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Here’s a quick roundup of the craft projects I’ve tackled recently:

Harry Potter themed decorations for my birthday (in June)

I think my favorite of the HP crafts was my “Weasley is our king” banner. It came out EXACTLY how I envisioned it and fit perfectly over our fake fireplace. I started out with some paper grocery bags and colored pencils and it went beautifully. I’m also very proud of my D.A. shield, as it took some trial and error to get it to look like the Warner Bros version.

Baby Dress

This was a “I bet I can whip up a cute little baby dress in no time” project that turned into a month-long fight with my sewing machine. It turned out that a dull needle was the culprit, so once I got that sorted everything went pretty smoothly. I took about 5 years of sewing in 4-H so I am all right at reading patterns, but I soon realized that I overestimated my ability and no longer had my mom standing next to me to help me decipher the pattern instructions.

ANYWAY. I hadn’t sewn anything with a pattern in probably almost a decade so I’m glad it came out really cute and I was happy I set a goal and accomplished it.

Silly Floral Napkins

I saw pictures of cloth napkins like these on someone’s blog somewhere and thought it was a lovely idea. Turns out that it’s actually pretty hard to sew the ric-rac in between the two right-sides of the fabric and get it reasonably even. I’m glad I only did two of these! I bring them to work in my lunchbox every day.

Bunny Cloth Napkins

I embroidered some Martha Stewart bunnies onto some thrifted cloth napkins as a housewarming present for some friends. Cameron and Brianna are adorable and they have a bunny named Dante and a new baby bunny named Delilah, so I felt it was fitting.

Owl plushie

Daniel’s former co-worker and his wife are having a baby, and the nursery is a woodland/owl theme, so I sewed this little owl from a Doodle Stitching pattern. I really like how it came out.

Purple Pouch

Daniel asked me if I could make him a zippy pouch so he could have something smallish to put his camera and moleskine notebook in. He is a big fan of purple these days, so we picked this combo out at the fabric store and he seems to be very happy with it.

Doggie Plushie

A co-worker offered to trade me a Harry Potter Sorting Hat if I made her baby boy a plushie. I said SIGN ME UP and here is the plushie! He’s a cute little doggie with embroidered paws and face, and a waggable tail.

Purple Gingham Napkins

I don’t have a photo of these yet, since I gave them away before I remembered to take a picture (that happens to me more often than I’d like) but since Tim is good about taking photos I might nab one off his Flickr stream. Imagine some lovely purple gingham cloth napkins with two rows of topstitching in lavender.

(Edited to add: Photo has been nabbed!)

Purple Floral Napkins

I love making cloth napkins. They couldn’t be easier! They’re just squares, and they’re pretty simple to jazz up if they need some jazzing. For these ones, I sewed a stripe of ric-rac over one corner. This was MUCH easier than trying to edge all four sides of all four napkins with the ric-rac, and still gave it a bit of visual oomph.

And that’s not all…

I have a couple more baby bibs in the works, and I’m trying to decide what to do about the messed-up cloth baby shoes I finished yesterday. Do I rip it out? Ignore it and still give it away? Ignore it and keep it since I don’t mind but other people might? I woke up at 6-something this morning with a persistent vision regarding these shoes being messed up, and I had to get up and go check if my vision was right and it WAS. I was sad, but it also let me fall back asleep since I knew what was wrong wth them.

More photos as events warrant…

On a whim, I decided to make wedding cake toppers this weekend. I’m not sure if we are going to use them or not, since we’re not having a traditional cake (just cupcakes, plus a giant cupcake for us to cut) but if we need them, we’ve got them.

I hadn’t poked eyes in them yet, so after I took the photo I went and did that and then baked them. Too bad I didn’t pay attention to them while they were in the oven – their little rear ends got toasted! They aren’t burnt burnt, but they are very brown on their tails and their beaks and feet are pretty dingy looking too. Dang. I figure frosting will hide some of it. I should take a “finished” photo so show off what they look like now.

I also started and finished a new embroidery project: a pegasus!

Here is a close-up of the feet. So cute!

The pegasus pattern also comes with a unicorn, which I hope to also embroider. The pattern is available for free here; click on “free patterns” in the sidebar categories section. I also really like her gnome pattern and I’m thinking about making it into a cover for one of our throw pillows.

