Sleepy Sarah

I found this pattern by the talented Owlishly here a while ago and thought it was adorable, but didn't know what I would make it for. Then, I figured I would make it for my sister's birthday since her name is Sarah. She turned 16, so it probably wasn't "cool" enough, but then again, what is? I used yarn bought on a recently trip to the states (for my other sister's wedding) and Sarah inadvertently helped me pick out the main color. :-D Since I used the yarn called for in the pattern (as opposed to using whatever somewhat thick sock-yarn I can find here), it actually turned out pretty big! I was originally assuming it would end up tiny like everything else did and then I would turn it into a keychain, but it's WAY too big for that! So, I don't really know what Sarah did with it.....hopefully she thought it was as cute as I did!

I am still in the beginner phases as far as being able to embroider faces. I must have ripped out a dozen different times. (I would've probably done more if my husband hadn't convinced me to do something simpler and then to be satisfied by it!) This is the one I ended up with. At first, I thought the tiny mouth made it look like a sweet little old lady, but the more I see it, the more I like it! It's simple, but sweet. :-)

A different view This picture shows the rich, deep, dark purple better.

A Ladybug for Lila

Lila had been quite attached to a teeny beanie baby ladybug from McDonald's quite some time ago. She slept with it, carried it around, brought it along on errands, etc. When we went to see fireworks this year, the inevitable finally happened....the ladybug was left behind! Normally, I'm a fan of rescue missions, but it was lost on base which we only had access to through our neighbors. Dirk felt no need to even attempt to replace it as it is a lesson that he feels needs to be learned sooner or later anyways. I think I suffered as much as she did when she learned that he was forever lost. :-( Which is precisely why I HAD to make her a new ladybug. Since it isn't a direct replacement, Dirk felt ok with it. Sort of. ;-) This is another free pattern from LionBrand Yarn. Many of their patterns are hit or miss in my opinion, but when they are on, they are ON! Enjoy!

The ladybug "munching" on the remains of the tiny failed peapod.

The bottom of the ladybug Lila admiring her new ladybug

A Tiny Whale

We watched Pinocchio one night. I had forgotten how scary that movie can be for small children! Well, predictably Lila had nightmares about being eaten by a whale for a couple of nights. I looked online and found a quick and simple pattern for a tiny whale. I set everything else aside and whipped one up for Lila as quickly as I could. It was ready by that night and she was pleased to have her very own whale that she knew could not eat her. No more nightmares about whales! :-D I wish every solution in life was this easy....

A Wedding Amigurumi

I had to wait too long to be able to post this one! Now, I have a backlog! ;-) I made this one for my sister Elizabeth who just married the love of her life, Billy! The pattern was from LionBrand Yarn. Funny story, I made the peas first (the Billy pea is taller since Billy is so tall), then started on the pod. The yarn that I had was WAY too small and no amount of modifying was going to make it work, so I had to search high and low for a yarn that would work. I found some perfect yarn in a set of 3 complementing greens. Kind of wish I had found that set before I started in the first place, but not much good wishing for that now. Anyways, in the time that I spent searching for the new yarn, I forgot where I put the peas a number of times. As I made the pod from the new yarn, I made several trips up and down our stairs and always kept the peas and pod-in-progress together so I would not have that problem again. At one point, I realized that I had only 1 pea with me. I searched EVERYWHERE, but I could not find the "Elizabeth" pea!! I was panicking that I would have to redo a pea, then debated redoing both so I could use some of my new colors. After a couple of days of searching, I finally found the pea under a couch cushion. I was never happier to find a small green ball! Once the pod was finished, I added the accessories (the top hat includes a 1 Euro cent in the top since I kind of like that little tradition and the colored roses are the main wedding color, which was a nice coincidence). I haven't had much (ok, any) experience embroidering faces with yarn, so I had to redo Billy's face a couple of times. I finally got it to look pretty good. I intentionally left Elizabeth's eyes slanted because she has the type of eyes that disappear when she smiles, and I knew she would be doing a lot of smiling that day. :-) All in all, I think they turned out rather well.

Bob-omb!!

