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!

Bits and Pieces, and Some Stash Busting

I've been so busy the past week and a half that I haven't had much time for craftiness, but I don't want any more time to pass, so I thought I'd give a quick, random update.

Making Stuff
I've made almost nothing in the past week and a half, but I'm almost done with the crochet Zouave jacket (just need more materials and some buttons, then I could finish in about an hour).

Nerd Wars
Well, the first whole round - all three months - of Nerd Wars on Ravelry is over. This month is a month off, which is great because I've been so focused on making things for it that I haven't finished a bunch of other stuff (like, I've got three new dolls designs - the starfish, the roly poly king, and the fox - plus the unfinished gokk - each of which I need to finish a remake of before I can test them). Now I can take some time to make additional versions and get them ready to go, which is great. :)

However, if you've heard me babble about Nerd Wars on here and find that you're tempting, it's also recruiting time for the teams for next round. You can learn all about it here - basically, we all break in to teams based on fandoms, and then compete! There are a lot of old teams that will be continuing (for roleplaying games, and video games, and Babylon 5 and Firefly and Star Trek and more) and there are some new teams (like for grammar nuts, and reading fans, and Psych). But the best team of all...is my team! I'm going to be a team captain next round, for fans of the TV show Supernatural! Which means I'll be a mod! So come check out the fun - I've found it to be a great source of inspiration and an awesome way to meet other crafters.

Free Pattern Testers
Speaking of increasing authority and becoming a moderator, after several weeks of back and forth communication, I am now officially the third moderator for the awesome and helpful Free Pattern Testers group on Ravelry. I've got a very small and specific job, and I was so honored to be asked to join the team, and am so excited (and nervous) to be starting.

1000 Amigurumi Crane Project
The Project has been featured on This Week in Ravelry, but unsurprisingly, as time passes and new issues enter the public eye (such as the tornadoes in the US south) the steam has faded. However, I'm going to keep trying to put time in to this when I can - my problem is I am just over committed right now, and so I haven't been able to do as much as I've wanted. Still, we've raised around $300 total, which is awesome.

Stash Work
Over the winter, I really worked on stash busting, and got things to a the point that this was all I had left:


...at least, that WAS all I had left, until I went to Michaels and they had a lot of awesome colors in a kind of DK/thin worsted weight on sale half off...



The state that the addition of these skeins and some others left my closet in was really rather horrifying (and I thought I'd taken a picture of what it did to my closet, but sadly I don't appear to have). Anyway, it was a disaster, but last Saturday I spent the whole day in hard-core spring cleaning (like, going through stuff, getting rid of stuff, re-organizing my closets, etc.) And now, things are in much better shape:



I actually have room to hang things in my closet again, and all the yarn is one crate! Now just to keep working...

Travel
May is a month of travel for me. I just got back today from three days in Louisville, KY, for a friends wedding. (and I'm running on 5 hours of sleep and having been up since 3:30 in the morning!) Next weekend (Friday night to Sunday night), I'll be in Maryland for Maryland Sheep and Wool. Then, ridiculously early on the morning of the 11th, I'll be getting on a plane and going to Bali, in Indonesia, for another wedding. I'll be back on the morning of the 20th. I'm currently acting on the assumption (supported by no evidence what-so-ever, but a lot of hope and optimism) that I'll have internet while I'm there, and therefore be able to post, but even without that, it's mostly a trip of relaxation, which means there will be yarn, and tons of photography, and lots to share when I get back. I'm pretty excited. :) I can't believe I'm leaving in a week, I've been planning this trip since I was invited a year ago.

Spinning
Speaking of Maryland Sheep and Wool, I learned how to spin on a wheel last week! No photos of any thing about that yet, but I promise I'll take pictures the second time. It was hard, but I kinda thought I was getting the hang of it...