Also upcoming craft-wise are some curtains for our living room. I bought a zillion yards of some super awesome material and am itching to use it. They will be short, just half-curtains, so we can open the blinds in the summer to get some light but still have some semblance of privacy.

While browsing my student loan website attempting to make a payment, I came across this little gem:

Take a look at that, and then tell me HOW BADLY they want me to navigate back from this page instead of forward. The fact that the “next” button is on the second line may be due to browser differences (maybe they meant it to be in line with the others?) but the fact still remains that they’ve got three different versions of GO AWAY with a subdued “fine, go forward.” They’re attempting to take my money – wouldn’t it make sense to spend some visual effort getting me to continue forward?

HOOKED ON HARRY

I did not visit this website after reading this ad, but I did take a screenshot of it because it made me laugh. Also, what is with their weird capitalization?

JAVA

“By installing Java, you will be able to experience the power of Java.” I saw someone else make fun of this install text, but I couldn’t resist. Seriously? Who in the world wrote that copy? There was another awkward sentence somewhere during the confirmation step but I didn’t save that one.

EMBROIDERY

I’ve finished a few embroidery projects lately that are worthy of mentioning.

First up is a gnome design I made, based off of a product photo of a ceramic figurine:

Second is a Kurt Halsey design from Sublime Stitching:

I also finished an old-school coffee grinder for Daniel to frame and put up at work. They have a huge wall where they’ll post artwork or photos that customers bring in, and one of the other employees has been asking if I’d embroider something to put on the wall. The original pattern had some totally creepy dog next to the grinder with an awful pun about “the daily grind” or something of that nature, but I left all that nonsense off. I’m thinking of putting a border around it or something else to add visual interest, but it’s doing all right at the moment. Will take a photo soon. I also bought the Olde English Sublime Stitching pattern so I can do one that says “MUGG LYFE” because it’s some silly inside joke at the coffee shop.

KNITTING

I went on a crazy yarn binge. Two weekends ago, a local yarn store was going out of business and had a 40% off sale, so I picked up a few things. Then last weekend I stopped by, and it was 50% off! So I bought more. I am not totally sure what to do with the yarns I bought (you can see them on my Flickr feed) because the only projects I can imagine myself making and actually using are scarfs and mittens. Any ideas? I hate felted things as a general rule, and I am totally not up to knitting socks yet – I’ve decided the only way I could probably knit socks is knitting two socks at once with the Magic loop method. Any other way and I couldn’t guarantee I’d make them the same size or even finish the second one. Anyway, what might you do with the lovely Maisy Day Cacao Nibs from Hello Yarn? I want it desperately and yet I feel I can’t do it justice because I will turn it into a mere scarf.

As far as projects go, I finished one Saartje bootie (pdf) and… I think it could probably fit a three-year-old. But I’m not sure. I’m thinking I’ll just knit the other one and hope they come out the same size, even if it is big, because then it will fit SOMEONE. Stupid gauge.

Let me introduce Bernice the Bunny:

How can you resist that adorable face?

The fabric I used was a thrift-store find, so I’m not sure what exactly it is, but it appears to be some sort of upholstery-type stuff. It ravels very, very easily. This means that in order to get things to stay together without the seams popping open, I did three runs through the sewing machine on three different stitches for each seam. Total pain in the ass. The first was a big zig-zag stitch, the second was a smaller zig-zag over the top of the first one, and the third was the normal seam, inside of the first two.

I’m really happy with how the face and ears turned out. I took chances on both of those, and I feel they paid off. For the ears, I did that same triple-seaming business, turned it right side out, and then stitched very close to the edge to finish it. That way, I didn’t have to stuff the ears but they’d have some substance. For the face, I ironed the outer edge under and then stitched on top of it. Some of the corners are starting to poke out, but maybe it’ll add to the aesthetic? I like the way I did the nose/mouth and cheeks too.

Now all I need to do is figure out what I’m going to do with all these animals…

Just a quick note to say no, I am not dead, and yes, I know I still have a website. I’ve started a post about books I’ve read or bought recently, but I haven’t finished it yet and I wanted to have a block of time to sit down and just write.

I went to see two movies this weekend – “Blades of Glory” on Friday and the Grindhouse double-feature by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez on Sunday. Blades of Glory made me laugh out loud. It’s just so outrageous. I did like the double-feature, but I enjoyed the second movie (“Death Proof”) better than the first.

