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!

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!

Throwing Down the Gauntlet (Two Pairs of Them, Actually!)

Well, it's another week of Finished Object (or, if you prefer, Fiber Arts) Friday! If it weren't for yesterday, I'd have felt like I had pretty much nothing to show for this week, but I spent about 12 hours crocheting yesterday so I've pulled something off. ;) Haven't finished either of my WIP from Wednesday, but I did publish my Andromeda Cowl Pattern (available on Etsy and Ravelry. I also went out and bought a huge pile of new yarn on Wednesday, most of which I have plans for, to make up for my much-depleted stash. I'll write more about this in the next day or two, or possibly next WIP Wednesday. ;)

More Starfish!
Last week, I presented Jose Estrella, the Starfish, and mentioned that I had variations of him in the works. The pattern is very easy to modify, and when I publish it I intend to include all the different options that I can think of, but that means first I have to make them. This week, I made two (which actually cover five of the available options - I'm trying to reduce my work load ;) )

Variation 1 and 2: The Red Serpent Starfish
This is a red serpent starfish:


...and here's an amigurumi Red Serpent Starfish!

This reflects two of the potential variations on my pattern:
1. modifying the limbs to be long and thin!
2. Working from the corners of the center body instead of from the sides (hard to explain but if you were looking at the pattern it'd make excellent sense. ;) )

Variation 3, 4 and 5: The Tree-Topper Star

Another alternate use of this pattern is to make a star that I think is perfect for a Christmas tree. This reflects another three potential variations on my pattern:
1. Remove the body texture (sc around instead of sc/dc around)
2. Make the whole starfish smaller
3. Lengthen the limbs as compared to the body size

Here are all three starfish, hanging out together...

The red serpent starfish has no respect for the personal space of others. :)

The Gauntlets
One of the March challenges in Nerd Wars is "Warrior's Friend." The idea is to make a shield, either literally or figuratively (an item to protect yourself or something you care about from harm). My main idea for this had originally been to modify my male doll pattern and make a version in full armor, but as I felt this would require me to learn to felt to really do it justice, and I just haven't the time, I changed my mind. Wednesday night and especially yesterday morning, inspiration struck as I was trying to figure out what project to bring to my totally dull, have-to-be-there-all-day meeting where nothing was actually expected of me. An excellent crocheting opportunity! (I frequently bring projects to such things and no one has given me a hard time yet...)

The result was two pairs of gauntlets. The first is the Shielding Gauntlet:

My main goal designing these was that they should fit me nice and snugly, and that they should have no mesh at all. At such, it's just sc except for the borders. I'm VERY happy with how they turned out - I used one of my favorite colorways (which unfortunately is Red Heart, but life goes on...). They fit just about perfectly, if I made them any more snug around the wrist they wouldn't fit over my hand. ;)

The second is the Roundel Gauntlet:

Sorry the picture is so shadowed. :( These were a much more daunting project, and designing them took a lot of trial and error. I had two goals when I designed them: first, that they should be largely lattice so that you could see through them, and two, that the main motif be inspired by a shield.

I'm not as thrilled as I could be, but I am satisfied. The main decoration runs down the center of the back, and is composed of two spirals flanking a roundel, hence the name. They're not quite lined up right just now, though, so I'm going to move the thumb catch tonight - it'll only take a couple minutes but will make me much happier with my FO. ;)

However! The real goal of all of this was to make two gauntlets that can be worn TOGETHER.

Why? Because once it gets even a little warm I like to wear short sleeves, but sometimes my hands get cold. Now that I have two different pairs of very snug gauntlets, I can keep my hands warm. ;)


The real priority to the solid base and the lattice second pair was so that you could see both, of course!


All in all, they don't look quite as good together as I'd hoped, but I'm satisfied enough with both individually that I have no complaints. I mean, I made two pairs of gauntlets and ended up with three different looks! And suitable for three different types of weather.

Now I just have to figure out if I can see how to make them easily resizeable, and thus suitable for publication as patterns... :)

Join Wonder Why Gal for Fiber Arts Friday and Tami's Ami Blog for Finished Object Friday! See all the awesome stuff everyone else has been working on!! :)