9/11 and Memories and Thoughts
I've spent all day wrestling with how I feel about the death of Osama bin Laden and considering whether or not to do a post on here about it. In the end, this isn't my personal blog, and my feelings about 9/11 aren't related to my crafting, and I don't want to go in to politics. But New York City is such an integral part of who I am that I realized I couldn't just not mention it at all. When I first heard, I almost cried, and I couldn't figure out what I thought, but now that I've had all day to reflect (I didn't find out til this morning), all I can say is that I feel grim satisfaction. This city is in my soul. I love it, adore it profoundly, and 9/11 is a wound that will never quite heal. I still remember when my mom took me to the observation deck when I was a little kid, and from the 90th+ floor, the cars looked like matchbox toys and the people like ants; when I was in high school, I would go there to hang out and shop at the Borders cause my school was only a half mile away; when I was in college and would drive home on Route 80, I would catch my first glimpse of the skyline and it would make me smile because I knew I was home. Thanksgiving after 9/11, I went home on that route, crested the hill, saw the sky line, and there was a vast emptiness, and I realized for the first time how profoundly life would never be the same. I've now done that drive dozens of times, and I still feel that emptiness and loss every time. It's been a decade, but this wound will never heal, but I think that now that that SOB is dead, justice has been done for what was done to my city and to her people, and we can finally try to move on.


(this is a shot I took of the tribute from 9/11/2008 - I knew a lot less about photography then, which is why this isn't much of a shot, but it still seems appropriate here).

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!

Work in Progress Wednesday - 4/20/2011

Tons to do, and a client crawling up my back, so I'll keep this brief. Finished one of my WIP from last week, made no progress on one other, and made progress on the other two (but no point in sharing the spinning, I didn't do much). Also have a new, mystery WIP!

Crochet Zouave Jacket

Now it's got two full halves! I think it's a little too small, though, and that I'm going to have to add a row or two to the back. (it looks too small in this picture, but note that it will have a border all the way around that will add a row.) I'm holding it in the back, but I couldn't get it to meet all the way around.



Mystery Amigurumi!
Last time I posted a secret amigurumi, I realized I could have a fun little contest. This time, I'm going to enact it! Here's my current WIP:

If you can guess what this amigurumi is, I'll give you a copy of the pattern for free when I get around to publishing it!


Looks obvious? Well, it's not! Good luck, everyone!


Take a look at everyone else's WIP over on Tamis Amis and Other Crochet blog!

Finished Object Friday, 4/15/2011

Well, I didn't finish either of the projects I'd mentioned on Wednesday that I hoped to have finished by today (shocking! ;) ) but I've still got two projects to show for the last few weeks of missing FO Friday/Fiber Arts Friday. :)

Wheel Chair Cushion Cover
A week and a half ago, I spent the weekend with my family down in College Station, Texas, to celebrate my grandfather's 93rd birthday. (No, we're not from TX - we're from New York, but my uncle is an A&M professor, and my grandfather now lives with him). For that occasion, I made my grand father a cover for the cushion on his wheel chair.





He's a really tough guy to shop for, but the cushion on his chair was really, really ugly with this gross semi-plastic stuff on it, so I thought a cover would be appreciated.



He liked it so much, it got transferred to the cushion on the chair he sits on all the time!

All in all, it was a nice party! There's a Mexican woman who we originally hired to help take care of him, but as events have unfolded over the past couple years, her entire family has become part of our family (or maybe we've become part of their family, I'm not sure). She and her family helped to organize a party for him. There was even a pinata!



We took a family shot:

From left to right, my uncle, my mom, me, my older brother, and my grandfather. And Sponge Bob. (it took the kids like an hour to break that pinata open...)

Jose Estrella, Star Starfish Shortstop for the Oceans!

I finally got around to doing the back stitching on Jose. After several trials, I decided to not give him a face - just his OCN #5 (for obvious reasons). The pattern is now ready for testing, if I can only find the time to get it started. :(

Join in on the Friday fun! FO Friday on Tami's Amis and Crochet Blog, and Fiber Arts Friday on Wisdom Begins in Wonder!

