Finished Object Friday, 9/2/2011

Well, I've missed an entire month of FO Friday, which means I've got an entire month of Finish Objects to share! And I did make a lot in that month...all of which were Nerd Wars submissions. Oy vey. It's definitely time for me to make something not NW related - and do a post about just what Nerd Wars is, so I can just link to that every time I talk about it. The super short version is...it's a Ravelry group for geeks. We're put on teams based on things that we are fans of, then compete to win points for our teams by making awesome FO inspired by our fandoms.

SO!

Under Arrest!
I made a little clutch for when I get arrested...




The Impala
My most ambitious FO of the past month, we were challenged in NW to make something out of non-traditional materials, so I used electrical tape, fishing line and wire to design a car.





I'm pretty proud of my little car, the wheels even turn and the doors open!

Gull Lace "Shawl"
I finally finished that "shawl"/blanket that I was knitting...

...only to discover that I seriously screwed up on my dye lots, and that my third spool was a flagrantly different shade. Fortunately, it doesn't actually show nearly as bad as in that picture!! I didn't even NOTICE til I took the shot...

Crochet Zouave Jacket
I also finally finished the crocheted zouave jacket I started in the spring.

As a reminder, I was making this based on a pattern from a fall edition of the Godey's Lady's Book published in 1862, but I discovered not long after starting that part of the pattern was actually completely incomprehensible, so I improvised like two thirds of it. It'd been like 4 hours from being finished for three months, so I'm glad to have finally FINISHED it, and I can wear it in the fall. :) The expensive, lovely fingering weight I used is soft as butta'.

Mystery Spot Pillow Case
Lastly, I made this pillow case (it's the both on both sides).

I finished this in 6 hours on Wednesday night, I've never crocheted so fast in my life, my hand wasn't hurting but it was getting crazy stiff. Unfortunately, it's much too big for the only pillow I've got, so it'll be a bit before I get a pillow that actually fits it.

Rainforest Worsted Weight
For good measure, I did some spinning! 8 ounces of pure wool, to be exact. I had four ounces each of blue and I had green, so I thought it'd be fun to mix them all together.

I just boiled it today, and once it's done, I think it's screaming "winter hat" - my old hat was made two years ago and has gotten so beat up that it's partly felted, just from all the snow it's been smothered in over the past couple winters.

Phew! It seems like a lot when I stack it all together like this, though in truth I spent most of the month feeling like a total slacker. Funny how perception is like that...

Go see all the awesome! Fiber Arts Friday! FO Friday! Wisdom Begins in Wonder and Tamis Amis and Other Creations blog - be there, or be...square? How about not-crafty?

Work in Progress Wednesday - 7/13/2011

I'll admit I'm rather ashamed at how infrequently I've been posting of late. I'm trying a different way of scheduling my work time, and I can't say that I think it's working yet - oh, I'm getting lots and lots of work done, but hardly anything else - and I'm still trying to figure out how best to change things so that I can maintain some kind of healthy balance.

Anyway, I've got two WIP this week. One I'm not going to share more than a teaser on, because I'm very happy with it and proud of the work I've done on it and I expect to be done by Friday, so I'll share it then. The other I haven't actually started yet, so I guess the shot I have is a teaser as well. :)

Mystery WIP 1

So that's my project. Yes, it's connected to ALL of the balls of yarn sitting on the table (except the yellow one that's barely visible in the background, and the two on toilet paper rolls on the right). Yes, this has been a nightmare. Especially when my dog got excited when I got home one day and got herself tangled in it and then dragged it across my apartment. I lost two hours of crocheting time to fixing that particular mess. However, it's turning out just how I wanted. Heck, I think it's going better than I thought it would. So I'm excited. :) Should be finished by Friday if all goes as planned and the dog doesn't knock it over again...

When Yarn Ain't Yarn...
One of the Nerd Wars challenges this month is "alternate yarnality" - the idea is to craft using things that aren't yarn. Here are the materials for what I'm planning to make:

I can't wait to get started, but I have to finish the other first...

Check out everyone else's progress over on Tami's Ami and Other Creations blog!

Finished Object Friday, 7/1/2011

For yet another week, a super quick post! I had no WIP worth sharing, but I come to Friday with two FO to show!

