Category: Crochet

Yay! It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for: Lion Brand has posted my free pattern for Glitter Gummy Bears, just in time for your holiday crafting! One pack of Lion Brand Bonbons can make up to 8 gummy bears in a variety of colors. There’s a bit of sewing involved with the different little pieces, but if you are familiar with making simple amigurumi, this pattern will be a snap! I tried to keep it the pattern as simple as possible so that more people would be able to have some gummy bear fun! If you make a gummy bear and enjoy the pattern, please do leave positive feedback at the Lion Brand site on my pattern page. If you guys like the pattern, maybe more things will be in store in the future…! (This photo will be available soon as a greeting card in my Etsy shop!)

My buddy Andrea a.k.a. Giggles, Craft Wars Winner, asked if I’d be part of a promotional blog hop and create a fun pattern in support of her latest project: The Paint Chip Pals, a posse of 7 color-inspired plush, all with their own powers and personalities. The Paint Chip Pals currently have a Kickstarter campaign which will be up for only 2 more weeks, so check it out if you’d like to be one of the first to grab your own Paint Chip Pal, while also supporting indie designers, fun plush toys, and I quote from their Kickstarter page, “grown ups that simply refuse to grow up!” You can also enter a contest to win a Paint Chip Pal by leaving a comment on my blog and telling me who your favorite Paint Chip Pal is. Your name will go into a big pool of entries from other blogs on the blog hop, and Andrea will choose a winner on December 12. So if you want more chances to win, comment on the other blogs, too! To help celebrate their campaign, I created a fun and easy pattern for you guys inspired by Plinky, who loves sparkle-hunting and eating cotton candy! We threw in one for her buddy Blooty, too! So here are the instructions to crochet your own Cotton Candy Christmas Tree Ornament!

Sometimes, after working on a new pattern/project for 2 days, you are left with a pile of unraveled yarn, and a CIRCLE. Granted, I’ve had other things going on, too, like still trying to get the Yummy You store to work (my buddy Kei has some choice words regarding the Magento platform, but those are not G-rated), and working on getting Yummy You in other stores, but seriously, I did not expect to have a CIRCLE after all this work. I don’t know how other crochet designers do it, but sometimes, I have to take something apart a million times. Some times I try something one day for a few hours, decide it’s not the best, unravel it, start over again. I think I have done that at least ten times with this project. The end result will seem very stream-lined and simple, but you’ll never know how many hours went into deciding on that one specific pattern. Like, I tried using front post stitches for some texture, and it was looking awesome, but later I decided they created too much bulk for this project, so I unraveled that and ixnayed the FPs.  My new website is www.UnRavelry.com, and all we do is post pictures of yarn piles and odd shapes with smiley faces on them! Wish I could tell you more, but this project will be part of something launching in January! As long as I actually finish it in time for my deadline! HAH!

I totally forgot to mention that I posted two crochet paintings from the Macaronimal collection on Etsy! If you want to visit Cinnamon Kitten and Pavlova Panda, click here! 🙂

These sweet sparkly gummy bears are looking for a new home with YOU! But I’ve sort of been hemming and hawing over exactly what to do with them, and wondering how people would prefer to wear the the gummy the most. I know that everyone has different preferences, but it would be interesting to see if there were any kind of consensus or majority opinion? I could do: brooches hair clips (but not the combo, because the combo hardware is too big and bulky) or mount 1,2, or 3 bears on a headband. The other thing I thought of was hanging them on a ball-chain necklace. Any thoughts? I personally use hair clips more than pins, but I think they make for awfully cute brooches…. Oh, p.s. they are about 2 inches tall :). Ok now that I am looking at a photo, maybe more like 3 inches tall, with some slight size variance in different colors due to the slight variances in yarn weights.