Work In Progress Wednesday - 4/13/2011

Well, for a couple weeks life was so busy that I didn't have time to make anything, so there was no WIP worth reporting! But things have calmed down a little, and now I can once again share how things are!

Gokk
Gokk - my self-designed imagined alien based on a single passing quote from Babylon 5 - hasn't progressed since I last shared him two weeks ago, but I hope to have him finished soon (certainly by next Wednesday!) so I figured I might as well share another in-progress shot. :)


Mystery Amigurumi Project
Another Nerd Wars inspired project, I'm actually almost done with this (I started it yesterday, but it's working up very fast, which is good cause I'm still really busy) but it's part of a secret plan by my team, and since I think one or two Nerd Wars folks might actually read my blog, I don't want to show anything that will spoil it, so I took the most obscure, non-understandable picture of this I could manage:

It should be done by Friday, but I won't be sharing it as a FO until after the 20th (so...next Friday's FO, I guess).

Handspun Romney Progress
A while ago I shared some homespun I was working on. I had one night earlier this week that I was so tired that spinning was about all I had the brain power for, and I made some progress!

I think I'm getting better! And I haven't even gone in to the pound of fiber I bought - and Maryland Sheep and Wool is in less than a month - so there will be more spinning in my future!

Crochet Zouave Jacket
This is the project that I'm really excited about. Last fall, I visited the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and spotted a little display case they had with a small selection of books from their library. It was clear that what was in the case was rotated pretty frequently, and I really lucked out: when I was there, it was a display of fashion from the American Civil War. (I'm a big Civil War buff; I wrote a long post about it yesterday because yesterday was the anniversary of the first shots of the war being fired). Anyway, in that case I saw this image:



From the moment I saw it, I knew I HAD to make it. It's from an issue of Godey's Lady's Magazine from October of 1862. That was August. Flash to a couple weeks ago when the new Nerd Wars challenges were announced. One of them was "Reading Rainbow" - make an object inspired by a book you have read or are reading. Well, I certainly read enough about the Civil War (I later found out that I had to do it based off of a fiction book, so ostensibly I was inspired by Mike Shaara's "The Killer Angels" - the book the movie Gettysburg is based on - which is historical fiction). The first step was to hunt down the pattern. This proved both easy and difficult, and took a couple of days, but I was able to find a full text.

However, the next step was actually making it! The pattern called for "Berlin wool." I did some research and found out that Berlin wool is basically tapestry embroidery thread, which is the equivalent of fingering weight. And all Berlin wool was 100% merino. I went out and spent the most money I've ever spent on yarn to get some absolutely gorgeous fingering weight merino. I get it home...and I realize I shouldn't have trusted my memory. The pattern called for double Berlin wool. I felt like an idiot. However, undaunted, I simply decided to use two lengths of my gorgeous wool simultaneously (even though that means I now don't have enough...so I'll be buying more today. $80 bucks worth of yarn. Dear god. I just remind myself that buying a FO like this would cost much, much more).

So, the directions are semi-incomprehensible. It's not just changes in how patterns are written, it's that they are actually badly written. For example, early in the pattern they "establish" that one "rib" is composed of two rows of dc. However, at other points throughout the pattern they use rib and row interchangeably, which makes it impossible to tell at any given point which one they are talking about - and it can make a big difference! Then, there's no way in the pattern to figure out how the piece you start with actually relates to your body (is it the middle of the under arm? Is it the back of the under arm?). Furthermore, they frequently talk about the "parts" of the shoulder, as in the top of the shoulder (okay, I can tell where that is) and the middle of the shoulder. Where the heck is the middle of my shoulder? So all in all, the first couple of days were pretty frustrating. Finally, when I'd read it about two dozen times, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what they intended regardless of what nonsense they had actually written, and since I made the decision to just improvise around what I think they meant, things have gone much better. All in all, though, I'm exceptionally thankful that I'm an experienced sewer and have made bodices before, and therefore know basically how they go together and what the different sections need to look like, or else I'd be totally screwed. Anyway, in the past week I've made a little over half the bodice.