I’m working on making a stuffed rabbit and I’m very optimistic about it. I have all the pieces cut out and the face embroidered, but I didn’t have time last night to do anything else. I’ll probably bust out the sewing machine after I get home from work and try to finish it up, and I’ll be sure to post some photos.

I’ve been thinking about houses a lot lately, but I’m 99.9% sure it’s totally out of the cards for at least several more years. At the very least, I’d like to move to an apartment that doesn’t seem like a last choice. Some people have nice apartments and I would like to be one of those people. The problem? Our lease isn’t up until December. Errgh. That means weird situations involving moving during Christmas, or moving earlier and having to pay rent on two places or something silly. I think Daniel and I combined are making enough money now to afford a better apartment, and while I would totally love a house that I could paint and decorate and do my own thing with, a nicer apartment would be a good first step.

I’ve also been reading knitting blogs when I can and I’d like to get back in the swing of things with my knitting. (Side note: I hate feeling like I don’t have enough time to do anything. Kills me.) I need to learn how to do hats. Or at least something more complicated than a scarf. I find all these glorious, beautiful handspun or hand-dyed yarns that I desperately want to buy, and then I realize that 1) I don’t know what to make with it and 2) I’d probably never use it and that would make me sad. So I don’t buy it even though I really, really want to. I’ve been eyeing the Hello Yarn Top-down bonnet as a possible next project, but I already have 4398430 projects on my needles and I should probably finish those before starting another. I tend to get frustrated if I have to concentrate on a pattern, so I can finish straightforward projects pretty quickly but more complicated patterns take me eons because it’s not as mindless. I dream of the day when I will be able to knit a sock. People make socks look so easy.

I promise I’ll post the book/reading entry sometime later this week.

What have I been up to recently? Well, I found some cheap fabric at a thrift store on Saturday and began creating a stuffed frog. I didn’t have any stuffing though, so he wasn’t finished until Sunday evening. I started out by drawing a vague frog-ish shape on the back some old wrapping paper (which makes decent pattern paper, actually) and folding it in half to cut it so it would be even. I ironed the fabric, pinned the pattern to it (with safety pins and paper clips because I was woefully undersupplied and didn’t have straight pins) and cut the pieces out. I embroidered the eyes on and sewed him together.

Later on Saturday, Daniel and I played frisbee with Tom. True to form, Daniel tweaked his shoulder (not even this throwing arm! The other one!) and my throwing arm was incredibly sore the next couple of days. Note to self: play more frisbee this year.

On Sunday, Daniel and I set off to find a craft store so I could buy stuffing. Due to my ignorance of the bus system and our bad timing leaving the house, we had to wait an hour for our bus to arrive. Turns out we missed our first one by about five minutes, and to make matters worse, this bus route only runs every half-hour on Sundays, and it alternates between one that goes really far and one that ends a block from where we’d be getting on. When we missed our intended bus, we waited a half an hour only to discover that the arriving bus was the short-route one and we’d have to wait another half-hour for the longer-route one. I say, if they don’t go to the same place, DON’T GIVE THEM THE SAME BUS NUMBER. It is confusing and mean.

Anyway, as you can probably tell by my Flickr photos, I did end up finding the craft store and I got what I needed (err… wanted). I then spent the next couple of hours designing an owl pattern, cutting it out, sewing it together, forgetting to make the face before I sewed it together, grumbling, sewing the face on afterward, and stuffing it.

Neither animal has a name, but I’m much more fond of the owl right now. The frog was pinchy in places because I made 90° turns for the corners instead of rounding them, and I feel like the owl is cuter anyway. I’m stoked that the owl came out as well as it did, for being self-designed and all.

In other news, JR and Nick getting married! I am so, so unbelievably excited for the both of them. They are wonderful people and are perfect for each other. Congratulations, you two.

Moby – “We Are All Made of Stars”

You have probably all seen this already because it has been on my Flickr account for days, but I finished my Fat-Headed Birds embroidery project!

I sat down one night and busted the entire thing out. It was part of a larger “clean the living room” project, and to clean properly, current projects need to be finished otherwise I can’t put them away. Strange, I know, but that’s how I work.

