QUICKIE: I'm Still Here!!!

My goodness, where has the time gone? I cannot BELIEVE all the views this little blog has received over the last few months!

Welcome to all my new visitors, take a look around and post some comments, I'd love to hear from all of you!

I'm still here and still hooking. I have published a new hat pattern recently, the Puff Stitch Slouchy Hat, now available on Ravelry & Craftsy. I've finished a few blankets as well. I unfortunately lost my cro-jo this summer during a bout of depression (during the summer, crazy, right?). Getting much better now that it's cooler & sweater weather is back!

Check into my Facebook page: G33k Squ33 Crochet for more current updates.

I'm also working on a new cozy pattern, of which I'm hoping to post next week; can't wait for all of you to see it!

That's it for now, hooking like mad! Hope you all have a fun & safe weekend!

1400 Page Views Today!!!

I know I've been on the quiet side lately, however I have not been far from the hook; but I wanted to mark today as a milestone - 1400 blog visitors! Unbelievable! Heck, I had always hoped but never could imagine that there would be that many views - and I appreciate every single one of those views.

I also have been realizing that I haven't followed up on a few promises. One of which is getting pictures for the cozy/coaster pattern; well I purchased new batteries for my camera and hope to take those within the near future.

In addition to working on my own projects I've also become a Pattern Tester! (yes, when I say that I hear it in a super hero announcer voice & it echoes). If you are someone that may not feel that experienced but would love to attempt new projects and have new networking contacts, I highly suggest it. I have made quite a few valuable connections through certain groups on Facebook. Just realize that as you're testing these patterns for other people, they're depending on you to be honest and up front with them. Don't just jerk them around for the free pattern, it's not worth it.

I'm also contemplating the idea of starting a series of blog posts on stores, creators, crafters that I follow or are in contact with or even just have a scope of work that I adore.

What do you think? Who should I express a profile on first - just as a note, I'm not planning on promoting these pages or stores, I just want you to see what they're doing as I have done many times and it always sends my brain spinning with ideas and creativity.

So let me know what you think in the comments below, I'd love to hear from you!

Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey and Absolute Squee!!!

If any one knows me lately, I have become a neuvo-Whovian. I will not state that I know everything there is about the Doctor and all his 11 versions, I do however have a solid geek hold on the newer episodes and have fallen in love. I love the whole Doctor/Rose interactions, died a little on the inside as he left her standing alone on the beach. Wept as Doctor 10 said his good-byes. And have quite fallen for the TARDIS:

A box, that has unlimited storage space (yes, I have imagined a TARDIS craft room) and can take you any where in any time, with anyone that so chooses to be your companion! Brilliant!

I have had a vision of a coffee cozy with the TARDIS from Doctor Who floating around my brain for ages now, and this weekend I finally succeeded!

Inspiration came from this TARDIS Valentine's Day Card posted at The Zen of Making.

Awesome, right?

So as this idea was terrorizing me every time I picked up the hook, I started by picking up paper and colored pencil (sorry, no scanned images of it yet). I jotted down on graph paper my inspiration and a rough sketch of what I wanted the cozy to look like.

Here is the almost completed cozy:

Still so happy with it!

Now that i'm looking at the two images of the TARDIS, I see the areas I should have included, however, now, it is completely original and may end up with more modifications as I continue working with this piece.
Please no comments on the shoddy cross stitching, I've never really done it before, so I did my best.

Now for the finished project:

Adorable right?

The bottom ruffles were inspired by all the TARDIS gowns that have been flowing through the interwebs lately. I used Red Heart Shimmer for the blue top and bottom borders. Basic embroidery thread for the hearts and TARDIS, although I had shimmery colors for the light and the windows. I ended up double cross stitching the hearts and mildly wish I had done so on the TARDIS. Either way, I love it.

More photos!

Left Side

Center

Right Side

This is one project I am completely taken with. Now I have to decide if it will be a free pattern or if I should charge for it. I'm leaning towards a free pattern - this time with pictures.

I'd love to hear your comments and/or suggestions about this project or others...



PS. I'm entering this post for the All Free Crochet Spring Stitch & Share Event that I saw mentioned on Stitch and Unwind.

The reason I chose this pattern for Spring is because all the new Doctor Who episodes started with the start of the season! Let me tell you they really bring the family together! Even our little ones, Jacob and Aurora love watching the Doctor with me, Amazing Adam and Riley, generally asking to stay up later or to watch it later on an cable video feature.

VOGUEknitting LIVE! - Seattle

I know, I know... You're thinking,"knitting, I thought this was all about crochet!" Well, it is. However I ran across an opportunity to participate in the Vogue Knitting Live Seattle event - with my crochet!

