There's mushrooms in my army...

My zombie mushroom must have had a coffee bean to be out in the sun....

Building my plant army

This one looks better in person than in the pictures. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. It was basically a sphere with a sleeve around it. Again, I used a skewer for the stalk. This time rather than wrapping an i-cord around, I made a little 3-row sleeve to stick the skewer in. I think it looks better.

At some point I'm going to get something to mount these things in.

Ready, Set, Plant!!

Adoxograph and I were chatting the other day, lamenting our shared abundance of yarn coupled with lack of inspiration. I suggested that we have a cooperative project in order to spur each other into action. The most animated of our conversations of late have been about the game Plants vs. Zombies, so she suggested that we crochet plants and zombies from the game.

What an idea! An army of crocheted plants! I love this. This is my first attempt. It is the Chomper, my son's favorite:

I made the head from a Pac-Man pattern that I found. The teeth are the points from the ghosts. My husband says that it looks like an angry Gobstopper.

As you can see, the craft wire proved problematic as a support system, so I resorted to kebob skewers. Ultimately, I would like to get some small pots with maybe some foam or other counter balance to support the plants. There are leaves around the base and in the back, as on the plants in the game. This little plant was much more detailed than it looked at first glance.

Next up, the peashooter:

No, I haven't been just goofing off...

I had a shower to go to. I made a duck with matching hat. It also got wrapped nicely with a little hand stamped card. Now, I have to go to work.

Excuse me, I was promised there would be hats.

So far, since we moved here, I have made seven hats. Yes, seven. Scary, eh? It's good, because I need hats to wear over my hair at work, as opposed to always working the Aunt Jemima/ gang warfare look that is the bandana.

I've never really gotten the hang of bandanas, I have always felt.

Anyway, the small single skein crochet project that is the hat seems to work for me. I was even going to make seasonal ones if I can muster up appropriate yarn. I couldn't get candy corn colors that weren't acrylic (bastards!) but I still have hopes for an election day hat. Guy Fawkes day hat is a little much, though. I even have budget hats! I made this one with yarn from the dollar store and everyone loves it.

I've also started playing with stitch patterns and the like, with some successes and some weirdness. But honestly, for working, this green, floppy organic cotton one is probably my favorite.

It is really difficult to take a picture of yourself wearing a hat.

Hippo Birdie Two Ewes

I got a glue gun. AND a staple/nail gun. I also made two hats. It is hard to take a picture of yourself wearing a hat.

Cross country crafting

Does it make me completely crazy that I am considering gathering bags of dirt along the way to Oregon so I can make a series of dorodango when I get there?

I'm glad crochet takes up so little space. Planning at least one surly cake for the route.

Total Fluke

I needed to not cook tonight. I decided this after making my dinner, while I had my favorite rhubarb dessert soup on the stove. Yeah, what can I say, I'm really good at making definitive decisions. Phblt.

Anyway, I wanted to do something that didn't involve food, and I am really glad that I did. I realized just how long it had been since I played with my crochet hook when I picked it up and could not remember how to start. Yeah, bad. So then I went in search of a project that was small enough to finish easily this evening and not food. This is what I ended up with:



Meet Blimey, the nearly blind whale! I know, you're saying, "Nearly Blind? That eyeball is a gazillion times bigger than it would be really!" I know, I know. But it took 6 tries before I found a needle small enough to fit through the hole in the back so I could sew the eyes on. Hence, nearly blind. Glad I found one. The eyes make a big difference. That and the tail. I got a little crazy with the tail....

yes i know whale is edible. shut up.

Well, no, we don't NEED a third one...

but could you turn away such a happy face?

Taking responsibility

I spent the better part of this evening with a good friend crafting and chatting. We're thinking of setting up regular "lumpy crafting" evenings, which is something I find wonderful.

During conversation, one of the things that came up was our mutual frustration with people who do not do what they are going to do. Seriously, people, if you say you are going to do something, just do it. It is not so hard. If you are not going to do something, don't say you will do it. It's okay. I'd rather you made no promises than promises you can't keep.

Given that context, I am pleased to announce that I completed the scarf I was working on! Just as I had hoped, though barely inside of the month limitation. I've even sewn in the ends! So it's really, really finished! Score.

I need a second opinion!

Is this length good, or should I give it a few more inches?
My first inclination is to go a little longer, but perhaps that's just because I am masochistic with my crafting.

p.s. dig the pjs, yo.

Apparently those self portraits got so frustrating that I have a new default thing.

ALMOST TWO LEGS LONG!!

You know what is great about making scarves? If you aren't being fancy, you don't even have to count anything. Just go until it's about as wide as you want, turn around go back the other way, over and over until it is done.

Brain seems to greatly appreciate the associated opportunity to think about something else.

Breaking in the new couch

Oh Em Gee is it totally way more comfortable to crochet on the new couch than it was on the futon!

Even the cat endorses it!

I will totally finish this darn scarf before the end of the month.

