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So my sister’s birthday is later this month, and I’ve just sent off her present. It was pretty simple, but fun to make. She said she wanted a ticket album for her many concert tickets, so that’s what I got her. I found a simple little photo album at the thrift store for 50 cents, and I decorated the cover:
The inside cover has a similar ticket on it with her name. I was feeling clever, so the numbers on the outside cover ticket are her birthday, and the numbers on the inside cover ticket are her cell phone number. : )
I also made her a card, which is awesome and sort of frustrating (but awesome):
It’s the Goddamn Batman! I like it. It’s not as good as the Futurama cards, but I like it.
So happy birthday to my little sister, who’ll be 18 later this month. Crazy.
So as I mentioned a couple of days ago, I am participating in a Futurama-themed swap over on Craftster.org. For those of you not familiar with the show… it’s awesome. It’s a cartoon that takes place in the year 3000 in the city of New New York, and it’s full of clever math and science humor. Hilarious. Anyway, there were an odd number of people in the swap, so I was part of a round-robin with myself, Tygermane, and the organizer, Staar84. I sent my package on Thursday, and here’s what I sent to her:
First: a brain slug, as she requested:
Pattern: My own, made up based on various pictures of knitted and crocheted brain slugs.
Yarn: Brown Sheep Serendipity Tweed in Waterlily Leaves, left over from my Watermelon Cardigan.
Needles: 4/3.5 mm dpns
Hook (I know, how dare I combine both knitting and crochet!): G?
Cute, right? Super fast to make. The white part of the eye is quilt batting, and the black part is a button. I crocheted the tentacle/wavy bits because it’s easier to create odd shapes on the fly in crochet over knitting. It’s like, a round of single crochet, a round of double crochet, and a round of sc, hdc, 4dc, hdc, sc shells, which seemed to work pretty well. It sits flat and it’s nice and squishy. I finished it like, two weeks before I sent off for this swap and I’ve become kind of attached to it. Maybe I’ll make another one for myself. I have enough yarn left, I believe.
Next, a seven leaf clover necklace:
Pattern: Uh… none.
Yarn: Serendipity Tweed, same as above
Hook: The blue one? G? I don’t actually know about hook sizes.
I like how this came out a lot. : ) That’s really all I have to say about it.
Next: A coffee cozy!
Pattern: None, my own, but I can write up the chart if anyone’s interested.
Yarn: Undyed wool from a thrift store sweater and purple Lion Wool
Needle: US 7/4.5 mm
I loosely based the design for this off of a cozy I spied on staar84’s wists, but can no longer find. I couldn’t decide how I wanted to close it and I didn’t have any coffee shop sized cups to test it on, so I just made it adjustable with the ribbons.
ALSO, in case you were wondering, folded hems look fantastic but they are a PAIN IN THE ASS. The top and bottom do look all nice and neat though.
Lastly, I made a set of notecards:
Now, if you know anything about me, you know that drawing is NOT my forte. So you know that these were SO MUCH WORK and I am SO PROUD OF MYSELF. Seriously. I can’t draw a lick, but I’m pretty decent at looking at a picture and drawing it myself (a skill I probably picked up from my mother, who is also really good at it). I looked for pictures of the characters, studied them, and drew them on white paper. I am so unbelievably pleased with how the professor especially came out cause he ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE THE CHARACTER. Leela is also good, though not as good as the professor. I’ll admit I traced the clover cause I didn’t feel like fiddling with it. I’m not as pleased with that card, but I do like how I sandwiched the clover in clear tape, just like Fry does in the show. : )
All in all, I say a successful crafting venture. It’s always a good sign when you desperately want to keep the crafts you make for someone else in a swap, and I definitely acheived that here. God, I love those notecards. Maybe I’ll make some more for myself. Or maybe I won’t seeing as they took like four hours.
Okay, not really. But the main crafty portion of the package I sent to spolowitz gave me some hell. I claimed her for a knitting project bag and a learn to spin kit.
First, there was a spindle and some roving, part of the stuff I ordered when I was first starting to spin:
And then there was a lovely little book of spinning instructions, which I drew and wrote by hand. The directions probably aren’t the best as I haven’t been spinning that long myself, but I tried, and I like how it came out, especially my little spindle diagrams:
And then there was this bag.
I tried to make a round-bottom bag with a lining and that turned out… poorly. For the sake of my sanity, we’ll leave it at that, but suffice it to say that it was bad. The finished version is cute though. I especially like the applique:
Yay, swappage.
PS: Here’s the Ravelympics sweater:
(I got bored with the long rounds and started a sleeve. The body is about halfway done (well, halfway to where I join the sleeves, anyway). It’s about 9″ long and I want it to be close to 17″.)
