Baby Hat & Booties

It's been AGES since I last posted!  Life's been a bit crazy since my boy moved back to the UK.  For those of you who don't know, he's been living in LA since 2010 so it' crazy exciting that he's back!! It's just all starting to settle down now which means I have more time for crafting...woohoo!

To no surprise, another one of my friends had a baby last month and I went to see them on Monday.  I didn't have time to go shopping, so I had to frantically buy some yarn online hoping it would be supersoft and thankfully it was!  I ended up choosing Red Heart Soft Baby Steps which is 100% acrylic and aran weight. It is really soft and has a lovely sheen to it.

I searched for patterns on Ravelry for booties and a hat using aran/worsted weight yarn.  I decided on the Basic Beanie by Busy Mom Designs.  It looked like it needed a little something so I made a flower for it that I found through another pattern (click here for pattern).  It was super easy to make; I decided to use a 6mm/G hook so it crocheted up a little smaller with tighter stitches.

Next...the booties!  Having made the flower for the hat, I knew I had to put some on the booties too so they were all cute and matching!  The pattern I used for the booties were Cute Baby Boots Crochet Pattern by Teri Crews.  The flower I made up with a pretty simple design:

ch5, join with slip stitch.
*sc, ch1, 3dc, ch1, sc* in each stitch.

That's it!  I was really pleased with how these turned out.  I haven't made anything for a 0-3 month baby in such a long time that I forgot how teeny tiny they were!

I just blue Tobias Fünke

Tobias Fünke.  Everyone's favourite blue never nude.  

This was a pretty esoteric project and only those of you who watch Arrested Development will understand why this man is blue and wearing cutoffs!

It was my boy's birthday a few weeks ago and I was struggling to find him a present.  The man has everything he wants and doesn't need anything.  So I thought of everything that he liked and Arrested Development - specifically a blue Tobias Fünke - sprang to mind.  *Internal monologue* "How awesome would it be to make him a little Tobias?!"  And so my next project was decided.

I didn't have to look too far for some blue yarn.  I had some left over from a vest that I'd made for my Mum a couple of months ago, it's handy being a yarn hoarder!

I wanted to make a moveable Tobias, so he could do awesome poses for the camera (as the one above).  So as I was making the doll I had to keep in mind that I'd be putting in a wire skeleton inside.  I decided to start with the legs, join them together, continue and continue into body and up to the shoulders.  Along the way I inserted the wire and put stuffing in.  I went onto the neck, made the head and arms separately then sewed them all together.  Next came the fun bit...making the cut offs!!

I needed an old pair of jeans for the cut offs so visited a few charity shops for a cheap pair.  I wasn't too successful, but then I saw a Cancer Research shop and OMG THEY WERE HAVING A FIRE....sale.  Well, kinda, they had a section where everything was £1 which was pretty cool as they had a pair of jeans in the exact shade I wanted and the hem was already frayed!

I fashioned a pattern for the cutoffs using ordinary paper and sewed it all together, it was such a perfect fit that they stayed up by themselves!  Then I made him some glasses out of wire and embroidered hair, eyebrows and a moustache.  I tried doing some eyes and a mouth but it just made him look a demented so I decided to omit those in the end.  

Seeing as I had a less than a week to make Tobias, I think I did a pretty good job.  It could have been better if I had more time to think it through, but I'm still pleased with him :)

Granny Square Baby Blanket

First of all, I can't believe it's been almost two months since my last post :/  This year is going WAY too quickly for my liking!  I have been fairly busy too and I've not had as much time for my yarn creations as I would have liked but I've managed to find some time for it!

I've got another friend who's currently got a bump and her baby shower was today!

I decided to make her a blanket.  So I put my thinking cap on...hmmm, I've never made a granny square anything...hmmm what if I made a granny square blanket?!  Genius!!

I've never even made a little square for a blanket let alone one huge square that would be a blanket in itself!  So I found a pattern on Ravelry by Lion Brand Yarn.  I ordered the yarn and seeing as I had a long return  journey to the Philippines the following week (18 hours in total; 12 hours, 2 hour stop over, 3.5 hour connecting flight) I thought it the perfect opportunity to kill that flying time.

I loved the airplane seats on Singapore airlines, as well as the main pocket there were little ones on the front of it which came in handy as little yarn holders!

