Crochet and Knitting stuffs

First of all, happy new year!

It's a little late, but yeah, there it is!

So let me tell you about my first big project of the year. I'm crocheting myself a blanket! It's a daunting task to say the least but its fun to do! I decided to go for a simple c2c stitch instead of something complicated seeing that the colours of the yarn are beautiful enough in itself and the way that the yarn has been dyed creates an interesting effect in the blanket itself.

You would think that brown and purple doesn't mix, but surprisingly it does!

I've started this a week or so back, but now I'm at the point where I can start the maintainer rows and make it to the right length!

Pattern: c2c stitch

Crochet hook: 4.5mm/ size 7

Yarn used: Papatya Batik: 23 Dancing Azalea

Width: approx 110cm / 43.3 inches

Length: 180cm / 70.8 inches

I take the pictures of my works on the couch, because the fabric of it is nice and neutral and has a good colour contrast for the works I've made so far.

The pictures down below is what happens when you own cats and one of them - not naming any names, Julie - decides that she wants attention while you're making pictures of your work.

So here's the outtakes of me wanting to making pictures of my mittens and Julie invading the 'shoot'. (They’re under the read more)

So they're done! I like the way that they turned out, they're both exacty the same pattern but they're still different with the way that the colour changes with the yarn. I like that fact a lot!

I still got about 1 skein left of this yarn, so it's time to make myself a scarf with it!

Pattern: Bella’s Mittens by Stellaknits on Etsy  Crochet hook: 3.5mm/size E Yarn used: Hand dyed yarn “Wolf bruin” by Bollekes Width (with thumb): Approx. 12cm/4.7 inches (66 stitches) Width (without thumb): Approx. 10cm/3.9 inches (56 stitches) Length: Approx. 29cm/11.4 inches

So with all the Christmas knitting and crocheting and such done, I finally get to make the things that I've been wanting to make for myself.

This time around, I'm making myself mittens with the hand dyed yarn I bought a long time ago that resembles the colours of a wolf.

I'm almost done with the first (the right one) mitten. All that's left to do is make it long enough to cover my middle finger and then make the thumb, which will be a little bit of a struggle because I've never done something like that before! It's been a bit trial and error to figure out the right stitch counts for my arm/hand because unfortunately, my arms are bigger than the pattern suggested. So it's been a bit of work to figure out how much stitches I needed. But I found that making a crochet chain big enough to fit around my arm/hand gave me the perfect stitch count!

I also made a few modifications so that I'd be able to avoid as much purl stitches as I could. It turns out, that despite me being able to knit; purl stitches aren't my strong suit. I also made the mittens shorter as they're meant to be about elbow length.

Like mentioned before though in another post I made a while back, I'm not really into Twilight, but I love the look of these mittens.

Pattern: Bella's Mittens by Stellaknits on Etsy  Crochet hook: 3.5mm/size E Yarn used: Hand dyed yarn “Wolf bruin” by Bollekes Width (with thumb): Approx. 12cm/4.7 inches (66 stitches) Width (without thumb): Approx. 10cm/3.9 inches (56 stitches) Length: Approx. 29cm/11.4 inches

There she is. Lara is finished. It's been fun coming up with her really. The only thing I had the pattern for was the body so I had to come up with the pattern for all the accessories myself with the help of reference pictures found on Google and the ones I've taken myself from the game.

The bow is made out of silver wire and brown yarn wrapped around it to resemble wood and the string. The boots I've taken from another pattern that I had for The 10th Doctor from Doctor Who.

The only thing that Lara is lacking is a mouth, considering the fact that I'm horrible at embroidery and it just looked awkward. (Not even my mother could manage and she's great at that kind of thing.)

I decided to go for her Syrian outfit instead of her Grey Henley one. The plan was to make a separate sweater to fit her, but seeing as I was running out of time, I decided to forgo that.

Now I just need to wrap her up and send her off to Australia along with the rest of the gifts!

Pattern Doll: My own modified from Reeneegurumi’s Patch Doll on Ravelry.

Pattern Boots: Part off Craftyiscoolcrochet’s 10th Doctor on Etsy

Crochet hook: 3mm/Between C and D

Height: 31cm / 12.2 inches

Eyes used: 7mm safety eyes

Yarn used: Schachenmayr Original Catania (Cotton)

Colours:

Hair: 0162

Skin: 0263

Top: 0393

Trousers: 0257 

Leathers/bow: 0157 

Belt buckle embroidery: 0249

Back view photo behind the cut to keep the length of the post down.

