Saturday, June 28, 2014

Finished projects!

My lazyness continues when it comes to blogging, but not on projects! Yesterday, I finished up two projects I tell you, and I started a new one!

Simon from Yogscast was finished early in the morning hours yesterday. I've been working on him for about 10 days, and maybe you remember me ranting about getting the right skincolor for him.
I do love how he turned out! I maybe should have left his beard a bit longer, but it'll just have to do. Next  up is Sjin, he'll hopefully be easy with his white/orange space suit. I might just work up Sips at the same time so that I'll get their suits right.

The second project that I finished up yesterday, I started back in february. It's another pair of baby rompers, but this pair's for my 'Murican crafting friend Carolyn whom are expecting a baby boy in august. I'm planning on working up a matching cardigan as well, and maybe some socks and a few hats. Made in merino wool on 2,5mm needles. Pattern can be found here.

I just love colorful projects! So much fun! And speaking of colorful projects, I did start the cuddly pullover sweater last night. It's impossible to catch the colors on camera. The Alpaca, the darker thread has a green hue to it, while it appears bright blue in every picture I take.

The last pullover I made, the bamboo one are still lying around, waiting to get the ends weaved in.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Work in progresses!

I must admit, I've been REAL slow with my yarnster crafting these past few days. Minecraft snuk up on me again...and I can't help it when it does. So here's a little WIP of things that has happened since last blogentry!

The mindless shawl that I frogged have reached it's stopping point once again. I've misplaced the third skein in this colorway (that happened some time ago) so I can't continue it. This picture here are pretty old. I managed to finish the third stripe of red before I ran out of yarn, but this was the only picture I had that gave a good look at the pattern itself. If you're wondering what I did, I knit the row facing the front and the back was knit 1k, 1p all the way till the end. I also increased two stitches at the end of each row, that's four in total for one round, which made it a lot wider.

If you compare it to this picture, you can clearly see the differences. This version has a sharper point and boring garter stitch as the pattern.

I really hope I'll be able to locate the third skein cause I really want to finish up this shawl at some point.

I've also done some progress on Simon. I had an episode with Pepsi here the other day though... He had managed to grab my skin color dyed skein and turned it into a mess! I woke up to this vision...

It took me forever to unknot it and then wind it up neathly again. I was pretty upset cause I did put a lot of work into this skein, getting the right color. Lucky for me, he didn't manage to chew over the thread anywhere.
So far, I've finished the head, helmet, feet and body for Simon. I've just started the gloves/gauntlets. It's looking good so far and he's comming along nicely! Hopefully I'll have enough skin color after this for the others.


Otherwise, I haven't really done much. I spent most of the morning/afternoon trying to work up a project for the Super Mario contest over at KnC, but it didn't really work out too well, and I've got only 4 days left to work up something. Me not entering a craft related Mario contest is like blasphemy! What I did work on though, was a question block. I got the sides worked up, and my plan was to stitch on the question mark afterwards, but it didn't look good at all, so I gave up. I might just give in and do some of the Super Mario dishcloths from Ravelry, but I feel like that's uncreative. I might try and work up a Luma since I've got more yellow crap yarn lying around...

As a last note, something I've forgotten to mention on the blog here. A few weeks ago, I ordered  a truckload of yarn. Drops had this mega sale during may, but sadly I was too late for that one. I did manage to find this one page that had an extended sale on the Drops yarn, so I snatched up a good bit of Karisma, dirt cheap with free shipping. All the dark green will become a Marius sweater eventually.

Along with all of this, I did order a bit of Alpaca yarn in a bright an beautiful petrol color. I've been looking for some soft yarn in a striking blue color to go along with some vintage mohair yarn I got from Brooke ages ago. This will eventually become a cuddly, fuzzy pullover.

Again, got this dirt cheap cause of the sale, and I almost regret not buying yarn for a green version too!

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Getting the right skin color ain't easy!

