DIY Cute Animal Stitch Markers For Kawaii Knitting

Ok. I'll admit it...

I never knew stitch markers could be cute! 

I thought I was fancy when I upgraded from the gross circular stitch markers from Lion Brand [which I do not recommend at all]... 

...to the locking ones by Clover [which are crazy awesome and I highly recommend]! Yes, they are just plain orange and green [or "mint" and "coral" if your're trying to be trendy and on season]. But they are the best stitch markers I've ever used, so I thought, this. is. it. 

and then...

drum roll...

I saw Amanda's blog... 

and realized what I was missing out on!!! 

She had stitch markers with waffles, eggs & bacon, Hostess cupcakes, and little fruit tarts! I swear... I'm getting hungry even thinking about those little guys... gluten overload!

by the way... 

she gets her stitch markers 

custom made from 

Sweet & Savory Trinkets 

if you want some of your own. 

I knew I couldn't handle looking at those little food charms the entire time I was knitting... it would cause a major snack attack! But I knew I wanted something cuter to make my knitting a little more fun. 

So I headed off to Hobby Lobby & this is what I found...

I bought 4 little acrylic bead charms called "Roly Polys". Aren't they adorable?? Kawaii!

Then I bought a cheap 4 pack of leverback earrings. 

Since the charms already had a jump ring attached I just used that to attach them to the earring. 

Those were the only supplies needed, crazy deal! 

Note: I really do NOT like closed circle markers. I always mess up my marker placement & have to move them mid row... which you can't do with closed markers. Having markers that open/close (a la crochet markers) is the only way to go if you ask me! That's why I got leverbacks. You could always use large jump rings if you want the closed style. 

Now here is a closeup of all my cute little woodland creatures...

Bambi!!!! 

Straight out of the The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery's Woodland Sampler, which I am currently stitching up. 

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Not only did Amanda (co-owner/designer of TFPS) inspire me to upgrade my markers, 

her lovely stitch-along inspired the theme of my DIY stitch marker set... woodland animals!

Toad!

Turtle!

...now that I think about it, this is also partly a Super Mario stitch marker set! 

A little orca! 

Ok... not so much a woodland creature. 

But look at his cute little face!!! I couldn't resist. 

Plus, they live around Alaska and that's pretty woody, so close enough.

Here is my now updated & cute-ified stitch marker set! Not super awesome yet. But I'm sure I will be adding to it soon....What do you think, do you have a favorite cute (or not so cute) stitch marker? 

If not, go make some! It's super easy & very affordable. 

Something you usually can't say about knitting right?

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If you don't have a Hobby Lobby in your area {sorry California!! I never even knew what a Hobby Lobby was until I moved close to the Midwest}...you can purchase the same charms here. But it looks like they have an even better selection that the store, so score! 

Free Pattern for Mini Amigurumi Penguin... Kawaii Pastel Spring Version!

This is my first completed amigurumi ever! 

Want to make one for yourself?

Materials Needed:

Yarns: [they say to use cotton] buuuut... see below

• Dark body yarn (I used light purple)
• Light colored body yarn (I used white)
• Beak/feet yarn (I used yellow)
• Optional: a lighter version of the dark body yarn for torso (this is what they did in the original pattern. I didn't.)

metal crochet hook (size depends on yarn used. 

2 safety eyes (4mm)

stuffing

darning needle

that's a lot of pieces!

My notes on materials...

I used Lily's Sugar 'n Cream yarn as well as Lion Brand's Lion Cotton Yarn. I picked these because they were 1) cheap, 2) the colors I wanted, and 3) cotton. They said to use cotton.

Buuuuut these yarns straight killed my hands. And wrists... and fingers... Maybe an acrylic would be better? Is there a reason you need cotton? Maybe that's the nature of amigurumi and the fact that you're crocheting so tightly, cotton or not? I don't know but it was rough and almost forced me to throw in my hook.

If I {ever} attempt amigurumi again, I'm trying acrylic!

Then there are the eyes. At first I thought: "can't I just embroider a little eye on there using a French Knot or something??" NO!! If you want to make real amigurumi, you need those little safety eyes. Otherwise it just won't look right.

It's kind of their hallmark right? I mean, isn't that why you like them? 

Those crazy spaced out cute little bug eyes?

kawaiiiiiiiiiii!

stick in those eyes BEFORE you sew on the head or stuff it... 

Ironically, they do not sell them at Joann Fabric even though they are (kind of) a sewing supply. I found mine at Michael's (in the 4mm). Or buy them on Amazon or Etsy. But they are important. [And cheap]. 