Dirk and I have been playing a lot of Mario Bros. lately and we recently completed Super Mario Bros. for the Wii (even all the extra stuff!) There were several levels with Bob-ombs that gave us quite a bit of trouble, so I wanted to give him something that kind of celebrated our success over those levels. With his birthday coming up, this seemed like a perfect excuse! :-) The pattern is from the very talented WolfDreamer and can be found here. She said that hers measured about 8 inches tall, but mine is a scant 2 inches (3 if you stand the fuse up all the way and include that)! I filled it with split green peas in hopes that it might be heavy enough to use as a paperweight. (The usual weighted fillings are much harder to come by here in Germany) Since he is so small, I placed him in a toilet paper tube and wrapped it to look like a cracker, then wrote "You 'da BOMB!" on the outside. I think the genius of the wrapping was lost on Dirk, but he loved the little Bob-omb, just the same! He's just the right size for chucking at the TV when we get frustrated at it (currently playing Super Mario Galaxy 2, so there's a high probability of that happening soon), but Dirk doesn't want to throw him. I guess that means he really likes him. :-)

From the front From the side He's so tiny!!!

A Baby Triceratops for Daniel

Since Daniel decided he didn't want a crayon (see previous post), I thought a dinosaur would be nice. He LOVES dinosaurs! Finding free patterns online proved difficult though....and the ones I did find I didn't particularly like. I decided to narrow down my search a bit to make things a bit easier. When I asked him what his favorite dinosaur was, he said Triceratops. I was surprised...I expected to hear T-Rex! I managed to find a decent pattern and modified the tail (I hated the original tail with a passion!) It took a lot of work and was probably not the best choice so early in my amigurumi "career", but I managed to get it done. I probably over-compensated on the tail, under-judged the frill, and put the legs just a little too far back, so it's got issues to be sure, but at least it's got character! ;-) One thing that I did that I thought was pretty neat was to put 1 Euro cent in the bottoms of each foot before I stuffed them to help them stay flat and somewhat heavy. Plus, they'll be neat little (hidden) momentos of our time here in Germany later down the road. When it was all done, I showed it to him and he was so happy that he got to have it even though it wasn't his birthday! He showed so much gratitude, that it made me want to make more amigurumi for him! Which is good, because he's already told me that he would like an orange spaceship next. It will be a while before I have time for that project though....

The original pattern can be found here.

My First Amigurumi!!

Having no experience in amigurumi (but some beginner-intermediate experience on crocheting in general), I decided to start with something simple: A crayon. It's a long stick with a pointed end and a flat end. Can't be too hard, right? Well, I learned after MUCH searching that there simply is NOT a pattern for a crayon to be found! This is a crime, I believe. I intended to write my steps and produce a pattern since there was such a glaring void. However, I didn't have enough faith that I would actually be able to pull it off the first (many) times and I didn't want to add any extra frustration to my first attempt at such a neat hobby. It turns out, I did a pretty good job and will try to see if I can piece together a pattern based on what I did in hindsight. I made a large lilac purple crayon for Lila, inspired by her favorite book when I started this project, "Harold and the Purple Crayon". It took me about a week to finish her crayon, but by then her favorite had become "Pinkalicious". (I might make her a pink cupcake next, but I'm afraid of her favorite changing again if I do)

It turned out a bit less pointy than I was hoping for, but it can be "sharpened" by squeezing it into the desired shape. Since Harold's crayong was pretty big, I made it VERY oversized. She liked it, though not as much as I had hoped. So, I did what any normal person would do....I made another one! This time, I made one true to the color of purple in the book and I made it much pointier. It was so pointy that I had to make it pretty small, so it became Nathan's crayon. He loves it, but mostly to eat. :-P









I was going to make one for Daniel too, but he wanted brown. I just can't do it. Luckily, once I finished Nathan's, Daniel said that he didn't really want a crayon after all. Phew! I didn't really want to have to worry about making it not look like poo....So, I'm making him something else instead....it's not quite done yet, so I'll save that post for another day.

A New Country, A New Hobby, A New Blog!!!

Having recently moved to Germany for my husband's ex-pat assignment (a flexible 3 years), I have been going through all sorts of withdrawals - family, friends, food, and crafts, just to name a few. So far, I've managed to find a small assortment of yarns for making socks as well as knitting and crocheting needles in unfamiliar sizes. Oh, and all sorts of snaps and straps for making/adjusting bras? I don't really understand that one yet. I used to consider myself a well-rounded, anything but paper, kind of crafter. Now, I'm limited to yard...Rather than be sad about all the craft things I can only dream of doing while I'm here, I figured I would embrace the one medium I do have access to. I've always been a tight crocheter and I like the idea of things not taking so long to create that I never get to finish them. (I have 3 young children at home, so I'm not exactly swimming in free time) Amigurumi seemed like a perfect match for this phase of my life! I love it so much, in fact, that I have already made a to-do list that might take me until we leave Germany just to get through it! Not that I mind, of course. :-) I will be posting pictures of my finished projects, maybe a work-in-progress, and hopefully I will eventually become adventurous enough to create patterns to post as well! Stay tuned!!