Spinning!
I'm calling this 100% wool that I actually got a little where I wanted it on the thickness scale "antique rose."




8 ounces in all; no idea how many yards cause I haven't counted yet.

The Colt
It's been AGES since I designed an ami. I went in to yesterday with one Nerd Wars challenge yet, knowledge of exactly what I wanted to make, and conviction that I didn't have time. I went for it anyway - and managed to finish!


I'm really, really happy with how it turned out. The coolest part is that the bullets can be unloaded and loaded into the chamber, which turns.







Yeah, I'm proud. :)



Now I just have to make it again and figure out how to describe some of the weird crap I did to make it look that way... :)

Have a great Fourth of July weekend, to everyone who might care about such things! :)

See all the awesomeness at Finished Object Friday on Tamis Ami and Other Creations Blog and Fiber Arts Friday on Wisdom Begins in Wonder!

Finished Object Friday - 6-24-2011

Well, thanks to a crazy work schedule that had me running all over NYC, I actually have a LOT of FO cause I always get tons done on the train and bus. :) However, I'm also in a hurry, so I'm gonna try to pack a lot in to a short time in this post. Warning in advance, loads of pictures ahoy!

Spinning
This is the only one of these projects I actually finished last week, but I was too busy last Friday to get it up. I finished the spinning for my Nerd Wars dissertation - 600 yards of fingering weight.

Long-ish story short, I'm really happy with out it turned out.


Come on, Let's Pimp My Ride!
I guess I should note that all of but one of this weeks FO is for Nerd Wars. :) Anyway, my team decided to do a team unity project, the theme of which was "Pimp My Ride!" This made sense since our team is actually named after a car (Impala). For my car, I decided to make a steering wheel cover and a set of fuzzy dice.


I was pretty happy with how it turned out, but after the road trip I took on Wednesday night (9 hours of driving) I've seen a few deficiencies and will have to secure the cover to the wheel a bit better when I get home. :)

I decided to embroider the sides of the fuzzy dice with various symbols of importance in the Supernatural world. Specifically, one is covered with anti-angel symbols and the other with anti-demon symbols.

I'm very happy with how they turned out.

I thought that the fuzzy dice would be really distracting when I drive, to the extent that I might have to take them down, but as it turned out I hardly noticed them at all (though they were slightly problematic when we hit the crazy rain storms and I had to really concentrate on driving).

Bleeding Heart Lace
I finished all 12 yards of the lace I was making!


I also blocked about 2 yards of it before deciding it was just too time consuming and not worth it. The top heart is unblocked, the bottom blocked. I'd never blocked anything before, so I'm glad I got to learn how to do this!


The lace was made for my regency-style dress.

Dress!

This is the dress for my crazy (literally) character in the LARP I'm playing at Origins Gaming Convention tonight. I sewed it all together, then I stained it with tea to make it look gross and beat up.


I can't tell if it really shows, though. I have to wear this dress tonight, and if I get the time I'll be ripping it up and destroying it a bunch more between now and then, and hopefully sewing on the trim (but if I don't get the time, life will go on and I'll use the trim for something else.

And finally, last but not least...

Baby Hats for Charity!
There's always a charity challenge in Nerd Wars, and this time it's making things for babies! I had really crazy days on Monday and Tuesday of this week, so I set myself a mini-challenge: Using random scraps I stuffed in my purse, make as many baby hats in two days as I can. However many I finish, I'll donate to a local hospital. Turns out in two days and about 10 hours on various forms of public transit, I can make 9 baby hats!
True story: I started to make the red and yellow hat just cause I liked the colors, then it dawned on me that it was Gryffindor colors, and that I had the scraps necessary to make hats in all the other house colors, too, so I just went ahead and did so. :)

And that's "all." Busy, busy week!! :)

Check out the beautiful work that others have done over on Tami's Ami and Other Creations and Wisdom Begins in Wonder!

Work In Progress Wednesday: 5/25/2011

Long time, no WIP! I'm back from my vacation now, and back to crafting, but all I've been doing since I got back is spinning! I'm not going to bother sharing my specific current WIP, because I think it'll be done by Friday, when I'll have no less than three finished skeins to share, if all goes as planned!