At Cafe Cesura in Bellevue on April 6th, Vogue Knitting is hosting an event where they invited all yarn crafters in the area to create coffee cozies to donate to be given away.

Boy, oh, boy! At first I didn't think I was going to participate as the information was posted with a local yarn crafting group message board and the group wasn't really interested in participating. Then this last week I found out that I could participate as an individual! All I had to do was crochet as many coffee cozies as I could and have them on their way to New York by TODAY!

Meep! Luckily, this coincided with a point where my "brain candy" wasn't exactly working right and I deemed it necessary to have some mental rejuvenation days this week. I played hooky on Monday and Tuesday this week and I crocheted my butt off for 4 days all together and here are a few pictures to show what I was able to come up with:

Cherry Cupcake Cozy

Death Star Cozy

Mickey Mouse Ribbon Cozy

Cherry Blossoms in the Snow Cozy

... and a few others that I don't have the pictures or the credits ready to post. I had so much fun working on these. Luckily, I still have enough ideas running around my brain so with the left over supplies that I wasn't able to use, I should be able to recreate some of these for any one interested in them.

Also, I should be able to wing enough replicas that I'm hoping to post some new patterns. (I know I keep promising this but I will totally get my act together and deliver... as soon as possible!) 

Let me know what you think in the comments, I would love to see which one is your favorite.

Hopefully, I'll be able to attend some of the events at VogueKnitting Live this next month (April 5-7) and I'll report back on what happens if I do.

So, there you go... this was my Secret Squirrel Mission that I'd been working on. Super cool, right?

29 Days and Counting!

Meep!

Here it is, November 2nd and the River Ridge Craft Fair is fast approaching on December 1st. I have completed a TON of coffee cozies and coasters. I've priced my order forms and receipts and I've bought some baskets and containers to work on the table display to create height and lean towards a "geeky" theme. I'm even thinking of using some NES systems as display stands too! I have an idea of the floor plan and where we'll be located. Things seem to be going well enough at this point, except...

I haven't started any hats! I have two made and a lot of yarn to make more. I think I just need to stop on the cozies and coasters and start full speed ahead on the hats.

So here we go! 4 weekends and counting, wish me luck!

PS: I'm hoping to have the boyfriend help me take pictures to update into the Coffee Cozy & Coaster Pattern that I posted previously so stay tuned!

Longest Weeks Ever?

After a few long weeks both at home and at work, I'm happy to say that it's not even noon on Saturday yet and I'm going to take a nap!

R started middle school this last week. Such a change! He'll be 13 this month and I can't even believe it! I remember cuddling his little self going to sleep as a baby - time has gone so fast!

A started first grade this last week. She's such a whirlwind of excitement and independence. I fixed the braids on her unicorn hat (see previous post) and she wore it both Wednesday & Thursday, then her Viking hat on Friday.

J started kindergarten this last week. He's on the PM schedule so his grams puts him on the bus for us - scared at first but then handled it just fine. Making new friends & he was even singing a little brown bear song on the way home last night. 

I'm such a proud mama for all my little kiddos, but I think that may have even made every thing more stressful; trying to recreate the appearingly seamless and perfect start of the year they way I remember my mom doing. Although, I bet if I asked her she'd have a completely different tale of those events.

I wish I could say that I straped myself into my soccer-mom mini-van and handled all these new changes with the calm and grace befit british royalty. pfft! i was a stressed out mess! I swear we were still shopping for school supplies within 24 hours of their open house! ugh, between working and trying to keep up with the kids - the only thing that held me together was my amazing boyfriend!

I must of emotionally downloaded on him for about 2 hours the other night, just because i needed to, what did he do? he listened. that's all, just listened. I'm seriously so lucky that he's mine. 

On the crochet front, I went from a 3-day weekend full of calm crocheting, finding a super score of 5 different fun-furs at a local thrift store for $2.50, ice cream date with bf, and a nice wobbly buzz supplied by Mr. Cuervo into a week of stress and anxiety. However, I did manage to put pen to paper and jot down the crochet cozy/coaster sets that I've been working on. Which means that I am quickly approaching the first free crochet pattern posting! 

This is what I've been wanting to do on this blog! I will post it in the rather near future I hope. I've only read patterns, never written them so please help me if you find issues with it. On the other hand they're super easy and incredibly interchangeable. I've started using fun-fur yarn on the last rounds so they're fuzzy. I've used tons of different colors and they could both be a super easy segue into trying new stitches.

I've also been searching for inspiration to try my own patterns at amigurumi, I have a few super secret ideas - and a super encouraging bf - that I do believe that I'll get there sooner rather than later.

Stay tuned for that pattern!

MY Crochet History

Ok, my plan with this post is to put the creations that I've made out there. I love to crochet, although the entire family forgets - the kids more so than the BF - that they need to wait until the hook has stopped moving before they speak to me!