That's all the background story - after lovingly doing double crochet after double crochet I finally finished it!  I just hope my friend and her ickle baby boy like it :)

Crocheted Shrimp

Just before I left to see my boy again, I crocheted a shrimp for one of my really good friends. I know it's a bit random, but so is he! I regularly call him shrimp-related names like 'Shrimp King' and 'Shrimp face' not because he looks like a shrimp.  Actually I can't remember why I even started calling him those names :/

I followed a pattern from 'Super Super Cute Crochet Animals'. However the first 12 rows were incorrect and the head bit ended up being a little deformed (see picture below). So I corrected this bit of pattern and he looked fine :). I did email the publishing company a few weeks ago regarding the errata but I haven't heard anything back. So I've listed the corrections here for anyone who is stuck on the same pattern, or you can find it under my 'Pages' section listed on the right hand side.

Picture shows what comes of the shrimpy face if following the pattern from the book (above) and the correction (below)

My friend loved the little Shrimpy-man and he said it made him smile, but also made him think that I'm a little mad.  Huge compliment in my opinion :)

Vintage-style Tea Cosy

©TheYarningDarling 2013

So this was tea cosy number two - made for my boyfriend's sister as her Christmas present.  Well, I'd actually bought her a lovely Cath Kidston teapot and made the tea cosy to match it :)

I used exactly the same pattern as the one made for my 'twin' in a previous post.  For this one, I replaced the pompom on top with a rose.  Now, I'd love to write down some kind of pattern, but I'm afraid I made it up on the spot and didn't write down a pattern :(  All I can say is that it's a stockinette stitch so that it did that curly thing!  Oh, and the leaves were crocheted.

I was pretty sad when I had to give it away, I loved it so much!  But I'm a coffee drinker so if I had a 6 cup teapot it would just sit and gather dust!

Theft of Intellectual Property

Update: I contacted the UK admin for DaWanda and they agreed with me that it was a copyright violation.  They have since deleted the listing and sent the seller and message reminding them of the T&C's for selling.  So pleased :D


Sorry to have to write a serious post, but I've discovered that someone has been selling my free Giraffe pattern on a German based website Dawanda.com.  http://de.dawanda.com/product/37617009-Amigurumi-Giraffe-Haekelanleitung

This person has never contacted me regarding selling my pattern for their own personal profit and has tried to apply a copyright to the picture they've even stolen from my blog.

Due to this, I've had to put a stern message on my pattern :(

I'd be so grateful if you could let me know if you discover this pattern anywhere else, and if you could ask the seller to delete the pattern immediately.

Thank you.

Update...

Sorry for not having posted anything in a while...I've been super busies the last few weeks as I'm going to be in the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony!

©The Yarning Darling 2012

I have been beavering away with some yarn in this time though.  Literally just finished knitting a cardigan for my friend's gorgeous little girl tonight.  Going to wait until the morning though to take some pics, will look much better under natural daylight, especially as we're having such glorious sunshine in London at the moment.

I've also been making yet ANOTHER Domo.  This time it's for my boy's work colleague's daughter.  I've been taking my Domo WIP to the Olympic Park with me as they give us like 5 hours to get ready :/  Randomly, I was sitting outside our holding area with yarn and hook in hand and a guy comes up to me...

Man: "Wow, you're crocheting!"
Me: "You know what crocheting is?! People always think I'm knitting."
Man: "My sister and ex used to crochet.  So what are you making?  Looks like Domokun."
Me: *mouth drops* (especially as I'm only half way through Domo's head and body)  "I AM making a Domo!! How do you know who Domo is?! Whenever I tell people they have no idea what I'm talking about!"

So basically after me being shocked that he knew what crocheting and Domo were, he said he'd love a Domo!  So we swapped email addys, guess that's another project on the list!

Anyways, I'll be posting all about the cardigan this week if I can...I've got my final dress rehearsal tomorrow and then the actual Opening Ceremony on Friday! I know it's not yarn stuff but I feel like I should post about that too :)  I'd love to say that it's back to normal after that, but alas, I go to see my boy in LA next week, and on my return I begin rehearsals for the Paralympic Opening and Closing Ceremonies!

Mr Giraffe & Mr Lion!

©The Yarning Darling 2012

Some weeks ago, a good friend of mine commissioned me to make a giraffe and a lion for her friend who was expecting a baby.  Last year, I had made her the same things for her gorgeous little girl and so she thought it would be a nice gift for another yummy mummy.

Mr Lion was created from a pattern bought from Etsy, and so I can't display the pattern.  But, Mr Giraffe was entirely my creation, so his crocheting DNA I can post! You'll find the pattern for him under my 'Pages' section or you can just click here for the pattern!

So, I present to you Lion and Giraffe, who are of course (after a bit of an altercation), the best of friends.

Mr Lion getting ready to pounce on the unsuspecting Mr Giraffe.
©The Yarning Darling 2012

Mr Giraffe is having none of it.
©The Yarning Darling 2012

Yay! Now they're bestest buddies :)
©The Yarning Darling 2012

Crocheted card for the boy!

