A Lowly Worm

Guess it will be baby birthday time again... I've attended several one year old parties in the past few months and have yet another baby shower on Friday.

It is another "guess the sex" party and I guess they are waiting find out what it will be. As someone who needs a plan for everything, not knowing seems so stressful to me. It also makes getting gifts really hard as nearly all baby clothes are color coded pink and blue for the gender binary. So once again I was in the store looking at the toys and thinking, why am I buying a toy when I can make perfectly good ones...

Then I starting looking at children's books and thinking about what I liked and remembered. Suddenly Richard Scarry's Lowly Worm was in my head, shortly followed by the thought that he would be super easy to crochet and away I went. I bought The Adventures of Lowly Worm to go along with the toy to round out the gift.

Note: As I do not want to get in trouble, please do not use this pattern for creation of toys for profit or sale. Make Lowly for friends, family and as gifts only.

Lowly Worm from the Busytown books by Richard Scarry

Once again I feel this would be a great yarn consumption project, I already had every color I would need: Black for details, white for the eyes, collar and shoe bottoms, brown for skin, blue for the shirt, dark green for the pants, and red for the bow ties and shoes. I also decided I would make his hat and figured I could use the same dark green from the pants and pulled a mustard yellow for the hat trim. Hook size I used is 4.25mm and I tried to stuff as I went along. Also, this is not strictly amigurumi since I am going to make the rows flat with a chain at the beginning of each row so the clothes line up right.

I decided to start at the foot and work my way up. Instead of amigurumi rounds, most of this is in rows so that the colors line up at the seams. Unless it says otherwise assume that to finish a row, you slip stitch to the first single crochet and chain one.

Shoe and Ankle
Using white
chain 9, turn and do 8 sc down the chain, 3 in starter chain to make a turn around and 8 back up the other side of the foundation chain to make flat oval shape,
2sc in next sc, 6sc, 2sc in next 3 sc (toes end of shoe), 8sc,
Switch to red yarn and attach at heel end where you stopped with the white.
1sc around in back loops only, slip stitch to first, chain 1
1sc around in both loops, slip stitch to first, chain 1,
1sc around in both loops, slip stitch to first, chain 1,

1sc around in both loops, slip stitch to first, chain 1,

bind off and then attach red yard at tip of the toe and sew top of the last row of stitches together from the toe to about a little more than half way up the shoe, make sure the top of the shoe after sewing is flat. I stuffed the shoe and then embroidered some black laces on the top of the shoe that can actually be tied :) The shoe itself is a little bit of a high top, so attach red at the place the sewing stops and add another row of single crochet around the ankle area. Try to make 12 stitches, I did it by adding one extra at the back seam of the shoe. I bound the shoe off since I wanted the leg seam at the back.

Pants

Switch to dark green

Attach at back of shoe, sc in back loops only around 12 sc, slip stitch to first, chain 1.

Do 17 rows of green, sc around in both loops again, 12 sts per row.

Shirt
Switch to blue
Change colors and do the first row of 12 sc around in the back loops only, always slip stitch to first and chain 1 to next row.
Do 15 more rows, sc around in both loops, 12 sts total per row.

Collar
Switch to white,
Change colors and do three rows sc around in both loops., 12 sts

Lowly's Bow Tie, In red
After I finished the three collar rows I took out my hook and made up the bow tie so that I could sew it into place before moving on. I find it is easier to attach things while I can tie it all inside and hide the ends in the stuffing.
Chain 5, sc across, chain 1 and turn.
Do 8 rows. Bind off. Wrap red yarn around center of rectangle to create the gathering for the bow tie. Tie the wrapped bit off and use it to sew onto the front of his collar.

Lowly's neck and head
Switch to brown and put hook back into open working loop.
Change colors and do first row of 12 sc around in back loops only
Do 5 more rows of brown 12 sc around
sc, inc,* 18
2 sc, inc,* 24
10sc, 4inc, 10sc, 28
12sc, 4inc, 12 sc, 32
sc around, 32
14sc, 4inc, 14sc, 36
Next 4 Rows: sc around, 36
sc4, dec,* 30
sc3, dec,* 24
sc2, dec,* 18 - stuff most of head here and try to stuff the rest as you close
sc1, dec,* 12
dec around till closed, bind off

Eyes Backs, make 2 in white
magic circle 6,
increase around to 12
sc, inc*, 18
Do a slip stitch into the next stitch and bind off
Then sew to head, on either side, once pupils are affixed.

Eye pupils, make 2 in black
magic circle 8, slip stitch to first sc
bind off and sew on to white backs.

Don't forget to also embroider a smile on the face, in black.

Lowly's Hat
In dark green
Magic circle 6,
increase to 12,
sc, inc, 18
sc 2, inc, 24
in back loops only, sc 24 around- at this point I did a slip stitch to the close the rounds, to go to rows, so the hat is even all around since amigurumi has uneven rows.
in both loops do 2 more rows of 24sc around.
sc, dec*, 18
sc around 18,
sc 2, inc,* 24
sc 3, inc,* 32
sc 4, inc,* 36
sc 5, inc,* 40
Now going to make the brim:
ch3, all in front loops only, tc in next 8 in front, dc in next 4, hdc in next 2, sc in next 3, hdc, dc, 2dc in one, 2dc in one, dc, hdc, sc in next 3, hdc in next 2, dc in next 4, 8tc. Should have two empty stitches left before the end of the row. Leave them empty and use the tail to sew up the brim back seam to get it to stand up. Using the front loops means there should be a clean row of loops to help it bend back up.

