Sootsprite Toms ft. Totoro

I'm not much of a shopper for a girl. I pretty much wear the same shoes till they die. So when my sister told me about a Tom's Warehouse shoe sale that she attended in Houston I quickly took to Facebook to see if there was a similar one in Dallas. Lo and behold there was!

If you have never heard of Tom's shoes, I'm not sure where you have been living. I had one pair about 5 years ago, but as I tend to dislike closed shoes, I never replaced it when it wore out. However, on the last day of the Warehouse sale, which was held in Fair Park, in Dallas, all shoes go down to the low low price of $10 a pair. So of course I went and picked up four pairs.

I got a black sparkly pair for work, a blue jean colored one with white flowers for casual settings, a teal mosaic looking pair that goes with my extensive teal wardrobe, and a plain gray canvas pair.

That last gray pair I had plans for... totoro related plans. I have seen a lot of cute hand painted shoes lately and figured it would be no big deal to add a little decoration to them with a black marker. I stuffed the toes with paper towels and got out a Prismacolor fine/broad tipped black marker and just sort of free handed a bunch of soot sprites all over.

I did debate doing only soot sprites but I couldn't help adding a whole mess of them to one and then balancing that out on the other with a few totoros.

For $10, custom shoes are a lot of fun and I could totally see going and getting a ton of cheap pairs for a kid (or kid at heart's) birthday party or activity.

In any case, this was a lot of fun and an easy way to spend a few hours. For sure would love to do something more intricate and colorful next time, perhaps on a pair of white shoes.

Difficulty: Easy
Time to Complete: 4 hours

The Creature

Back in 2008, I put up a short post about an Illustrator drawing I did of the Creature (from Samurai Jack, season 3, episode 33, a cartoon by Genndy Tartakovsky). With the recent news that the show is to return this year, I thought it might be fun to revisit this character. Also, if you have not watched this show, GET ON IT. It's seriously great and has some excellent stories. If you need further proof know that it is the only instance in which the font Papyrus does not drive me up a wall. Yeah.

The Creature, as it is called, is the most obvious of references in this episode to the works of Hayao Miyazaki, which is chock full of them. Itself being a parody of the noble Totoro, of which I have great fondness. The episode itself is sometimes called the Crystal of Cagliostro, a reference to the film, the Castle of Cagliostro, which was Miyazaki's feature length directorial debut film.

So, for this post, I decided to try to make a crochet plush of the Creature. The picture above is very similar to the scene where one of the characters meets Totoro in the forest for the first time. The creature does seem to get a bit smaller as the episode progresses.

First things first was to find all the colors I would need. A teal for the main body, a light teal for the belly, light blue for the belly details, darker blue for the arms and ears, yellow for eyes, dark pint for mouth, pink for tongue, white for teeth, a little green for his head leaf things, and black for embroidery. I decided to also pull a little light yellow to maybe make a pair of those butterflies that fly around his head.

Most colors I just had bits of on hand but I bought a new skein of With Love by Red Heart in Blue Hawaii (a teal color) for the body to make sure I had enough for all the parts. I also use Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in Sky Blue (in the Nautical color series that was discontinued) for the lightest bits, and Red Heart Soft in Teal for the darkest bits.

For a simple looking creature, he actually had a lot of parts and I wanted to get some of the larger details right. I first set about making a body shape that I think felt right as I was making this up as I went along. Of course, once I had him mostly finished at the end of this process I realized I could have made his belly and lower body a bit larger. The face is made up of eight parts, which then get some embroidery to really pull it all together.

The ears were a bit of a challenge, since I wanted to keep the shape and colors correct. So they are made from two parts that snug together and then get sewn down. It was also important to me to get them to face the right way once sewn on.

The arms are a fairly simple shape and I kept the increases to the edges to give it a flatter shape in the upper arm. A few lines to get the fingers and they were complete.

I had originally thought to do the arms and legs from the same pattern but the arms are a solid color where as the legs have two colors. So these are made from two shapes that get sewn together and stuffed. I then added the foot pad and a little embroidery for the toes and toe pads.

I also went back and watched the episode to make sure he had a tail, which I remembered him having, but he does not in fact have. It is instead a light peach bare butt. This thing is pretty funny looking. So I made nice peach oval and sewed it in place.

As I started stuffing and sewing the pieces down he really started to come together. The little bits of embroidery really help and I'm so happy with how all the colors look together.

Finally I decided to make him the three head leaves and two flies, which are seen fluttering about his head. Since the leaves stand up on his head, I stiffened them with a mixture of water and glue.

While letting the leaves dry I was able to put all the rest of the parts on and get a good look at my Creature. He's really spot on I think, except being a bit short, but really cute.

With the leaves added, he is complete. I kept thinking about ordering another voice box for him, as he makes some truly great sounds in the episode, but for now I have other items to be moving on to.

