Tag: crochet

Trouble in toytown

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I’ve been making this monkey for what feels like forever. I started before Christmas and it seemed to be working up pretty fast. I was making it as a gift  for a little lady I know, (very little) but then realised actually she was too little, so all urgency was off. Which was lucky, as I couldn’t find any eyes the right size.

I continued after Christmas, but had lost enthusiasm – mainly for the fact I wasn’t sure about the cotton I was using. I actually really like the cotton, but I’m not sure it’s right for this kind of thing. I’m really picky, I know that  – but actually, you see more of the crochet in this than you do the character of the monkey. You can see every stitch. With thinner cotton, the stitches are still visible, but of course they’re smaller, so you see more of the monkey and less of the crochet… With wool, the stitches blend in more because the texture is fuzzier. Does this make any sense? I look at the monkey above and I see more of the fact it’s a bit of crochet than I do that it’s a monkey, and that’s wrong.

Also, I couldn’t get the accessories right. I made a shoulder bag; didn’t look right. I tried a cotton scarf; didn’t look right. I tried a ribbon one; again not right – wasn’t right as a more formal tie, either. I wanted to make a hat; couldn’t face it. In the end I found something I’d put to one side a while back and pulled it apart, and it became the top part of the hat. Making the rest of the hat was easy, and I decided to finish it off with a little flower. Having said that, this has always felt like a boy monkey to me, so now I can only really think of him as a cross dresser.

Sheesh. Who knew hobbies were so *hard*. This is meant to be fun, right? We need to live together for a bit i think (not you and I, although I’m sure that would be lovely, but the monkey and I), so I can see more of the monkey and less of an annoying thing that i had to get over with. Poor chap. Chapess. Monkey.

PS. I should’ve called this blog Occasional Monkey, shouldn’t I?

Panic crochet

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On the run up to Christmas, I’d decided to make a few gifts for various people. Little by little time started to trickle by, and before I knew it, run away with me completely. I was going to make bunting, but then that plan was scuppered by someone faster with the same idea, I was going to make a monkey, but decided that the recipient was probably still a bit young. I was going to make a lavender bag, with the little piece of Irish crochet I’d made, but didn’t have time to get to a fabric shop, and… and… like I said, time just disappeared.

On 23rd December, I knew I had a failsafe plan for a friend who had made me some cushions for my birthday – which I *loved*. I was going to make a Queen Anne scarf – the pattern for which is available for free here. (It seems to be missing its pictures, but if you’d like to see pictures, Flickr has lots). It’s a lovely pattern, works up pretty quickly from what I’d read, and I knew just the yarn, as I’d spotted it on Ravelry.

Except that on 23rd December 7.00pm, John Lewis had decided to take the remaining few balls of this yarn off the shelves  – and put it at the bottom of a huge cage in the stock room, unreachable by human hands.

I switched to a different yarn. ‘It’s pretty similar,’ she said, ‘it should work out fine.’

Except that it was nothing like it. I started the scarf. It was tiny. You’d be lucky to warm the neck of a Barbie, let alone that of a full grown friend. I switched patterns. I started the Boteh Scarf instead – I knew I could do it, I’d made it before. Except  I had my doubts. Was it right in this yarn? It was a bit heavy wasn’t it? Not very delicate. Doesn’t feel that special. Ack.

I searched Ravelry to see what else people had made with the yarn I had available, and lo and behold, I found a lovely pattern!

I crocheted into the night. I crocheted while I waited for a kettle to boil. I crocheted on the phone. I crocheted on the train. I crocheted on Christmas day and on Boxing day. I finished on 27th December, and it was ironed and blocked by the evening.

If I’m honest, I’m not sure I’d recommend this yarn for this pattern. The yarn is nice, the pattern is great, but to do the pattern real justice, I think something less textured would be better. This is a bit fluffy and so some of the detail gets lost. But the details are lovely when you can see them.

So it all worked out ok in the end. And I’ve learnt a few things:

• I’m no good at making things to order. Being an Occasional Crafter means you’re pretty good when the pressures off and you can faff about staring into space now and again – but when the push comes to shove, you’d rather stick the kettle on and have a nice cup of tea

• That it’s fine to be a faffer – it’s a hobby afterall

• That Ravelry is really pretty amazing. There’s a ton of patterns on there, which is great – but that you can search by yarn first and see what things people have made with that yarn. Who even knew you’d ever want to do that? Well – proper crafters maybe, but it was rather a revelation to me.

Happy New Year 🙂

Monkeys, threads and crochet flowers

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‘Sit there nicely for a sec’, I said. ‘You know, as a size comparison! So people can see the difference between thin crochet cotton I’ve used before and this nice new Rowan Sienna cotton’.

At any point, did I say ‘Stick the flower I just made so lovingly, on yer head! Make like it’s a hat!’ No. I did not.

It’s not a monkey hat, it’s a brooch-without-a-back. I’m actually going to use to make a gift look pretty. (The shop was out of brooch backs. Tsk!).

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m still kind of new to yarns and the different shapes and sizes you get. This Rowan cotton is really nice to crochet with – there’s something about it that feels really smooth and rounded – and the colours are lovely. I’ve been wanting to make one of these flowers from Attic 24 for ages, but the yarn I had already was a bit wooly. This is perfect. I managed to find the one spare button in the house that isn’t black, too, and it does the job nicely. I’m almost finished making a monkey out of the same stuff – but actually, as often happens with projects before they’re finished, I’m not 100% sure about him. We shall see.

