Red Angry Bird

I just finished crocheting this red Angry Bird for one of my nephews for Christmas.  Now to make one for my youngest son.  The pattern is available for free through ravelry.

Amigurumi Zebra Ornament

My Christmas ornament swap partner really likes zebra stripes, so I wanted to make her a zebra.  Most of the zebra patterns that I came across were not small enough to be an ornament, so I turned an amigurumi cat pattern into a zebra with the use of black & white yarn.  For the body I used a yarn that changed from black to gray to white and back again.  For the arms, legs, and tail I used black and white yarn, crocheting it in a spiral pattern that looks like seamless stripes.  I then crochet the eyes (3 rounds for the white and 1 round for the black) and embroidered the mouth and nose.  For the chain loop at the top I used the already attached yarn from sewing the ears.  I hope that she likes it.  My husband liked it and wants me to make him a cat one.  It was his idea to add the little bit of white to the side of the pupil (light reflection). 

Spiders & Plarn

I mailed off my Halloween swap packages on Monday, and there were a few things that I kept for myself.  This little crochet spider is meant to be a magnet, but I might make it into a brooch instead.  It was a very easy pattern by Lionbrand, but it did require a lot of sewing.

Here is the pattern for this fun crochet spider.  Instead of knitting an eye cord and inserting wire into it for the legs, I used 4 pipe cleaners instead.  It was tricky getting the pipe cleaners to go through the body filled with stuffing.  I added 2 medium sized google eyes and 4 small ones to make him more creepy.

I also made 2 skeins of black and green plarn (plastic bag yarn).

I started making a bag out of the plarn this week.  Today I finished crocheting the base, and now I can work on the sides.

Vacation Crafting

We just got back from vacation last week.  I only turned on my computer once during the trip, and that was to make more room on my camera.  I'm going to be making two blog posts, and both will be kind of long so that I can show you everything.  This one will be all crafty goodness, and the other one will be photos from my trip.  I am loving my photos these days, and it feels good that my dad the photographer thinks that they are great.  Now on with the crafty goodness.

I finally finished this Buddha 2 weeks ago before we left on your trip.  He is 15 inches tall sitting and 24 inches tall standing.  He took me a few weeks to make, because I had a lot going at the time.  You can find the pattern here: http://craftingenue.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/littleuns-lotus-buddha.pdf

He's a birthday present for a friend of ours (my husband and myself).  Our friend loved him.  He said that Buddha is in full lotus on his shelf.

I also finished crocheting 3 more Ocean Grove washcloths 2 weeks ago.

I made my 4 year old son this rainbow bunny in time for him to sleep with him on our first night away from home.  He had also brought the other two bunnies that I made him to sleep with.  He picked out the yarn and said that he wanted a rainbow bunny.  The eyes are made from eco-fi felt.  I left off the mouth because no one thought that he needed one.

Here are all 3 of his bunnies in the bed that he slept in at his grandparents' house.  He picked out the colors for all 3 of them.  Blue bunny, Rainbow bunny, and Cookie.  

I started crocheting the orange amigurumi monster from Lily's Sugar'n Cream's Bright Ideas book last Friday.  It was hard to work on it during our trip, because I had to keep count of the rows.  Thats hard to do when people are talking to you, lol.  Its going to be a Christmas present for my 4 year old.  I want to make him all four monsters from the book.  It is one of those mini paper back books that you see next to the yarn.

While at my mom's house I saw this really cool looking scrubby in her sink that looked like brain coral.  She just made up the pattern.  Mine is tighter than hers, but then she didn't really give me much in the way of a pattern.  She just said to double every stitch.  Her center was much more open than mine.  I used the sparkly red Christmas cotton yarn and an I hook.  I single crochet 8 times into the center loop, then I doubled every stitch until I achieved the size that I wanted.  This could be used in the kitchen or in the shower.  I finished crocheting it yesterday as we were driving through New York.  I want to make another one using the white Christmas cotton yarn, but using either a hdc or dc instead of sc.

With the left over rainbow bunny yarn, I started making a large granny square blanket for my 4 year old. He fell in love with the one that I made for my mother-in-law 10 years ago.  He asked for a rainbow one.  Right now everything has to be either rainbow or blue with him, so I'm going to use both of those in this blanket.  This is how far I got last Sunday before I ran out of yarn.  I bought more yarn today, and have started using aqua yarn.

I'm starting to feel the Christmas crafting bug coming on.

ATC Swap & other Summer pictures

The other day I received my ATC (artist trading card) swap.  These 12 cards came from 4 different people.  Each row of 3 is from a different person.  They are all so different and unique, and I love them.

I accidentally sent out extras and these are the ones that I had made that were returned to me.  I'll save them for another swap.

I've been working on a secret amigurumi project for a friend's birthday.  I'll let you wonder what I'm making ;)

Here are some pictures that I took at the beach the other day.

I took this picture tonight.  My family was waiting for pizza (I can't have any due to my diet), and I took a picture of the umbrella that we were sitting under.

Then I took a picture of one of my son's bike.  We took the kids out for a bike ride tonight and discovered a new pizza place.

Sorry that I haven't been posting much.  My husband recently installed a new hard drive in my computer.  I really needed the space.  Plus the amigurumi project is taking a little while to make.  I hope all of you are having a great summer.

