Yes, this amazing dragon sculpture is made entirely of pop tabs and glue. This seriously impressive work of art, entitled Shinkonryuu, was made by OniMushaKid on Deviantart. My mind is blown.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Holy pop tab dragons, Batman!
I've now accumulated enough pop tabs that I could probably make something really rad with them. I was thinking, maybe a bag, or a top hat or even a corset... so I looked to Google Images for inspiration, and came across this:
Yes, this amazing dragon sculpture is made entirely of pop tabs and glue. This seriously impressive work of art, entitled Shinkonryuu, was made by OniMushaKid on Deviantart. My mind is blown.
Yes, this amazing dragon sculpture is made entirely of pop tabs and glue. This seriously impressive work of art, entitled Shinkonryuu, was made by OniMushaKid on Deviantart. My mind is blown.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Chainmail and wire crochet earrings
I've recently become enamored with chain-mail jewelry (especially after making that jewelry for my mom), and recently, after being inspired by some earrings from this etsy shop that are no longer for sale, I decided to give it a another go.
With the exception of the ear wires, I just used material from my beading stash, and the whole thing took me less than an hour, so they weren't much of an investment all things considered. The ear wires are pure silver, the bead is glass, I think, and the wire and jump rings are silver plated. The hardest part was making the loop for the bead wire.
This next set of earrings was a little more difficult, but only because crocheting wire is an act of pure masochism. Well, it's not that bad, but also not for the faint of heart.
I used the thinnest wire I had with a 2.5mm crochet hook and made my own jump rings with slightly thicker wire. The join in the jump rings isn't as tight as I'd like, so I'm thinking it might be worth investing in a soldering iron. I'm not sure what the construction of the wire is, but the thinnest wire certainly isn't gold because it's already oxidizing a bit. I guess I'll have to invest in higher quality materials too.
I'm toying with the idea of maybe opening my own etsy shop, but we'll have to see. I certainly plan on making more of this jewelry!
With the exception of the ear wires, I just used material from my beading stash, and the whole thing took me less than an hour, so they weren't much of an investment all things considered. The ear wires are pure silver, the bead is glass, I think, and the wire and jump rings are silver plated. The hardest part was making the loop for the bead wire.
This next set of earrings was a little more difficult, but only because crocheting wire is an act of pure masochism. Well, it's not that bad, but also not for the faint of heart.
I used the thinnest wire I had with a 2.5mm crochet hook and made my own jump rings with slightly thicker wire. The join in the jump rings isn't as tight as I'd like, so I'm thinking it might be worth investing in a soldering iron. I'm not sure what the construction of the wire is, but the thinnest wire certainly isn't gold because it's already oxidizing a bit. I guess I'll have to invest in higher quality materials too.
I'm toying with the idea of maybe opening my own etsy shop, but we'll have to see. I certainly plan on making more of this jewelry!
Monday, May 16, 2011
More finished objects
Gosh, it's been a while! Please forgive me for my sporadic posting... All I can say is that I've been busy with school.
Pay-It-Forward update: Thanks to everyone who commented on my Pay-It-Forward post. I will be giving awesome hand-made gifts to Tas (who has an awesomely named blog), Eleanor (my mom), Ellie (a fellow grad student in Toronto), and The Happy Seamstress (my partner in crafty crime). If you still want to participate, there's still room for one more comment, so feel free to leave one.
Now on to the interesting stuff! I've actually been quite crafty of late, though you'd never know it from my lack of posting. I'll go over my latest finished objects in more or less chronological order. Warning: some of these date back to January... Eep!
First on the list is another Baby Surprise Jacket, the legendary pattern by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I knit this one out of S.R. Kertzer On Your Toes, which is quite a lovely yarn to work with. This one took me a little longer than the last one (a full week instead of 4 days), but I certainly enjoyed it just as much. This pattern is strangely addictive. I knit this for little Eleanora, the beautiful daughter of my friends who got married a couple of Halloweens ago.
Next up is a pair of mittens for me! This is the Chevalier pattern by Mari Muinonen. I used a couple of skeins of Misti Alpaca Merino Worsted, which is a wonderfully soft yarn, though there were several cuts in the plies of the yarn in the balls I got. That was annoying, but I managed to hide most of the errant strands. Even though I did fewer repeats than were called for in the pattern (because I have very small hands) I still ended up running out of yarn when I got to the tip of the thumbs. You can see from the photo that I've got a different colour yarn there. I was pretty pissed at first, but now I kind of like how it looks. The boyfriend calls my "thumbs" when I wear them. I knit these using the magic loop method, which was ok, but I think I still like my double-pointed needles better.