Here’s the video I made from clips Manda and I took on our iPhones at the pumpkin patch. My original plan was to get this uploaded to promote my Halloween and pumpkin-themed accessories, but you know, life happens, and I didn’t have time to get to it. It’s a little late now to order your Halloween goodies, yet it’s not quite Halloween, but I’m going to be house-sitting for Halloween without access to my good computer, so here’s the video now! PHEW! I am also having weird issues with iMovie not letting me save my file at full quality, so it’s at medium quality : /. I gotta work on my video quality issues, but I have no idea what I am doing. Anyway, I hope you think it’s fun! I thought I was going to put together a 30 second video, but I had so much fun remembering our day at the pumpkin patch, that it turned into a 2 minutes video. I chose “On Top of the World” by Imagine Dragons because I heard it for the first time that day in Manda’s car.  

(Hair clips and stripey glove: my Etsy shop, Dress: Katastrophic Design (worn before in my Final Frontier post), Boots: ModCloth, Cardigan: Target) I haven’t been to a pumpkin patch in years. I kept begging Manda to go with me this year and wear our pumpkin/Halloween gear, and Sunday was the day! I’m lucky enough to live nearly next door to this pumpkin patch, and it has tons of pumpkins, a bouncy castle, a bouncy slide, and even a little train that departs every 10 minutes. I thought we would kind of hop in and out of there and then go costume shopping, but we ended up spending over an hour picking our most favorite pumpkins, me trying to talk Manda into buying a giant humongous pumpkin, Manda trying to talk me out of carving and sticking my head in said giant pumpkin like the headless horseman.    (I don’t know much about Manda’s outfit except her hat and mitts are from my Etsy shop, and her jacket is Material Girl.) We got quite the response at the patch and were told we were really prepared! I came home with one small pumpkin and two baby pumpkins, and Manda bougnt like a kabillion pumpkins (but not the one big giant one!). You will see more of our pumpkin shopping in a short video that I will post soon!

This week has been a flurry of top secret Yummy You! activity that I hope to be able reveal soon! In more immediate news, I was really happy to contribute in some small way to the first ever Blogcademy in NYC hosted by Kat from RockNRollBride, Gala Darling, and Nubby Twiglet. It’s happening this weekend, and I totally wish I could be a fly on the wall! I really love how people can come together and make things happen. That’s kind of a lame way to put it, but the making of the things is kind of magical. Each Blogcademy graduate gets a custom coffee cup cozy crocheted by yours truly included in a bag full of other goodies. At first, I thought I might make cupcake coffee cup cozies, but when Kat asked if I could use the Blogcademy colors, I decided to go a different way completely and create a crochet version of their branding. My work is not really known for being classy, clean, or modern, but I think I did okay and added a bit of cozy grandma-ness to the mix!   (Pic ganked from Blogcademy blog.) I drew most of my inspiration from their button design. I picture many bloggers out and about in places with coffee/tea and wifi, so I figured a coffee cup cozy would be the most useful item I could provide. I’m excited to see how Blogcademy grows, and maybe one day they will be headed to a city near you! (For anyone new to my blog, here’s my Q&A at Gala’s blog, and here’s my tutorial at Kat’s blog.)    

While designing Halloween-themed items, I sketched out a t-shirt with a plush heart and loopy crocheted “ribs” that would not necessarily be anatomically correct (at all!) but would still evoke both spookiness and cuteness! I wanted to borrow from today’s skeleton trend and make it a little more Twinkie Chan. What I really like about this project is that you can pick your favorite color t-shirt or tank top and wear it year-round. You can even make the heart a removable brooch and give it to somebody at any moment! (Oh hey, Valentine’s Day project!) You can also have lots of fun decorating and customizing your heart, giving it a face, arms, legs, heck, you could even sew clothes for it if you want! The pattern is below! Please note, that I did this really quickly before leaving on a trip to Seattle to see the Plush You opening at Schmancy (today, Friday, 5pm – 9pm!).  I need to shoot better photos, and there are probably some weird mistakes in the pattern itself. Let me know if you attempt it! 🙂

