Headwarmer - Free Pattern!

I mentioned in this post that I went to London for a weekend to audition for Star Wars. What resulted was standing outside in line for six hours in order to hand my headshot to a woman. Luckily, this was exactly what I expected.

Regardless of the fact that I knew nobody would notice me, I wanted to look my best when I got to the front of the line. Being November, I knew it would be cold. I didn't want to wear a hat because, um, hi, hat hair. So, at the last minute, I grabbed a ball of yarn from my stash to whip up a headwarmer on the plane.

This only took me about an hour, including trial and error on size and length. It still ended up a little wide and a tiny bit long (it slips down somewhat), but it did its job and I didn't have absurd hat hair!

Here's the pattern.

Using bulky weight yarn and a size H hook (adjust for gauge).

ch 11
skip first chain, sc in each across (10)
sc in first two, ch 1 and skip next stitch, sc in next 4, ch 1 and skip next, sc in last 2
sc in each across
dc in each across to length
sc last three rows

Sew buttons on the final three rows to line up with buttonholes created by the chains in the second row. BAM, headwarmer! Happy crafting!

Bowtie!

November was a month of travel, and you know what long hours of sitting down leads to? Crocheting. Lots and lots of crocheting.

A few years ago, I went on a rampage, asking all of my friends what they would want from me if I were to make anything for them. I'm still chipping away at that list, and last month, I polished off a couple of them! Here's one of them:

I used this pattern and this yarn in Candy Apple Red. It's pretty straightforward (and a lot faster than this tie that I finished back in July).

I'll add pics if/when the recipient sends them to me!

Bombomb Plushies!

This project is one of the reasons I started this blog. This is a project that has been languishing for two years now and really isn't that difficult - I just couldn't get the motivation to get over the hump and FINISH. What's worse is that I also made a Christmas present for the recipient last year. The present was done well before Christmas, but these suckers weren't and I, for some reason, couldn't send one without the other.

But lo and behold, I have finally finished them - two Bomb-ombs!

I'm totally in love with them.

Look at their cute little wind-up keys!

I can't believe they took me two years to wrap up.

This is another project where I used a pattern by Wolfdreamer Off The Hook. She is an incredible artist with yarn and I don't know what I would do if she wasn't so generous with her patterns.

Anyway, I'll add pictures of these guys if the recipient sends me evidence of their new home!

Routine Issues

One of the biggest reasons I started this blog was that I had a whole bunch of lingering craft projects that I just needed to FINISH AND BE DONE WITH THEM, GOSH DARN IT!

Well, I've finished a couple of them, but I'm still procrastinating. The past couple of weeks are a good example of my justifications.

My sister and her husband didn't get a chance to take their honeymoon right after their wedding last September, so they decided to do a one-year honeymoon/anniversary trip. They were gone for two weeks and I volunteered to housesit for them. In my mind, this would be a good chance to get outside of my home and finally finish a couple of projects. And by a couple, I mean four that have been hanging over my head for anywhere between four months and a full year. 

It seemed like a good plan - the only thing on my plate was to go home after work and let the dog out. Because of the dog, I couldn't really go anywhere in the evening - she needs to be taken out every 4-6 hours. That time restraint made it easy to just be at home instead of going out and socializing.

But the best-laid plans...

See, my sister has a dog and a cat. The dog gets severe separation anxiety and will eat anything that you leave out when you leave. Simple solution: close everything in the bedrooms. But the cat knows how to open doors, so the cat will open a bedroom door and the dog will eat things.

That's how this happened:

I came home after work to find my yarn EVERYWHERE. I wasn't overly concerned because there didn't appear to be much damage done to the actual yarn - the cat just really liked pulling it around. But then I went upstairs. And I found this:

THAT is the remains of the stuffing of a project that I've been working on for over a year now. Something that's just been hanging onto the end of my list of things to do. The rest of it ended up in the dog's stomach. And now I feel like I'm back to square one with the project.

Motivation is really hard for me right now. I'm not sure if it's because I'm trying to do to many things or if I'm just not excited about the things I'm doing, but if anybody has any tips or tricks for finishing a languishing project (besides "just do it" - it might work for Nike, but it hasn't been working for me!), I would love to hear them!