I haven't given up on crochet either. I have a lot of dresses that leave very little to the imagination when it comes to cleavage, so I figured I should make myself a modesty panel. It's quite an ingenious design, the Lacy Cleavage Cover by Linda Z. O'Halloran. I used some good ol' Royale Crochet Thread which was probably a little thinner than the pattern called for, but I managed to make it wide enough with a little improvisational edging.
I'm a pretty big fan of the fastening mechanism for this thing. It attaches to my bra with those little elastics.
Next on this lengthy list of finished objects is an awesome pair of socks for my friend Daphne. She requested a pair of thick, comfy socks, and when I asked her what colour she'd like me to make them, she simply said, "Oh, I don't know. Make them wild!" And so I did. I used a skein of Bernat Satin and some random scrap yarn for the stripes, and I knit them using a generic short-row toe-up pattern. I made my first attempt at knitting one sock inside the other on double-pointed needles by first creating two short-row toes and then putting one inside the other and continuing with the double-knitting outlined in that awesome Knitty tutorial. I'm pretty happy with the result (and so is Daphne), though my gauge was a little looser than I usually like for socks.
Last but not least is this wonderful little tote bag, which I made using Elisa's Nest Tote by Purl Soho. I wasn't entirely satisfied with the seaming in this pattern last time I made it, and I was looking for a slightly sturdier bottom, so I decided to make it a crochet/knitting hybrid. The bottom was crocheted in the round in double-crochet and increased to 80 stitches, which I then picked up with my circular needle and knit in the round in pattern. I therefore didn't have to bind off before doing the applied i-cord edging. The latter caused the opening of the bag to be a little tight, but I can live with that.
Well, that's about it for now, folks! Let's hope my next entry appears a little sooner than a month from now.
Pay-It-Forward update: Thanks to everyone who commented on my Pay-It-Forward post. I will be giving awesome hand-made gifts to Tas (who has an awesomely named blog), Eleanor (my mom), Ellie (a fellow grad student in Toronto), and The Happy Seamstress (my partner in crafty crime). If you still want to participate, there's still room for one more comment, so feel free to leave one.
Now on to the interesting stuff! I've actually been quite crafty of late, though you'd never know it from my lack of posting. I'll go over my latest finished objects in more or less chronological order. Warning: some of these date back to January... Eep!
First on the list is another Baby Surprise Jacket, the legendary pattern by Elizabeth Zimmerman. I knit this one out of S.R. Kertzer On Your Toes, which is quite a lovely yarn to work with. This one took me a little longer than the last one (a full week instead of 4 days), but I certainly enjoyed it just as much. This pattern is strangely addictive. I knit this for little Eleanora, the beautiful daughter of my friends who got married a couple of Halloweens ago.
Next up is a pair of mittens for me! This is the Chevalier pattern by Mari Muinonen. I used a couple of skeins of Misti Alpaca Merino Worsted, which is a wonderfully soft yarn, though there were several cuts in the plies of the yarn in the balls I got. That was annoying, but I managed to hide most of the errant strands. Even though I did fewer repeats than were called for in the pattern (because I have very small hands) I still ended up running out of yarn when I got to the tip of the thumbs. You can see from the photo that I've got a different colour yarn there. I was pretty pissed at first, but now I kind of like how it looks. The boyfriend calls my "thumbs" when I wear them. I knit these using the magic loop method, which was ok, but I think I still like my double-pointed needles better.
I haven't given up on crochet either. I have a lot of dresses that leave very little to the imagination when it comes to cleavage, so I figured I should make myself a modesty panel. It's quite an ingenious design, the Lacy Cleavage Cover by Linda Z. O'Halloran. I used some good ol' Royale Crochet Thread which was probably a little thinner than the pattern called for, but I managed to make it wide enough with a little improvisational edging.
I'm a pretty big fan of the fastening mechanism for this thing. It attaches to my bra with those little elastics.
Next on this lengthy list of finished objects is an awesome pair of socks for my friend Daphne. She requested a pair of thick, comfy socks, and when I asked her what colour she'd like me to make them, she simply said, "Oh, I don't know. Make them wild!" And so I did. I used a skein of Bernat Satin and some random scrap yarn for the stripes, and I knit them using a generic short-row toe-up pattern. I made my first attempt at knitting one sock inside the other on double-pointed needles by first creating two short-row toes and then putting one inside the other and continuing with the double-knitting outlined in that awesome Knitty tutorial. I'm pretty happy with the result (and so is Daphne), though my gauge was a little looser than I usually like for socks.