On the left is one half of the body, with the front forward. The back isn't quite fitting right, so I'm going to have to put in a third panel or else it's never going around my stomach, but that's okay, I already know how I'm going to do it. The right is the underarm for the second side.


This is definitely an instance where the fit won't really be right until it's all put together and the buttons are on, but here's a preliminary shot of how it looks.

And of course, after I do the bodice, I have to figure out the arms. Joy of joy. :) (actually, the arm directions look significantly clearer because there is no fit involved in quite the same way). But I'm still both nervous and excited - this is the first real item of clothing I've ever crocheted (ie, not a scarf or a hat).

So! That's my adventure. I'm sure I'll write more about it. :)


You know you want to take a look at what every one else is working on to this fine WIP Wednesday! Just head over to Tami's Amis!

Work in Progress...er...Thursday, 3/24/2011

Oh dear, I'm a day late. I even made sure I had pics of everything up and ready to go before I left for my trip, but I was ultimately foiled by a lack of internet and a lack of time yesterday, so today will have to do. As such, I'll keep this brief. :)

Poppop's Birthday Present

For my grandfather's birthday, I'm making a wheel chair seat cushion cover out of yarn that belonged to my grandmother before she died. It's ending up way too big (like, 2 - 3 inches longer than it needs to be), but otherwise I'm satisfied. The only serious problem is that I'm working with 1 strand of blue and two of tweed, and I did this on the understanding that I had about 11 1 oz. balls of tweed and 6 of blue. Unfortunately, it turns out that all but two of those blues were actually about half used up, and I didn't realize until I was already a good chunk of the way in. I'm almost definitely going to run out of blue before I finish, so I'll just have to manage with the last inches being only tweed. It's about half-way done right now.

Gokk
I'd attempt to make this amigurumi a surprise, but since no one will have any idea what I'm talking about anyway, I'll go ahead and tell you that I'm making a gokk. This is part of Nerd Wars, and a gokk is an animal in Babylon 5 that is never actually shown, so I'm making it up based on a particular set of criteria that would have influenced the evolution of this creature. Since I made it on the plane to San Francisco, I took the Gokk around with me my first day.

Here we are at Fisherman's Wharf. I'll be posting a more complete post about my adventures with Gokk, and explaining the process that led to his development, when I finish him (probably on the plane on the way home tomorrow).

And, er, that's pretty much it! I finished another object, and have a few other things in the works, but they can wait.

1000 Amigurumi Crane Project
I promised an update on the 1000 amigurumi crane project, but I'm not going to be able to do it justice just now. The super short version is that things are going well! We've raised about $50 for charity by selling the crochet version of the crane amigurumi, and another member of the project has developed a knit version as well, which she is selling for only $1 to raise money for charity! (her pattern is not as extensive as mine, as it doesn't include resizing instructions, hence the lower price - also, it was ultimately up to her what to ask for her own work!). If you want to learn more, you can read about the 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project (a fund raising drive for Japan) in this blog post, join us on Ravelry at the 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project, where I also talk more about the project, mention other fundraising efforts, and am maintaining fiscal transparency efforts, and you can download the crochet pattern for $5 here, or the knit version for $1 here.

Want to see the awesome WIP being done by my fellow crafters? Head over to Tami's Ami Blog!

The 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project

I've spoken in both of my blog posts this past week about my affection for Japan. In all my traveling, I've only ever found three places that I liked so well that I would want to live in them without any other temptation than just getting to be in them. These places are New York City (my home "town"), Tokyo and Venice. I've gotten to live in two of these cities - I was a resident in Tokyo for four months in 2007, and I feel in love. Even before that, I was a Japan-o-phile, studied Japanese for 6 years, and majored in East Asian Studies with a focus on Japan. There's no place like Tokyo in the world. I talk a lot about in this post (already linked in my WIP Wednesday, but I know I get some other folks for this post). Since last Friday, every day, I wake up feeling normal, and then at some point in my morning routine I remember that Japan is still in a state of crisis, and I look up the latest updates on the situation with the nuclear plant with a heavy heart, tears in my eyes, a little nausea, and the echoing thought that a place that I love is only 150 miles from such a potential disaster.