Kirby Plushie

And for my latest trick...

KIRBY!

Those of you who have known me for a few years know that I love love love crocheting plushies for the people I care about. I have to admit, though, that part of my love of plushie-making goes to the fact that I feel like I up my nerd cred by crossing over nerd categories. Here are two that I've made in the past:

Luigi, for my brother's birthday

Mew, for my dear friend Sera's birthday

Now, I have to come forward and admit that I didn't DESIGN these beauties. That credit can go to Wolfdreamer Off the Hook, who writes the most amazing patterns for video game plushies. Seriously, they're amazing and you should all go and marvel.

I should also note that I'm not responsible for the eyes, either. Up to this point, all my felt eyes have been made by my mother. Hand her a picture of the video game character and she can reproduce it in eerie accuracy in felt. It's incredible.

SO I realized Wolfdreamer OTH hasn't designed every character under the sun, which means that sometimes, a girl's gotta go off the beaten path and make one for herself.

Here he is.

This Kirby is made from the body and arms of King Boo (though, if I remember correctly, I elongated the arm flap a little to make them hang at his side. I also might have made the body bigger than the pattern by throwing in a few extra rounds. Clearly, this is not a tutorial.). I then added Sonic feet and made eyes and a mouth!

The body/feet have been done for probably about a year now, but I've been frozen in fear of making my own eyes. Finally, I realized in a panic that I didn't have a post written for this Saturday, so I had no choice but to pull out the hot glue gun and get going!

Here's my inspiration image (courtesy of Google Images). I'll post a picture of the recipient when/if he sends me one!

Crocheted Tie

Do you ever have projects that you had SO much energy to work on for the first 2/3 and then.... just fizzled? I have about five of those waiting to be finished up. I guess you could call them Bruin Projects.

But I'm proud to say that that number used to be six, but I've recently finished this crocheted tie!

Last June (see what I mean about fizzling?!), I had a friend request a crocheted tie. Now bear in mind that I have a personal aversion to ever telling anybody "No," especially when it means I get to go yarn/fabric/craft supply shopping! I promptly bought the yarn (in brown, 5), I found a pattern (my first adventure with reading crochet charts), and off I went.

The pattern calls for you to crochet it double-width and then sew it up the back. After crocheting the agonizingly small 200+ rows, I stitched up the back and found, to my horror, that crochet stitches are very stretchy and therefore it was nearly impossible to get a good knot in the tie.

Well, I suppose that's why we craft, right? To find creative ways to solve problems.

After some discussion with my mother (she fixes all my craft-related problems), I decided I just needed to iron in some interfacing. A few measurements, some frustrating sewing, and a few minutes with the iron, aaaaand....there was something stuck to the front of the tie.

Apparently there was something sticky on the ironing board cover, which transferred to my beautiful, darling stitches. Cue me freaking out, yelling a little bit, then stomping downstairs to dramatically present the damage to my mother. It was back to the drawing board in late September.

I'm not ashamed to say my mom fixed this one, too. Seriously, the woman could probably get 2000 year old stains out of Cleopatra's clothes. She's that magical with fabric.

By this point I was just sick of thinking about the stupid tie. I couldn't muster the enthusiasm for a third wave. So it sat in my to do queue until I finally stitched it up in April. But was it done? Oh-ho, no way - now it was too short.

See, the recipient has a self-professed absurdly long torso. So I had my brother try it on so I could maybe get an idea of where to put the loop in back and it was clear that it needed a couple more inches. So finally, in May, after 11 months of hanging over my head, the tie was complete.

If I did this project over again, I would definitely have measured the tie before I tied off the yarn. Also, when lining it, I would have layered the interfacing, fusing them together instead of trying to stitch pieces end to end. And I'd probably give it stripes or some sort of pattern.

Regardless, it is sent! And when the recipient receives it and takes pictures of himself in it (which I mandated via a card that simply read "PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN), I'll post them here.

What was the last lingering project that you've finished? (Or are there any you'd like to confess to?) Let me know in the comments!