Last but not least is this wonderful little tote bag, which I made using Elisa's Nest Tote by Purl Soho. I wasn't entirely satisfied with the seaming in this pattern last time I made it, and I was looking for a slightly sturdier bottom, so I decided to make it a crochet/knitting hybrid. The bottom was crocheted in the round in double-crochet and increased to 80 stitches, which I then picked up with my circular needle and knit in the round in pattern. I therefore didn't have to bind off before doing the applied i-cord edging. The latter caused the opening of the bag to be a little tight, but I can live with that.
Well, that's about it for now, folks! Let's hope my next entry appears a little sooner than a month from now.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Pay It Forward
The Happy Seamstress is currently participating in Pay It Forward 2011, a fun little game where you get to receive and give hand-made gifts. Since I like both these things, I figured I'd hop on board!
The rules are as follows: I will make a handmade gift for the first five people who comment on this blog post as long as they promise to blog about this and send a gift to the first five people who comment on their blog post.
If you want to participate, simply leave a comment on this post with a link to your blog post. If you're one of the first five people to comment, you'll receive an extra-special handmade gift from me before the year is through. I'll be emailing you to get your mailing address so please leave your email with your comment.
If you're not one of the first five commenters, feel free to participate anyway! If nothing else, this is certainly a good way to spread the joy of craftiness.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Big socks, small socks, short socks, long socks
One of the major advantages of having small feet is that knitting socks for myself tends to take much less time than it does for the larger male friends of mine. This became very apparent earlier this year, when I knit a pair of socks for the boyfriend that took about 6 weeks and a pair of socks for myself that took less less than 2 weeks. Mind you, the socks for myself were stockinette knee socks and the ones for the boyfriend were covered in mock cables, but that's besides the point. The boyfriend's socks are much more interesting, so I'll talk about those first.
Ever since I showed him June Oshiro's DNA cable scarf pattern, the boyfriend has wanted me to make him a pair of DNA socks (since he doesn't really wear scarves). It took me a while to get around to it, but I started the first one during the X-mas holidays and managed to finish at the beginning of last month. The wait was totally worth it, apparently, because he wears them regularly (which is more than I can say for some of the things I've knit for him... sigh).
I decided to go the toe-up route because I'd already tried it with those X-mas socks, and as I said then, I'm not going back to top-downers. I cast on 40 stitches (for a total circumference of 80 stitches), so that the central cable would take up one quarter of the total stitches, and so I'd have an even number to do 2x2 ribbing with mock cables on each side. I even made the second sock have the mirror image of the cable pattern so that they would be symmetric. When I got passed the heel, I continued the mock cable pattern all the way around the leg, but I had to finagle something in the back of the sock, with a 2x2 cable and an increase of two purl stitches, because it was no longer symmetric. I finished off with a 1x1 rib and Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off, which worked great. The yarn is something called bbbperCALZE, which I picked up at the Creativ Festival in October and deemed manly enough for boyfriend socks.
The socks I most recently knit for myself were infinitely simpler. I more or less followed the Knee Socks! pattern by Diana Parrington, with a short row toe and heel. I did the calf increases as indicated, and finished off with the super-stretchy bind-off again. Being simple stockinette, I was able to get passed the heel turn in the first day (mind you, I was sitting through talks at a conference all day), and the rest of it came together in about 12 days.
The yarn is a couple of skeins of Diamond Yarn Luxury Collection Fancy Free that I managed to pick up in the bargain basement of Romni Wools for cheap. It's a merino-alpaca-nylon blend that is just so soft and wonderful... and the colours are pretty awesome too. I love how the calf increases caused the yarn to pool differently along the leg of the socks. I'm calling them my Lightning Socks because of the yellowish pooling pattern on the blue and because of how little time they took. These are definitely my favourite socks right now, and I'm itching to make myself another pair!
Ever since I showed him June Oshiro's DNA cable scarf pattern, the boyfriend has wanted me to make him a pair of DNA socks (since he doesn't really wear scarves). It took me a while to get around to it, but I started the first one during the X-mas holidays and managed to finish at the beginning of last month. The wait was totally worth it, apparently, because he wears them regularly (which is more than I can say for some of the things I've knit for him... sigh).