I’ve gotten quite a few compliments on it and I’m super happy with how it turned out. Since I figure I might be doing more projects in the future, I bought an embroidery floss holder and some more floss colors and I’m waiting for it to be delivered.

Not sure what I’m going to embroider next, but I bought some cute patterns called “Krazy Kitchens” from Sublime Stitching a while back and I’d like to do something neat with them. We’ll see. I’ll be sure to post progress on Flickr.

Latest project: Irish Hiking Scarf for Daniel. My goal is to have it done by Christmas.

Lacrimas Profundere – “My Velvet Little Darkness”

My third mitten attempt seemed to come out okay. I overcompensated with the “knitting loosely” a teeny bit, so it is slightly larger than the first (and definitely much larger than the second) but not obscenely so. I’m currently testing out blocking to see if I can stretch the first mitten a bit and squinch the third so they end up at a happy medium. This project could be the poster child for a gauge lesson – I knit all three mittens using the same size instructions, and I ended up with a small, medium, and large-ish mitten.

I’m getting better at the pattern though, that’s for sure. I can knit one mitten in about a day, which is pretty good for me. It might take the entire day, but who’s counting?

Other projects are… going, I suppose. I’ve got a decent amount done on the ear-flap hat, but I haven’t started the decreases yet and I’m facing an issue. The first skein of yarn I started with is nearly out, and I will have to switch to a new one pretty soon, and I don’t know how to do such a thing. I’ll have to look it up.

Pictures of the “Knittens” (as Daniel keeps accidentally calling them) will be forthcoming, when they are not as soggy.

nothing

I know. I KNOW! The fun never ends. I posted some photos recently of a mitten I knitted that came out beautifully, after I fixed my initial mistakes. Yesterday I set out to make another, so I could have a pair of mittens. I ended up with this:

Yes, two mittens of drastically different size. It may not seem obvious in the photo, but I promise you the one on the left is a different size altogether. I can get my hand in it, but if I straighten my fingers all the way they try to poke out the top of the mitten, and the ribbing on the wrist is notably shorter.

I sort of made a mental note at some point during the mitten thinking, “Man, I seem to be knitting a bit tighter than usual” but it didn’t occur to me at the time that what I was thinking could mean I’d end up with two differently sized mittens. I just thought I was knitting tighter.

My only real course of action at this point is to knit a third mitten, hope it comes out the same size as one of the other two, and if it comes out the same size as the smaller one I’ll give them away.

I think knitting really is an exercise in humility.

nothing

Sometimes I’m sad that I’m not that great at knitting.

Case in point: A while back, I started some gray mittens. I did the ribbing for the wrist and then gave up because the instructions started to get detailed and I didn’t have time to sit and work through things like “K 7, M1L, K2, M1R, K7, M1R, K2″ and variations thereof. Tonight, though, I was diligently avoiding homework on the computer and thought, hell, if I can avoid homework on the computer, I may as well avoid it off the computer and do something productive, so I started back up on the mittens.

I made it through a few rows of that nonsense stuff about making one stitch left slanted and right slanted when all of a sudden I realized that I had some obvious holes in my mitten. Like, HOLES holes. As if I had skipped stitches somehow.

After pondering it for a bit and employing some clever methods of deduction, I realized that I had not, in fact, been making one left or making one right, I had been doing YARN OVERS. Yarn overs, when first put on the needle, may look somewhat similar to these make one thingies but LET ME TELL YOU they are not the same thing, and will give you delightful holes in your knitting that look like you have skipped a stitch. They can be used beautifully in lace knitting and other patterns to make decorative stitches, but they are exactly not what you want to do in the middle of a mitten. Mittens are just not mittens if they have accidental holes in them.

After figuring out what went wrong, I died a little inside and ripped out all the rows I had just accomplished. I managed to rip them out and put the needle back in okay, and re-do them properly with minor issues. I suspect there might still be a hole lurking in there somewhere, but I can’t figure out if it was something I did or whether the knitting just sits funny. I’m hoping to remedy it with some blocking later, but who knows? Knitting is a comedy of errors with me.

Cherry Poppin’ Daddies – “Irish Whiskey”

No knitting today. I think I am scarred from The Hat Incident. My next project is a pair of plain gray mittens, and I have the ribbing for the cuff of one mitten done – decided to try to do homework yesterday instead of “wasting” my time knitting so that’s all the farther I am on those. Regrettably, the homework is about equally as finished. Damn business plan for a business I don’t even want to start.

