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Escaping my work last night with a bit of crochet I decided to try to make a little Fizzgig kind of beast, but as I worked on it the design asked to be a punk with a mohawk. I’m not sure that would be anyone’s first guess on seeing it, but I am experimenting with new construction techniques and it was definitely useful for that endeavor. The pattern is below, anyway; apologies for the terrible pictures. My pattern conventions are here, and all decreases are made on right-side rows so you may use whatever technique you like, including invisible decrease. My guy is in scratchy acrylic worsted weight with an E hook; gauge is not important.

Part A. Make 2.
1. Magic ring, ch 1, sc 4.
2. Ch 1, turn; 2sc across (8 sc).
3. Ch 1, turn; *2sc, sc, 2sc*, sc 2, repeat *…* (12 sc).
4. Ch 1, turn; in FL only: 2sc, sc 10, 2sc (14 sc). [rem lps will be on the outside of the piece.]
5. Ch 1, turn; 2sc, sc 12, 2sc (16 sc).
6. Ch 1, turn; 2sc, sc 14, 2sc (18 sc).
7. Ch 1, turn; 2sc, sc 4, dec, sc, dec, sc, dec, sc 4, 2sc (17 sc).
8. Ch 1, turn; 2sc, sc 15, 2sc (19 sc).
9. Ch 1, turn; 2sc, sc, dec, sc 2, dec, sc 3, dec, sc 2, dec, sc, 2sc (17 sc).

The first one you make, finish off the yarn and attach eyes between rows 7 and 8, centered and about 3 stitches (of row 8 ) apart. Leave the second half attached to the skein.

B. Turn the second half inside-out and meet the corners. Sc row 9 to itself. I did this in inner loops only but it occurs to me now it should be outer loops only (FL of near row, BL of far row). This is 8 sc. Ch 1 and sc back again, putting an extra sc in the last st or on the side of the initial sc.

C. Open up the second half a bit and match the first half to it at the corners and magic ring. Sc them together: down the edges of the rows to the magic ring and back up again. In the following picture, step B is along the top right and step C goes around the equator.

D. If you want the mohawk to be a different color, FO. Otherwise ch 2. Turn right-side-out and stuff. Attach new yarn if applicable and sc closed (st row 9 of the first half to itself). Add additional rows with increases as necessary to get a good mohawk look.

In other news, I’m teaching a Sew-Op class on a parent’s birthday again – my second alterations class is tonight. Happy birthday, Dad!

My grandmother has been instructed to drink a lot of water, so she asked for a water bottle for Christmas. Specifically a metal water bottle. She likes her water very cold, so I thought I could take yarn with me and make her a sleeve for the bottle, which turned out to be an Arizona Tea bottle after all. She’d suggested black; I also bought white and had some sparkly burnt orange on hand. I made the bottom from cotton yarn so it could act like a coaster, and the sides were Vanna’s Glamour. She looks like a real Hawkeyes fan.

I just freehanded it; there are some shell stitches, some alternating dc inc and dc dec, some straight dcs and some multi-row scs. It was all with an E hook.

On my first attempt, I decided for some reason that smaller yarn meant I should use a larger hook for the sides so it would fit. That was erroneous. I decreased by lots of stitches as I went but it was still way too big. However, it made a great hat for my niece’s new stuffed cat!

My mother made a request for crochet potholders for Christmas, as I have mentioned. I made her four, two single layered and two double layered. I pulled four patterns from Crochet Pattern Central, but only made two of them after all.

The first potholder I made was a kaleidoscope hot pad. This pattern was very mysterious, because until you get to the last round there are just a billion big loops sticking out everywhere. Then, you weave them through each other, and it all makes sense. One modification I made was to go back afterward and stitch around between rounds 2 and 3, because until the weaving gets going, the potholder is very full of holes.

The second was the double-sided ric rac potholder. If you make it yourself, note that mine didn’t look quite like rickrack until I washed it.

Next I made the ill-fated peacock attempt, which was inspired by the sea shell potholder pattern. While I was pondering where to go with that, I decided not to make the jewel heptagonal potholder, partially because it seemed like it might be awfully thick in the center, and partially because I couldn’t settle on colors.

Instead, I freehanded a potholder that started out pentagonal and ended up as a ten-petaled flower.

After that I decided to table the peacock idea and freehanded a second potholder. This one started out as a disk, 7 sc in the first round and an additional 7 sc per round until I got to 28, and then became a square by concentrating the increases in the corners. I intended to add each new color with a ch 2, hdc, sc in the first stitch, but halfway through I realized I was actually doing ch 2, dc, sc in the same stitch. Oh well. The next color put an sc in the ch and then 2sc in the dc, and after that I just spiraled around, going as far as I could with each color when it was innermost before going to the next, and putting 3sc in each corner. I made a very large square, finished each color at the corner where it had started, and folded the corners to the center back. I added one more sc, catching a loop from the other side of the potholder, ch 3, and sl st down the opposite line from where each color ended. To get the chains in the center to each be over one other and under one other, I worked around in a circle and with the last one I passed the ch 3 under the appropriate other ch and pulled through the yarn needed to complete the sl st line.