I decided to go the toe-up route because I'd already tried it with those X-mas socks, and as I said then, I'm not going back to top-downers. I cast on 40 stitches (for a total circumference of 80 stitches), so that the central cable would take up one quarter of the total stitches, and so I'd have an even number to do 2x2 ribbing with mock cables on each side. I even made the second sock have the mirror image of the cable pattern so that they would be symmetric. When I got passed the heel, I continued the mock cable pattern all the way around the leg, but I had to finagle something in the back of the sock, with a 2x2 cable and an increase of two purl stitches, because it was no longer symmetric. I finished off with a 1x1 rib and Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off, which worked great. The yarn is something called bbbperCALZE, which I picked up at the Creativ Festival in October and deemed manly enough for boyfriend socks.
The socks I most recently knit for myself were infinitely simpler. I more or less followed the Knee Socks! pattern by Diana Parrington, with a short row toe and heel. I did the calf increases as indicated, and finished off with the super-stretchy bind-off again. Being simple stockinette, I was able to get passed the heel turn in the first day (mind you, I was sitting through talks at a conference all day), and the rest of it came together in about 12 days.
The yarn is a couple of skeins of Diamond Yarn Luxury Collection Fancy Free that I managed to pick up in the bargain basement of Romni Wools for cheap. It's a merino-alpaca-nylon blend that is just so soft and wonderful... and the colours are pretty awesome too. I love how the calf increases caused the yarn to pool differently along the leg of the socks. I'm calling them my Lightning Socks because of the yellowish pooling pattern on the blue and because of how little time they took. These are definitely my favourite socks right now, and I'm itching to make myself another pair!
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Happy Belated Pi Day!
Every year (or at least, every year since I moved to Toronto) I celebrate Pi Day, the semi-official holiday commemorating the mathematical constant pi, on March 14th (3/14, get it?). According to the Wikipedia page, it was invented by Larry Shaw in 1988 and was first celebrated at the San Francisco Exploratorium. There are many ways to celebrate, including contests to see who can recite the most digits of pi, or pi day jeopardy, but we generally just eat a lot of pie and drink a lot of mathematically-themed cocktails.
My friend Greg brought a pi cake, which wasn't a pie, but since it was a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake, and he totally confused the guy at Baskin-Robbins by asking him to put the greek letter pi on the cake, we forgave him.
We made pi day cocktails with pi cubes.
Almost everyone brought a pie, and they all happened to be different flavours! Win!
All photos courtesy the Happy Seamstress.
My friend Greg brought a pi cake, which wasn't a pie, but since it was a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake, and he totally confused the guy at Baskin-Robbins by asking him to put the greek letter pi on the cake, we forgave him.
We made pi day cocktails with pi cubes.
Almost everyone brought a pie, and they all happened to be different flavours! Win!
All photos courtesy the Happy Seamstress.
Friday, March 4, 2011
I wrote a tutorial!
That's right, I know stuff that you should know too, and so you should check out my new tutorial at the Happy Seamstress! It's basically just a simple way to pick up dropped stitches without a crochet hook. My mom probably showed me how to do this when I first learned to knit, and it finally seeped into my brain far enough that I felt I had to share it with the world. As a fun preview, here's my attempt at a video (using my new Gorillapod!):
Yeah, I sort of screwed up at the end there. That'll teach me to make a swatch with a stiffer yarn. Anyway, if you want the more serious, probably easier to understand version, you really should check out the Happy Seamstress.
Speaking of the Happy Seamstress, you might recall that contest I mentioned a while back, you know, the one where you could submit a picture and story of a project you made (or were inspired by) one of the Stitch 'n Bitch books. Well, the contest is now closed, but you could still win a prize! If you vote for an entry by leaving a comment, then you have a chance of being randomly picked to also receive a free copy of Superstar Knitting. Not bad, if you ask me. So go vote!
Yeah, I sort of screwed up at the end there. That'll teach me to make a swatch with a stiffer yarn. Anyway, if you want the more serious, probably easier to understand version, you really should check out the Happy Seamstress.
Speaking of the Happy Seamstress, you might recall that contest I mentioned a while back, you know, the one where you could submit a picture and story of a project you made (or were inspired by) one of the Stitch 'n Bitch books. Well, the contest is now closed, but you could still win a prize! If you vote for an entry by leaving a comment, then you have a chance of being randomly picked to also receive a free copy of Superstar Knitting. Not bad, if you ask me. So go vote!
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