Co-incidentally, after all my searching for garlands and bunting, Lucy at Attic 24 made a great garland out of these flowers. I might try something similar, as they’re so nice to make. I’ve got no idea what I’ll do with it when it’s done, but I have a feeling there’s a monkey who could find a use for it.

Things I meant to make: bunting

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I really meant to make some bunting to give as a gift for Christmas. As it happened I was pipped to the post (in the nick of time) as someone else let on that they’d made some for the exact same person I was going to make some for. So I stopped before I’d even started. I’d still like to make some though – maybe just for me, we shall see.

I was thinking of crocheting it, mainly as that’s the thing I find the easiest, but there’s a stack of different types of garlands, flags and bunting out there. These are a few of my favourite pictures from Flickr:

Fabric Flags:
Classic and colourful fabric flags, by Crafty Intentions…

And a pretty scalloped garland, by sweetjessie

Crochet
Cute crochet ‘granny triangles’ by Loving The Vintage

Crocheted stars, also by Loving The Vintage

Garlands
More of a mini banner, than bunting, but I love the colours in this photo, by jek in the box, and the size of disks…

…and I love these playing card garlands by Emma Lamb (that link has a great little tutorial if you like these too):

Garland

(And if you like these but don’t want to make them, Wren Handmade often sell them too from lovely recycled papers.)

Oh, and there’s also a nice pattern here for crocheted hearts, which I’ve been thinking of making too. All I really need is to become fantastically rich and give up work, to give me the time to get started!

The importance of making monkeys

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I have a habit of making monkeys, I must admit. There is a reason for this actually, I like to pretend it’s SCIENCE. It’s not, really – but I am experimenting.

I’ve only been making stuff for about a year or so, and as you’ve hopefully gathered by now I make stuff occasionally – not all the time, not every day. When I started it was with ‘amigurumi‘ as there was a lot of it about to draw inspiration from, and it didn’t seem too hard. I could crochet already, a little bit, and amigurumi are quick-ish to make and not massively complicated.

I don’t really know anyone else who crochets, or at least no one locally, so I’m investigating stuff myself – which yarns I like, what I like making, that kind of thing. I know I don’t want to make clothes – on the whole I don’t like crocheted clothes, so I’m experimenting with toys, different styles of toys and different yarn.

This monkey was the first:

I learnt a lot from making him. I learnt that I was pretty skilled at mis-reading patterns, that I wouldn’t be satisfied with limbs that were *completely rubbish*, but also that at some stage I have to admit I’ve done the best I can and move on.

I learnt that I – like many amigurmui makers – hate sewing on arms and legs, and that the placement of eyes and angle of a mouth can make or break things. This is the pattern – it’s free, and I love it. You’ll notice it looks nothing like my monkey. I did mention I was skilled at mis-reading patterns.

After that I thought maybe I should have a go at making up my own pattern. Yes, my wealth of crochet experience – the making of one thing – lead me to believe that would be a good plan. So I made one in a sock-monkey style:

He was made with the same yarn (cheap, only yarn available in monkey-colour at the local store). From him I learnt that I still need to work on my increases and decreases – his feet are very pointy, and really they should look more like his arms/hands.

I learnt that if you make things in this style, there’s only two limbs to sew on – result! He’s quite a nice size too, but I didn’t write anything down as I went along, so any new sock monkey has to be started from scratch.

I made two monkey gifts, both in the style of the first one. A green one, and a pink one. I learnt different things from them – but as you’ll see, they still look nothing at all like the ones in the pattern. I like that though – it’s good to put your own spin on things, intentional or otherwise. Surely its not healthy for the world to be full of monkey-clones?

Recently I found some crochet cotton, so of course I thought I should experiment with that. Applying scientific thinking (well, ish) I thought I should compare yarn for yarn, monkey for monkey. That’s where this chap came in:

Just like the original monkey, only smaller! I learnt it’s nice crocheting with cotton – and, rather amusingly, I learnt that if you actually follow the pattern for two minutes rather than assuming you know what you’re doing all the time, you end up with much nicer feet.

So of course I had to try and make a small sock-monkey-style fella, also in cotton, just to see what that was like. Which is where the previous Mr Frustration comes in.

I made him too big – and I knew it really early on. He was supposed to be small, a good companion to the one above – but I learnt that if you really don’t look at what you’re doing you end up with something too big, which is annoying.

BUT if you give him a face as you go, it makes you feel so guilty you end up finishing him anyway:

Poor chap. Actually, I learnt quite a bit from him. There’s a big difference between the feeling of the cotton and the wool. Cotton feels  more delicate even when it’s a similar size monkey – and looks so tightly packed. It’s much more dense and you can see every stitch.

There’s something about it that feels more ‘grown up’ – less of a toy for kids. He also a better shape than the first one. He’s got a much shorter body, and somehow has wider hips. Sadly I still didn’t get the feet right – but maybe I’ll fix it in the next monkey experiment.

I do like the ribbon for his scarf too. He needed something to cheer him up a bit, as the colour is a bit washed out. It couldn’t really be a wool scarf as the difference in thread would be too odd, and I didn’t have any other coloured cotton. As it happens, I think this suits him perfectly.

I’m not sure what monkey experimentation I’ll do next. I have a few ideas in mind, but I’m still planning.