Knit And Crochet Design Week: Day Five, Mess-Ups

Ok, So this is gonna be a fairly short post, because I haven't really made very many mistakes with lil panda so far (I'm happy about that lol). Anyhoo, the biggest problem I had was picking the yarn to go with my white. I delayed starting because I couldn't find a yarn that I liked. I ended up using Caron's Simply soft, in light country blue. It matched my felt, and it's, well...soft.

It's a tiny bit thick for the yarn I'm using for the head, but with a tiny (and I mean tiny) crochet hook, and tight stitching, it's working out alright.


The biggest mess-up I've had so far is panda's nose. I must have stitched it up and pulled it out three times! Here is a slightly disturbing picture of panda as i ripped out his nose for the second ( or third, I kinda lost count) time.

                                   It kinda looks like he's being eaten alive by blue worms (shiver)
Thankfully, that problem was resolved. I have finished panda's body and ears, I should have more pics tomorrow!

       Be sure to check out Stacey's post, and see what my fellow designers are up to HERE!!

Knit And Crochet Design Week: Day Three, Yarn!!

Picking the yarn you want for a particular project , is , in my opinion, one of the hardest parts of the design process. Finding the yarn that will perfectly suit your project is a bit difficult, because it's hard to tell if it will turn out the way you picture it! However I think I have narrowed down my choices to two. I know that I want panda to be either purple or blue. I bought new yarn just a few days ago and I love the texture, I'm just not sure which color to go with!! It's Gala yarn, A mixture of Acrylic, Polyester, and Nylon, and it's sooo soft.

I am definitely using this white yarn for the body and head. It's fingering weight yarn, and I wanted to make panda kind of dainty. The problem is I'm not sure I will like the way the Gala yarn looks beside this white yarn. I may have to make a swatch to see how they look together.

Another difficulty is finding yarn that matches the felt colors I have chosen. Here is a picture of the blue yarn. As you can see It doesn't exactly match up with any of my felt selections. The purple matched a little better, but I'm leaning towards a boy panda.

Don't be surprised if panda isn't made out of this yarn, I'm a bit fickle when it comes to yarn selection. This yarn may get tossed in exchange for something brighter (metaphorically speaking, I'm not actually going to toss my precious yarn!!). And for panda's shoes, if it's a boy I may go with yellow or red,  a galosh/rain-boot kinda look. If it's a girl, maybe some cute little mary-jane's, in black or pink? Oh there's so many choices, what's a girl to do!?

Be sure to take a look at Stacey's daythree post, and find links to all the other participant's posts HERE!!!

Custom Amigurumi + Pattern Trade Results

Ok, after the huge fuss I put up in my last post, I FOUND MY FLASHDRIVE!!! So I'm pretty happy about that! So Here are some pics of the Just Plush Team Pattern trade. This is a design by Stephanie of the Etsy shop cvonslittleangel . She designed the head, body legs,and tail, and I added the ears, muzzle and facial detail. He is a little puppy :)

A wip pic :)

I gave him a little bag, and I teeny tiny owl friend. This is also the first time I've ever made crocheted (as opposed to embroidered) eyelids on an amigurumi. I slip stitched into the puppy dog's face, over the eyes, and then worked into my slip stitches with single crochets. Also, instead of safety eyes, I used large black buttons. I think they look nice. :)

Here are the pics of Veera's tail that I lost. You can see, using this new technique, She can actually Sit down!!

I was asked to make some custom amigurumi toys the other day! One custom Girl Mini Bat, and A custom made Toki Mini Capsule Pet.This customer also wants to buy the original Toki, So I will be saying goodbye to her soon. Here is the custom mini bat:

 And here is the custom Toki Capsule pet. (I have yet to receive conformation on this little one yet, so think of it as a first draft in, case I have to make any changes.)

And here they are together!

 Here is a girl bearling, pixie! I have to make her a best friend before she gets put into the store, however.

About a year ago, I was given a large stack (by large I mean about one-hundred) of old crafting magazines, by a very kind woman(she also gave me three or four garbage bags full of yarn!!) Amongst those magazines I found this. I believe it is a 1986 Annie's Crochet Newsletter.

In that newsletter I found this pattern, for teeny tiny pixie people! I'll admit, their eyes weird me out a bit, but I think with a few alterations, these could be super adorable, mini capsule people!!

I have so many ideas! I can't wait to get to work!!

If At First You Don't Succeed......

Ok, I messed up........Remember the tiny doll from a few posts back? The little red haired girl? Well I made her a bit to big for my customers doll....Observe:

The picture is kinda funny though... X)

Needless to say, I had to make another one .....

Had a bit of trouble on the hair... I worked on it for about an hour!

It was my first time ever really working with thread, It was kind of fun.

I had just bought a pack of tiny black and white buttons, they were just about right for her eyes.

The customer loved the new one!

So I guess, all's well that ends well :)

The new doll was just the right size!....Phew....