©The Yarning Darling 2012

I know this looks extremely random...but as always, there's a background story!

Jim and I have become a little obsessed with these Japanese characters created for commercials for a company called 'Mameshiba'.  Apparently mameshiba literally means 'bean dog'.  These little beans give little pieces of nonsense trivia to an unsuspecting and hungry members of the public. Some lovely person compiled all the commercials and you can watch them here!

Anyway, I became so obsessed, that I created a mameshiba character especially for Jim, he loved it so much that he made it his Twitter picture!

©The Yarning Darling 2012

For his birthday (which was yesterday) I decided to make a little Jimshiba applique for his birthday card - and of course, he LOVED it!

It's all made from a single crochet stitch. For the body bean shape, I started off making a circle then extended one side using rows.  The black outline was also crocheted, but actually using embroidery thread and a tiny hook.  It's not perfect - the tie is a little skewed and the outlining bit on the right went a bit weird, but I guess it all adds character :/

Anyway, that's it for now. Got a couple of WIP's on the go so will update when I've finished with them!

People actually like my things!

Having just crocheted and knitted for my personal fun, I've been formally asked to make something by someone to give as a gift!  As this person is a very close friend, I offered to make it for free.  They weren't having any of it, and so we agreed on cost price.  It's a pretty weird feeling, I only ever set out to learn how to knit and crochet so I could annoy people with handmade gifts!

Ages ago, I had made my friend's daughter a lion (from a pattern) and a giraffe (completely made up as I went along). She's asked me to make the same for her friend who is due to have a baby in the next few weeks and a little cardigan for her own daughter.  The animals will be fine, the cardigan will be a bit more difficult as I can't knit on circular needles yet!  More learning for me :)

I'll keep you all updated on my progress and put up the refined pattern for the giraffe once he's done :)

Musée Mechanique

What does a little museum full of old arcade games have to do with yarn? Well, I'll tell you what - a really old fusball table with players wearing little crocheted jumpers!! Not much else to say on this, I just found it quite funny :)

Crocheting in Alcatraz

I couldn't think of a witty title for the post mainly because I'm still pretty surprised to find out that inmates in Alcatraz used the crochet!

Me and the boy are currently in San Francisco and went on the Alcatraz tour last night. Part of the audio tour described what inmates used to do to pass time and low and behold there was half made blanket, yarn, and a hook in one of the cells! I got pretty excited and had to take a picture or two.

I do think they could have chosen a more manly and scary colour than pink - these men were the worst prisoners in the US prison system, and they chose baby pink as an example?! Oh well!

Domo-nation!

After I made a Domo for my brother, I received a few requests from friends and the boy!  My boy specifically asked for the mouth to be inset and so the challenge began.

I made one of the Domo's normally as according to Nerdigurumi's pattern (Domo on the left). For the second one (right) I sat and thought very hard about how I'd go about making the mouth inset. A little hard to explain, so I'll let the pattern do the explaining.  Seeing as my pattern is just a mangled version of Nerdigurumi's, I'm going to ask her permission first before publishing it on here.

Needless to say, I was pretty pleased with myself when I managed to get a mouth that looked inset! I made a third one and now they're all one happy family! (Well, only for another 30 minutes when I leave for the airport and take one with me to give to Jim).

Signing out for now, it's the Travelling Yarning Darling once again.

PS When I named this post, I started singing "we're all part of a domo-nation" on the style of Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation'.  And it's now stuck in my head as I'm typing this.

The World Famous Crochet Museum

I'm not lying, there's a museum dedicated to the world of crocheting, and it is really called  The World Famous Crochet Museum!!  It looks tiny, but pretty cool :)

I came across this whilst catching up on my twitter feed.  It's in a little place just outside of Joshua Tree National Park, California - around 130 miles west of Los Angeles.  So even when I do go and see the boy, I think a trip here would be pretty unlikely :(

If anyone does go and check it out, let me know!

DOMO

Having fun in the garden

Who is Domo? He is a little creature that hatched from an egg. He adores meat and potato stew but hates apples ( Source: Wikipedia ). The only word he can say is his own name. "DOMO!"

I made this for my awesome brother who has recently become slightly obsessed with Domo!

I got the pattern from Nerdigurumi, and lovely crocheting lady who lists her amigurumi patterns of geek paraphernalia for free.

Domo scaring Percival the Penguin.

The body was so easy to make, as were the arms and legs. But putting him together was a different story! His legs are weighted so he can stand and the arms poseable so Domo can scare things in pictures! Nerdigurumi has a tutorial on how to wire the arms so it wasn't all bad!  I had to improvise the weighted feet.  I cut out a piece of cardboard so he could stand.  The only flat metal things I could find in the house were washers.  I glued two of these onto each piece of cardboard and et voila, weighted feet!

