Coraline Fan Art

I follow Laika House on Instagram to get peeks at the upcoming movie Boxtrolls and everything else they work on. As I have expounded before I am fascinated by the handcrafted quality of the work that goes into their movies.

So when I saw a post where they were calling for submissions for Coraline fan art, for the 5th anniversary of it being released, I knew I had to enter. Prize is a pair of the limited edition Nike shoes from the 2009 release which I also tried to win at that time.

the reference picture

the sketch with inks

the finished watercolor

Submission was sent on February 6th... we will see what happens. FINGERS CROSSED

Bonus: Me and my little me.

UPDATE: So the submissions are voted on to win. I dislike that, since it's basically a popularity contest and not a random chance to win now. Oh well, at least I had a good time being inspired to make something fun and got to continue to work on my watercolor skills.

Striped Slouch Hat

So I mentioned that I recently went on vacation with my mom and sister, and that I was making one of those cupcake hats for my sister. I of course managed to forget to bring my own hat, and of course, so did my mom. So the only person who had a hat for the cold weather in Santa Fe was my sister.

So, while I was in Houston for a tradeshow before our vacation I made both my mom and I hats. Naturally it turned out that hats were unnecessary since it was warm and sunny the entire time we were there.

The tradeshow was 4 days, after which we would be flying out of Houston for Albuquerque. I needed a pattern that was fairly simple and used few colors. I decided to try the free pattern by Moogly called the All Grown Up Striped Slouch hat. I hat clipped it into my Evernote crochet notebook a long time ago but had not yet needed to make one.

So, the first day I managed to find a Michaels near the place we went for dinner and went and picked two colors of yarn, a blue and a gray like the pattern called for. Love those colors anyway.

This pattern was fast. Once you understand the two rows directions it was easy to get into a groove and not need to directly reference the pattern. I love ones like that. 

I love the little tiny stripe that is created by using the back post. Really makes it look detailed. It also gives the hat great texture and makes it feel thick and warm. But the really best part is that since there are only two rows between the color switching you carry the yarn along and never cut the colors. That makes it so fast and eliminates a lot of cutting and attaching. 

The ribbing at the bottom threw me for a little bit of a loop. I got all the way to the end and realized that I had made a mistake since instead of being a brim, I had made a flared skirt. What I had done was instead of skipping I made the up and down ribbing on every stitch, essentially doubling the amount of rows on the brim. So I of course had to rip out the entire brim and start again, but it was much faster the second time around. Duh.

Here I should also mention, that since I wanted my brim to be in the blue color, I added an extra row of the gray to make it a bit longer and slouchier and still allow me to read the pattern right.

Looks really cute on. Not sure if it is because the original image is taken on a mannequin head with no hair but it was not quite as slouchy as I had thought it would be, even with my extra row. I made the small adult size. 

You can tell mine looks a little longer than the one in their picture, due to that extra row. I have since added a little felt pin right above the brim of a little bird and it looks super cute. Total time I would say was about 7 hours for this pattern, but would be less if you didn't add the extra row, and make the brim mistake. I can easily see this in a lot of other colors, so give it a go!

PS: I only bought one skein of each color, and had enough left of each to make my mom a cupcake hat out of the remainders. Check the cupcake hat post to see a picture of that blue and gray cupcake hat. 

Cupcake Hats

My brothers girlfriend is pretty cool. She's a little bit weird and gets our humor really well, but also really smart and structured, which is a good influence on him. Anyway, so we were discussing things I have crocheted over dinner. She has seen the Alot, BananaShark and Dalek that I have made for my brother, and she asked if I could make her a cupcake hat that she saw on Pintrest.

I said of course, having seen many images of them on the internet. And a quick search on Etsy will give you a ton of patterns depending on how you want your cupcake to be frosted and decorated. I decided to get this Cupcake Hat pattern from the shop CrochetSpotPatterns. I picked it for two main reasons: I liked the swirl of the frosting and also loved that it comes in different sizes. I can totally see making some of these for friends children...

She asked for a brown or tan wrapper, white frosting, rainbow sprinkles and a cherry on top.
I love this hat because I can use up those half skeins of colors I have lying around for this job.

The pattern was simple and quick. The top of the hat worked up really fast if you are familiar with making circles and using back loops. The only part that took a longer time for me was the wrapper part around the head. I had to re-look up stitch tutorials to make sure I was doing the front and back post crochet correctly, but after that it was a breeze. I did add an extra row at the bottom where the pattern ends because I like my hats to cover my ears. So I simply added a row of regular double crochet all the way around. I think it looked nice and like the bottom of the cup...

Two things to note on the cherry part... I used the first row as my topside, and since I started with a magic circle I used that tail to poke out the top for a stem on my cherry. Then I had the full tail on the smaller decreased end to sew it down to the hat with. I also stuffed mine with some leftover red yarn scraps.

