Craft Enabled, Domestically Disabled

Cinco de Derby party

First, there was this.

Then there was this board that I made for our upcoming racetrack game:

And we're also having a hat contest.

I pretty much made this up by using the following patterns, with a bit of alteration on the hat. Be sure to use a dollar store margarita glass!

Changes I made:

(a) done in worsted yarn
(b) In order to make the hat fit around a margarita glass, I had to make a few alterations:

1. I chained 8 stitches--or whatever goes around the neck of your glass.
2. I did NOT connect the circle, as it was too hard to try to crochet around the neck of the glass. What I ended up doing was following the pattern, but adding an extra stitch (in addition to the usual “2 sts, then 2 in 1 st” sort of instructions) on each edge of the circle opening. This compensated for the curse of the neck. I did this for 9 rows/until I was able to fit the glass into the slit/hole, then I started crocheting in the round around it.
3. 

Otherwise, I pretty much followed the pattern (still worked with worsted and an H hook), but added some stripes at the base and on the edge. Two red, one green, two red stripes. I used some craft wire and crocheted around it on the edge of the hat pattern, then went around the edge 4 more times without increasing and adding a few more stripes (1 green, 1 red, 1 green) on the edge before finishing with one last yellow row, I used more wire on the last row and crocheted around it again.

Note: do not cut off the wire edge before crocheting--finish it off at the end. Wire may need to be longer than it appears.

For the roses, I used the Basic Rose pattern, and for the leaves I used A Maiden’s Glory. I made 12 leaves in dark green and 12 in medium green, and 16 roses total. 12 for the brim and 4 for the top.

After inserting the margarita glass, I whipstitched around the outside (hard to do otherwise), and ended up sewing the four roses on top together into a loose circle. They aren’t really anchored to the top because with the margarita glass bottom, there’s no easy way to do so.

 
I just sewed the flowers and leaves around the hat and anchored them to the brim.

Here's pictures of the whole game in action. I have no idea why the pictures bleached out so much other than the room being very white light-y, sorry.

I ended up winning the race, huzzah!

 
We're still pondering what to do with the horse.

Introducing the....

I have decided, upon (a) seeing Gail Carriger in person in a lovely dress, and (b) acquiring the Needles and Artifice steampunk knitting book, to knit (or crochet, whichever) my own steampunk costume. I figure this should take quite awhile, so declaring the "Spring of Steampunk" and even "Summer of Steampunk" might take me longer than that. So the plan is to have a spring, summer, and fall of steampunk, culminating in a costume to debut at Halloween.

My clothing will be in color, because I don't WANT to wear all brown. Brown is not my color, okay?! No all-black either. Though according to my research, if I try to dress aristocratically/sexy/Lolita-ish rather than doing the aviator/goggles thing, color is cool. I'm going to shoot for somewhere between purple and teal-ish tones.

Upon doing some Internet research, the key wardrobe components of such are (note: Ravelry links):

• Top hat/fascinator. Possible patterns here, here, here, here, and here.
• Frock coat
• Corset/vest/tight top. Corsets here, here, here, and here. Vests here, here, and here. Potential top here.
• Bustle-y, ruffle-y skirt. Possible ones here and here, but I think I may end up designing my own on this one.
• Spats to cover the modern shoes since I don't do granny boots
• Choker/neckwear. Possible neckwear here, here, and here.. Chokers here and here. Necklace here.
• Gloves (though they may be hard to see with the frock coat). Possibles here, here, and here.
• Stockings? (Kind of already have some of these...) Possibles here and here.
• Bloomers? (Already made a pair of these as well for a costume, though they need patching.)

I am pondering trying to make a wig, though I was going to make one for my Rapunzel costume and flaked out due to it taking forever, so we'll see.

As for goggles, I managed to find some that slip over my glasses the other day.

....Yeah, that's frightening.

So anyway, I will attempt to make an entire costume (or enough of it, anyway) to culminate in this year's Halloween costume. Should be fun...

Oh, look, somebody yarnbombed the Craft Center

Car cozy

So I periodically drive my friend's car when she's out of town--i.e. pet sitting, airport pickup, etc. It's a used car, and works well, but it's missing a back on one of the side mirrors.

The other night, I was on knithacker.com and saw that someone had knitted side mirror cozies for her Mini Cooper. I then went looking around and found a pattern for such online. I had to do it! I chose the ninja because her car is black.

I ended up sizing it down a bit--her car mirror was 7 inches rather than 9--and I put a drawstring in and around the edge in order to cinch it to the car. I also left about 3.5 inches uncrocheted on one side so it would fit around the neck of the mirror.

I finished this before picking her up at the airport tonight, and even though I don't think she noticed the front of it with the ninja eyes when she got in, she saw the edges of it and was all, "Thank you!" I think she'll enjoy seeing it from the other side at some point as well :)

Added a few more pics in daylight:

Is this...blingy enough?