On Monday, I knew that I wanted to help. I went to the American Red Cross web page, and I donated as much money as I could afford. It felt totally empty. I kept thinking. I decided that if I can possibly manage it, I'm going to use my vacation in September to go and help with the rebuilding efforts that I'm sure will be well under way by then. It felt like too little, too late. I got dressed for the gym...and I had an idea. While I was at the gym, I let it percolate and develop. I ended up skipping out on work to implement that idea, and tonight it will be ready to go.

So, without more ado, let me introduce the 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project. The purpose of this project is simple: raise money for aid to Japan.

In Japanese culture, cranes are considered to be a sacred animal. There is an ancient myth that promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes, threaded together on a string, will be granted any one wish by a crane. The gift of a string of a thousand cranes is considered to bestow good luck, happiness and prosperity, and strings of cranes are frequently given as gifts to newly weds, newborns, and as part of coming of age activities.



I've designed a pattern for crocheting an amigurumi crane that looks like the origami version of a crane. The basic pattern can be done either in sport-weight (pictured) or worsted weight, and turns out roughly 3 inches high, and 6 x 6 inches width/length. The worsted weight is a little bigger. There are also instructions for resizing the pattern to any other size within reason.

The 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project has 4 components:

1. The pattern. The pattern is just finishing up testing today. The regular pattern is already confirmed good to go; I'm just awaiting feedback on the resizing instructions. I've made the pattern live on Ravelry while still waiting that final feedback, because I can easily re-send the updated version to purchasers through their system. The pattern is $5. See the end of this post for more details on how the money end of this will work.

2. The finished dolls. I encourage you all to sell your finished dolls to raise additional funds. The regular dolls work up in about an hour - less once you get the hang of it - and are quite cute. My testers were thrilled. :) I've already donated one of my finished dolls (the orange one, pictured above) to a charity auction being done on Live Journal (here, if you're interested). There are several ways to go about donating your doll, such as an auction like the one I'm in, or posting it to a store you've got and donating the proceeds, or requesting a receipt as demonstration of donation and sending it. OR, if you don't want to bother, you can either send your doll to me, and I'll take care of figuring out a way to sell it, or you can join the Ravelry group, and we can match those who have cranes with those who want cranes. I'm selling the small cranes for $10 each, and larger cranes (made with the resizing more) priced accordingly, at roughly $10 an hour as the rate.

3. The commissions. Can't crochet and want a doll? Contact me and I'll make you one - within reason. If I get swamped, there's only so much I can do. This is where the matching comes in. :)

4. The community. An effort like this can't work without your help. I'm only one amigurumi crafter, and I'm a small fish in a very big sea. If you think this is a good idea, if you think this is something that can succeed, then please help even just by spreading the word, and encouraging those that you know to spread the word. I'll be distributing information by whatever means I can. I've made a group on Ravelry at The 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project, and over the next few days I'll be sharing it on every forum and group that I can think of - but I'm only one person, with a full time job, leaving for a business trip on Sunday. Even if you can't give - even if you've already given in another form - I know I've heard lots of crafters say in the past seven days that they wish that there was some way we as a community could band together to help. This is my attempt at doing that. I'll also be organizing a crochet-a-long.

I'm raising money in two ways:

1. Buy from me, pay my pay pal account, and when I've built up chunks, I'll pull the money and donate it to the American Red Cross. I'll be keeping updates of the fiscal end of things, including screen caps, in the Ravelry group and the blog for accountability purposes. The downside of this option is that I am not able to cover the percent of your purchase price that gets deducted as fees by Ravelry and/or Paypal and/or Etsy. The upside is that you can then download it immediately from Ravelry, you don't have to worry about anything except sending the money, the rest is up to me. This option will result in approximately 90% of your money going to the American Red Cross. The pattern is now available from Ravelry, and I'm still deciding if I'll put it up on Etsy (etsy has a larger following, but more fees associated with it). You can go directly to buy it here, or you can check out the pattern here if you're a member.

