Busy Hands

I've had busy hands for the past few days. My friend said I should build up an inventory of ami to sell at our local Saturday markets so I've been working on that. So far, these are what I've come up with:

 I also finished the shrug I posted about before. I'll post a pic of it being modeled by the little girl I made it for when I give it to her since it doesn't look as good when it's not being worn.

I have a hard time listening when my hands are idle, so yesterday at church I started crocheting. I didn't decide what it was going to be until about the 10th round. I had seen some really cute pin cushions online which gave me the idea for what I came up with. I wish I could find the pattern again to give reference. Having said that, I did NOT follow a pattern but I DID get the idea from someone else and as soon as I find the page, I'll link to it. Anyway, here's what I came up with:

Toddler shrug

So my friend and I were having a conversation a few weeks ago about the difference between crochet and knitting. She's recently learned to knit but doesn't crochet and I have been crocheting for years, but couldn't knit to save my life.  Anyhow, she mentioned that she'd really like a shrug for her daughter but would like it crocheted because it seems easier to get a "lacy" look with crochet. I decided to take on the project. I haven't made a shrug in years. I looked around through all of my pattern books and tons of patterns online and just didn't find one I liked so I decided to try and design one myself.

This book has been invaluable in helping me figure out what I wanted to do. I really like the net stitch when I want to give something that light and lacy look, but since this was going to be for a toddler I wanted it to be just a bit more sturdy so on page 34 I found directions for the "Lily Net Stitch". The back panel turned out beautiful.

I'll also be adding some ribbed cuffs with a picot edge and I think once I get the arms sewn up I'll do a picot edge around the opening. Writing a pattern is a lot more work than I thought it would be. I have crossed out and frogged so many times I almost gave up on writing it. Once it's done I'll post it here and on Ravelry.com for people to test it for me.

Feeling a little froggy.

After seeing the octopus I had been making, a friend of mine asked if I could make him a frog. Although I vigorously waved my magic wand and said the magic words..nothing happened. So off I went in search of a good (free and easy) pattern!

The first one I found was Amigaerumi by Erika Hughes. Fast and fairly easy to make all the parts I was really liking this one until it came time for assembly. I usually avoid patterns that require sewing, but I really wanted to make this frog. Anyway, here's what I came up with.

Not too bad, but I'm not especially happy with how the arms turned out and I think adding pipe cleaners inside the legs would have been a good idea so they'd be more pose able.

The next one I tried was Frog in "Paris" which is a DROPS design. He's a cute little thing, but once again I had some trouble with placement when adding the limbs.

After trying both designs I kind of mixed them up a bit and tried a little harder in getting the placement right and came up with this little guy.

He's a little cockeyed and has the "gangsta lean" going on, but I'm pretty happy with him. My friend liked all three and decided to buy them all! Not bad for a few days worth of crocheting here and there!

Yarn Addictions

I don't understand how people who crochet and knit can limit the amount of yarn they have on hand. I try, I really do try really hard not to make extra yarn purchases. In light of that statement I have a confession to make. I'm a yarnoholic. <<-- is that even a word?

Last week a friend of mine asked if I'd make a shrug for her daughter. Seeing as how she's my friend and I love her daughter to bits I enthusiastically said yes. She said she'd like it to be in a shade of brown. I know I had recently purchased some beautiful chocolate colored yarn a couple months ago so decided to dig it out for this project. After going through the house and pulling out a tote and a few bags full of yarn, I didn't find the brown (I think it's hidden in my room somewhere.) but I did find all of this:

The way I had it all laid out I wasn't able to get it all in the picture. The box in the background has been in the closet for years and I found a bag of yarn in the bottom of it that was given to me by my ex-husband's late aunt which included the bag in the foreground which was full of plastic canvas and yarn specifically for that. The sad part is I didn't find the brown and this isn't all of the stash. There's another 20gal tote full of it out in the storage shed that I found the other day and I keep running across small bags of yarn here and there.

Balls

Ok, I think I've finally got the basic concept of crocheting balls down. Start with magic ring, increase a few rounds, sc a few rounds, and decrease the opposite of your increases. Easy peasy!

Now that I've figured this out I think I'll be making a bunch of hackey sacks for the group of kids in our local behavior treatment center. In the past 9 months of spending time there I've noticed a lot of the kids don't get regular visits from family if they get them at all. I usually have a small project there with me and they all get excited to see what I'm making. Today I had these two balls with me ( I whipped up the yellow one while sitting at the laudromat) and several got excited and asked if they were hackey sacks. They aren't, just stuffed with normal poly fill and the smaller one has a few bells in it. Anyway, it got me to thinking. At any given time there are 60 kids living in this building. I can whip these up pretty fast so I think I'll make a bunch and drop them off.

I also figure that just knowing the basic design for a sphere is a good jumping off point for learning to design my own amigurumi. We'll have to see what I can come up with.

Snuggly (Ugly) Bunny

I used the Snuggly Bunny pattern over at StormyzCrochet but mine just doesn't look like hers. I like how fast it worked up and thanks to tutorials over at PlanetJune's amigurumi help I think I did pretty a pretty good job attaching the pieces. The problem I had was with placement. I wish there had been more pics showing the placement of the different parts. As you can see, mine came out a bit crooked.

I'll chalk this one up as a learning experience and do some more reading of tutorials and practicing.

Octopi - who would've thought?

Last week I posted about the octopus I made for my daughter. She took it to school with her and her substitute teacher literally went bananas over it. Said she would pay me to make some for her. Pay me? For something I enjoy doing? Can you believe it has never crossed my mind to charge people for the things I make?

Anyway, it was a good idea, but I wasn't totally happy with the pattern. I tried another and ended up with this:

It's cute, but came out a lot smaller than I expected. The original pattern calls for two strands of yarn and a K hook. I used some leftover RedHeart and either a G or an H (can't remember now). I really liked how the legs worked up in this pattern moreso than in the other, but there was no direction on actually closing the bottom. So anyway, I took the two patterns and morphed them a bit to work together and came up with this cutey:

In the end though, I ended up not following any patterns precisely and ended up selling her this orange one and four others and no two of them were the same. Needless to say, it was an interesting experience and I've received lot's of positive feedback from people saying I should either open up my own Etsy shop or do the local Saturday markets. We'll see. I'm still learning the fine art of amigurumi and having fun with it.

Here's another one without the googly eyes. I don't care much for the eyes like this, but I really like where it's sitting!