So I mentioned the idea of the Bling My Vibe contest. I have been trying to think of....something...to do ever since. I haven't been super inspired by a theme, unfortunately. Though looking at the entries coming in here, well.... I can't compete with a few, but mostly it's all glitter.

Since the CC is also having a gnome contest next quarter, I uh...two in one?

I dunno about this. It looks cuter in the photo than IRL, really. Maybe I should...bling it up like a peacock or something?

Minion hat

For a friend:

I have made a lot of sweaters.

To be honest, there's a good chunk of my early work that I don't wear. Either I picked the wrong size to make (for some reason, most patterns jump from a size 32 bust to 38 or something crazy like that, so I have to choose Too Small or Too Big to make), or I can't figure out in what kind of weather one wears a short sleeved sweater. Stuff like that. Anyway, they're good sweaters and the Craft Center staff auction is coming up, so I donated ah, 12 sweaters.

They have a wall all to themselves. It looks very impressive and cool.

I seriously don't think they'll go for much money, though. But hey, nobody sells handmade sweaters for a reason...normally you can't afford them at all. (Note: I paid $200 for a handmade sweater this weekend.) So hey, if you're in the area, there will be some super cheap deals!

The Rapunzel costume

So, I'm pretty near the bottom of my personal wish list of costumes. This year I decided to do Rapunzel, since I love the story/am obsessed with towers/think Tangled was awesome. I was going to make my own yarn wig, but dear god, it was taking me a long while to put all the hair on--plus, well, I was making something else instead that was more urgent. I ended up buying a regular mauve skirt rather than making a Renaissance-style skirt because I didn't have the time to spend sewing for hours. Mostly I was spending my time designing a Rapunzel bodice.

 

I did this by originally starting with the Askew pattern, which I'd always wanted to do. However, I could not get the gauge on it for anything. Converting gauge somehow didn’t work either because I am an idiot or can't do math or god knows what. I finally just cast on enough stitches for my own gauge to eventually be as big as the schematics.

1. I cast on 52 for the sides, did 15 stitches for the straps, and left out the garter stitch rows. 
2. I took in the sides a little when stitching it just to make it fit a little better.
3. I Crocheted little eyelets (4 sts in one st to make a circle) every inch on the sides that make up the front panel.
4. I made a small 5-sts-wide purple panel and sewed it in between the two sides. 
5. I made a long pink crocheted chain (F hook) and threaded it through the holes. 
6. I crocheted lace along the top--1 hdc, 1 dc, 1 tc, 1 dc, 1 hdc in the same hole, then 1 sc in between each lace bit. Did in pale pink yarn.
7. After blocking it, the top STILL came out really big around the top, so I took out the lace hem, folded in the edges and resewed them down, then used crochet to decrease by 2 all around the edge before I re-did the lace. Much, much better.

I like the look of Askew, but man, I don't get how that pattern works at all. I'd like to make another one of these tops, but I am not at all sure how to do it right.

As for the sleeves, I based them off of how the sleeves were done on this one. I put buttonholes in (a la Trout River) because while I'd wear the bodice in regular life (I'm weird), I am not a poofy princess sleeves sort the rest of the time and I'd want them detachable after Halloween. Plus they're just easier to work on when not attached to the whole thing.

1. I cast on 72 sts (I figured out how many to do by picking up and knitting around the armhole, then ripping that out and casting on separately, I wanted to do the sleeves separate from the bodice) and k 1 round, join in round with size 7 needles. Leave a marker at the joined spot.
2. Row 2: purl 20 sts, bind off 2 sts, purl 7 sts, BO 2 sts, p7 sts, BO 2 sts, p7 sts, BO 2 sts, p 20 sts.
3. Row 3: k 20 sts, cast on 2 sts, k 8 sts, CO 2 sts, k 8 sts, CO 2 sts, k8 sts, CO 2 sts, k20 sts.
4. Row 4: purl all sts.
5. Knit in round for 1.5 inches (8 rows). Then start wrapping and tucking at the end of every round.
6. Row 1: knit until 1 st before last st in round (where your center marker is), wrap and tuck.
7. Row 2: purl until 1 sts before last st in round, wrap and tuck.
8. Keep repeating this pattern, w&t’ing at the end, until you have around 10 wraps on one side and 11 on the other.
9. After that: continue the same kind of thing (do not start knitting where the w&t’s are), except when you get to the last 2 sts before the last w&t, knit 2 together or purl 2 together at the end of every row. Do this 8 times.
10. Then knit in the round for 2 inches.
11. After that, mark off about 20 stitches (10 on the side of each marker). Except for those 20 sts, knit 2 together for all the rest of the stitches. If you were using circular needles, this is where you’ll need to switch to DPN’s.
12. Knit for one row.
13. After that, switch pink shades and knit in round for 10 rows. I put all the stitches on a holder after that in order to deal with the sleeves (easier to do so that way while they're short and detached!).