I learned how to crochet from my mom a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but all she had me doing was potholders and that was boring, so I gave it up until the last few years. I made a blanket for my BF's mom for Christmas about 3 years ago - she loved it and I found the whole process soothing, except being on a deadline!

From there I just tinkered around with it until I had surgery in 2011. During my stay in the hospital (apparently I was a special case and had to stay for 4 days) I asked my mom if I could use her book (from the 70's) and her tools to pass the time; and when I say "pass the time" it was those special times of being awake just before fading into another medicated sleeping phase. She did bring things for me and I started playing around with the different shapes and stitches in the book and with her advice. I do remember passing out with hook in hand and waking up who knows how many hours later on the same stitch, but the movie over!

Then the internet investigation began! Mom gave me her crochet stuff because she wasn't doing anything with it any more so I was ready to go. Now for the inspiration... here area few pictures of my earlier works:

This is a Brain Slug hat inspired by Futurama. I found brain slug patterns on wonderful interwebs, however I didn't want to attach them to a headband, the BF wanted an actual hat. So one night I sat down and began with trial and error, double stitches, triple stitches, increases - I have no idea how it really came together, but he loves it! My son R even requested one on the spot. The only thing i can say is stick to 2 rows of double crochet stitches on the ruffle... 3 makes it look like ma's kerchief from the Night Before Christmas!

A granny square scarf for a co-worker, she bought the yarn and I made it work. I didn't really understand how granny squares were supposed to work or look so they ended up more like rectangles, but she loves it and still wears it.

 My first purse! This was all single stitches, and man I thought I messed up a nerve in my right-hand ring finger, it tingled for days! Eventually, it went away and I remember to let the hook down once in a while. the pattern was completely imaginary, I probably couldn't tell you how I made it except - start stitching and stop when you think it's enough.

My second purse! Well, it ended up being a really long cross-body bag. I liked it a lot however the open work in the granny square didn't bode well for all the little things I end up carrying around in my purse. So I sold both purses to my scarfed co-worker and her daughters love them! (note to self: learn sewing to figure out how to line things!)

My Neighbor Totoro... I think. This was my first attempt at amigurumi and it was a freakin' doozie! I found the pattern by Heaven's Hellcat on LiveJournal, but she's posted all the Totoro patterns on Crafster here. I showed the pattern to another co-worker and she completely squeed herself, asked me to make it for her. At the time we didn't realize that it was the pattern for the blue totoro and not the gray one, but I made it work. When it was finished ... her daughter stole it from her!


When I started this project, I had no idea how small stitches could be! The tips of the ears were a nightmare and I ended up buying stitch markers so I could keep track of which row I was on. Yeesh! I may end up trying this pattern again now that all 3 totoro patterns are posted. It would probably make a pretty nice present for her.


At one point, I told my amazing BF that I wanted to go on a date, we've know each other forever and never really dated - had a long distance relationship for about a year and it just worked itself into a relationship from there. However, he decided that we'd take the train from Olympia to Portland for a day trip. He had only 2 things planned out: we were going to visit the downtown Portland location of Voodoo Donuts and Powell's Books. Unfortunately, Voodoo Donuts was under renovation and not open, so we went to Powell's Books and had an amazing time. We found some books that we wanted and just before we left (hours and hours after arriving (seriously, it's one of the best places to get lost among the stacks) I found a section about crochet! I bought some books about amigurumi, including a signed copy of a Twinkie Chan book! We left before we spent waaay too much money. However, those books lead me in the direction of how to crochet a ball and gave me more familiarity with increasing and decreasing stitches. So when another co-worker asked me to make these next creations, I winged it well enough! I also firmly believe that if you can't have a sense of humor with your passion, then what's the use?



Yes, those are crocheted testicles - with veining! I don't know who she gave them to, well, yeah, I know a male co-worker received the first (they were purple) pair after I added a strap on the top to hang from the rear-view mirror in his truck. These were a trip to make and were definitely all free-hand.






Those amazing books also lead me to make a few other items; this was a request from yet another co-worker. Pretty cute even if I do say so myself.

Now that I had books for inspiration not all of it was working for me. There was a lot of fiddly follow-up work after you'd finish the actual project, like adding felt and other small details. That's when I turned to the internet again.

 


I found inspiration for a Death Star for my son R: (pattern can be found here). This was a really quick and easy pattern. I took it to work to show it off and all the guys wanted either to steal it, or one for them selves; one even asked for me to make it as a hacky-sack!

Then I found a pattern for a donut pillow here, but since this was for my son, frilly pink frosting with sprinkles wasn't going to work. I found a sage green yarn and using popcorn stitches I gave the frosting "boils" of all kinds of sizes. Original rows were single crochet, so by using half-double, double and triple crochet stitches, I achieved the appearance of different sized boils. For the eye, I found inspiration/pattern on the internet ... somewhere.

