Craft Splurge!

The new school year is only a week away, and this means this is the last serious crocheting time I will have for awhile. So, for the past couple weeks I've been going crochet crazy! Here's a quick rundown of what I've worked on.

1) Wolf Dreamer OTH's Umbreon. Still have to finish this one up actually, but I've just got the circles and the eyes left!

2) Baby Elephant. Kind of on a whim while I watched superhero movies, I crocheted up this adorable little elephant. A pretty easy amigurumi pattern with almost no sewing, you attached the ears and legs as you go!

3) A matching hat and cowl set for chilly football games. I made these two from separate patterns, but they look pretty good together. For the hat, I added an extra row of increase (up to 48 sts) because as written it was turning out too small for my already little head.

4) Actually I just made a lot of cowls in general. The sage green cowl was the first time I'd done a foundation sc, and it turned out alright! There's a link to a video posted with the pattern if you've never tried this before either. I made the smaller of the two sizes. The other green cowl was a pattern I made up as my boyfriend and I watched Dollhouse. It's bulky yarn and basically just works alternating rows of sc, hdc, and dc. I may post up a quick pattern at a later date.

5) Colorful coasters! This is another pattern I made up that I will post when I refine and make a few more for my apartment.

6) A crochet bag for my momma! This pattern is available as a Ravelry download.

That is it for now, but stayed tuned for some possible new patterns!

Baby Dragons

Another request I got for my boyfriend's rats were toys. My first thought was balls. Because what pet (of the furry, fluffy variety) doesn't love a ball? I used a pattern for a perfect sphere and made four of them!

However I decided that this wasn't enough. I needed something else. I'd always seen patterns for tiny stuffed animals on Ravelry, so I decided to try one of those. Originally I had planned on making a teddy bear, but I found a pattern for a tiny dragon and I made up my mind.

The original pattern didn't include wings, but I felt like it looked too much like a dinosaur-hybrid. I used the wings from a tiny cthulhu pattern (same person whose pattern I used for my Cthulhu earlier), and they worked quite well.

After seeing this little guy, Alex decided it wasn't fair that his rats got one and he didn't. So I made another one. 

If you want to make this dragon, make sure to make your circle for the nose large enough. The snout turned out better on the second dragon when I wove yarn through a third of the head. (If you read the pattern this comment will make more sense).

I am currently working on some updates to my blog (I'm way behind!), so there will hopefully be a couple more new posts within the week!

Cthulhu

The stuff of geek legends..The terrible, mystical beast, best described as a sea demon. Who this? Why, Cthulhu of course!

Looking quite adorable and cuddly, really. Last year I made my boyfriend a d20 for his birthday, and this year I had to try and match that by making him some equally geeky and cool. I had seen this pattern on Ravelry and decided it was perfect, and I am very pleased with the results.

The pattern calls for an F hook, but I decided to use a G hook to make him cuddlier (it's also easier to work with.) The pattern was relatively easy to follow, and the wings were definitely the most difficult part.

In order to get the ribbed, more wing-like look, I crocheted in the back loops only on the way back from the chain. This means you only crochet in the back loops in one direction, aka every other row.

My boyfriend was very pleased and his nerd friends jealous, so I suppose I accomplished my goal!

Tiny Turtles

The week before spring break is always rough. Deadlines and exams seem to be coming at you from all directions! That was two weeks ago for me, and I had the most difficult exam I have ever taken. (found out I did well though!) After five hours of hardcore studying one night I decided I needed a crochet break. I'm still working on my blanket, but I want to make a quick project; something I could make in under an hour. While searching on Ravelry I found a pattern for little turtles, and so I made a couple!

Adorable. As you can see, they are very teeny. Each one took me between 25 and 30 minutes with distractions (Pirates of the Caribbean). The pattern is easy to follow and I learned a couple new stitches (popcorn and spike), which I enjoyed.

I apologize for the not-so-high-quality pictures. My digital camera is about 5 or 6 years old now.

I have plans to make more for the other women in my small group, so there will probably be an update with more later!