I uploaded some cute Halloween-themed cupcake hair clips to my Etsy shop  and put them in a “Halloween” section along with jackolantern slouchy hats, mitts, and hair clips. I have one more Halloween-themed project I want to complete, but time is tickin’ away, and we’re also going to be out of town this weekend for Plush You in Seattle! It is going to be a free pattern/DIY project  to post here on the blog, so I hope I have time to squeak it in so you guys can make some for yourselves before Halloween! Or for you spookier individuals, it will be something you can wear all year round…! I played with a new lens for my camera today. The light was bad since the sun was going down, but a lot of the product photos came out super crisp anyway. Interesting! I know absolutely nothing about photography and am thinking of taking an online class in November!  

The Plush You! show opens at Schmancy in Seattle on Friday, October 12, and I’ll be there! Hope to see you locals there, too! Schmancy has been posting preview pictures of plush on Instagram, and it looks like it’s going to be an awesome show. I sort of stretched the idea of a “plush toy” into making tissue box cozy buddies! Looks like plush. Gives you kleenex. Win win! I didn’t get a chance to photograph all 3 together. The Milk Carton Buddy was a late-bloomer and was actually completed and shipped a week after his other 2 friends! Cheeseburger Buddy was born first. I have been wanting to make a burger tissue cozy forever! I will probably start to offer these on Etsy in a non-monster style. Here’s his lady-friend, Birthday Cake Buddy! I was excited to make her, because I love the birthday candle so much. Also I was happy to use a pattern from Sugar On Top to create her frosting decorations. I think it looks like a little girl wearing a dress! Milk Carton Buddy was born last. He was fun to make because his tissue comes out the top of his carton, like you’re about to pour out some tissues for yourself. I kind of flip-flopped between this idea and having the tissue come out of his mouth like his friends, but I thought it would be a nice contrast to have something a little different for the show. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a pic of them together when I’m in Seattle!

A little while ago, Kathryn Vercillo of Crochet Concupiscence emailed me about her new book “Crochet Saved My Life: The Mental and Physical Health Benefits of Crochet.” I asked if she would like to offer a free copy to one of my blog readers, and she said yes! To be perfectly honest, I haven’t had time yet to read the whole book, but I have gotten about half way. I didn’t want to wait too much longer to set up this giveaway for you! Kathryn shares her journey of how crocheting helped her overcome life-threatening depression. In reaching out to the crochet community, she also met others who experienced the healing and therapeutic power of yarn and a hook. You will follow Kathryn’s personal story, her scientific research, and the stories of 24 other women from all walks of life. Her writing is thoughtful, never saccharine, and her book is an uplifting and educational thank-you to a craft that most people see as just a hobby. On Amazon.com, the book is available as a paperback as well as a Kindle download. If you are an Amazon Prime member, the book is free in the lending library! Kathryn is kindly offering one of my blog readers a free copy: a paperback version for U.S. readers, and an electronic version for non-U.S. readers. To enter the giveaway, follow the handy Rafflecopter widget! a Rafflecopter giveaway

When Mollie Makes asked if I would send some extra photos of my work for Issue 18 along with a photo of myself for the contributors page, I decided to throw together an impromptu secret garden party in my back yard. It was so secret, that I was the only one there! I also always wanted to see if I could make one of these composite collage thingies. I have no idea how you are supposed to make them. I basically just shot a bunch of photos of myself around the table and then cut/pasted them together. It’s not perfect, and you can see some seams if you look closely, but it was just for fun, and I thought it turned out pretty cool!

A little bit ago I posted a pic of a two-colored cupcake slouchy hat, and I thought I’d share how that came to be. Jess from Cupcakes by Jess in the UK contacted me about making her a custom cupcake hat with colors from her logo and tattoo. She requested a pink and mint frosting with a chocolate cake. I hope Jess loves her new hat! If you’re near Norfolk and have a sweet tooth, please check out her cupcakes! She also wanted me to give a shout out to her tattoo artist Gemma Osborn at Sub Rosa Tattoo Parlor in Norwich. Happy Monday! Can’t to show you the neat tissue box cozies I have been working on for Plush You! in Seattle, October 12!