Finished!

Difficulty: Intermediate
Time to Complete: 35 hours
Finished Size: about 13" tall and 10" wide
As with Lion and Blathers, the Creature has a full pdf pattern and if you would like it feel free to email me a request.

Christmas Stockings

Christmas stockings are one of those things that everyone seems to have, but most are so impersonal it seems. I've had our blank red and white stockings from Walmart on hand for a while now with the intent to customize them with felt... but I never seem to get around to it. This week I decided to change that.

I bought different sheets of felt at the same time as the stockings, so when unpacking my Christmas decorations it was all right there.

I had initially thought to use embroidery thread and sew the felt down, but as that would take more skill and time than I currently had, I reached for the Fabri-tac glue. This stuff is amazing for felt and yarn.

I had ideas in mind already: Lovecraft-y tentacles for the hubby and a christmas Totoro for myself.
I sketched out the shape of the stocking on some old sheets of packing paper and then drew out the design I liked in the space. Then I cut out the template shapes onto the felt and cut out the felt shapes. After about two hours I had most of the large pieces and details cut, with more time for all those tentacle dots.

You might notice that the totoro in the picture above has an embossed pattern in the gray. I decided I didn't like how it looked and simply flipped the shape over and use the plain back.

This whole project was fairly quick and simple, and the certainly look much less boring on the wall now.

Of course I could go back and add embroidery in the future too...

Time to complete: 5 hours + drying time
Difficulty: Easy

Appa Catbus Hat

After I made the latest set of Totoro fair isle hats, I thought I would do one more with a few other skeins of yarn I had on hand that I had no idea what to do with. I had though about doing a scarf, or a shawl, but with the three colors I had it might turn out a little odd.

The yarn in question is Cascade Superwash 220 Sport and I have three skeins, one each of Chocolate, White, and Extra Cream Cafe. I got these colors way back in October of 2014. Since it is a lighter weight yarn than I was using before, I knew my existing design grid would most likely be too small, but I tried to hash out a design anyway.

The colors themselves are pretty perfect for representing a few other cartoon characters I like: Appa, from Avatar: the Last Airbender, and Catbus, also from My Neighbor Totoro. These two creatures are many legged modes of transportation in their respective shows, so they have a lot in common in my mind. It was fun to put them together in something finally. These skeins also do not have a lot of yardage so I figured I could use most of them up in this project.

scrapped pattern for 84 stitches

The yarn calls for a 4mm hook, but knowing I work very tightly, I went with one of my old G 4.25mm hooks. I did the foundation row out to where it fit around my head nicely, then did two rows of waistcoat stitch into it. I did not bother with trying color changes or anything just yet, as I wanted to see how many stitches my grid would need to be to fit nicely and if I needed to go up to a larger hook size.

first attempt with 84 sc around. too small. scrapped.

Once I got a few rows into the first pattern for 84 stitches around I knew it would be too small and reworked the pattern for 90 stitches. There are a few small differences between the two. I made the letters a bit more obvious and changed up Appa's face a little. I also moved the heart motif to fill in a little more space. I also moved it so that it was not split up across the seam, which is a good idea in theory, but looks bad in real life.

reworked pattern for 90 stitches around.

I worked on this hat for about three weeks I would say, off and on. My hubby was nice enough to snap a pic of my setup on our flight home from a weekend family reunion.

After getting through the entire design section, I think if I had to do it over I would work in a 5mm H hook just to make sure I don't get too tight. This hat fits, but somewhat tightly through the center where I forget myself and tend to work tight again.

several rows into the new design

Since I pretty much ran out of the cream cafe (tan) after the design section was done, I did one more row solid tan to be like row 4 and then closed off the hat using the dark chocolate brown to mirror the brim. I then finished the hat off with a white pom on top.

design areas done. love the heart detail

As with the very first of these hats I made, I feel like I could have done a lot of things better. This new yarn, was almost like starting this idea from scratch. I think in the future, I will start these hats in the smaller size, then when getting into the design area, move up a hook size to one larger. That might keep it from getting too tight to wear. (So in this case, start with a G hook and move to an H hook at row 4.)

This hat is super cute in my opinion, just needs to go to someone with a smaller head than me. I love the Appa best I think... Maybe next one I put Momo on the other side.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Time to Complete: 15 hours

The Great Totoro Wave

After the last totoro fair isle hat, I still had more yarn, and my mom had said she wanted one too. She didn't have any specification on what she wanted on it, so I decided to try out the Totoro wave pattern I had mocked up.

I made this pattern a tiny bit taller than the last one, since I feel like maybe I should have more design and less edge on these hats. As with most things the more you make, the better they get.