As you guys know, I'm working on these crochet amigurumis of some of the Yogscast members. But as I started working up the belly of Simon earlier this week, I suddenly realised how idiotic using white as their skin color. Duncan, Sips and Sjin all got white clothes and it would look ridiculous.

So the horrible search for a good skincolor started. Ofcourse I wouldn't be able to find one in the same yarn thickness that I'm working with for these... Not even eBay would help me out!

In the end, I decided to try and just dye some yarn, hoping to get a good color. Turned out to be a bit hard, and I was limited with my tries cause I only had two white skeins lying around.

I figured the best way to get the right shade would be to tea dye the yarn. Since black tea got a really strong color, I decided to try out herbal and green tea. Green's on the more yellow side while herbal got a more grey/pink hue. Combining these seemed to be the best way in my head. But the result sadly turned really light yellow.
Then I got the great idea to use just a tiny bit of pink lemonade Kool-Aid to give it a more blush feeling. Ofcourse, Kool-Aid is really annoying if you want to get a even spread of the color, so it didn't work out too well... It looked perfect at first, but it only colored 1/4 of the yarn. I figured I could try and add small doses of the Kool-Aid on the un-dyed parts... But all in all, it turned the yarn pig pink and really uneven...and also impossible to catch on camera... To add on with problems, this one here poofed out a little, so the tention didn't work out quite the same afterwards.

My second skein and third try on the other hand, I decided to be very careful with. Since black tea do have a warmer color to it, I decided to try ever so lightly to try dyeing with that this time around. With only one bag in the water, I started dyeing. The yarn sucked up all the pigments in the water as soon as I dumped it in there. Really didn't expect it to do that with tea, but the yarn still turned out too light. With another bag of tea, I dunked the skein back into the water. This time it worked perfectly. I got a good color, sitll a teeny bit too much on the yellow side, but it's the most perfect color I could ever make to resemble the color of skin.
This here picture underneath is pretty much spot on with the color.

And here you'll see all three of the colors side by side. Mind you, the colors aren't 100% here.

The one all to the right is clearly the best one for these amigurumis. So now I can finally continue with Simon and finish him up as soon as possible! BTW, here's the pants for him! I'm working off their Minecraft skins, and crocheting gives me little room for details since I'm still a n00b at it. You can also see the white yarn clashing with the rest. It doesn't look natural. British people do have pasty white skin, but not THIS white!

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Frogging a UFO!

Last christmas...I gave you my heart... Let's try that again!

Last christmas...I started on this mindless knitting project just to keep my hands in motion over the holidays...before I was suddely stricken with a sock commission from my sister in law. I had brought with me three skeins of this awesome fluffy lace-ish yarn called Delano which is just a bunch of fibers mixed together...I'm too lazy to get up and check.
I simply casted on 3 or 5 stitches on 3,5mm needles and knit garter stitch with one stitch increase at the end of each row.


Later on, I've learned that if you increase two stitches at the end of each row, it'll get wider, and I want this thing to be pretty wide! And it's not getting very wide with this! And also, garter stitch are boring as heck, so lets do something about that shall we? I frogged the whole ting down today and winded the yarn up into a gigantic yarn cake!

So I'm planning on maybe doing the next attemt here with double increases and a bit more fancy pattern.

We'll see how it turns out!

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

And there she goes again...

This time, I'll admit that the blog hiatus has just been my lazyness and upside down day rythm that has kept me from blogging every day.

Ofcourse, there is some progress on my projects. The pullover is done! Or...done knitting... Still need to weave in all the blasted ends and sew up the holes under the arms. That'll take forever so I'll get to that at some point or another in my life... But it looks good though. I wish the body was a bit longer, and after I finished it up, the sleeves got longer too, so it's not perfect. Welcome to my dirty bathroom BTW...

Watcha think? Does it look good? Or does it look crap?

Vaporeon got his legs and arms sewn on, same with the head and even the back spikes. I did screw up a bit when I sewed on the head though. It looks like he's flaceplanting on the ground ranter than flopping around on the ground.