How did this come about? Well, partially it's a failure of willpower - I've got crochet projects I really should be working on, but I just haven't quite mustered the...whatever. Indeed, they are sitting on a pile on my coffee table:



It's a clear idea of the state of things to say that not much has changed since I took this picture two weeks ago (though the blue fiber has been moved, and the gray has been removed from my knitty noddy.

The blue fiber, in fact, was what I was working on. Right after returning from Maryland Sheep and Wool, I borrowed one of Jenny's spinning wheels. She had recently bought herself two brand new ones, which put her up to four, and she had one she was thinking about selling. It's now the one that I'm thinking about buying.



I've been really, really enjoying using it. On my first attempt at using it, I really stunk. Badly enough that I seem to avoided taking any actual pictures of it. But on only my second try, with the blue fiber, it suddenly clicked, and I really got the hang of it quick.



So now I'm working on practicing getting my fiber nice and thin so that I can aim for a sport weight when I ply it. I'll have the finished blue, plus another skein for sure and a third skein hopefully to share on Friday! And after that, I've set aside time over the weekend to catch up on the rest. :)

Take a peak at all the other WIP over on Tami's Amis and Other Crochet Blog.

Work in Progress Wednesday - 5/4/2011

I'm back! Last week, when Wednesday came, I realized that I'd accomplished basically nothing, so there wasn't much to say. I guess that happens some weeks. :) This week, I did a little bit better...anyway, today is super-lazy picture day, because I'm up too early, still tired from a long and busy weekend, and have a day of running around that's going to take me to four out of five boroughs. So this is gonna be a fast WIP Wednesday. :)

Crochet Zoauve Jacket
This would be done if I had enough materials! As it is, I tried to finish anyway, using dark blue as a fringe, and I HATE the dark blue. I had done a bunch more of it, but I hated it so much that I frogged it. Now I just have to finish the frogging (around the arms), get my hands on just a little bit more of the right stuff, and finish. This might or might not happen by next week (but won't happen by Friday). :)

Still, this gives an idea of what I'm dealing with - sides attached, sleeves done and on, now there's just that blue to take out and re-do. All in all, I'm pretty happy with it. I'm still in shocked amazement about how much I had to improvise from the original pattern (reminder: I'm making this jacket from a pattern published in Godey's Lady Book in 1862). I mean, I tried to do the sleeves the way the instructions said - and the instructions were very clear about row count, increasing and decreasing - except that the instructions made virtually no sense when actually applied. What they were calling the "top" would have gone around my arm like three times. And if it was not the top - if it was the length - then it was too narrow, so that didn't help. I think that was probably what it was, cause I've got chubby arms, but either way, I had done 2/3rds of a sleeve that way when I realized it was never going to work, so I frogged the whole thing and started over my own way. Since I'm going to have to buy more materials anyway, I'll probably make the sleeves longer.

Gokk!
I introduced my Gokk amigurumi here, with a follow up here. However, I haven't really gotten anything done on him since late March. He's been sitting on my coffee table, the yarn to finish him sitting next to me, staring at me forlornly (or wish he could stare at me forlornly, since he doesn't have a face yet, either!). Last night, I FINALLY started working on him again.

No, it's not much progress (I had to frog a first attempt) but it's progress, dammit! And I have like 6 hours on various trains today, and I'll be bringing him with me, and hopefully he'll be done (and I can continue my San Francisco Gokk travelogue with a NYC one. ;) )

Spinning
So, I bought this bag of fiber.

There's a lb. in there, and it was only 20 bucks. I've been waiting and waiting to use it while I finished other projects and other fiber. Finally, I've started! First, my spinning friend got me started on her spinning wheel!! No pics of that, but it was fun to finally start to learn (there will be pics in the future, just not now.) But I ended up stupidly opting to NOT borrow her wheel, and I wanted to spin, so I ended up going back to the drop spindle.

Unfortunately, the section that shows doesn't really demonstrate how nifty it looks when the black gets mixed in. Oh well!

Sewing!
Last weekend, I was at a wedding in Louisville. Helping the bride out with making stuff meant that I ended up at Joann's, and ending up at Joann's meant that I left with patterns! Specifically, these two:


I'm currently thinking I'm going to make both. The first (Regency style) I have to make for a LARP I'm NPCing for over the summer (ha, how's that for strange abbreviations? that's a Live Action Roleplaying game that I'll be playing a non-player character in...) - but the costume I have to make, while I will use this pattern, is going to look...er...different. As to the other, that'll just be for fun, and I'm thinking I'll try to get it done by Gencon (first weekend of August). :) This is probably optimistic of me...but I'll get at least some sewing done, for the first time since Halloween.