Hop on over to Chickiedee to check out some photos of my work space and my Q&A with RobbieLee! The weather had been a bit gloomy and overcast before I needed to send her some photos, so unfortch my craft room didn’t photograph as nicely as I’d hoped, but I still hope you enjoy a peek into my crafty world!

I ended up laying pretty low the past week, recovering from my crochet painting. I made a lot of custom cupcake slouchy hats, one of which is 2-color, which I really like! I know it doesn’t seem like that much more work than a 1-color, but you kinda have to pay attention to maintaining the right tension on both yarns and trying to hide the alternate color as much as possible, slowing down the work. I may start to offer 2-color hats in the shop, but it will unfortunately have to be priced differently to reflect the extra time put into it. It’s cute, though, right? Last week I also made this custom birthday cake tissue box cozy for a friend of a friend to give to her friend. Her friend doesn’t like fruit, so I used frosting roses to go with the candles. I plan to add birthday cakes to the shop, and also mini bday cake hair clips, bday candle pins, and maybe a hat? I dunno. I just love bday-themed stuff! (Sorry for the crappy photo. I really didn’t have enough time to shoot nicer photos of it before having to pack it up and send it off!) My immediate goal is to get some new Halloween-themed designs in. More on that soon in the coming week!

BABY vs. GUMMY BEAR I HAD to share this video with you guys. The end just cracked me up big time! Thanks to Jessy, one of my trusty crochet elves! We will ensure that future gummy bears are not encrusted with baby goo 😛

Macaroons vs macarons. Do you pronounce them the say way? Anyhoo, I was sketching out ideas for my crochet paintings for the Sweet Tooth show this Friday in L.A. (come say hi! I’ll be there!), and I kept changing my mind. At first I was going to do a series of cakes, and thennnnn wanted to do a collage of bulk candies, and thennnnnnnnn I saw THIS blog entry and knew I had to try making macaronimals with coffee/tea. First up: my horrible sketch! I wanted the colors on all 4 canvases to look nice together, so sketching it first really helped me to make sure that everything looked relatively harmonious and that I wasn’t over-using one particular color throughout. I didn’t really know for sure how I wanted to execute the little cookie sandwiches and the sense of perspective I was going for. As it turned out, actually making little sandwiches was looking the best, which made everything really puffy and thick, so I ended up putting two cookies each on the canvases instead of three. Kuragoma (black sesame) Koala, Strawberry Bunny, Cinnamon Kitten, and Pavlova Panda! Each one is 10 in x 8 in. I think my favorite are the kittens, since they looked the most realistically biscuity. I made the choice to NOT put a little stuffing in the koalas, which I made first, and I sort of regret this choice, as I think the puffiness would have enhanced the macaron-ness. I intend to make more of these after the show and will definitely add a little puff to the top cookie. Also, of course, HAIR CLIPS. People have been asking if these could turn into laptop covers or purses. If I ever did that, I would really have to change how I constructed everything, because the 3D nature would make the piece bulky and a little too delicate. We’ll see! 🙂 I’m really happy with how these turned out, even tho each piece took WAY longer than you’d think or I ever expected/planned for. Luckily, I pulled it out! While making these, I was particularly struck by how people would perceive my work as trinkets or novelties for little girls and babies. I have had a hard time with this for a long time, since I design everything as if I would wear it/use it/love it myself, and I think that shoving my work in the “for little girls only” category is really limiting. I will just keep doing what I do, though, and hopefully all the big girls who still have a nostalgic fondness for the fun, color, and playfulness of their girl magic will also get what I’m about. And now… close-ups!