Hat Band and Tassel
Chain 28, slip stitch to first to form a loop. Chain 1 and sc around. Slip stitch to first and bind off leaving tail to sew down to hat.  Before you sew the band on, cut and tie a few lengths of yarn to one side and knot into place. Then fray yarn out to get the feather/tassel. Then use the tail from the band to stitch into place on the hat.

Place hat onto head, if this is for a responsible child...
For younger kids, maybe leave a long tail on the magic circle and sew onto crown of head to keep the hat with the toy but still allow it to be taken on and off. In this case, sad as it made me, I stuffed and sewed the hat on to the head so it cannot be removed.

Done! Time to completion, 5-6 hours. Skill level is easyish. Difficult bits are all the details and sewing as usual for me. Lowly is 17 inches tall from the sole of his shoe to the top of his hat.

Other thoughts: Might put a rattle toy or bell inside the stuffing of the head if looking to make it amusing to babies. Or consider making Lowly longer and tying him into a loose knot like he does in the books. Or maybe find an articulated spine, braided pipe cleaners, or use one of those wooden toy snakes that move, inside the body, instead of so much stuffing to get it to wiggle and be a bit sturdier.

Large Pineapple Doily

So, I have this really nice table I was given by my grandmother. It is hardwood of some kind. About 32 inches round, pedestal base with three legs at the bottom. The top also has a mechanism so that it can turn around like a giant lazy susan. I personally dislike it for the few facts that it does not go with my decor, by being much nicer than everything else, and that it takes up a fair amount of space. In my last move it got a bit scuffed on top from the lousy movers I hired.

In an effort to be able to use it and put stuff on it without feeling guilty, or damage it further, I decided to use my skills to make a doily for the top of it. Perhaps then I could at least use it to hold some books or something.

I looked around the internet for some free patterns. Most are of a style that date themselves to the 1940s when they were written and popular, however the "pineapple" shapes of a few were modern enough looking that I thought they would do nicely. I settled on this pattern: Large Pineapple Doily. It's repeating pattern looked intricate but not necessarily too complicated for a first time doily.

I had a large ball of white cotton thread. I think it was something like this. I also have a ton of hooks including very small ones. So I think my thread is a 10 weight and my smallest hook is a 2.25mm B/1. I figured that would do fine. The pattern, on the other hand, says to use a 30 weight (much thinner, go figure...) and a 12 stainless steel hook. I had to look it up and learned that stainless steel hooks have different classifications than the aluminum ones I have. A 12 is supposed to be 1.00mm.

Basically this means both my hook and my thread are too large. That means that my doily will probably be much larger than the 18 inches that the pattern says it should be when done. This is ok since, like I said, my table is 32 inches. I also decided to keep going since doing it in a larger size means that I can see what I am doing for this first time making a doily, which I understand can be very difficult to do right.

After only three rounds my doily was already almost 4 inches across and there are 34 rounds... I started to think maybe I should get smaller thread like recommended. However, since I am lazy and had already gotten several rounds into the pattern I decided I would keep going till it was the size I needed and then stop.

About half way though first pineapple shapes

Two things happened as I worked. I began to realize that since I only had that one skein of the white thread, that I should try to use it all up. I also realized that I would not be finishing the full pattern. I got up to round 18 and had what looked like only a small amount of thread left, so I stopped there.

After that I decided to close all my points, as I was one row into a new set of pineapple shapes. So after Round 18, I did the following:

Round 19: 3 sc in cluster chain space, ch 1, sc 5 in next space, ch2, *ch2, sc in top of loop*,*repeat across pineapple, ch 2, sc 5 across space, ch 1, 3 sc in top of next cluster, ch1, 6sc in large space, ch 2 over the joint from the row before, sc 6 in next large chain space, repeat from the start, join to first with slip stitch.

After my round 19, I still had a bit of thread, so I thought I would try to get around the outside once more to give the edge a thickness to keep it in shape.

Round 20: sc in each sc, 2sc in the chain spaces, join to first with slip stitch

At this point I did not have enough thread to do a third edger row so I bound it off. 

Finished to my standards.

I laid it out on my table... I would say that there is about 5 inches of space between the edge of my doily and the edge of the table, so that makes it about 27 inches across. I think if I properly stretch it out and stiffen it, I could probably get it to 30 inches as it has a lot of give. I do like the size, but think I will try to find a round glass top for this table, too.

It doesn't look anything like the patterns picture since I didn't even get two pineapples into the doily, but I am happy with it. Maybe in the future I will try it with the right thread and hook, but no wonder old ladies have bad eyesight and arthritis...

Time to complete this: Worked on and off over about a month... can't see completing something like this in one sitting, let alone one week. Perhaps maybe 30 hours total; 3 hours a night for something like 10 days... sounds about right.

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.