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The above courtesy of my favorite thing on the internet, Teen Girl Squad, episode 12, I think. It’s basically the best thing ever.
So today is Valentine’s Day! Happy Valentine’s Day! Not that I need a special commercialized holiday to celebrate my love for my SO, but I did anyway, in the form of presents! I posted a teaser a couple days ago, and here’s the finished embroidery piece:
It’s stretched around some cardboard, framed, and everything. I think it came out super well and my boyfriend loved it. : ) The quote is from a They Might Be Giants song called “Birdhouse” and it’s completely adorable, and you should listen to it:
CUTE. Here’s a close up of my bird:
I also made Joe a pretty pretty card:
It’s frilly and lacy cause that’s what I like, damn it!
Joe wrote me a jazz ballad for Valentine’s Day, cause he does that, and it’s wonderful and romantic and pretty. It also uses rhythms and melodies from the Valentine’s Teen Girl Squad, which I linked above (and you should have watched already, but I’ll wait while you do so now) and I wish I could share it with you, but I can’t. But know that it’s great. : )
So yes. Happy Valentine’s Day! Go forth and say lovely things to people you love.
I recently participated in a swap on Craftster themed around bookmarks. It was a group type swap–you’re put in a group of five, and you craft four bookmarks to send to your groupmates and receive four different ones in return. It took me a while to decide what I wanted to make, but in the end, I decided on embroidered corner bookmarks:
(If you recognize the book, I’ll love you to death. It’s my favorite.)
I really like how they came out. I used a dollar store flour sack towel for the base, and the embroidery took next to no time at all. The sewing up was also very simple. Cute. I like ’em.
I also really like the bookmarks I received in return:
The one with the key is currently marking the correct week in my planner. The beaded one was residing in the novel I was reading (And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer), but I finished it and started re-reading HP & the Deathly Hallows, and that’s a big book, so I’m going to replace it with the green corner bookmark. The other ones will probably take up residence in my various school textbooks–one will probably mark the current reading in my Norton Anthology for my British Literature class, at least.
So I also recently claimed puzzler for some slippers and some notecards. I turned to my trusty slipper pattern and…
Pattern: Mary Jane Slippers from Oh My Goodknits
Yarn: Lion Wool in Dark Teal or somesuch
Hook: 3.75 mm/F
Mods: Made them longer to fit a US size 9/10ish foot.
This is possibly the fourth or fifth time I’ve made slippers from this pattern. It’s a good pattern and it consistently produces good slippers. Also, it’s HELLA fast. Like, two hours for the pair maybe. Very fast. One of these days I’ll make a pair for myself maybe, but in the meantime, they’re great for swaps. Everyone likes slippers, right? : )
Anyway, I also made notecards, as I mentioned above:
I stuck with simple cause that was Puzzler’s request and I really like how they came out. Especially the turtle. I love the turtle. The next time I have to congratulate someone via card, I’m totally making another one. : )
PS: Don’t forget about the giveaway to win a copy of one of my patterns!
For Ongoing Wish Swap! I love that swap, guys. Anyway, I claimed lindyv321 for an address book, some inchies, and a wisty surprise. The wisty surprise didn’t really work out, but the address book is really cool (and probably took over two hours anyway).
First, the inchies:
I’m quite proud of these, actually. They’re very simple–a background and words or picture. I like ’em. Especially the stripey one. I also included a few extra bases (newsprint and striped scrapbook paper) cause I didn’t want to make more, and she had inchie bases on her list.
Now, here’s the address book, which is Alice in Wonderland themed:
(front, and it actually is square and not trapezoidal)
(back)
It was a ton of fun to make, and I like it a lot. For the front, I found an image of the Cheshire Cat online and drew it out myself, referencing the image (and I did the same with Alice on the back, only that was harder). I stamped out the quote on cardstock (the one on the back I just wrote out), then covered the whole thing with Mod Podge and glued on a stretched out piece of tee shirt for a closure.
The base book is just something I found at the dollar store. I had previously found a smaller one that I liked a lot better, but it disappeared somewhere in the house and I had to get a new one. This one (which is binder style) was the only kind they had, much to my chagrin. Still, I think it came out totally awesome, and I’m super proud of the Cheshire Cat.
I also included this card:
I like it a lot. Just a cut out of cardstock, which I spot printed with a green ink pad.
First thing’s first:
That’s right people, FEATHERWEIGHT IS DONE. My longest wip EVER (since October) is finally DONE. I settled for 3/4 length sleeves instead of the full length ones I originally planned for, BUT STILL. IT’S DONE. It’s currently laid out on my bed, drying after a soak and I can’t wait til it’s dry. It fits beautifully (before blocking at least), and I’m so pleased with it. AND, the thing I’m most pleased with is this:
When I started Featherweight, I grabbed the pound cone of the yarn and hand-wound a ball of it that kind of looked like the 100 g of lace weight that the pattern calls for. I totally guessed, having only a 100g ball of worsted weight wool to compare it to. That little ball of yarn up there is all I had left of my original hand-wound ball after knitting THE ENTIRE SWEATER.
I’m so good.
Anyway, I’ll have a proper FO post of this sweater on Thursday probably.
Clearly April is raglan fever time (Featherweight and Seafoam plus…), cause I started a new sweater. It’s just going to be a little shrug, so it shouldn’t take that long and it will be perfect for wearing over tube tops (I always feel awkward in them). It looks like this so far:
I’m using some Regia Silk sock yarn I got in a destash on Ravelry, and ohmigod, it’s SO SOFT. I love this stuff.
While I was soaking Featherweight earlier today, I got around to another craft project I’ve been meaning to do. I went from this:
to this:
A bit of scrapbook paper and some buttons make for a much prettier pencil cup than the plastic cup I’ve been using. It was super easy and took all of five minutes. AND because of where the paper joined, the seam is practically invisible:
I mean, you can see it if you look up close, but if you’re just glancing, you can’t see it at all. : )
So I was wandering about the internet, when I came upon this through the sadly now-defunct Folding Trees. Click the link. Really. It’s super cool, and you’ll be glad I told you to do it. I’ll wait.
Back? IT’S AN ORIGAMI X-WING. I KNOW, RIGHT? Seeing as my boyfriend is completely Star Wars obsessed and I like making things for him (I’m given surprisingly few opportunities as my primary craft is knitting and he’s PRACTICALLY IMPERVIOUS TO COLD), I had to whip one up:
This is my first attempt. It’s a little sad. Clearly I wasn’t paying very close attention to it, and the folds kind of… suck.
My next attempt was much less sucky:
(It’s really much better than it looks here. Really.)
If you or someone you know likes Star Wars, you should totally make them an origami X-Wing. Some of the directions are a little bit vague and confusing, but if you’re good at origami, it should be a piece of cake. And if you’re not (*raises hand*) it’s still pretty easy. It says at the top, and I’ll tell you again here, be sure to make your folds precise, especially when folding over corners. They get pretty tiny at the end.
If you’ve not left already to rush off and make X-Wings, I’ll mention that I’m still working on my summer cardi reknit. I have about five or six more inches (yes, already. I knit in class and it’s worsted weight on 4.5 mm needles) and then I have to pick up for ribbing and whatnot. So that’s happening. FO soon, I wager.
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″.)
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!
Stitch, Brinn, Stitch! 