However, in case ya'll don't trust me (and I wouldn't blame you, the internet is rough that way!) there's the second option...

2. Receipts. Show me a receipt (with all personal info blurred out) demonstrating that you have donated the requisite dollar amount to a charity of your choice working for Tsunami Relief, and I will send you the pattern or doll that you've requested. This can be a cell phone bill showing a $10 text donation, a confirmation screen cap from the charity, or whatever else shows that you did it. In this case, I'm trusting you - and I do. I highly recommend the American Red Cross, with the downside being that they require a minimum donation of $10. The Japan Society in New York is also doing a funding drive that appears to accept smaller donations - you can access that here. The downside with this option is you'll have to wait for me to send the pattern for you (I try to have a less than 24 hours turn around on sending out patterns). If you have already donated and want the pattern or a doll, send me proof that you have made a donation of the requisite amount and I will send you the pattern. You can send this information to me at unforth@yahoo.com.

If you want to follow this more closely, feel free to follow me on Twitter (@unforth), join my on FB (fanpage is Curiously Crafted Creations), join the Ravelry group (The 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project) or just keep an eye on this blog. Contact me at unforth@yahoo.com, or Private Message me on Ravelry (Username: unforth) or anything else you feel like (ie, comment on this post) to get in touch with me and ask me questions - or if you have ideas to help! I'll admit, I'm hoping that other people will have other ideas to contribute to raise money for the 1000 Amigurumi Crane Project - but for now, I'm getting us started. :)

If we can sell 1000 amigurumi crane patterns, we can raise more than $4,500 for relief to Japan. If we can sell 1000 amigurumi crane dolls, we could raise an additional $10,000 or more. When I think of all the people that we could help, it brings tears to my eyes. Together, we can do more than any of us could dream of doing alone, and we can help bring joy and happiness and prosperity back to the people in Japan who are suffering. Thanks for your time, everyone.

FO Friday on Tami's Ami Blog
Fiber Arts Friday with Wonder Why Gal.

Edit: There are now more posts about the project! Use the 1000 amigurumi cranes tag, and there's an update in this post.

Work in Progress Wednesday - 3/16/2011

I was thinking I had nothing to share this Wednesday until I actually looked at what I had in front of me, and realized I kind of have a lot. Which is good, cause I'm not even sure I'll be able to post next Wednesday, as I'll be in California for a business trip (conference!) - but the crocheting is never done, and I'll definitely have projects with me (I mean, all that time on the plane, what else am I going to do? :) ).

Soon to Be Not Super Secret Project:
This weeks super secret project is already finished, and I'll be sharing it along with more information on Friday. It pertains to helping Japan. I'm very, very upset about what has happened there. I feel like it hits me again every day, and I know that while that feeling fades it never goes away completely, because I know how I feel every time I crest Route 80 and get my first glimpse of the skyline of NYC and realize once again that the Towers are gone. Next to my home city (which is NYC) there's no place in the world I love so well as Tokyo - I lived there for four months in 2007. So I've developed a project to help out (in addition to my out of pocket donation and a charity auction that I joined on LJ) and I'll talk all about it on Friday when the pattern is out of testing. But for now, if you want to read more about my time in Japan, and see pics, it's in my previous post.

Anyway! Enough sad. On to the works in progress!

Flower Pot Cozy
I'm not done with the flower pot cozy that I talked about last week but I have at least made progress.


I've gotten to the point that I can do one round in about 10 - 12 minutes, which seems sluggish but is faster than I was was working. Unfortunately, I've reached the point on the flower pot that I have to start increasing the size of the rounds.