Little Mermaid

My 4 year old son was invited to go to his first birthday party this month by a little girl in his class.  She is having a little mermaid party.  When trying to figure out what to get her I realized that she might already have a lot of store bought little mermaid items, so I decided to find a crochet or knitted mermaid pattern.  Last night I started crocheting this little cutie, and I finished her today.  The pattern was really easy.  The pattern ended when her looking like the photo below.  I did a little research into how other people had finished her on ravelry, and my favorite was one where the hair was filled in.  So I filled in the hair, making sure to add some bangs.  I gave her a little hair cut to try and make everything as even as possible.  Then I crochet a little necklace for her, and glued a fake flower in her hair.  Every time I look at her I smile.  I hope that she will be loved in her new home.

Pink Best Bunny

Last night I started crocheting an amigurumi bunny (best bunny by lionbrand) for my oldest son's teacher.  His wife is pregnant with a girl, and this will be our gift to him / his baby as a thank you / end of the school year gift.  The picture above is from this afternoon at the park.  The pattern is on my kindle.  I love that I can put pdf patterns on there, because that means that I can have several patterns with me at all times.  It makes crafting on-the-go much easier.  In the photo I had finished crocheting the head and body, and I had started working on one ear.  This has become an almost daily thing recently: crafting at the park while my youngest son plays with other kids.

Here is the bunny.  I used Vanna's Choice yarn (lionbrand yarn).  In the past I have used safety eyes on the bunnies, but since this is for a baby I stitched the eyes with yarn.  My son will be giving his two teachers their gifts tomorrow.

Apples for Teachers

Here are the 3 apple ornaments that I made for my sons' main teachers.  My 3 year old gave the one above to his teacher today.  The pattern came from Tasty Crochet.  I just modified it slightly to turn it into an ornament.  For the stem, I chained 40 stitches, slip stitched in the 9th chain (from the beginning), and single crochet the remaining 8 stitches.  For the leaves I chained 15 stitch, slip stitched into the first chain, chained 15 more stitches, slipped stitch into the first chain again, and bound off.  They turned out pretty cute.  The bottom two will be given to my other son's teachers on Monday.

Best Bunny III & Friends

After seeing the bunny that I made for a baby shower, my 3 year old wanted another bunny.  He wanted the body the same color as the baby shower one, but he wanted it to have dark blue ears (his favorite color).  I had run out of blue Vanna's Choice yarn, so I let him pick out the color that he wanted from the store.  I finished making the bunny last night.

Here are all of the bunnies that I have made him with links to the free patterns.  Best Bunny, Chocolate Bunny, and Bella Bunny (white bunny).  I made the chocolate bunny and some carrots for his first Easter.  Bella bunny was made for his second Easter.  The blue best bunny was made because he told me one night that he loves blue bunnies.  He wrapped a small boa around his blue bunny.  He has been sleeping with all of his bunnies this week.  Its really cute.  It really feels good when your child (or anyone for that matter) really loves something that you made for them.

Blue Bunny

Last night, just before bed time, my 3 year old told me that he loves blue bunnies.  He repeated that statement a few more times in bed.  He has been liking a lot of blue things lately.  So I found this cute free pattern on Lion Brand's website called Best Bunny.  I used Vanna's Choice yarn, and crocheted this very easy pattern in about 2 hours (or however long The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is).  My son was a happy little boy this morning, carrying the bunny around by it's ears.

Amigurumi apple and Mistletoe Ornament

I made another mistletoe ornament today. The pattern can be found in the post before this one. I used Red Heart Holiday yarn for this one. The other one I used Vanna's Choice yarn.

Even though they are the same patten and colors, they look different from each other.

I also made an amigurumi apple today. The pattern can be found at lionbrand.com. I thought it would be fun to do a sock monkey version of the Twilight book cover. Next time I'll try to have a darker filling. The white shows to much.

Raffle basket & Angler fish

It has been a while since I last made a blog post. I basically crashed in the creativity department. It happens every so often where I don't want to make anything for at least a week. I did make things for deadlines, but nothing for myself or for presents. Then as I was starting to get the creative itch, I became sick. I couldn't do anything for a few days.

I made this juice pouch tote bag last week. It was a part of some items that I was donating to my church's holiday fair for the green comity's raffle basket.

Here are the items that I donated for the raffle table. The two baskets were used to hold money and tickets for one of the two raffles. The other items went into the green comity's raffle basket. There were a lot of Earth friendly products in that basket. I worked at the raffle basket table from 9 am - 3 p.m. on Saturday. The green comity's basket got a lot of tickets, which was great.

My 10 year old had to make a brochure report on the angler fish. You might remember the angler fish from Finding Nemo. He also had to make a model to go with the brochure. He made his out of clay. I told him that I would knit him one as well. I stayed up until 3 am on Sunday to finish it in time for him to take to school this morning. The pattern also has how to make the parasitic male. I might make that one tomorrow. I used a recycled bendy juice box straw to support the light. This was not an easy thing to knit. My fingers hurt. I learned a few new techniques. The instructions were very easy. The pattern came from a book on amigurumi knits.

Tonight I am sewing in the ends of the knitted dishcloths that I made.