day Presents

I had a lot of fun with Mother's Day presents this year. I actually ended up stuck in jury duty for about a week and a half just before Mother's day so I was able to get all of my knitting done during the waiting and waiting and some more waiting that's involved with jury duty.

I went with two patterns.












The first pattern is the winged heart tatoo. I LOVED this pattern! I don't know if I can stress that enough. LOVED! These were so cute when they were done. I made two of these. They knitted up pretty quickly and the seaming was fast and easy. I wasn't sure that I would be able to pull off the cute font for "Mom" on the banner but it wasn't difficult. I embroidered the words on with a darning needle and black embroidery thread.















The second pattern is the basic rose. I crocheted little hand bouquets with four colorful roses in each bouquet. The pattern is super simple and the roses come out looking very pretty.

Brains...Brains!

I finished crocheting some toys for a few friends of mine and I think they came out pretty damn cute. The patterns are from the book Creepy Cute Crochet by Christen Haden. I'm most in love with the zombie. Getting to give him a little tiny haircut was a blast. And that felt blood drip just came out perfectly. I never though that I would find dripping blood so cute but it totally is.

Once the toys were done I asked Chris to draw up some super cute gift tags to go with them. He's so talented. These still haven't made their way to Austin, Norana and Richard yet so shhhh...