Continuing on the crochet adventure, the scarf is now officially one leg long. See:


The good news is that now I know what I am going to do with it when it is done.

blurry photographs brought to you by pictures in the dark

I am happy to report that I made more progress on that crocheted scarf thing that I posted a picture of yesterday:



Still not finished, but hey, at least it is floofy and majestic. Actually, I think I am going to need to incorporate a second skein of the obnoxious gold accent yarn that I am using, because I seem to be close to using up the current skein. Good thing I bought so many of them when they were $1 a skein at my local Michael's.

I also drew a heart on my belly in a fit of pique. Don't know whether this counts toward thingaday, except it was sort of art-motivated; I was thinking about how to deal with a tattoo that I have that needs covering, and then thinking about the concept of the beauty mark, and thinking about the philosophy of beauty, and after a while in my head discovered that I had absentmindedly obtained a pen and started doodling on myself:

I suppose I am just lucky that it is in ballpoint and not sharpie.

Channeling my inner fourth grader

All right, so there was no post yesterday (although that does not reflect a dearth of craft; I crocheted for an hour in the airport:

and then made 350 desserts with the adoxograph [no photos of that, sorry]. It just turns out that Kathy's job is hard work, and getting up at 5AM on a Sunday to go to the airport is hard work, and in the absence of the scarf being done and photographic evidence of the desserts, it was kinda hard to get motivated to write something).

However!

Today is a new day, and so I drew/colored a hand turkey. Hand turkeys were a great favorite of mine in my youth, and, I must admit, it was nice, from a nostalgia perspective, to revisit that particular form of self-expression. (Hopefully it will be nice from a punctuation perspective to use fewer commas in the rest of the sentences in this post. Yeesh.)

Here's Tom:

The fat cat looks displeased.

I can't remember whether I was a color inside the lines person as a child now that I am old, but if my current performance is any indication, I may have been a get distracted by other things person. Seriously, can I not even color for twenty minutes without stopping to watch a TED talk?

tasting menu

A trio of cakes - raspberry, carrot and lemon. The carrot cake, our newest cake, is garnished with a decorative carrot just like it has always been. Also, it has one giant eye because carrots are good for your eyes.

Sorry no thing from yesterday, mr carrotface took two days.

mathematical!

Dudes, this sphere attempt was way more successful than the last!

Check it:


Here is what I did:

1. chain 4, create a loopy jobber by chaining the last stitch into the first stitch
2. single crochet into that loop something like 12 times.
3. on the following n rows, where n is a number between 3 and 8 that I can't remember, add an increase on every third or fourth stitch or so by stitching doubly into the preceding row.
4. two rows with neither increases nor decreases
5. n - 2 or so rows with decreases every third stitch
6. lose track and start decreasing willy-nilly
7. stuff with fluff, stitch closed
8. squeeze repeatedly, dance like there's an ass in your pants

I am pleased to report that this week doesn't seem to suck too horrifically so far, so I am hoping against hope that we won't have a repeat of Crappy Week week.

I am cautiously optimistic about my crochet ball. Perhaps...perhaps I will be able to crochet Interesting Things now. Squee!

Even the Earth is an oblate spheroid

All right, so I was aiming for crocheting a sphere. Keeping in mind that I wasn't bothering with any of that pattern nonsense, I thought, "okay, start with a little loopy bit, increase, maybe a couple of rows at the same diameter, decrease. Clearly this should be acceptable."

Not so!

Instead of getting a nice sphere (I went for eyeball colors, because, hey, if you're crocheting a sphere that is going to have no obvious purpose, anyway, it might as well be an eyeball, right?), I got this:



Not even close to a sphere. Really, I don't even think it constitutes an oblate spheroid--if anything, it sort of approximates a cylinder, and even that is rather a stretch. Just to avoid people making the same mistakes I did, here is what I did:

1. Chain 3, then loop what would have been your fourth chain stitch through the first chain stitch to make a little loopy jobber.
2. Working into the center of the loopy jobber, make 8 single crochets (or I think that's what they are, anyway. I'm still a little unclear on the terminology).
3. Start a new row by chaining 3 through the first single crochet, then single crochet two stitches into each of your 8 stitches in the previous row.
4. Start a new row, then alternate between stitching once and stitching twice into the stitches from the previous row.
5. In the next row, stitch singly into two stitches for each one you double stitch into
6. keep up the pattern you should see emerging here whereby you stitch singly into one additional stitch between doubly stitched stitches compared to the previous row.
7. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
8. At some point, decide you are happy with the diameter of the thing, do one row where you just stitch once into each stitch from the previous row.
9. Decrease by stitching singly into the same number of intervening stitches as you had on the last increase row, only now instead of having that double stitch, skip one entirely, and stitch into the following stitch. (i.e., stitch 7, skip 1, stitch 7, skip 1, etc.)
10. Stuff with stuff. Tie off and explode head.

I also recommend that you do as I did and work on this at 10AM in a pub on a Saturday while watching your friends watch soccer.

The whole FAIL aspect where the geometry of the thing is concerned has me thinking that I will attempt another stitchsphere later in the month. For now, though, please enjoy (hell yes).

Apparently, this is shnoogglly

No, that is not my word. But he decided on a blanket pattern... now I need to start collecting yarn. At least it is only seven colors.