Darling little cthulhu - how I do love thee! I found this pattern here and it was so much fun to make. The totoro co-worker asked me to make him so she could give it to a friend for Christmas, and I did. Everyone at work loved it too. I enjoyed making it so much that I plan on getting back around to making another - I've even thought of making them in different shades, but we'll see what happens.





I also found inspiration for hats on Etsy; I purchased the pattern for this unicorn ear-flap hat here, this is not an exact replica of the pattern. I for the life of me could not figure out how the ears or the horn worked, so I made them work for me. I also purchased the pattern for the mohawk ear-flap hats which I mostly made without the mohawks and with a super soft bulky yarn for the rest of my family and co-workers.

This hat was a birthday present for my daughter, A. She'd just started kindergarten earlier that season and she probably wore it every, single day after that. there were so many compliments on it which resulted in a lot of amazed looks and "you made that?!?!"s. Soak it up people, if you get that kind of a response you have every right to take the opportunity and bask in the glow of your awesome talent. I have to do some repair on it this year as she figits and has pulled the braid out about half way; and as the "arteest" that made it, any repair other than mine would be unacceptable. One note of advice - if you do braids on a hat, before you wrap the ends of yarn to tie them off, put a rubber band around the end. It will end up holding better and if the yarn comes undone, it will stay tied off.

This was inspired by a pattern I found here. I couldn't get the ear flaps to the same point so I ended up squaring them off and adding pom-poms instead. I made three of these in with the same colors, different rows. Apparently, one girl that received one of these hats even wanted to sleep in it and wouldn't let any of her friends even think about touching it!

One of my favorite attempts were coffee sleeves, I love my coffee from a major distributor every morning if I can afford it, however, their sleeves don't add much creativity. So I started with a super simple pattern and just a simple circle of double crochet stitches - I eventually I hope to get that pattern on paper and post it here for free & you can sell it all you want! Anyway, (tangent there) I decided that if i were to learn new stitches I could probably do them on a small scale, like a coffee sleeve/cozy. I found this one here on Ravelry - and it is one of my absolute favorites! I love this pattern so much I've had the thought of turning it into arm warmers or a sleeve for my tablet! Super easy and super fun once you get the hang of it.

I've also purchased patterns from Mamachee on Etsy (shop found here) from which I created the following Viking hats! I took liberties with the colors - personalizing each one for each child. J requested black horns, R likes red and black, and of course A loves her pink! I also added fun fur yarn around the base of the horns for a little added touch, light brown for J's, red and black eyelash yarn for R, and bright pink sparkly fun fur for A.

A and J have already been wearing their hats everywhere - especially to the car races in Grand Mound! If it weren't so freaking hot all the time lately I'm sure they'd be wearing them every time they leave the house.

R is entering 7th grade this year so he's not exactly wearing his all the time yet - it sits on the shelf with his brain slug hat - however, once he gets comfortable with his new school and friends I'm hoping that he'll start wearing it this winter.

I also purchased a couple other hat patterns, one of which was Mamachee's Top Hat pattern. I'm using that as a base and her pattern on the horns to make a top-hat with horns for BF, I added a row of the rivets and it may look a little steam-punky but I know he'll wear the hell out of it this winter.

 Now for the 2 largest and most freaking time consuming creations to date: Hello Kitty Blankets. I was inspired by this pattern, and since they were granny squares then they could dang near make anything, right? Little did I know that I'd end up with 2 requests for these blankets that would halt my ability to do my own creating for almost 9 months. I don't know if I'd be willing to make another one or not. However, they were loved by the ones that received them!


At the time I started these projects, I had never made a granny square blanket. I had no idea how to lay them out, how to piece them together, ... but I'll tell ya, I love what I did to make it work. They did turn out quite amazing.


The first picture was for a little girl and she love it - it turned out too narrow, so her mom - my totoro co-worker - keeps suggesting that I add something on the sides to make it wider and fit her bed better, but I taught her to crochet... I make walk her through that process!


The second picture was for a newborn baby (although it wasn't done until about 2 months after the birth). I was told that the mom cried when she saw it. Now that's appreciation!


I love being able to create with my hands - especially crochet. I get weighed down a lot lately because it's all about knitting out there - or it at least feels that way. I haven't learned enough about crochet vs knit to convert patterns, and if there's a program out there that converts or translates PLEASE let me know!


This history - MY history - entry should end here. I'm in the process of building up stock for a craft show on December 1st and attempting to figure out a Hello Kitty Rag Rug (I know I said I probably wouldn't do that pattern again, but since I know it and finally worked it out, we'll see what happens).


Wish me luck!