Guess who is on the cover of Mollie Makes magazine Issue 18? A Twinkie Chan imposter! Just kidding! It’s me! Well, it’s my scarf! :). Some people have already expressed concern that this was not my scarf, but don’t worry, it’s legit! Mollie Makes asked me to create a toast with strawberry jam scarf for the cover, and the full pattern is inside. I think this is a neat addition to the buttered toast scarf because you can switch up all the flavors of the jam blob and even make it peanut butter or Nutella or whatever! I was so honored to be asked to create a project for the cover. A lot of my  most favoritest crafty ladies are not only fans of the magazine but have also have appeared in it and/or written for it. If you have never heard of it, it is out of the UK, and you should check it out! The issue comes out August 31. Get one! I also took some fun little photos of my work in my back yard for the inside of the magazine. I’ll see which ones are included in the mag and then show you guys some outtakes! Here’s a little bit about Mollie Makes: Mollie Makes is published thirteen times a year. We curate the best craft from around the world into a tactile, collectable and totally irresistible magazine. We love to make – handmade is more than just a hobby for us, it’s in everything we do. We can’t resist hunting down treasures in thrift stores, then customising, re-covering and embellishing our finds with our endless stash of ribbons, buttons, fabrics and felt. We’re forever on the lookout for new inspiration. Whatever we do, we’re living and loving handmade. ♡ Making ♡ Thrifting ♡ Collecting ♡ Crafting Readers can subscribe to Mollie Makes through this link: http://www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/stitch-craft/mollie-makes-magazine-subscription/ and download the iPad version here: http://goo.gl/qzprk Don’t miss out on the latest news from Mollie Makes. Sign up to our newsletter at the top of the page, here: http://molliemakes.themakingspot.com/

I sent in my entry for the Lion Brand Bonbon‘s challenge today! It took me a long time to even decide what I wanted to do. I finally narrowed it down to two projects: little sparkly gummy bears, or, a sparkly gum-ball birthday cake tissue box cozy.  A quick Twitter poll yielded 100% votes for the gummy bears, so I listened to the people!!! Hairy said that it was a different project than I normally make, which was a good thing. But I said, well, everyone makes amigurumi so while I don’t normally do it, it’s still pretty normal! I figured LB contacted me so that they would get a weird, wacky, wearable project, but I could not deny what The People wanted! Plus, you know me, you can stick a hair clip or pin on anything and wear it! You could make a head band, garlands, pencil toppers. Really, the possibilities with small amis are endless! I also really liked the idea of creating a project in which you could use all the Bonbons in a single packet and feel like you got a good bang for your buck. (But if you want a yellow/gold gummy bear, you are gonna have to spring for a second pack!) The tricky part of this project for me was making sure he looked like a gummy bear and NOT a teddy bear. I looked at zillions of pics of gummy bears online, and really, there are all different styles and kinds. But the kind that stick out in my mind are the ones that are kind of long and rectangular and really look like blobs, so there was that fine balance to achieve between blob and bear. I think he came out great! I’ll post the pattern if LB doesn’t end up choosing it, so you guys will get the pattern regardless :). Stay tuned! p.s. here’s a pic of some early incarnations while I worked out my plan of attack…  

Lion Brand contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if I’d like to participate in a promotion/contest and create a project/pattern using their new yarn Bonbons. Why yes, yes I would! Look how tiny and cute they are! They come in little packs of 8. The colors are much more vibrant and delicious in person than they look online at their site. I am partial to the ones with SPARKLE. I like how the packaging also helps give you non-knit and non-crochet ideas, like wrapping tin cans, making friendship bracelets, making pom poms, etc. I am not sure yet what project I’d want to make with these! Something fun, cute, yummy, but accessible. I have a few thoughts and ideas flying around in my noggin, but I need to decide soon!