Kinda bummed me out so I've put it aside for now. Not sure if I'm to continue with it or make a new one.

SO! To keep my thought off that one, I started my next crochet project! Cause now that I've gotten all of these stitches in my fingers, I need to make sure I use them before they're forgotten again. I promise I'm not a crochet junkie! But with my current obsession with the Yogscast (which has been building over the last couple of months and sky rocketed the last weeks) I've started my Lalylala based, Yogscast inspired amigurumi dolls! I've been wanting to do Simon for way too long now, so I just started with him the other day. I MIGHT go through all of them, atleast the dream team (Simon, Lewis and Duncan) as well as Sjin. I NEED to do Lewis and Sjin atleast, since they're my favorites in the whole of Yogscast, but Lewis' character is very complicated and detailed so I'm not sure if I dare jump to him first.
BUT SIMON! I did start him as I've allready said! I got the head (minus the beard and hair), the helmet and I've started the body.

Woop woop! I'm so excited about starting these dolls! So much fun!

Friday, June 13, 2014

Pullover and Vaporeon!

Might be a bit early for an update on things, but whatever! I haven't really updated on my pullover for a few days so I can do with an early update today now that I've got pictures to show for it.
SO! I've been working with the raglan for the pullover for quite a few days now. It takes forever and it doesn't feel like the amount of stitches are increasing really. I am also running out of yarn so I do hope I'll manage to finish up within the next two skeins...then I would have used 17 skeins in this thing...which isn't so bad for you 'Muricans out there. Each skein weighs only 50gr, that's about 1,7oz. But bamboo and cotton yarn are pretty heavy compared to wool and other materials, so you don't get that many meters and it feels heavier automaticly.

But it's starting to look like something now! Wish is was longer in the body, but then I wouldn't have enough yarn to finish it up.

It's a bit awkward to put on right now since I still have the stitches on the needles...but it does fit kinda, and it will be a tiny bit longer in the body when it's done.

Since I've now finished Fibi the fox, I've started my next crochet project. I'm gonna try and have one running all the time along with my normal knitting. And this one's gonna be a baby Vaporeon! Aphid777 on deviantART makes fantastic crochet amigurumis and several of these she writes up the pattern for and posts along with pictures of her creations. Recently, she's been making the Eevelutions and I died when Vaporeon was submitted. Ofcourse I had to try my hand on that one, expecially now that I've managed to actually follow a crochet pattern succesfully. So far I've managed to make the head without too much problems. I've stuck the green marker there to mark the nose tip.

So far I think it looks pretty neat! I'm using Silja from Gjestal for it, 80% wool and 20% nylon and 2,5mm hook if you were wondering.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Fibi the fox!

It's about time I finished up this one! Fibi the fox is a crochet amigurumi doll, designed by Lalylala that I started back in february.

Pickle gave me the pattern for the fox one for me to try out before I started buying all the other patterns that I wanted to make. I'm not a crochet person and I have huge problems reading crochet patterns and understanding the stitches, but I wanted to make one of these dolls so bad that I just had to try it out. With good help from Pickle, I did manage to work it out and make Fibi here though. Took me forever, but I did it! I am so danged proud of myself, you have no idea!

I wanted to do a photoshoot of it outside in the grass, but it's impossible for it to balance on its own, so I just had to give up on that part.

I used Senjagarn from Gjestal on this one, 75% wool and 25% nylon. The scarf is knitted while the rest of the doll is crochet.

The biggest erros on Fibi here though, is the fact that the tail ended up WAY to short and stubby compared to the pattern. The hood are also a bit too big for it, so it keeps falling down. Once I can dig up my felting needles, I'll stick it to its head.

The whole body's a bit wonkey and bulky, so it's far from perfect, but I still love it. I'm so impressed that I managed to make it.