Whoo, I received one of my packages from the November Ongoing Wish Swap! Hika-Chan claimed me for notecards and a surprise. I received a metric fuck ton of notecards which are basically too pretty to give to unappreciative people. Perhaps I’ll just keep them and look at them. : )
Notecards!
(please ignore my creepy display head lurking there)
And a pretty box:
And tucked inside were more notecards!
STILL MORE NOTECARDS:
Awesome stamps:
Seriously, the sock monkey one is hella cute (and straight off my wist!). The block is a little difficult to maneuver so I think I’m gonna chisel them apart or something (DELICATELY–because it’s hella awesome). I’m gonna stamp so many things with sock monkeys…
Oh, right, why is this six now? Uh… cause I kind of signed up for the December OWS and claimed someone already, and that usually leads to two posts, one with things I sent and one with things I received… Yeah.
SO, coming up on chez Stitch Brinn Stitch: That hat I keep talking about (PLUS probably its free pattern), more swap stuff. Like I said, good think I got all this cause the knitting on Featherweight is SLOW and BORING and so not good blog fodder. Instead you get to look at pretty notecards while I squee about sock monkeys! Whoo hoo!
So. I claimed Zombiecazz in the Ongoing Wish Swap for an earflap hat. It was both quick and fun to knit as I love colorwork but don’t really do a lot of it:
Pattern: My own, which I may yet write up.
Yarn: Cascade Eco Wool in coffee left over from owls and some red Ella Rae Classic
Needles: US 8 bamboo dpns and 16″ circ (both are Clover, I think)
So I sort of want to make another of these as I love how it came out and I have a serious love of rectangular spirals. I may yet make another for myself to wear (and it would also function as a test knit of the pattern, if I write it up). It’s a pretty simple pattern too, so I could basically write it from memory. Lovely.
I also sent some buttons:
and this lovely card I whipped up:
I’ve also claimed someone else for kitty toys and armwarmers, so that will be happening too. Plus the other test knitting hat. The hat is almost done, and then I’ll be doing the armwarmers and the toys (probably in reverse order though). I appear to be taking a break from knitting things for myself. : ) This is just fine with me as the next thing I want to knit involves lots of lace and as I can’t really do that in class, I’ll be working lots of lace over my winter break from school.
So I’ve been talking about this swap forever but until now hadn’t actually done a whole post. Sorry about that. One of the sets was sent to my house by mistake (instead of my school), and I had to wait for my mother to send them to me. (I may have mentioned this in a previous post.)
Anyway, as you may or may not have been aware, I recently participated in an inchie swap. We were all put in groups of seven and made a total of 49 inchies: seven groups of seven for six partners plus yourself. This was basically my second experience ever making inchies, so I know that the quality of mine are far below some of the other people in the swap. Though that doesn’t say a whole lot because there were some very talented people in my group:
From NH822:
From Smmarrt:
She also included a Twinchie and three bonus inchies. Here’s a close-up on the inchies though:
From RueRue:
From Ramona Q:
From ckchan:
From Rackycoo:
Compared to all that talent, my inchies rather pale in comparison. Still, they were a ton of fun to make, and as people have said, they are addicting. I can definitely see inchies making a regular round on my craft rotation. Here are the ones I made. They are organized into thematic sets in vertical columns and each horizontal row went to a different person.
Since I made a total of 49 (seven sets of seven) and I only sent to six people, I kept a set of my own for myself. Here are the ones I kept:
I am fond of all of them, but I definitely have some favorites. For example I love the one of the girl with the word “Twist” as well as the one with Zooey Deschanel that says “Love Story” (that came from an ad for 500 Days of Summer, by the way)
I took all the inches that I received and framed them so I could have them on display, though I have yet to actually put the frame up on the wall because I haven’t glued down the inchies I got today. But trust me, it looks awesome.
In other (knitting) news, I’m somewhat stalled on Watermelon as I ran out of yarn halfway through the second sleeve, so I will have to obtain another skein. Boo. I have, however, cast on for another project, so that’ll be coming up. I’m actually already three quarters of the way through it, so an FO post will be happening soon. Stay tuned!
The second part of my Beatles swap is here at last! I finally got time to craft for the swap, and I am incredibly thrilled with that I came up with. Since there were an odd number of people in the swap, there were three of us in a round-robin sort of partnership. Here’s what I sent to SwampOlympics
This sweet bag, made from a t-shirt and Barney bedsheet and also some canvas-ish fabric for handles. A little puckery in the sides because I’m completely impatient when it comes to sewing, but it still came out nice. Once I remembered how to sew the straps on properly. : )
This FUCKIN’ SWEET little notebook. It’s made from a pad of Post Its, some cardboard, and embellishments. The background is from a book in German (which I thought was fitting because they did record a couple of songs in German), and I am SO FREAKIN’ PROUD of the submarine. I looked up the album art for the Yellow Submarine and basically copied what I saw using some scrapbook paper, white printer paper, and the measly collection of colored pens that I have (basically just red, blue, and black. I miss my sharpies). If I had any use for notebooks, I would have made one for myself too, but I don’t, so it’s been sent off.