Octopus Army

As the pattern says these octopuses are cute. Very cute. They do only have 6 tentacles though. These were made for my friends for Christmas and I've still got about three more to make...

I hot glued buttons on for the eyes since these are all going to young adults I don't need to worry about them being torn off and eaten (at least as far as I know). The mouths were made using black yarn and a yarn needle. Each octopus is different.

This one is for my friend who is studying abroad in New Zealand so I had to get her's done. The bow could've been a little higher but still very adorable.

For my boyfriend. Holding a quick and easy crochet heart :)

My first octopus. He didn't have a home so he will be staying with me, which is very ok. Since he was my first one I couldn't get all the tentacles to fit (oh no!), but I figured it out for the other ones. Needless to say, when the pattern says you have to squeeze them in to get all of them to fit, it's not kidding.

These are the other three octopuses!

This one is for one of my guy friends. And no, I had nothing to do with the color choice, it was all him. I am a huge fan of the top hat.

This one is actually for the same friend that received the dinosaur I made. The dinosaur's name is Ned and now he and this octopus can be best friends!

The last one! Yes he has three eyes. He's based off the purple pentapus from an episode from season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

These guys!! Adorable.

Octopus pattern: http://whimtasticalcreations.blogspot.com/2011/04/cute-little-octopus-amigurumi.html
Top hat pattern: http://whimtasticalcreations.blogspot.com/2011/04/top-hat-and-bows-pattern.html

Dinosaur!

Being a geologist means I LOVE Dinosaurs. A lot. I found this pattern (located here: http://amigurumibyknotty.blogspot.com/2010/05/longneck-dinosaur.html) for a long-neck dinosaur early on in my crocheting career, and I've been dying to make it ever since.

I finally did, and I am very pleased with the result! If any of you have been reading this blog you might notice that this is the same yarn used in Joy's birthday scarf. I used it in this pattern because this dinosaur is for a fellow geology undergrad who is graduating this year (I just got it done way ahead of time!). When I was working on the scarf she noticed it and decided she really liked the colors and the sparkle and so declared I should make her something with the extra, hence this dinosaur.

The reason one of his legs is purple is because I originally thought I wasn't going to have enough of the teal color. Turns out I did, but my friend decided she liked the idea of a purple prosthetic. (He got into a really intense fight with some raptors) My friend will have to careful though, or I might steal him for myself!

Isn't he too cute!?

Surprisingly, I managed to make this guy in about a week! I guess that's what happens when classes haven't started yet and you have free time...

A DM's D20

First of all, sorry for the hiatus, I blame my finals (which is a pretty good excuse). Secondly, I have a new project to share!

Yay! This a crocheted 20-sided die, for those who aren't familiar with the nerdy vocabulary. I made this for boyfriend for his birthday (and I'm only two weeks late this time!). I used the pattern found here:

http://lilustudios.blogspot.com/2010/11/d20-fun-ness.html

It's pretty decently sized as you can see by my hand. 

The triangles in the pattern are all made individually and then sewn together to make the die. I had no trouble with the triangles, but I would assemble them differently than given in the pattern. In the pattern it says to make four 5-sided pyramids and then connect them, however I found no geometrically possible way to do so (I'm sure I did something wrong.) So if you want to make this I would suggest making one of the pyramids and then connect all the pieces on individually after that, making sure each point is created by five triangles.

I used felt for the numbers on my die even though the picture with the pattern is shown with them sewn on. I did this mostly because I'm not overly wonderful with needle and thread. Plus it took about 5 minutes to hot-glue all of them on. 

Overall I had a lot of fun with this pattern, and even more fun laughing at all my friends who seemed entranced with my crocheting.

Baby Unicorn

One of my most recently completed projects was this lovely unicorn that I made for my friend:


(poor quality iPod photo)

He's not too big, probably around 4 inches, but he's super cute! I discovered the pattern for him here:
http://dlfsblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/free-pattern-baby-unicorn.html

It was initially a little scary because I had to play around and figure out how to connect all of his pieces, but overall it really was a decently easy pattern to follow and a lot of fun! My friend loved him and I even got a scarf that she knitted me in return:

(A much more high quality photo)