With these large images of the Mount Fuji and this one with the wave, I wonder if the scene gets lost since it wraps around and you cannot see the whole design at once. Like maybe someone behind you will wonder why there is a big blue triangle on that person's hat... I guess that is why repeating motifs are more common in fair isle, since the design is the same from any angle.

While working on this one I went a lot faster than last time, mainly because I was itching to move on from hats into my next plushie idea. Day one, I spent about 4 hours working and got halfway through the design.

I finished the rest of the design in another two three hours or so. At that point I needed to start decreasing around. In the last few I have carried the white along to make stars in the sky, but for this one I needed to keep it to finish off the crest of the wave. If I had tried to include it in the flat part of the design it would have been way too deep of a hat.

I just eyeballed where I felt I should have the white crest start and stop to get that curved look over the next three rows of my decrease rounds. After that I stopped with the white altogether and just did the rest of the closing off in gray.

After hiding the ends, I asked if she would like a pom on the top. I don't have an opinion on them one way or the other, but she thought she would like one. I decided to go with the white and blue colors to maybe make it look like a splash of water, not sure the effect is really there, but it looks cute.

Difficulty, as with all of these hats, is Intermediate in my opinion.
Time to complete: 10 hours

Previous in the set:
Three Totoros & Mt. Fuji
Nighttime Hooting Totoros
Winter Forest Totoros

Three Totoros & Mt. Fuji

This is the third Totoro fair isle hat I have made.

A friend's mom collects images of Mt. Fuji and saw my last Totoro hats and asked for one of her own. I think this hat will be super cute to add to her collection of Fujisan images. She asked for it to fit a head size of 23 inches, so made it a little looser than the last one, which was already larger than the first. It is pretty much necessary to get it to fit nicely, since as I mentioned before there is NO stretch to the yarn or the fabric it creates.

I'm working again with a 6mm hook, but trying to be mindful of working loose on the hook. I started with a foundation single crochet 72 around. Then increased up to 78 (11sc, inc around) in the second round. For Row 3, I started working around in the waistcoat stitch. Overall, I added another row to this design since the last ones I felt were a little short and I ended up putting a few brim rows on so that they would cover your ears.

you can see the carried along yarn inside

I needed to get a little extra yarn for this hat since I was already working on leftover yarn from the first two. As it is, I have a fourth Totoro fair isle idea in the works that will use up what was left from the new skeins of this third hat.

almost done with the design rows

This time instead of bundling the two other stands into the back of every stitch, I used more of a knitting technique of picking up the other color strands every three or four stitches. It made the fabric a little lighter overall I think, and certainly less stiff. I do worry about the exposed yarns snagging on bobby pins or hair clips, but hopefully it will be ok since she has short hair.

starting to decrease

This hat was a little slow going like the others and it is kind of a pain to keep the colors from tangling since you work with three at once. I feel like I should come up with some sort of toilet paper holder rack to put the three skeins on so they can spin in place. In any case, I finished it in good time I think.

Totoro side

Mt. Fuji side.

As before I added a few more white pips of stars in the decreasing rounds. I didn't think a pom on the top would look right for this hat, so we left it off. Overall I am pretty happy with how this third effort turned out. Think I've got it to a good size to fit many heads and a good space to work out designs.

Difficulty: Intermediate
Time to complete: 15 hours

Totoro Bird House

Just a quick project this week.

I was given an old wooden birdhouse... you know the like I'm sure. Painted flowers all over with a few gardening phrases in some fancy script for good measure. A few butterflies. Standard clearance craft store stuff. I was given it specifically since they knew I could have some fun repainting it.

My home's color accent outside is a lovely Teal color. I did all the shutters in it, as well as the window box. I've got pottery to match.

My outdoor office also is accented in teal around the windows and doors. With plenty of paint left over from the house I've used it for this great piece of molding that came off an old armoire. I installed it over one of the windows.

So, I got out the big can of Teal, a white spray paint primer, a hammered bronze finish spray paint, and a few cheap pots of "oops" color samples I got from Lowe's while looking for the perfect color.

After an initial spray painting session outside, I got the white base covering it up nicely and then did the roof in the hammered bronze. Only when it was painted this way could I really see the nice shape of the birdhouse. Who knew it was really cute?

After letting it dry all day, I brought it inside to work on the details. I wanted to keep it simple. I added a few windows to the sides. Some shutters around the entry. Molding under the eaves. Decorative flourishes and acorn motifs. And of course, a pair of totoro's on the front.

Not to mention a big sleeping one around the side.

I sealed the entire thing with several clear coats of enamel spray paint.

For now I've simply set it on one of the cute shelves on my front porch, but perhaps I will hang it from the tree in the front yard sometime.

Although it does look pretty cute in the window box as well... heh... I could turn the whole box into a fairy garden with this as the house!

Now maybe when you see some super cheap birdhouses, you can think about how fun it might be to make them into something new.

Difficulty: Easy
Time to complete: About 3 hours