What does it mean when a refrigerator does not keep things reliably cool? And the attached freezer does not so much freeze things as keep them very, very cold? And occasionally, either on the front left or back left corner, there appears a small puddle on the floor? There is a problem, yes? Daniel and I are going to put in a maintenance request for it pretty soon because if something is supposed to be frozen, it is not supposed to feel squishy to the touch. We had to throw away a bunch of food that got all weird in the freezer from not being frozen and that’s just sad. We’re sort of hoping the whole damn thing gets replaced because it was probably purchased in the 80s and is a weird mustardy color and is generally just sort of old and rusty. It came with the apartment so I guess we can’t complain too much, but it isn’t doing its job.

nothing

So! With some creative seaming and the addition of some festive pom-poms, the hat is significantly less stupid.

HOWEVER.

I am now left with a “seam allowance” of about three or four inches on the inside of the hat. (WHAT A DISASTER THIS WAS.) Anyway, lots of extra stuff on the inside. Not sure what to do about it. Can’t very well cut it off, can’t leave it there. It is lumpy and obvious – it would make a nice hidden pocket if: 1) it weren’t so goddamned thick, 2) it was hidden, and 3) HATS HAD POCKETS.

I will say that I am feeling much better about the hat, it feels wearable now, but I am unsure about the flappy parts on the inside. Troubleshooting bad knitting is fun.

Ironfire

I just got done knitting the stupidest hat ever and I am sad about it. I calculated my stitches correctly (OR SO I THOUGHT) but I think I mis-measured my head when I was figuring out how many inches I was supposed to have and the hat turned out STUPID.

It is intentionally supposed to be kind of dorky, but oh my god it is horrible. I know everyone has that embarrassing knitting project they wish they had never had the misfortune to complete, but I’m so sad this was mine, especially because I had such high hopes for the yarn. It’s so pretty. It cost more money than I have ever spent on a skein of yarn. And it is bad. It’s pretty, but unwearably huge.

I still need to put pom-poms on the corners. Maybe that will redeem it. I sort of envision it making it look even crazier-stupid than it already is, though.

Evidence is on Flickr.

Type O Negative – “Be My Druidess”

Right now, I feel good.

I got a fabulous book in the mail today (not school related) that I described to Daniel as an instructional on How to Not Be A Psycho Hose Beast. I don’t want to link it here because I think it makes me seem rather like a Psycho Hose Beast that I even bought it, but I LOVE IT and I feel so much better after reading it. So, yay!

We went to a craft store again today and I bought some yarn (I AM BAD, I KNOW) to make hats! A kitty hat and a square-ish weird hat. This is the best example I can come up with, but um, should it be a sign that the only patterns I can find for this sort of hat are for babies or toddlers? Also, if anyone is good at knitting math (ie, how many stitches should I cast on to make this hat if the recommended gauge for my yarn is 10 st to 4″ and my head circumference is (I think) 23″? It is a word problem!) PLEASE feel free to contact me and let me know how to make this hat. In my infinite wisdom I am assuming you just knit a rectangle and then sew up the sides, but I must know the dimensions of the rectangle because I am anal and I NEED patterns. I can’t do anything without a pattern yet. Also, I am bad at math. Help.

Edguy – “Return to the Tribe”

I received a knitting book in the mail today. I ordered it from Amazon.com Marketplace because it came highly recommended and I managed to find it for $1.60. It’s called Knitting Without Tears, and I think it’s wonderful. The author (Elizabeth Zimmerman, I believe) has this wonderful, light-hearted, informal tone that makes the book easy to read and there’s a lot of great tips. She has a bunch of patterns for basic sweaters, hats, mittens, and socks and gives examples of how you should determine your stitch count based on your gauge and the size of the object you’re knitting. It was totally worth $1.60.

On a related note, I have decided to name my knitted pig Octavius, as he has eight sides. I crack myself up sometimes.

I wish I had more time to be crafty. I learned to embroider once – my grandmother taught me how – and I’ve recently found some adorable fat-headed birds I desperately want to embroider onto a pillowcase but I DON’T HAVE TIME and it depresses me. I long for the day when I can just hang out and embroider fat-headed birds onto pillowcases at my leisure and have time to finish a knitted scarf before the next millenium.