I used 6mm because I couldn't find 4mm.

sew sew sew

My notes on technique...

Before you even start, you need to think about this. [You'll know what I mean if you search the Ravelry projects for this little guy and see other's results. Not hating, just trying to learn]. 

One of the most important parts in making your final penguin look good are your color joins.

They are the difference between:

"where did you get that"

and...

"awwww look what you made"

You know what I mean.

Check out how to solve this problem here. Seriously! Check it out!

Your crochet (and gift recipients) will forever thank you. 

sewing a massive head on a tiny body is tricky!

Also, if you are worried about stranding your darker color through your white (depends on your yarns) you can cut off & weave in at each borther. Annoying, but it works. I did it on the white but not the purple, and you can see the white a little through the purple [see above]. 

How you handle this will reveal the extreme level of your perfectionism :) 

stuffing each body part with a needle helps, since they are so tiny

I have to say that this is the TINIEST and HARDEST project I have ever crocheted or knitted. 

The pieces were tiny. They were hard to crochet. There were soooo many of them (it seemed). Then you had to stuff them all and sew them together. I think my weak little fingers even messed up the gauge so my size & shape even came out differently than the pattern picture 

[see my guy's massive noggin]... 

I thought "oh, it's so tiny.... I could make it in a night!" WRONG! Talk about weeks + due to irritation and wrist pain, wah wah. Those people who make & sell amigurumi for a living? 

Rockstars. 

If you've ever been on Etsy and have seen some cute little guy and thought 

"heeeey I could make that for cheaper" (you know who you are = me!) 

Save yourself the trouble and just buy it! I think its probably worth it to just fork over the dough & enjoy your cutie instead of finishing one (maybe...eventually) then being so sick of it you want to give to the dog to use as a chew toy!

What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

You can get the free pattern from Pierrot Yarns here.


And just when I thought this would be my last amigurumi ever.... I saw this. Sigh. 

Unintentional Blogging Break

working from home on a snow day also interferes with crafting

I will admit it, my lack of computer prowess was depressing me. 

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I didn't know how to fix my inability to upload more pictures.
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I tried Photobucket once. I didn't work. I didn't know what else to try. 

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I didn't really have the time (I mean motivation) to experiment endlessly...
[That would cut into my crafting time, which is pretty much not ok.] 
[Only the most VIP of things are allowed to do that. Like work, obviously.]
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But now.... I think I have it all figured out, as you can see by this picture! WAHOO!
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Phew. That was exhausting.
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 Computers are not my forte, and that was pretty much a mental marathon.
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Thank you to the lovely Gina who motivated me to get out of my slump (with her beautifully inspiring blog).
And this crazy helpful post that pretty much solved all my problems. 

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I can't wait to share (eventually) everything I made during my break! 

Mollie Makes Hedgehog & Fabric Leaves

AH, check out this issue of Mollie Makes!

I've never bought this magazine before, but this cover just got me all excited... I couldn't resist.

Do you see what I see? A Skunkboy Creatures hoglet*! 

*hoglet in British speak = hedgehog in "American." I looked it up. 

Skunkboy Creatures are made by Katie. Her creations are so creatively put together and expressive. 

I love how their little droopy button eyes make them look sad and depressed. 

Is that weird? I don't know why, but I think its cute!

Since Katie's creations cost a pretty penny, I had to take this opportunity to make my very own. 

So here are the two hedgies I made!

But let me tell you. This project is NOT for the faint of heart, or weak of finger. It was a seriously challenging project! All those tiny pieces, all that precise cutting and hand-stitching... 

I'm surprised I even finished them at all, let alone made two! 

I have a new respect for Katie's work, and can tell you without a doubt, that her work, is worth the cost!

Hedgehog love! I decided to make two hedgehogs to represent my husband an I, and to use them as my Thanksgiving table centerpiece. 

I also decided to make the Liberty fabric leaves to go with them. While normally these leaves aren't something I would make, they just went so well with the hedgehogs that I had to do it. 

Here is me, with my brown button eyes. 

From this angle my hedgehog kind of looks like a depressed chihuahua. 

Those ears. 

But hey, that's one of the reasons I love Skunkboy Creatures. And chihuahuas! 

Who can resist those teary, trembling eyes?

Here is my man hedgehog. He has blue button eyes. 

To make him larger I photocopied the pattern pieces and enlarged them 1.5x.

