Lupo the Lamb!

Just finished up this little fella!

So glad to have him finished, and in good time for the contest on dA as well.

He was quite the challenge for me and he took what seemed like forever to make. Doing the bobble stitch with such a small and crappy hook was not a good idea...
The pom-poms also gave me a bit of trouble... Seeing how small they actually were, my pom-pom makers didn't quite cut it. After several tries with a fork, I had to go to a different yarn to make them pretty and poofy, and they're also the only thing acrylic on this little fella.
You can get the pattern over at Lalylala!

Lupo WIP!

I've finally gotten around to start my Lupo, the sheep amigurumi doll from Lalylala. When Knitting-and-Crochet over at dA announced their september contest, I knew that I had to make Lupo for it.

Ever since I bought the pattern for Lupo, I've been dying to try it out, but haven't found time for it until now. Being right between two commissions that's not in a hurry leaves a little time slot for me to do my own little thing, and with that contest I just couldn't say no.

With great support and help from my LAC crafter friends, expecially Pickle, I started it yesterday. I feel like I managed to get a great start on it, so even though it looks like nothing, there's a lot of work behind it.

First off, I had to relearn the magic circle...and later on, half double... Crochet stithces and methods don't stick in my brain, they was away as soon as I put my hook down...

 

Lupo was extra scary for me cause I had to crochet anti-clockwise...which I've never done before. Also the bobble stitch takes forever and a half to make, and with my tiny hook, it takes its toll on my arm. But it's fun! Can't wait to finish up this fella. Lupo is the reason why I first fell in love with Lalylala's designs. They're so adorable, yet simple! And little sheepie here is the cutest one of them all!

Slow works in progress!

And sorry for yet another quick break there... Attended Torucon in Trondheim this last weekend and it really tired me out on top of my "vacation" earlier. There haven't been much crafting either to be honest. I brought some WIP's with me to Trondheim so that I had something to do during the down times at the stand...which happened to be almost all the time we were there (I hardly sold anything, pretty dissapointing).

On saturday, I brought my Granny Bacon blanket. It has really grown now and has reached a size where each round feels like an eternity...which is crazy since I'm still at the very beginning. I did get 4 rounds done, so that was nice! Still not 100% happy with this new style on it though. It grows more evenly, yes, but it uses a lot more yarn for each stitch, and it really rules out a lot of my smallest scraps. It doesn't look too bad right now, but that's just because there's tons of bigger scraps (too big scraps if you ask me...what was I thinking?), after I hit the half way mark on the scrap ball, I'll run into many many small scraps that I'll just have to exclude for now. I'll have to figure out something else to do with those later.

On sunday, I brought the leggings I'm doing for my niece. I've made leggings for my oldest and my middle niece already, so of course I had to work up a pair for my youngest as well. But as it turned out, the ones I made for my middle niece didn't fit her, so they went straight to my youngest niece...which of course is fine, I'm happy that they're still useable, but I wish that I was told so that I could maybe have fixed it. Anyway, I was ready to start this pair for my youngest niece since her birthday is comming up real quick now. Luckily my mother stopped me just in time and told me about the previous pair I made. So I contacted my sister-in-law and got some measurements for a new pair for my middle niece instead. And here's the weird part. I made the last pair to fit size 7/8 year olds. My niece turned 4. I was hoping it would give her something to grow into. But it didn't fit her at all, even though she's not overweight or anything. To be bloody sure these will fit now, I'm working them probably way too big, but I went up one size, so they're going to fit kids 9/10 AND I'm working it in ribbing...and I hate working in ribbing for this long on 2,5mm needles. These will probably fit my oldest niece that actually is 9 years old.
Enough backstory... I brought these with me on sunday to work on them cause I need to hurry the fuck up. I started knitting, good mindless knitting... 2 knit, 2 purl and cable every 8 round, no biggie. When I get home and look at the pattern, I see that I've missed the fact that there's supposed to be decreasings. That just shows how tired I've been lately. So here I've been working for a whole day, doing 1/4 of a leg on these leggings...and I just have to frog it all again... That's a whole day wasted!
But I'm back on track now and it's tuesday! It's a really unmotivating project though...

On a more fun note again though, I just recieved yarn for a commissioned sweater that I'm gonna start as soon as these leggings are done with. My friend Linda whom commissioned a sweater for her boyfriend last year wanted one for herself, and we've been talking about yarn and patterns for quite some time now. I ordered the yarn before the weekend and I got it today! Fast shipping ya'll! Love that shait! This is all merino yarn from Drops! Soft and silky and oh so warm and cozy and I just wanna cuddle it all! Can't wait to get started!