A cherry.

As it usually happens with these things, I ended up making another one as well for my sister. My mom, sister and I are going to Santa Fe in late February and since it will be cold we will of course need hats. My mom has one I have made already, and I of course have my dragon hat, so my sis would be the only one out. Can't have that.

She liked the picture on the pattern, so hers is brown wrapper, pink frosting and a cherry.

 For the top you leave a loop open...

...to make the icing swirl! Might try a shell stitch for icing next time...

Finished hats...

The white frosted looks better with rainbow sprinkles.

Super cute. Like I said, didn't need a full skein for all any of the colors. Even for both wrappers I didn't use even half a skein of brown. Great yarn consumption project. Total time for each hat was about 5 hours, only because of the wrapper part.

UPDATE: Made a hat for my mom out of leftover skeins from my upcoming slouch hat post. Not sure it reads a cupcake-y as the others do because of the colors. Also the soft yarn made it have a slightly melty shape as opposed to the coarser red heart or standard cheap yarn.

Goblin Week and Witchsona Week

So Evan Dahm started a thing called Goblin Week a few years back. Basically you draw goblins, whatever that means to you, and post it on tumblr. I've been lurking around and looking at it for a while, but have never done anything for it. This year, I really wanted to, but never got off my butt. So I have a few sketches but most are too rough to post. So I thought I would post the one I got furthest on.

Since they live in caves, figured there must be a team that goes out and maps new areas to be expanded into. Girls are smaller than the guys so they get the jobs of exploring the smaller passageways. She's got a colander helmet with a flashlight strapped on and a necklace of glowing crystals. A winch harness to lower and raise herself. A dagger just in case of ROUSes. Hogs-hair bristle brush shoes to gently move down walls so as not to damage the cave. A large glowing crystal dangles below attached to the bottom line to light the way down.

Female Goblin Spelunker

Another kind of "week" recently surfaced on my radar as both Kate Leth and the girls from Chaos Life have participated... Witchsona Week. You draw yourself as whatever kind of witch you might be. Sounded fun so I did a little doodle for it too. Which turned into an inked drawing, which I then colored with colored pencils and scanned.

Yarn Witch

If I was a witch I might be a Yarn Witch. I really loved how in the book Howls Moving Castle that Sophie might have been a little bit of a witch since as she made hats in her shop she spoke to them, and they in turn were sold to the exact type of people she envisioned. It's like her words and hands and focus on creating, put little spells that gravitated the finished hats to the right people. That kind of magic seems very real. Since I do so much crocheting lately, I hope that each item I make carries a bit of the love and time and focus that I put into making it. I would have a magic wand crochet hook that is able to become any size I need, as well as magic ball of yarn that changes color as needed and never runs out. My necklace is pendant yarn cutter I have and some stitch markers. My familiar would be my Dragon Hat come to life. Since I put so much more time into that project than any other, and wear it so frequently, the magic rubbed off onto it over time and now it protects and keeps me warm. Also those are tabi socks, because I love weird socks and am wearing some today.

Anyway, creating objects, where before sat a pile of yarn, is pretty magical all by itself.

Viking Hat

My fourth Sir Knight hat, is again a base only. I used the pattern for the extra large and did it in black once again, but this time it is for my husband. (though I might wear it too) The idea is to do a Viking style, and not the Knight look. The Vikings are the mascot of the school where my husband teaches.

Once I completed the base, I did a border for around the brim in gray with popcorn stitches to make it look like it had that metal bolt rim. Since the widest part of the hat is 68 stitches, I made the brim part 70 to make sure it fit over the base and didn't constrict the head. You could probably also just do 68 stitches and then do it in one hook size larger as well...

Bolted Brim: in Gray
Row 1: Chain 70, and connect to first chain with a slip stitch.
Row 2: Chain one and do 70 sc around, connect to first with a slip stitch
Row 3: Chain three and do *6 double crochet, one popcorn stitch*, repeating around, connect to first with a slip stitch
Row 4: Chain one and do 70 sc around, connect to first with a slip stitch. Bind off.

*Popcorn stitch: Work 5 double crochet into the next stitch. Remove the hook from the loop (scary, I know) and insert it into the first of the double crochet you just made. Pick up the dropped loop and draw it through the first double crochet you stuck your hook into. Then secure it with a chain 1, which will be the top of your popcorn stitch for the next row.

I sewed down the brim along the top of the eyebrow row of the hat so that neck part of it does come out below the brim, like it should. This was a mistake, because by sewing it down, it made it unable to stretch which is why the hat fit my husband... so I had to un-sew it. I then tried tacking down around each popcorn, but leaving the rest unattached. It stretches better and the tension keeps the band on right. Next time just do the brim rows as the last 4 rows of the hat base before the neck part... duh.