Anyway, this weekend is Maryland Sheep and Wool, which means YAY fiber-y goodness!! I've never been before (despite invitations - I could never make it) but now that I'm spinning also I think I'll get more out of it. I'm super excited! I'll be on the lookout for pretty wool to finish my jacket, and I'm DEFINITELY going to be buying some awesome colorways to spin. Also, cheese. There's apparently an entire room dedicated to cheese, and omg I'm so there. :)

Want to see what other folks are making this week? Of course you do! Head on over to Tami's Amis and Other Creations and see all the posts this WIP Wednesday!

Meet the Roly Poly King and the Arctic Fox! (Finished Object Friday, 4/22/2011)

It's not actually clear to me how I got a lot done this week, but somehow, I did!

First, I finally got around to releasing two of my patterns (both previously seen on past FO Friday's):
Rockin' Rocket Ship

Available from Etsy and Ravelry. (You can read more about him in my blog here.)

Manny Man-o-War, Portuguese Man of War Amigurumi, Manager of the Oceans

Available from Etsy and Ravelry. (Or you can read more about him here)

Then, there are this weeks FO!

Romney Handspun
Thought I'd start with the least interesting. :) I finished that spinning I've been working on for ages, wrapped around the hanger that I pretend is a knitty noddy, and boiled it last night. Now I just have to wait for it to dry.

I'm very happy with it. It turned out MUCH more even than my first two attempts (though that doesn't show much in the above, because of course the outer layer is what I spun FIRST before I got in to the rhythm of things). Now I can finally start playing with the lb. of fiber I bought online, and in two weeks it's Maryland Sheep and Wool...so I can get something that's, ya know, dyed. :)

The Roly Poly King
Last week for WIP Wednesday, I posted a strange purple ami at a bizarre angle and said I couldn't explain in case any Nerd Wars folks were reading my blog. Well, we on Team Ranger had a plan: On Wednesday, we staged a pitched battle between Green Drazi and Purple Drazi. It was epic, and I feel certain that the Purple would have won, had not our Fearless Leader stepped in and shown us all the error of our ways. Of course, the main feature of this battle was the finished objects we had each created in our appropriate colors. All of these had to align with a challenge whose theme was the number pi. Hence, I ended up with this:

This is the Roly Poly King. He's inspired by a character in Babylon 5, but the whole thing isn't worth getting in to. He's also almost entirely composed of spheres, circles and semi-circles. But I think in the end that I'm most proud of the crown.

I've had these Mill Hill beads sitting around for a decade, and I finally used some of them! Yes, I hand beaded that silly thing! :)

It was also fun to make his grumpy face. :)

Arctic Fox Amigurumi
On Wednesday, I challenged ya'll to guess what my strangely-shaped amigurumi was. I got some awesome guesses - pill bug, female bits, other internal organs, seal, manatee... - and I was surprised not to get what I considered to be the two most obvious guesses (bunny rabbit, kangaroo) - but it wouldn't have mattered, since it was none of these things! Right after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, I joined an auction on LJ as a provider - in exchange for a donation to a charity of the buyer's choice, I would design them whatever amigurumi they wanted, with size and complexity based on how much they donated. (A restriction I ended up throwing out the window because it's ultimately more useful to me to design a "normal" sized one of my dolls than to do a small one just because). My buyer ended up donating $15, and she requested an arctic fox! She wasn't too picky; her only real restriction is that she didn't want it to be generic with big floppy limbs. The example she showed me all had something unusual about them, so I set my mind to the question: how would I pose a fox? And here's the result:


My inspiration was this picture:

(except in adult fox colors)

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out:

...though I'll own, in the second draft I'll be slightly redesigning the tail(s) and making the head about three rounds smaller. :)



So! That's me for this week. A lot, I know. :)

Hey everyone, now that you've read my post, why not check out the other going's on at FO Friday on Tamis Amis and Crochet Blog and Fiber Arts Friday at Wisdom Begins in Wonder!