With this yarn order though, I did order some yarn for myself. As you probably know, I've yet to make Lewis and Duncan in these amigurumi dolls, and the reason for my hiatus on that project, is because I'm still looking for a good burgundy for Lewis' coat. The yarn I've been using mostly for these dolls so far do have a burgundy colour, but the website I order that yarn from has mixed up the numbers on their website, so I've been putting off ordering from there lately until they've fixed it (which they did today actually), just to be sure that I would get the right colour. While ordering all this merino yarn though, I looked through all the other kinds of yarn Drops sells just in case I find something that catches my eye, which I did this time! Looking at their thin sock yarn "Fabel", I saw that they had a beautiful burgundy. It looked maybe a tad too red in the picture, but I've noticed that some colours on their website aren't 100% accurate, so I took a chance and ordered one skein. But, I'm not pleased with it's colour I'm afraid.
Once I pulled it out of the bag, I though it was just normal red. Comparing it to the fingerless mittens I made some time ago in the most perfect burgundy colour ever (couldn't use it for a amigurumi jacket cause it was too thick), it looks all kinds of wrong. Doesn't even lok burgundy, more like wine red. Of course, no picture makes it any justice either. I tried with flash (which is the picture underneath here) and it looks way more pink than it really is, and without flash, it looked more like a dark magenta colour. It's just not purple enough... The search continues! Now I'm just hoping for a yarn sale on Spark Kjøp or some kind of free shipping offer and I'll snatch up some skeins in what's hopefully a better burgundy!

Sips and Sjin!

They are finally finished! Sips and Sjin! My little cuties! Only two more and my Yogscast will be done!

Sjin's hair and spacesuit has lighter colors IRL, but of course my camera had to ruin that beyond the point of my editing skillz.

I just got to show off some pictures I took while I was making their hair. I had too much fun playing hairdresser.

Too much fun, but it took forever! Next up will be Lewis, no idea when I'll start him though. Currently taking some time off from crocheting. But I can't wait to have them all done so I can complete this picture:

A little technical information.
They're both made with different yarn brands, Senjagarn, Silja, Trysilgarn. 80% wool, 20% nylon fiber mix. Crochet hook 2,5mm and the squares on their chests was a long crochet chain that I needle felted on.

Pullovers and amigurumis!

So, after knitting on the blue, fluffy pullover straight for a few days, I started to worry about the amount of yarn that went into it. After some measuring, I found out that it was 50cm (aboout 20") too wide! I could easily fit two of myself inside of it! After some rethinking, I ended up frogging it all and started over, this time with 64 stitches less in the round. Now it grew really fast and seemed to be the perfect size. Took me two days to finish up the body alone at snail speed. I also started the first sleeve last night, so it's currently looking good!

It's impossible to get the colors right on picture though. It has a green hue to it, and it's still very bright. I'm using Alpaca from Drops in the color 2919l, called "light petrol", but even the website can't get the color right on it. It's beautiful though! I'm not usually a blue person, but I am really digging this shade.

Also, my little Yogscast amigurumis are slowly getting there. I am now currently working on Sips and Sjin. They both wears these Portal inspired space suits, so I had to work them both side by side to make sure they turned out equal. They're joined by the hip in real life, so making them both at the same time makes sense.
Just sewed on their little heads a few moments ago. Yes, Sips (the blue one) has white skin. Next will be their arms.

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!

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!

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.

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*

WIP summer pullover!

I'm working pretty slow these days. So good not to have deadlines on my projects after stressing with one after the other since before christmas. But I do get some work done! Like today! I finished up the dishcloth I started the other day for one...

And I also managed to work up a scarf for Fibi! It even has frills on the ends! So fancy! Now he/she is only missing the ears! Almost done!

And then we got my summer pullover! I started the other part yesterday and finished it up today, and I just put them both on the needles again now to work in the round! The stitches add up so I'm very happy with this thing so far! The yarn is soft and light so I can imagine this pullover will be just perfect for those colder summer nights...or just as a everyday wear since I don't think it'll be very warm... Still debating if I should add the hood or not though...

Ugh, the people upstairs are having a rather loud party...so I guess I'll stay up all night working on this pullover... I actually think that these people are louder than the previous people we lived with...