Potholders are a good project – you can do them in one or two sittings, and they’re a nice manageable way to try out interesting stitches and patterns. Highly recommended.

My mother asked for crocheted potholders for Christmas, and I thought since she likes bright colors (especially teal) that I would see about making her something peacock-ish. Well, I developed a pattern, which I like, but the result is leaving me cold. Since they are supposed to be for potholders I don’t want to use acrylic, and natural fibers are hard to find in sufficiently vivid colors. Anyway, I’m going to put up the pictures of the two arrangements I considered for the potholders and ask for suggestions. Perhaps if they were used individually as coasters it wouldn’t matter if some of the yarn was acrylic (actually, the blue yarn is 75% acrylic, 25% wool; the rest of them are 100% cotton), though you’d still want most of it to be natural, for absorbance.

Anyway, without further ado…

I had grand plans of getting my house cleaned over Thanksgiving weekend and catching up on all kinds of craft projects, but I really just wanted to sit around and read magazines. However, I did a few small things, introducing more nonsense into the world. Perhaps we’ll call it an homage to the new Muppet movie.

One particular hardware store employee helped me brainstorm and find pieces for my Pez dispensers, so I made him a gift to take to him when I bring in pictures of the finished dispensers.

Don’t ask. I don’t have an answer.

I experimented with crochet shaping on Friday. The first one didn’t turn out remotely like I planned/hoped, but, well, here’s a potato monster in a tree.

Of course he doesn’t actually live in a tree; that would be silly. He lives in a basket.

That’s all for now!

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans and US residents out there, and anyone else who would like to be wished a Happy Thanksgiving.

This Thanksgiving, in addition to friends, family, health, and financial security, I am thankful for…

MONSTERS!!!

I am also thankful for a little time off. Work has been hectic and intruding greatly into the rest of my life, so this weekend will be good for getting caught up at home and produce some things to show you in the coming days. Have a lovely holiday!

I was really hoping to show you a monster today, but there were technical difficulties. So here are some emergency pumpkins.

And here’s the pattern!

1. In a magic ring, sc 5. tighten.
2. sc, (2sc, sc) x2 (7 sc). finish off beginning yarn end.
3. 2sc around (14 sc)
4. (2sc, sc) around (21 sc)
5-8. sc around (4 rows)
9. (dec, sc) around (14 sc)
10. dec around (7 sc) — stuff
11. sc, (dec, sc) x2 (5 sc)
Use the perfect finish and thread the yarn through the middle of the pumpkin and out through the magic ring before you tighten; stitch back and forth between rounds 1 and 11 to pull the middle of the pumpkin top and bottom together. FO.

Add a stem or a face as desired. I threaded two pieces of brown yarn into the top of the pumpkin, crosswise, and interleaved square knots (right over left for each pair followed by left over right for each, etc) and then made an overhand knot to finish off.

Happy Halloween!

This is the September Ravelry CAL and Amigurumi Army mission post, which would usually appear two weeks from now (second Thursday of the month after the mission). However, I’m done with them already, and I am going to stop taking part regularly. I have too many of my own projects that are higher priority. So here’s the last of the regular-participation posts.

The CAL theme was “back to school.” I tried to make Stumpy a backpack, but I didn’t measure very well (read: at all) and it was a little snug. However, it fit the Hug Monster:

I did this by chaining, making an oval by stitching around both sides of the chain (with three sc in each end) for two rounds, I think, and then stitching around with no increase until it was as tall as I wanted the front opening to be. Then I switched to stitching in rows, slip stitching at the end to make the first few rows each decrease in length, and then stitching straight (with a ch 1 at the start of each row) until the flap came down far enough. The straps were made just like the coffee mug handle, below, except that I didn’t join new yarn for them – for one of the rows of the bag I did the straps in FL only and then continued with the bag flap in the BL.

I have foreshadowed the next item: coffee! I could have personalized the mug but nothing jumped out at me.

That is, until the coffee did!

The theme for Amigurumi Army this month was “Amis with a Twist.” I got the coffee monster idea from Irka!, though hers is better executed (you may remember her from the fish to sushi pattern). For this one I have an actual pattern.

Coffee:
1. 7 sc in magic ring
2. 2sc around (14)
3. *2sc, sc* around (21)
FO yarn. Join new yarn in BL at a different spot around the circle.
4. sc in BL around (21)
5-10. sc around (21; 6 rows)
11. *dec, sc* around (14)
12. dec around (7)
Stuff, FO, embroider face.

Mug:
1. 7 sc in magic ring
2. 2sc around (14)
3. *2sc, sc* around (21)
4. *2sc, sc, sc* around (28)
FO yarn. Join new yarn in BL at a different spot around the circle.
5. sc in BL around (28)
6-12. sc around (28; 7 rows)
FO.
For handle: join new yarn to row 11. Ch 20, sl st to row 6.
Sl st again in row 6 one stitch away in direction back bumps of chain face.
Hdc in back bumps of chain back up to top of mug; the first one will be awkward.
Sl st one stitch away from initial yarn join; FO.