And a collection of notecards, which is sort of my fallback craft for swaps. I love making them though, so I am totally okay with any opportunity to do so. I am particularly a fan of “All you need is love”, but I love them all. I thought the “Here comes the sun” one would be perfect for a get well soon card, and “I want to hold your hand” (which says “PS I love you” on the inside) would be perfect for Valentine’s Day, or just to tell someone “I love you” or “I miss you”. I also wanted to try my hand at a slightly larger submarine. I will probably make some more in a similar set, or at least using song lyrics, because they’re perfect for non-specific sentiments.
The rest of the swap gallery can be found here on Craftster if you want to check out more Beatles-inspired crafts.
Coming soon(ish): Inchies. A knitting wip. Eventually a spinning FO (or maybe just a wip). Stuff. Things. Crafting is happening!
Well, round two for me. It’s actually round ten of the swap over on Craftster. Thankfully, this time I was not the organizer, so I got to kick back, mail my secrets at my leisure and see what happens. Here are the secrets I got:
After a huge fight with my best friend, I wished she could never have children. She wanted them more than anything. A few years later, she had a molar pregnancy that developed into cancer–which eventually killed her. We made up before she died, and I never told her what I had wished. I’ve never forgiven myself…. And I miss her so much.
I hate when my mom uses hott guys to get me to go to church.
Back:
I am agnostic and I just wish she would accept it instead of taking advantage of how desperate I am for a guy.
I suck. So bad. At flossing. I should only be allowed to have 4 teeth. (Middle) Start flossing! You’re an adult!
I burned my butt! (Back) Thankfully, it is NOT as red as this card. *tear* It itches!
Sometimes I don’t think I’m cut out to be a mom.
The rest of the gallery is here
In other crafting news, I finished the Beatles swap, so when it gets there, I’ll post it. I’m waiting on one more set of inchies before I can post that swap. The super secret knitting is almost done, but I can’t show you that until December because the recipient sometimes checks the blog. : ) I started a new project though, so perhaps I’ll have a wip photo and some info about that at some point. Stay tuned!
So I recently discovered inchies. Inchies, if you don’t know what they are, are little 1″x1″ works of art, usually grouped together. More information on them can be found in a very helpful post on Craftster here. My recent obsession with card making led me to think I’d also like making inchies. I was right:
I love almost all of them, though I do have a couple favorites. I love the one with the starburst as well as the one with the argyle pattern that says “Live big”. I’m also quite fond of the one with the big pink b. : )
I used a variety of materials to make these. Some old books I got in a library sale in Fredericksburg in French, German, and Japanese, a magazine, bits of a newspaper, scrapbook paper, some punches, and stamps that I either bought or carved and stamp pads my mother had around (though I did buy a couple for myself).
It’s safe to say I’m completely hooked on making inchies. I even signed up for an inchies swap: you make a total of 49 inchies and send seven groups of seven to other people. Though I did sign up for the swap before I made these. I’d been meaning to try inchies and I figured the swap would give me the push I needed.
I’m pretty thrilled about the swap, both for making and receiving. I think I’m going to mount them all and frame them to spice up my dorm room. : )
So I joined another swap, even though I said I wouldn’t. This was a small one: we just had to craft two bookmarks based on the themes our partner gave us. My partner was beeker and she made me some awesome bookmarks:
My themes were knitting, art deco, dinos/animals, and Star Wars/space. The first two were for me, but I aimed the second two at my lovely boyfriend. It was a quick, easy swap and I figured I only read one book at a time so I only need one bookmark (and I have two), and he reads about as voraciously as I do. : ) So the dino one is for him (I told this to my partner, btw, so no surprise handing off of crafty goodness).
Here are the ones I made for her (her themes were Beatles, red, pink, and leaves):
I loooove the red one, and I’m not quite as happy with the Beatles one. But I still like it and I am quite pleased with the dictionary definition of love bit. I shall definitely be making more thread crochet bookmarks as it was quite easy and I scored a bunch of crochet thread at the thrift store. Random stuff at this particular store (Goodwill Outlet) is something like 59 cents a pound and my total (which included a somewhat heavy roll of contact paper/stickable vinyl) was only 74 cents. SCORE! Anyway, the bookmark took literally about 20 minutes to make and they’ll be perfect for Christmas presents for some of the readers in my group of friends. Oh, and to stiffen it, I just dunked it in a glue/water bath, pinned it out, and let it dry. : )
The rest of the gallery is here if you want to check out the rest of the swap.
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 