Doggie Bowties

Not exactly an original craft idea, but necessary and cute. The past bowties that I've made for Mochi were finished by hand, but I decided to finish this one off using a hot glue gun (used a sewing machine to finish the individual parts, but used hot glue to attach the elastic loop on the back.)  Omg, this was way easier.  Sometimes I wish he was a girl so I can dress him up, but these bowties will suffice.

He celebrated his 6th birthday last week:

Mochi wore this orange bowtie for good luck throughout the NLCS and the World Series games.  I'm kinda superstitious (I've been wearing orange nail polish since September 29.) so I never took it off him until the very end:

He wore it when the Giants won the whole thing in 2012, too.  So I will keep this for 2016, just in case. ;-)

Halloween Mary Poppins Costume

I was Mary Poppins this year for Halloween.  Pretty much because I wanted to use stuff that I already had in my closet.  The crazy ruffle puffy shirt was given to me years ago from my auntie.  It's a pretty ridiculous shirt. I question her style choices.  I knew I would never wear it unless it was part of a Halloween costume.  I think I'm just going to call it The Halloween Shirt.  Captain Hook?  Prince? Seinfeld? The possibilities are endless, I'm sure.

The only things I had to DIY for this costume, was the bowtie (I just used an old gift ribbon and attached it to a pin backing) and a ridiculously small hat that I attached to a headband. I guess that is considered a fascinator.  I used stiff black felt to make the hat, which was constructed out of three pieces: a big oval piece of felt (bottom brim), a smaller oval piece of felt (top), and a long rectangle piece of felt (to form a cylinder), in which the length is equal to the circumference of the smaller oval.  Then I stitched the top part to the cylinder part of the hat , and then hot glued that part to the base of the hat. I had the felt in my craft supply already, so the only thing I bought were the fake flowers/holly.  Mary Poppins' hat has daisies on it, but I just decided to use whatever white flowers that came with the fake holly I bought.  It's holly, right?  For some reason I kept thinking they were cranberries.

Anyways, with a Michael's coupon used on the fake flowers, my Halloween costume cost a total of $0.70.  Good job, me!


BTW, the Giants won the World Series and I didn't work on my vasarely blanket while watching the game like I imagined I'd do.  But they still won.  So awesome.  

Vasarely Blanket (ongoing project) update #3

Before you think I've stopped working on this thing, its just been slow.  I've been trying, though.  Luckily, the Giants have been getting it done so far in this post season.  You would think with all the games going on, watching them would be a perfect crocheting time opportunity (one of the games against the Nationals went on for 18 innings!!)  but the weather had been warm, and crocheting during warm weather sucks.  It's a dumb excuse, but it's true, okay?!  It rained today and the weather seems like it has changed dramatically so hopefully I'll crank out more diamonds faster than this past update.  Sorry, self.

Updated Diamond Count: 9 white diamonds. 95 more diamonds to go! No longer in the triple digits.

In ziploc gallon bags. For freshness!

"Cheer' (Flag) Bows - Senior Night

Here are bows I made for my flag kids' Senior Night.  The team is made up of all seniors, so I decided personalized bows would be a good idea. I didn't want to spend a lot of money, so embroidering names onto grosgrain ribbon was a no.  I considered puff paint, but decided that it would be too messy and time consuming.  Then I had this idea of using alphabet stickers (something that I've already had), sticking them onto glitter ribbon and then using sparkle Mod Podge to seal it on there so it wouldn't peel off.  The kids have a lot of L's and E's in their names, so I had to buy another sticker sheet.  But, here's an awesome tip: Upside-down 7's make good L's. :-D

These are what I ended up with:

Also, I have a massive obsession with sparkle Mod Podge.  I would slather it on everything if I could. 

Shout out to sparkle mod podge.  You're awesome.

Vasarely Blanket (ongoing project) update #2

Oh yeaaaah, baby.  I've been consistent with this project.  Actually, it might be too early to say that.  Whatever.  I ran out of my first skeins of each color, so now I can kind of gauge how many diamonds I can make with a skein. The 40% off coupons from Michael's will be put to use.  I love those coupons.

Updated Diamond Count: 3 black, 1 white, and 7 grey diamonds done.  1 skein of the white and black each make 11 diamonds, and the grey makes 8.  104 more diamonds to go!

Vasarely Blanket (ongoing project) update #1

I've been trying to crank out these suckers as much as I can.  I've seem to do the most crocheting while watching television/Netflix that doesn't require subtitles.  Only because when I keep looking at my work and then up at the tv screen and then back to my work again, everything looks fuzzy and my eyes need time to adjust.  Does this mean I need glasses?! Aww.

Anyways, I've been crocheting the most while watching baseball.  So... I sure hope the Giants make the postseason.  It would definitely give me more time to crochet these diamonds.  And also, they just need to make it or I will cry.  Tear-stained crochet diamonds do not sound appealing.

Updated Diamond Count: 6 black and 4 white diamonds done.  115 more diamonds to go!

Vasarely Blanket

I wanted to try and tackle a big crochet/knitting project to begin the fall season.  It's been a while since I've made something big, so I thought the beginning of fall season is the perfect time for this challenge.  It takes forever to finish a project for me, so hopefully I can stay on task.  This pattern for a crocheted blanket has been on my Pinterest board for a while, and I really wanted to make it.

Its inspired by the artist Victor Vasarely and the pattern basically looks like 3D cubes, which I think is a total trip.  It's basically a bunch of diamond patches stitched together.  I like it because its not your typical granny square afghan. It is still the same concept though, and the diamond pattern is easy enough that I'm not constantly referring to pattern instructions.  You increase every row for a little bit, and then decrease every row.  I picked white, grey, and black as my color palette, because I've been into the monochromatic look.  My only complaint is when I'm working with the black yarn, its a little difficult to see the stitches.  But I wanted black, so whatevs.

I'm using Red Heart super saver yarn with a size J hook.  The original pattern called for a dk weight yarn with a smaller hook, but I didn't have that hook, so I figured I'd stitch a sample and adjust pattern from there.

I had to sketch the blanket to determine how many diamonds and half diamonds I needed to make.  You can tell I started with a smaller blanket, but increased it once I figured out the measurements.

So basically, I need to make:

Whole Diamonds: 48 in black, 48 in white, 38 in grey  (134 Total)

Half (lengthwise) Diamonds (in grey): 12

Half (widthwise) Diamonds (in grey): 8

If you include the half diamonds, I have to make 48 diamonds of each color. Heh heh, I'm not scurrred.

So far, I've made 2 black, 6 white, 1 grey.  So... 125 more diamonds (135 if you include the half ones) to go. lol.

I will keep you updated, internet!