Even though the pattern pieces are all the same, he came out looking like an angry hedgehog! How you sew the eyes on really impacts the "emotion" of your final creation. 

Here are my four leaves in all their glory. At first I thought they were a total pain to make. But once I got going they were easy and fun to do while watching TV. If I had more time I would make more so you could scatter them down the middle of the table. I would even make a few in larger sizes! 

Another good idea: make this new branch pattern that the Mollie Makes blog just featured.

Note: to save time I didn't stitch the leaf veins in the middle. I thought that doing this would make them too "busy" and would detract from the awesome fall fabrics I picked. Love you fat squares, you save me the time of waiting in the cutting lines during the holidays, eeeeek!

Double Note: I also didn't use the "wadding" as called for in the pattern. I used the thickest interfacing I could find and left it at that. Using batting or felt to stuff the leaves made them too thick. 

If you own this issue already, you can find the templates here. 

If you missed out and want to order this issue, you can do so here.

You can also download digital copies for your iPad. I need one of those. 

You know. For crafting purposes.

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Have you read Mollie Makes... what do you think? Have you attempted to make these little guys? If you are or want to, let me know if you have any questions and I will try to help!

Happy crafting :)

My bandwidth is all gone!

It's high tide in holiday crafting season... and Blogger is letting me down. 

I have SO MANY  holiday crafts and recipes that I have been working on and perfecting.

I have TONS of pictures.

I am getting ready to post.

I want to share with you all the fun and tasty things I have made recently.

BUT. I. CAN'T. 

Why oh why???? I want to cry AND break my computer at the same time.

Blogger just informed me that all my memory capacity for uploading photos through Blogger/Picasa is used up. Used up. No more. Forever. [Unless I pay money]. Of course. 

Thanks Blogger. I thought you were free???

On top of that, occasionally [random] pictures won't show up at all. At least temporarily. Something to do with the server being slow/being maxed out?!?! Which I cannot do anything about. Great.

I am not a computer genius by any means. My love is crafting, not knowing what bandwidth is (had to look that up). I am so frustrated. I know that now I will need another service to upload my pictures with so that I can post pictures again. Something like Photobucket maybe. 

But with all that is going on holiday-wise in life, I don't know if I will have the time to look up how to do that any time soon. Uhhhhhhhhh. So depressing just thinking about it. 

I've worked so hard to think of new crafts and recipes for this holiday season, but posting about them  on time might not be happening. I am so disappointed, I don't know what to do.

I apologize. 

Hopefully I will be posting them soon, even if they are belated. That way there is always next year to make them, right? 

Sniff sniff. 

Have you had the same problem? Did you find a way to fix it? Is Photobucket the answer? 

Gillian's Frozen Gluten Free Crust Review

During the holidays, sometimes you want/need to take short cuts. 

There just isn't always the time to do things the old-fashioned way, ya know? 

But being gluten free, this becomes a little harder (surprise surprise). You can't just buy that awesomely easy and tasty frozen Marie Callender's pie crust anymore (which if you are not-GF I would recommend). So I've decided to slowly try out all of the frozen GF crusts I can find. 

You know, all like, three kinds of them.

I found this Gillian's pie crust at Whole Foods. It was $5.99 for two crusts, which isn't too bad for a gluten free product. Here are the ingredients. Mainly a brown rice flour crust. 

Nutrition facts. If you care about that kind of thing. When making a pie. 

Here is the story behind Gillian's crust, which is sweet. 

Like most frozen crusts (GF or not) there is a 50/50 chance of you getting a broken crust, no matter how careful you are in getting it from the store to your house. Oh well. It doesn't really show once you bake it anyways.

My test pie loaded up with local organic apples from my CSA. 

before baking

after baking

*Note: the topping I used was from this Swedish Apple Pie recipe. I made it GF by subbing the regular flour for coconut flour because I thought the coconut flavor would go well with the apples. I would NOT recommend this. The coconut flour soaked up all the moisture out of the pie and turned everything dry, instead of melting into the apples like it should have. On top of that the topping was bready and gross (you can see it sawdust-like texture in this picture). Maybe millet or brown rice flour would be better? 

If you have successfully made this pie recipe GF, please let me know how you did it!

Here is the pie sliced. It sliced well and didn't crumble, but the crust didn't really brown (although that is typical of a lot of GF crusts.) It also happened to be fairly flavorless and didn't stand out against the pie. You chewed and there was something of a different texture in there besides apple, but that was about it. 