As you can see, I'm about half way up, and I'm pretty much at the point where it fits the pot snugly. That said, now that I've seen it on the pot, I'm MUCH happier with it than I was before, so that's a step in the right direction. :)

Yet Another Version of Jose Estrella
I'll be making at least one more version after this, but this is the most important version of Jose Estrella, the Starfish - the version in his baseball uniform! As I've said, Jose Estrella is the Short stop for my amigurumi undersea baseball team, the Oceans!



The Sugar 'n Cream in white and yellow didn't quite do what I'd hoped, but I'm just going with it. Anyway, he's completely done except for the embroidery on his uniform, which I've forgotten to do for the last two days. He'll be done by Friday. :)

Spinning!
Jenny (my spinning friend) gave me a bit more fiber - a bunch of merino, and a bunch of romney. I spun the merino first, and there are pics below, and now I'm working on the romney. The merino was definitely the easiest of the three types of fibers I've tried to draw. However, even though I'm not finding it easy to draw the romney while the spindle is going, I am finding it relatively easy to get the thickness I want and keep it consistent. No idea if that's the fiber or me. :)



I also spent 20 bucks (after shipping) to get a pound of roving in mixed shades of black and gray and white. I don't know what type of fiber it exactly is (except sheep) but I bought it from here on the recommendation of a friend on Nerd Wars who had used it before - not the kind of thing I'd chance without that - and I'll definitely report on how it goes!

I also did some work with my previous spinning. Namely, I removed it from the spindle, wrapped it around a wooden hanger (cause I don't have a knitty knoddy or whatever they're called), dunked it almost boiling water, let it dry for 24 hours, wound some of it, let it dry for another 24 hours, and now it's ready to go!



The top is the first fiber I did, and the bottom is the merino. I think it pretty clearly shows my improvement. :) Anyway, I don't yet know what to make with it, but I'm thinking a shawl with a nice loose gauge to make the unevenness a feature instead of mistake (I have a K crochet hook in the house, or maybe I'll use the size 13 knitting needles - yes, I might actually knit something! ;) ). For the shawl, I'd use the merino. Not sure yet what to do with the other. :)

Poppop's Birthday Present
My grandfather turns 93 on April 4th, and me, my brother and my mom will be going down to Texas to visit. Before I even knew that, though, I had concocted a plan to make him a present. One of the Nerd Wars challenges this month is "WIP Help," and the idea is that you help someone who can no longer finish projects on their own to complete something that they had started. While ostensibly, this was aimed at helping little old arthritic ladies finish their blankets, they've made allowances because so many of us don't know any old arthritic ladies. One of those exceptions is that we can use stash yarn that belonged to people who have died - provided that we make something that that person might have made with the yarn. That's the option I'm going with - so I'll be making my grandfather's birthday gift out of stash yarn that belong to my grandmother, who died in 1976 (six years before I was born). I wouldn't be sharing this yet, except that I anticipate being done or mostly done by next Wednesday. :)



This yarn is SO COOL. I've done some research on it. It's labeled as having been made by "Patons & Baldwins Ltd" - a corporation that merged with J.P. Coats in 1961, and became what we now know as Patons. It is in fact Scotch Fingering, 100% wool, imported, and it's been Patonised, which just sounds cool. I couldn't find much info on this yarn specifically, but based on images of the same yarn that I could date, I'd place this particular label as dating to the late 1940s or early 1950s. The skeins are 1 oz each, and I've got 10 skeins of the tweed and 6 of the blue, and also a decent size chunk of knitting that dates to a time in the unknown past when my mother thought to make something out of it and then got frustrated at how long it was taking. I'll definitely photograph that before I (with her blessing) frog it. For what I have in mind, I'm going to three ply the yarn - two lengths of tweed and one length of blue - and the goal is to make him two wheel chair cushion covers. Cause his wheel chair cushion is comfy and squishy but dead ugly. :)

Go see what everyone else is up to over on Tami's Ami Blog on this rainy WIP Wednesday!