Next I made some horns for the sides. These start with white at the point, than grow larger and curl (hopefully) and then will have a gray studded band at the base. Stuff them as you go along, and then sew them on. Helps to have a model try it on and then mark where you want the horns to be.

I used this free pattern for horns from Cheyenne Crochet as a base pattern, but changed quite a few elements to get the look I wanted. I rewrote the pattern to have the same kind of base on the horns as on the brim. I also used the front loops only on the sc to give my horns a spiral, ribbed look.

Tip: Front loop is the one facing you as you work, back loops are on the back of the stitch.

Another reason I rewrote the pattern was because some of the rows made no sense to me, like the original Row 5 which reads: 4sc, m2 x2, 4 sc, s2g. To me that adds up to 13 not 10 stitches. Unless I am counting wrong or misunderstanding the x2 instructions... Where you see an "m2 x2" I did an increase (or 2 sc in one stitch) and then another increase in the next stitch, so there are two increases in a row, over two stitches. Not sure if they meant do 4 stitch increase in one stitch, but it was confusing me… Hopefully this is as clear as mud to you, as well. :P

Horns with Band

Row 1: magic circle, sc 6 - 6st. - try to leave a tail of about 8 inches out the tip 

-- From here on sc is in front loops only -- (forms a spiral ridge on outside)

Row 2: m2, 5sc - 7st.

Row 3: 1sc, m2 x2, 2sc, s2g - 8st.

Row 4: 3sc, m2, 4sc - 9st.

Row 5: 4sc, m2, 4sc - 10st.  (can also be 3sc, m2 x2, 2sc, s2g)  

Row 6: 4sc, m2, 5sc - 11st.

Row 7: 4sc, m2 x2, 3sc, s2g - 12st.

Row 8: 5sc, m2, 6sc - 13st.

Row 9: 5sc, m2 x2, 4sc, s2g - 14st.

Row 10: 6sc, m2, 7sc - 15st.

Row 11: 6sc, m2 x2, 5sc, s2g - 16st.

Row 12: 7sc, m2, 8sc - 17st.

Row 13: 7sc, m2 x2, 6sc, s2g - 18st. 

Row 14: 8sc, m2, 9sc - 19st.

Row 15: 8sc, m2 x2, 7sc, s2g - 20st.

Row 16: 9sc, m2, 10sc - 21st.

Row 17: 9sc, m2 x2, 8sc, s2g - 22st.

Row 18: 10sc, m2, 11sc - 23st.

Row 19: 10sc, m2 x2, 9sc, s2g - 24st.  

Row 20: switch to gray, back loops only, sc around 24st., slip stitch to first

Row 21: chain 2, 5 dc, popcorn stitch*, repeat around 24st. (will have 4 popcorns)

Row 22: sc around 23st. Bind off. Leave tail for sewing to hat. 

* for the horns, since the band is a little smaller, make your popcorns with only 4dc instead of the 5dc like on the brim band.

Top with tied down tail for curve, Bottom not yet done.

To get a more pronounced curl to the horn, take the tail from the tip and pull it along the inside of the curve, inside the horn. Then pull tight to desired curve and secure it at the base of the white section of the horn. 

Note to self: make a set of horns, in tan, without the band, to add to the chinese dragon hat.

Finished Hat

It's too big on me... maybe next time I'll put the horns lower, too.

Total time for the Viking hat, about 7 hours, most of the time in the horns as I wanted to get them right.

Hats and Masks Pt 2

I did not anticipate a part 2, to my last post, but here it is anyway.

The self made IronMan mask part, as I suspected, did not really fit right. So, instead I made a second knight hat in the colors of Iron Man with input from the recipient. As I mentioned before, this Sir Knight hat pattern is really fast and having done it once before, albeit a larger size, meant that I only needed to glance at the pattern. This hat took about 4 hours total.

It is a child size, with a red base, gold blade, gold mask with red vents. I also added on the Iron Man ear things from that helmet, but since they sit about the place the buttons to attach the mask should be, I sewed them down in place and attached the button through both the round ears and into the hat. It should fit much better, even though I'm not sure it looks like IronMan at all now.

After this hat was done, they loved it. I then set about using the base of the Sir Knight pattern another time, but that will be next post since it is kind of long... It is a viking hat!

Hats and Masks

I recently received a very large box of free yarn. Along with it came a request for a few items to be made.

A friend saw a picture online of a crochet Knight helmet and asked for one. I looked around for a pattern on Etsy and decided to buy the Sir Knight Helmet pattern by Martina Gardner. I chose it for a few reasons, one, it looked well written and, two, it came fully written out for multiple sizes.