Anyway, my brother LOVES his Domo. And so does their little kitty apparently! Definitely one of the most fun projects I've done so far!

Hero sniffing out Domo.  

The Travelling Yarning Darling

Since my boy moved to the City of Angels, I've been back and forth visiting him every few months, and I'm off again at the end of this week :)

The novelty of a long-haul 11 hour flight with unlimited movies wore off extremely quickly, pretty much after my first visit, so on the next visit I decided to take my current crochet project with me. Each time I've always got funny looks and even got known as the 'knitting lady' on one flight (even though I was crocheting!).

Now just like a girl must limit the number of shoes she packs, I also had to do this with my yarning stuff.  With all the regulation of banned items, it took some investigating to find out about crochet hooks. The Heathrow Airport website says knitting needles are fine so I assumed a crochet hook would be okay too. The check in desk had no idea but when I got through security they didn't have a problem so I was good to go.

Anyway, I thought I'd jot down a list of items that I usually take, varying depending on the project (so if it was only crocheting there would be no need to take knitting needles or a DPN). These all also adhere to the hand baggage regulations, including the TSA rules, so you shouldn't have any problems.

• Yarn
• Pattern
• Round-ended scissors (with blades 6" or shorter from the fulcrum)
• Any length/size knitting needles or crochet hooks
• Split stitch markers
• Tape measure
• Pen
• Pencil
• Notepaper
• Handcream 100ml or less (the cabin pressure and onboard soap can wreak havoc on hands)
• For knitting, double-pointed needle (if required) and point protectors.

From the picture you can see that I've packed aluminium needles.  I'm usually one for bamboo, but after accidentally stepping on one I found out the hard way how fragile they are.  For travelling, aluminium is best as they can take a little beating and be fine.

If you've never thought of taking your project with you, do it...you can get so much done on a long haul flight and the time passes by so quickly!

I like my Hello Kitty with a cherry on top.

Yay, kitty! If there's anything I love apart from yarn and cat videos it's Hello Kitty! I adopted this little obsession from my sister-in-law, but everyone who knows her seems to as Hello Kitty is so cute! My first crochet kitty was for her and was strawberry themed.

One day, casually talking to one of the receptionists at work, I discovered she adores kitty too and asked if I could make her one. Tomorrow is her 21st birthday so I thought it appropriate to fulfil her wish. It didn't take that long as I followed a pattern but I still think she looks kawaii!

Deconstructed kitty.

Snuggly Snood

Project complete! Remember that post last week with the giant crochet hook and gorgeous yarn? Well I finally did something with it. And when I said it was gonna be simple, I really wasn't joking. This was for two reasons:
1. I needed a quick project.
2. I wanted the chunkiness of the project to stand out.

I started it at about 6pm today and with eating and a bit of faffing I had it done by 10pm so extremely easy and quick!

Me and my boy have a skiing trip planned next week so I made this snood for that. Gotta look good in those minus temperatures (shame I didn't have it for the big freeze in the UK last week!)

Pattern
Materials
20mm crochet hook
2xSMC Select Highland Alpaca Yarn (or any other chunky 100g balls)
Split stitch marker (a larger one will be more handy)

Method (work in a continuous spiral)
Base: ch35
Join last stitch to first with sl st, take care not to twist the chain.
Round 1: SC each stitch (35), mark last stitch.
Round 2-15: SC (35).
Cast off.

I was annoyingly 4 stitches short of the 15th round when the yarn got too short. So, as I was working in a spiral, I cheekily cast off a bit early :/ Hey, you can't tell so it's fine (just keep it our little secret!)

Kitty's Christmas Mouse

My brother and his wife have a gorgeous (but slightly bitey) Siamese kitty called Hero.  She likes little mouse toys. So, I had to do the obvious and make her one!

I browsed Crochet Pattern Central for a quick and easy pattern and found one here by KristieMN.  I managed to make it in about an hour and half so it was pretty easy. I had to make a few amendments, like I sewed the eyes on instead of using toy eyes.  I also decided to stuff the mouse with strips of felt rather than the usual poly-fill because she has a tendency to completely destroy a soft toy so didn't want her eating any of the thin fibres.

Needless to say, she enjoyed the little mouse. But poor mousey (rest in peace) succumbed to its injuries 3.5 days later.  Oh well, kitty enjoyed it!

New project alert!

Bought these super chunky and super soft balls of yarn today (new wool/alpaca mix) from John Lewis to use with my gigantic crochet hook that my brother got me for Christmas...I seriously cannot wait to use these! I'll hopefully be making a snood type thing, pretty simple as I need it in a few weeks time. Watch this space for the finished product :)