As for the sleeves, I originally tried duplicate stitch since a relative of mine suggested that that might fix my guitar sweater issues. I...don't think that looked so great in the execution.

 

I ended up taking that out and just knitting stripes separately and sewing them on to the sleeve.

To make the stripes, I measured the length between the start of the coral pink 10 rows at the end of the sleeve and the garter stitch edge on the other side of the sleeve. I did this for every few inches. Since my gauge was 5 sts = 1 inch, it made it pretty easy to figure out how many stitches to cast on. I did 30-33-35-38-40 or so stitches per row (depending on the sleeve's length on each area) in coral pink. To do each stripe, I cast on the # of stitches, knit one row, purled one row, then bound off the next row. I pinned them lengthwise to the sleeve and hand sewed them on.

Because I wanted to use yarn already around the house and I didn’t have any appropriately colored yarn in worsted weight left, I used 2 strands of Bernat Softee Baby to knit the skinny end of the sleeves for 17 more inches, and then put the same kind of lace edging on the ends.

I was going to make a wig out of yarn for this, but.... in all honesty, I got bored of putting the yarn on...and on...and on.... and it's not finished. I bought a wig and some fake flowers, braided the wig, and then tied the fake flowers into the wig.

Probably not my best ever, but not bad for the effort.

Edited to add: I won the contest! Overall winner over 2 offices! (Though I will admit that not many dressed up.)

Another year, another Halloween costume trophy

I was pleased to hear that last year's winner wants to keep her trophy, so here I am making another one. I wanted to make it fairly well different from the last go-round (and it was requested that it be ah, slightly smaller).

I wanted it to be different...was originally shooting for a haunted house theme, but it wasn't executing well. Maybe next year. I decided to go for a spiderweb theme, with hanging wacky things in the web. Then I decided it needed a white backdrop...and I needed to make something out of yarn..

In the end, it came out 2-sided. The winner can display it either way!

I pretty much made up the ghost pattern from scratch to fit the frame--kinda on the spot, didn't write it down. Oh well.

 

 

General updates

• Minnie Mouse Hat: I still don't have pics of Mom in the hat because they were all taken with her camera and she has no idea how to get pics off of it, but she did at least put the hat on when we were at Disneyland getting pictures taken with the characters. For obvious reasons, she wanted a picture with Minnie. I swear, the longest line we were in at Disneyland was at Minnie Mouse's house, for an hour and a half. They swapped in two different Minnies while we were in line, even. But hey, at least she did that.
• Nether garments: I still love these and want to make 2 more pairs, but I think next time I will take off the extra "plumber's crack" panel. Mostly because that comes up above the waist on most pants/skirts and in the wearing of the leggings under those, it's kind of awkward. I am also debating sewing in elastic at the top or not. Not sure if I want to go there or not. I happily found some more Caron Simply Soft Paints colors that I really wanted to make them in this weekend, so there's that.
• Animal hat obsession: Everyone keeps going around in those animal head hats. They are amusingly cute and even I want one. However, they look extremely weird on my head. Maybe it's the glasses, maybe it's just having two heads instead of one, I don't know. But I figured that perhaps if I just stuck to ears, it would look better. So I've designed my own rabbit ears hat, which I am writing the instructions for now.
  • I also adapted a face warmer pattern to make an additional face warmer to attach to the bottom of the rabbit ears hat, like a detachable rabbit face. It's bizarre but kind of cute. I don't know if I will wear it though, because....
• I am having issues with face warmers. I am tired of having a frozen cold face in the mornings, because even in my gajillion layers, I'm still cold because you can't go around in a ski mask in public. However....
  
  • While I've been trying to design one for the rabbit hat, I tried making a few. I adapted mine from the Cozy Doctor Mask. I also made a straight mask for the winter, which I tried wearing in public. Dear god, it did not go well because I wear glasses and I steamed them right up. Between that and my giant hooded scarf, I couldn't freaking see while going to work, which was rather dangerous.
  • I have also tried making the "Old Shale Face Warmer" (on Ravelry only, hence no linking for the rest of y'all) which supposedly has air holes in the lace and is supposed to be good for people with glasses for that reason. I still had that problem, plus I think that pattern is intended for people with bigger heads than mine because the thing sagged off on me. (Later found that you can size it down, but I'm not sure if I should bother at this point.) Sigh. I don't want a frozen face in the morning, but being 80% blind from steam while staggering across the street in front of a ton of cars is not great either. My version of the doctor mask has air holes, but again, that didn't help. The only thing that kinda helped is just not breathing, but that only goes so far.
  • At this point I'm wondering if my only realistic option is knitting a beard.