I've bought the sheep pattern allready, so I will be making that one at some point too, but right now I'm currently trying to crochet a Vaporeon amigurumi, and after that I'll try and use this Lalylala body style and make a Honeydew dwarf doll...just because I'm SUPER into Yogscast at the moment...

Now, this does not mean that I'm all of a sudden a crochet expert, far from it! I'm still having great problems reading patterns and I need to relearn each stitch every time I pick up the project again... So it'll probably take years before I'll be comfortable enough to try something a bit more complicated...

BUT THIS IS AWESOME!!! SOOOO PROUD OF MYSELF!!!! *self five*

Summer blogging!

There! I finally managed to get a good summer header! It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than the one I tried to make two weeks ago.

So lets more on from spring...

To summer!

It took me forever to get these changes done... First off...I'm lazy as all heck...you should know that by now... But when I eventually remembered that I needed to get a summer design for my blog, and got my ass out the door, it was harder than you'd think! Cause we don't have too much green outside our appartment, it's mostly gravel, and I don't really want to sneak into the garden of our neighbour to get some pictures of yarn! Not to mention that I'm not that good with picking summer colors. 

Two weeks ago, I did try to get some pictures taken, but that didn't go so well. On the tiny patch of grass we got, there was this little cluster of withered straws, and I didn't notice these until I actually uploaded the header to my blog. And at that point, the straws looked like poor editing skills or spilled white paint! Just look at this horrible mess!

Well...it doesn't look that bad scaled down like this... But up close, it was just horrible! I couldn't use it!

So I decided to try again today...even though it was raining. We've had nonstop rain for two days now, sprinkled with some thunder and I've had a headache for DAYS because of this sudden shift of weather. And between the snails and the spiders, I did actually manage to get a decent picture. What do you guys think? Is it too green perhaps?

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Yoshi's Woolly World!

This will be game blogentry, yet still yarn related... So now you're warned!

Right now, E3 is going on in Los Angeles. What is E3 you ask? Electronic Entertainment Expo. A gigantic gaming convention where the most popular and famous game producers come together to show the world their upcomming games.  Then why am I talking about this on a crafting blog?
Well, I am a gigantic gaming nerd. I love games, I always have and they're a huge part of my life. If you've been following my blog for some time, you might have seen some of my game related tattoo's and shirts. And even though all that's fine and all, this still isn't really a gaming blog. So let's put some craft into the mix, shall we?

Last year, Nintendo announced a new game where you got Yoshi in this world created of yarn. And today, during their E3 "press conference" they showed more of this new game and also revealed the name: Yoshi's Woolly World. How awesome is that?

A whole game where everything is yarn related! And this isnt' the first one either. In 010, Nintendo released a game where Kirby is locked up in a world of yarn, called Kirby's Epic Yarn. But this time, it's Yoshi's turn! You know, the green dinosaur that Mario rides around on? Everybody knows Yoshi. And in this game, he's crocheted! I can allready see that the whole gaming yarnsters out there will be crocheting Yoshi's for years to come.

The whole game is knit, crochet and sewn.

So cute and so much fun!
What else's so amazing is that they showed us and talked about how they came to creating this, and we see two of the directors and producers sitting in a yarn shop, talking about yarn and how they wanted it all to look. I was sold as soon as they walked into the yarn shop. I love this!

Too much fun and it just goes to show that Nintendo cater to every type of fan they got. I love Nintendo, I always will, and now I need a god damn crochet Yoshi sitting on my shelf!

The game will be released some time next year for the Wii U.

Pullover sleeves!

The sleeves for the pullover are comming along nicely! I've finished the increases and right now I just have to knit around and around until they're long enough. Haven't really decided if I'll be making them 3/4 or full lenght yet, but we'll see after I'm done working up this grey part.

 They might look short on this picture over here, but they're really poofy and fluffy that they actually reaches far above my elbow.

If I were to stop them now, I'd have short 3/4 sleeves. If I finish up the grey, I think I'd have a good 3/4 lenght going on. I am still discussing it with myself though, so only time will tell what I'll end up doing.