Crystal Madrilejos

This baby is going to have one million crocheted toys before it’s even born! Here are the newest additions: Mushrooms! These are also from the same craft book (Ana Paula Rimoli’s Amiguri Two!) as the Peas in the Pod and the Turtle Mama that I posted about before.

These ones are a little different than the ones in the book though. The pattern called for white felt circles to be sewn onto the mushroom cap, but I didn’t really like the look of it so I just used white yarn to embroider circles onto the cap. I wasn’t so sure about how the circles turned out since they aren’t filled in completely like you’d normally see on a mushroom but I think they are growing on me.

I have plans to make a super-huge one but I’ll have to add that to the end of my list of things. I still have a quilt to get cracking on!

–c.

Here is the second crocheting project for baby that I mentioned a couple posts ago. A turtle mama with some surprises!

There is an opening in the back end of the large turtle, out of which comes all the rest of the pieces. All in all the whole project is eight pieces including, the mama turtle, two babies, four eggs and one cracked egg. I was so ready for it to be done and those babies were hard to make! Small things are always harder to make. I’m surprised I’m not cross-eyed by now.

It’s from the same craft book as the Peas in a Pod (Ana Paula Rimoli’s Amiguri Two!). I’ve already been asked about the eyes and their baby-safeness. They are safety eyes and though I’ve tried my hardest to get them out (never with any success) I would recommend supervising baby when playing with any dolls with hard plastic eyes.

–c.

Another reason why I have a million craft projects going is because I have this tendency to do something so much until I get sick of it and have to do something else. Maybe it’s ADD passed down from my parents. After sitting in front of the sewing machine for so long working on the quilt, after a few squares I already felt burnt out.

Luckily, I had been itching to start crocheting again. 2 projects later and I’m burnt out and back to the quilt, but I got a couple cute things out of this burst of crochet energy. Both patterns were from Ana Paula Rimoli’s Amiguri Two! I got this book at Barnes & Noble on a whim and have been pretty happy with it thus far.

I’m realizing that the majority of craft books that I own are in Japanese, I mean, literally written in Japanese. I’ve been able to figure out the patterns relatively easily but I have to fill in the blanks most of the time. This book is in English and I have to say that was a bit easier on the brain. Though mine didn’t turn out exactly like the ones in the book, they were fun to make nontheless. Here is one of them: Peas in a Pod!

The one in the book only has 3 peas in the pod, but for some reason my pod turned out extra large and I was able to squeeze in 4. Go figure. I know everyone’s crocheting styles and stitches are a little different but I have never really paid attention to how many stitches per inch, etc. This might come back and bite me in the ass when I’m crocheting some type of clothing, but until then I’ll just do what I do.

One thing I have yet to perfect is the invisible decrease (which I’ve never heard mention of in any of the craft books I’ve read). I always wondered why the bottoms of all my spheres were lumpy and just not attractive in general. I finally googled this problem and discovered the invisible decrease which improved the look of my pieces greatly, but they still aren’t as smooth as I would like. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to advise!

I’ll post the other crochet project as soon as I take pictures of it. It’s been so cloudy here I haven’t been able to get any good light!

–c.

This is my newest sewing project, a request from one of my co-workers for her new niece. Cat pillow! You can see ones we’ve made in the past here and this is the very first one I ever made years ago.

–c.

I crocheted this dog from a pattern in a Japanese crafting book. If you haven’t looked through a Japanese crafting book, you should. And be ready for cuteness overload! I became obsessed with these craft books years ago and my collection has grown steadily. I’ve made more than a few items from these books but the one downside is they are almost all in in Japanese. I don’t happen to read Japanese but luckily for me crochet patterns are universal and I can usually follow those without much problem. It is a little taxing on the brain, trying to decipher which pattern is for which part of the doll but in the end it works out.

I’ve gotten my books from a variety of places, mostly Japanese bookstores. Andrew used to live in Chicago and, during one of my visits, I stocked up at Mitsuwa. In NYC, my favorite Japanese bookstore is Kinokuniya, which is not only great for books but movies as well.

A few online sources that I’ve found useful are Crafting Japanese, YesAsia, and Amazon: Japan.

Here is the book that I got this dog pattern from: ISBN-10: 9784774750712

–c.

It seems that my illness has abated somewhat after a couple days rest. Despite my lingering illness, last night Andrew took me to see The Nutcracker at the New York State Theater. He knows how much I love dance and my slight obsession with ballet, so he bought us tickets for my birthday back in October. It was so much fun and beautiful and amazing! I recommend everyone try to see it at least once.

And to continue with the Christmas theme, the next installment of past Christmas presents. Christmas Present #2 given to my niece Abigail and my nephew Josef: Happy Little Monsters

These guys are made from thrift fabric, felt, foam and poly-fill. The are really simple to make and the kids seem to enjoy their tossability. They are pretty much just sewn cubes filled with a big foam piece and filled in with polly-fill. The number of faces you could use are infinite. I chose to just cut out felt and glue AND sew them on for extra reinforcement, which is a good idea if you are making them for kids that are prone to pulling things off and eating them.

Fondly,
Crystal