Finally finished with another scarf for my Christmas presents.

You know what, I love knitting cables! The pattern is awesome and the effect is very, very pretty! It's also nice and warm thanks to the bulky yarn!

This scarf has been done for a while, but I had to wash and block it. Unfortunately, the blocking didn’t do much, but that’s alright. At least the yarn is nice and soft to wear.

Pattern: FrenchStyle on Etsy

Needles: 6mm or size 10

Width: Approx. 20cm/7.8 inches (48 stitches)

Length: Approx 190cm/74.8inches (351 rows)

Yarn used: Stylecraft Chunky Special

Colour code: 1003

Time taken: approx. 30 hours

This is another scarf that I made as a Christmas present for one of my friends.

Originally, this was meant to turn out to be a Pippin Took scarf, but I found out that I'm not really good at knitting patterns yet, so I decided to change it to it being a stripy scarf. 

It was knitted on double pointed needles so I could knit in circles instead of doing it in rows. I found that my purl stitches always get really loose.

One day I will make a proper Pippin scarf, darnit!

Needles: 4.5mm or size 7

Pattern: my own with random stripe generator

Width: Approx. 24.5cm/9.6 inches (90 stitches)

Length without tassels :  Approx. 173.5cm/68.3 inches (426 rows)

Length with tassels: Approx. 213.5cm/84 inches

Yarn used: Schachenmayr Northern Worsted

Colour code: 00827 & 00520

Time taken: Approx. 25 hours.

So this is another present that I'm making for Christmas for one of my friends. The final one and then I'm done and can work on other projects!

This time it's Lara Croft from Rise of the Tomb Raider in her grey Henley shirt outfit. My friend is a massive fan of Lara Croft so why not give her one, right?

I'm making the doll as close as the game model that I can make it. This means that I'm going to be making a separate jumper to put on the doll so that it resembles the look that Lara's game model has. I will also be making things like a bow and quiver, gun harness, the strap running across her chest and tiny weapons like the gun and pickaxe. I will also be making separate shoes to sew on to make her feet look more feet like. Lots to do still, but I got a week to complete her. I plan to send her and the other things at the start of December.

Pattern: My own modified from Reeneegurumi's Patch Doll on Ravelry. 

Crochet hook: 3mm/Between C and D

Height: (without head)

Yarn used: Schachenmayr Original Catania (Cotton)

Colours:

Skin: 0263

Boots/Leather items: 0157

Pants: 0257

Henley: 0393

EDIT: I ended up changing the outfit for Lara to the Syrian outfit.

So today I went to this crafting convention with my mother. There were all sorts to be seen like knitting, felt work, crochet and of course, lots of yarns, patterns, needles, hooks and so on to be found.

Now I didn't really intend to buy anything other than a wire for my circular knitting needles for my current WIP because the one I had for my interchangeable needles was too short and that just wasn't nice to knit with. But In the event that I did want to buy something I'd figured that I'd hold myself to a budget.

I'm pleased to say that I did keep my budget and I didn't buy as much as I feared I would despite the fact that I planned not to buy anything.

I've been thinking about learning this for a while, but I've decided to buy a drop spindle (the yarn was included and I know it's not the prettiest so that makes it perfect stuff to practice with!) to teach myself how to spin yarn! My mother and I often joke that I should learn how to spin yarn (My mum tried learning once but she said she couldn't do it) and she'll dye yarns. Perfect combination if you ask me! So when we passed this stand where a woman was spinning with a drop spindle, we stood talking and she explained things and I figured, Meh, why not?!

Other than that I bought the wire I needed and I got two skeins of yarn to make a scarf out of.

I stayed below my budget, I didn't get shopping happy with all the beautiful yarns about; I got to hang out with my mother. All in all, a pretty good day!

So I didn't exactly plan to post about my pets on this blog, the pictures below are just too cute really. Recently, I decided that I needed a bag to store my projects in so I can save them from getting full with cat hairs and such. So I went onto Etsy and got a few cool bags because I have multiple WIPs at the moment.

So the other day, I had the bag lying beside me on the ground because I wanted to get to work with it. I reached down and felt fur. Turns out, my 1 year old cat Julie had claimed the bag as her new sleeping spot because it was nice and soft because of the yarn inside of it.

I guess I learned a lesson from this. Don't leave your project bag lying around when you own cats!

Finishing a project and not knowing what to do next.

Make up your own?!?!

That’s what I’ve been trying to do but my brain is like: ?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!???????