As my friend is a fire fighter, he asked for one for himself in black, red and gray. He thought it would be perfect to wear on those cold days on a scene of a fire after he has taken off his real helmet.

The pattern itself worked up very quickly. I would say that from start to finish it took about 10 hours, maybe less to get it all done and sewed together. Probably faster for people better at sewing. I had absolutely no problems following it at all, which is awesome. The extra large adult size fit on my husbands head perfectly, as he was my mannequin, and he has a very large head indeed. He was so happy with the way it felt that I have to make yet another one for him, but that will be another post. Overall the pattern was fantastic and the design is perfect for those colder nights.

Finished Sir Knight Helmet

After I finished the Sir Knight helmet for my friend, I moved on to make another base of the helmet in the Child size, for his son, who wanted an Iron Man hat.

After I finished the base from the Sir Knight Helmet pattern, I made up my own pattern to put over it like the mask, but in an iron man mask shape.

I used the number of stitches for the forehead of the child size knight hat as my base measurement so I was sure the Iron Man mask part would fit over it. My initial idea was to use the same button hole attachment idea so that the mask could be raised and lowered over the face like the real mask closes in the movie, but after making the mask part I realized it was just too soft to really work that way.

This iron man face vector by Dotgfx on Deviant Art was really helpful in understanding the shape.

The Iron Man face piece worked up very strangely, but it was the only way I could wrap my head around how to get it done... I used the Mac version of Excel (Numbers) to make a grid the size of the gauge of the pattern. Then I used X's for half double crochet, D for double crochet, T for treble crochet, S for single crochet and s for slip stitch to lay out how my pattern should work.

The top of the eyes is at the fore head line of the helmet since the helmet pattern comes down pretty far onto the forehead and over the ears and a bit of the neck. It's a deep hat!

I started a chain of 22 at the row where you see the #1. The pipe and V is to show which direction I went. Chain 22, then 2 more for a turn and then hdc 22 across. Next row is 2hdc in one, 18hdc, then another increase. Always chaining 2 at the end for turning. I went from that forehead place down since the third row of 26 stitches has taller stitches in the center to give him that ironman eyebrow ridge. At the end of that row I then did a little section of 3 rows of 3 at the end to start moving down around the eye.

Kind of looks like a Ronin helmet right now. Section 1, 2 and 3 done. Not 4.

The next step #2 was to go back to that initial chain of 22 and work up to get the head column shapes. I attached my yarn one stitch in and did a row of 7 hdc. Then I turned and did a total of 6 of those hdc 7 rows. The last row has a few taller stitches towards the center of the face to make the arched shape.
#3 Attached on to the other end and did another in the mirror pattern so the taller stitches were to the center.

#4 I then went back to finish the eye section and added a same section of 3 rows of 3hdc on the other side to match.

#5 section is the rest of the face from the bottom of the eyes down to the top of the mouth. I wasn't sure about how to get the bottom of the mouth done since it sits below the chin and I didn't want to add a chin guard part to the helmet base. So this face ends at the pointy looking top teeth part. I attached on to section 4 and did three hdc and then chained 20 and attached it to the other end of the three hdc. Then I turned and did 26 hdc across to stabilize that chain space. Then decreasing on the end stitches of each row I gradually tapered the face down. The final row of 14 stitches (2 dc in one, hdc, sc, 6 slip stitches, sc, hdc, 2dc in one) makes the two little pointy teeth part.

(#6) Now you might notice a section of DC in the center of the bottom of the chain for the bottom of the face. I did that part next. I went and added it on to give a bit of a nose ridge and to have a space to attached the triple crochet dip of the forehead to. Those broken lines show where to sew up the treble stitches to the nose row of 8 DC. It is important to sew the treble crochet on top of the dc to keep that brow ridge showing.

I tried to mark out each section on this image. 

To finish the face, I did a slip stitch in the tops of the head columns and on the bottom teeth row and did a sc around all the rest of the piece to give a clean edge.

I then decided to sew down the whole top section, so from the brow ridge, down parts of section 3 and 4 and around the top of the head column shapes. So it does not do the cool opening and closing, but at least it looks right.

You cant see in the pictures, but I also added two red circle pieces (flat increase till the edge is 24 stitches) one on either side of the mask for Iron Man's ear thingys...

Finished Iron Man Mask... gotta tuck in the ends though.

The iron man, sir knight, child size helmet base took about 3 hours to make. The face part was a lot of trial and error and I'm still not super happy with how it turned out. It took about 4 hours, but if I had to make another, now that I have a method it would be less. I'm also a little concerned that it might be too big, but it was really tight on me so it might be ok for someone smaller.

It was pretty fun trying to figure this shape out. Now to work on another for my husband... Viking themed! Stay Tuned.