In one week, I’ll be turning 36! Pretty weird, right? I’m not a person who makes plans, like 5 year plans or 10 year plans or “Where do I want to be when I’m __ years old?” I kind of just … be. If I’m happy, and the people I’m around are happy, and I’m not hurting anyone or breaking the law, then all is good! (P.s. I finished this tissue box cozy for a little photo shoot in my back yard, and it will be going up on Etsy very soon!)

I thought I would show you a few more photos of the Pocky Paintings. Unfortch, they still aren’t great quality. We didn’t realize that our camera has been set to a crazy high ISO for who knows how long, so everything has been really grainy for a long time, and I didn’t have the knowledge to know why! Thanks to Erik Hansem for solving the mystery! Anyway, onto the pics at Big Umbrella Studios!   When I got to the gallery, the pink painting had already sold. Way cool! Hello, Rilakkuma! Hello, Gloomy Bear! You can’t really tell from these photos, but the blood on his face is a bit metallic and sparkly. Here’s a bit of a side view. I wanted to show you guys the 3-D-ness. The Pocky lettering was really fun, but a little unwieldy. I wanted them to kinda look squished together and chubby, and they kept springing back out all over the place. It would have been a good time to have four hands! As you may or may not know, I often start all my work with rough sketches in photoshop. Sometimes your project doesn’t always pan out the way you thought, but, sometimes things like TIME just get in the way, so you have to adapt. Clearly, I did not end up with as much lettering as I’d wanted, but I still think it turned out ok!                 There was also the issue of how to cleanly render the text ON TOP of the Pocky sticks. I considered beading, altho that probably still would have looked lumpybumpy, but I may still try it later on. I may come up with a few more fantasy flavors to make paintings for the Etsy shop, since both of these sold already. I’ll put some other photos from the gallery – including me eating a big sandwich – under the cut!

So heeeeere’s the booth! I’m sorry I only have bad phone pics! I didn’t take a real camera! The idea was to create “Twinkie Chan’s House,” and while we sat at the table, it would look like we were sitting in the couch. Manda sewed the walls out of heavyweight shower curtain liners from Target, and then I outlined the drawings in yellow Sharpie (which the paint didn’t cover up!). I was reminded how sucky of an artist I am, and I couldn’t draw a straight line! I needed Manda to stand back and guide me while I drew, to make sure all the proportions were approximately right. I was like, “HOW DID THE MASTERS DO IT?!?!?” And then she, Ben, and I painted the walls the night before the show at my parents’ house in the driveway. We were painting until like 1 or 2 in the morning. Then I drove home (about a 45 minute drive) to pack up the other booth stuff, take a shower, and then nap for a whole 20 minutes before I had to get up, get dressed, and drive back down to my parents’ house to take apart and pack up the booth because it needed those few hours to completely dry. And then drive back up to the city to get to Fort Mason and set up the whole thing again. The show started at 11am. I don’t think we were done setting up until like 1pm because we had arrived pretty much an hour or two later than we had planned. C’est la vie. I was freaking out because we were late, the paint was peeling off the walls, we brought the wrong Astroturf for the floor covering, it was 80billion degrees in there, and I felt like everything was going wrong that could possibly go wrong! In the end, it turned out ok, but I am sure the sleep dep was not helping! I had not gotten hardly sleep any week for a few days. I am surprised I could form sentences still!   Our booth was pretty much always busy. A LOT of people came through on Saturday, and by the time we were able to drink the Frappucinos that Hairy had brought us, they had returned to a liquid form. I hadn’t had any time to plan out the table displays, so we just sort of winged it. One of the legs on our small table ended up being wonky, and we were afraid that it would fall over the whole time. My usual red checkered table cloths were still in LA from Anime Expo, and I didn’t have time to shop for fabric for new ones, hence, blank white wrinkly table cloths! I did somehow make time to create this odd little holder for the new honey bear coffee cup cozies. Here’s the blog entry about them in case you missed it! So, we have 10 ft by 10 ft for our booths. My house was 10 […]