This was going to be about altering pants. I have pants, they need altering, I was going to do that this weekend and then post about it. However, altering pants? Not the most exciting thing in the world, and after all the embroidery I’ve been doing I was jonesing for some crochet. I started fooling around with yarn and here’s the result.

I have made finger puppets before, but the first one in this batch was Melissa Mall’s mushroom pattern. The pattern itself, I am not so sure about; it’s maybe a little over-complicated and it fails to tell you which way to put the top and bottom of the mushroom together. Actually the printed pattern itself doesn’t say it’s a finger puppet; I had to remember/reconstruct that based on the fact that the stem is not stuffed and the two pieces would not need to be made separately if it weren’t a finger puppet. Anyway, it came out okay. And sparkly.

For the face and spots I used embroidery instead of felt. In particular for the large spots I stitched straight spokes out from a center point and then wove yarn around that point under the spokes.

Then I just started freehanding. I started with the ideas in Where the Wild Fingers Are (note she uses UK/Australia terminology) and made the following two little guys.

You’ll note on one of them the stitch rows run top to bottom instead of around; I was experimenting with ways to make horns/ears at the top. Unfortunately I managed to sew him up cockeyed; the other was crocheted together.

Then I started thinking about other ways to do things, inspired by the big ridge on the back of the smaller brown puppet. I also thought it would be nice to have a puppet that wasn’t flat across the top. Here’s the result:

To make little guys like this, start with a magic ring. You won’t work in the round, but start with 6 sc in the magic ring, ch 1 and turn, and increase across for a total of 12 sc. Ch 1, turn, and sc across for a few rows (the head of the puppet), and then have a row of sc 5, dec, sc 5. This is mostly to make the puppet more fitted to your finger; you could also sc 4, dec, dec, sc 4 for children; keep in mind the final sc-ing together will decrease the size a bit as well. Continue with the sc across rows until the puppet is the desired length – mine both turned out to be 11 rows total. Do NOT finish off your yarn.

Tighten the magic ring at the top and finish off that yarn. This is a good time to embroider facial features. To complete the puppet, stitch the edges together from the bottom of the puppet to the top (the magic ring) and maybe even past that. You can just sc, or you can do something fancier. The green guy above has alternating sc and dc stopping at the magic ring, which didn’t turn out very exciting. The variegated guy alternated sc and dc but with ch 2 in between each stitch, extending one row past the magic ring. Experiment with other combinations! Turn around at the top and stitch back down again! Go crazy!

Or something of that nature. The August CAL theme on Ravelry was stripes, and the Amigurumi Army mission was monsters. I got really into my stripes project and finished it very early in the month, and didn’t finish the monster until the last weekend.

The stripes project was inspired by my tendency to take partially-cooked oatmeal to work some mornings. What does one do with it? I have some Pyrex bowls with lids, but I don’t want to tip them sideways to put into my regular bag, nor put the warm bowl in my cold lunchbag. Hence, I had an excuse to craft a made-to-order bag. I had been wanting to try out a spiral tutorial I dug out of the Internet Archive ages ago, so in three autumn colors, that became the bottom of the bag. Then I continued the spiral theme around the sides, and put the whole thing together and added handles with an accent color.

The spiral started out kind of awkward, at least the way I interpreted the directions. It smoothed out, though, and I like the way it looks a few rows out from the center. On the sides, I tried to do the same thing in terms of stitch height, with one round per color of sc, one of hdc, and one of dc, then back to hdc and sc. The finished product is slightly larger than necessary but fits the bowl reasonably well.

Now for the monster! He is gangly and gibbon-like.

I put magnets in his hands with the intention that he’d be a kind of emo monster and hug his own knees, but when he was finished he revealed that instead of being emo, he’s a monster with no sense of personal space.

Stumpy is not totally certain about this development.

The monster was freehanded, though I made some notes so the arms and legs would match. His body is basically a bowling pin, and the arms and legs have some bend to them via increases and decreases. I believe for the arms the first row was just sc across the chain, but after that I made 2 sc in each of the 2 centermost sc for two rows, then decreased twice (in the four centermost sc) for two rows, and maybe sc’d across once more before sc’ing the strip into a tube. For the legs I made 2 sc in the ends of each row and 3 sc in the centermost sc, in every row including the first one, for three rows, before doing the reverse for three rows (I used Lily Chin’s slip stitch-like decrease to decrease by three: pull up a loop in each of the next three stitches, and pull the last of those loops through the previous 2 and the one that was on the hook to begin with) and finally, again, sc’ing the strip into a tube. I stuffed him lightly, sewed the outer end of each limb closed (with the magnets in the ends of his arms), and sewed the other open end to his body. Though the yarn was already fluffy, I pulled up the nap to extra-fluffify him with a pet brush.