Because of this lack of flavor or sweetness, it might work better with a savory pie or quiche. 

But I don't know.

The edges of the crust are not crispy, but were kind of hard and spongy, which reminded me of cardboard. This seriously detracted from the fresh texture of the apples. Then, a day later it got little soggy and mealy! While this happens with most rice flour crusts (even pizza crust) the fact that it didn't have good texture to begin with made this even more annoying.

closeup of non-browned cardboard-y edge crust

So pretty much pie fail. Topping turned out bad, and crust was bad. 

So I ended up eating the apples by themselves and scraping off the rest. 

My rating: I will not buy again.

I threw out the rest of the pie AND the other crust, which I never, ever do. 

I didn't even want to risk trying this crust with a quiche. 

 For a fresh fruit pie I would have preferred a cobbler, crumble, or homemade pie crust. 

Or plain, baked fruit.

Not recommended. Sorry Gillian. 

Christmas Crochet Decoration Ideas

I just recently* bought the November/December 2012 issue of Crochet Today! magazine, and it is full of fun stuff. Normally I don't even check out crochet mags [because I am a snobby knitter, I admit it].
But for some reason the holiday issues always get me with the kitschy cuteness.

*Ok, recently is being generous. 

This issue is no longer for sale, 

and the new January/February issue is already out! 

But don't worry, if you missed the Christmas issue 

you can still order a copy here. 

Or you can scour Jo-Anns & Michaels, 

where I saw a few un-sold copies.

Anyways. Not only were there some cute magazine patterns, but even the ads within the magazine had cute Christmas patterns! Here are some of my favorites:

I love these Sweet Shop Ornaments! They totally fit in with my evil plan of making an entire Christmas tree worth of food amigurumi ornaments! Complete with Twinkie Chan's popcorn garland. These ones would be perfect. I'm even contemplating buying a fake mini Christmas tree in pink, to really push the sugary-sweet look over the top. So, pretty much copying Twinkie's tree, but mini. A girl can dream.

And this Rudolph Hat!! AH, the cutest! Ok, the stripey yarn makes it kind of creepy, like an alien reindeer, but I like it that way. I could totally see myself wearing this to an Ugly Sweater Party!

How could I not win with this?!?! It even has jingly bells!

Anyone want to alter this into adult size for me (since it is child-sized)??? 

If you do, I promise I will make one for both of us! And I would love you forever. 

OK, even crazier cute: this gingerbread house! For years, years, I have been making gingerbread houses. They're actually pretty hard [frustrating, messy, lead to fighting, swearing] to make. Not always an encourager of holiday spirit. Especially if you bake your own gingerbread. 

I am determined that it is actually impossible to use actual gingerbread cookies (and not graham crackers) and make a house that is 1) not crooked, or 2) can stand up on it's own. I recommend the Michael's gingerbread kit if you want to make a real one [don't forget your coupon!] It at least takes out this issue. Having icing that will actually hold it together is another issue...

Or instead just get this Mary Maxim gingerbread house kit, which you can purchase for $14.99 here (yarn included). You put all the effort into it once, and it lasts forever! Plus you won't be tempted to eat it, and you won't have to watch it like a hawk so your cat/dog/husband/friend/visitor/family eat part of it and ruin it. I think it would look awesome under my sweet pink tree!

Also awesome under my tree? This crochet granny square tree skirt pattern by Red Heart. You can download the free (woohoo!) pattern here. I like how you could make it in any color to match your Christmas decor. I'm imaging pastels for my (future) pink tree.

And lastly. My favorite of the issue. Ok. It's not Christmas related (unless you make the Russia = snow = winter = Christmas connection). But I knew I just could NOT pass this baby up. 

I mean, how could I pass up the chance to buy a pattern for a .... 

 Russian kitty doll!

Her name is Coco the Cat, and in this issue Coco goes to Russia! I can totally imagine her perched next to my Russian lacquer art collection, bringing life to all my plates and bowls.  

I love that you make her babushka style headscarf, blouse, bloomers and little matryoshka doll separately. They are all so cute! Although I am sure a beast to make... as with all amigurumi. But they're so cute!!!

For the Russian gear patterns you need to buy the Nov/Dec issue. But the pattern for Coco is free and can be downloaded here. 

naked Coco, naughty girl!

Coco has also traveled to Paris, Holland, Venice, and London in other issues so you can make her a global wardrobe a la Epcott Center. But of course, I will have to make Russian Coco. 

To honor my Россия семья. 

That means my Russian family. I Googled it.