Enjoyment

I found some things in the past week of blog-reading that I’ve really enjoyed, and so I’ve gathered a few things to share. I AM finishing something myself, however MOVING is taking a bit of my time. For those of you who are curious (1) yes, I move in 17 days, (2) no, I don’t have another place to live yet, (3) yes, I definitely have too much stuff. If you want some of it, you can have it.

In the Amazing Quilts That Inspire Awe corner, I found an interview with Ingrid Press in the Guest Corner of the online magazine Sewn. I love her quilts. I know I will never produce quilts like this, no matter how much I love them, because I fear that my brain is entirely too cluttered to be able to produce work like this. It all seems to have such simplicity of purpose and execution. It’s not simple, but she knows about having one idea, executing it well, and then she appears to know when to stop. You can see what I mean by the piecing and quilting motif. You see the quilting, right?

NEXT UP, under the category of “That can’t be real,” I suppose I should mention Regretsy, briefly mentioned by Anna. Over the last few days I’ve just visited occasionally so I can spend five minutes laughing so hard I can barely breathe. If this fits your sense of humor and your sense of the completely absurd and occasionally dirty, congratulations, you’ve hit the jackpot. No, I’m not going to explain, I just can’t. Also, NSFW, in some cases.

Finally, two things from Craft caught my eye, sorry if you’ve seen them before, but in case not …

(1) Let me introduce you to Chillingworth, by Ann Wood, who is an owl of impressive dourness and severity. He’s like Scrooge, but Halloweeney. Very Victorian, to my mind. I love Chillingworth.

(2) I would be wearing these, the blood one immediately for Halloween, if they weren’t made of cashmere. If I actually wore it, the skin underneath would end up looking like that. I still want one, and I’m going to write to Sandy Meeks and see if she can make one out of cotton. I would just make one, but I’d rather have one from the brain that came up with it.

The world of crafting, my friends, is an amazingly diverse one. In case you wanted to go stereotyping who’s in it.

Owl, Redux

Yo. Owl.

This post will be shorter than Owls, Part 1, but in fact it took much longer to write because it contains the instructions I wrote for making the owl. This is the final of three versions. You saw version 2 in the previous post with a crocheted beak.

There are PDF instructions for crocheting the front and back, the eye patch and the wings, and putting it all together. The instructions are detailed (10 pages). I guess I’d rather over explain than confuse someone. Hopefully this isn’t confusing.

I believe this is just in time for that most nocturnal of celebrations, Hallowe’en, although this version is crocheted in Rice Owl colors. I am very fond of blue and brown.

I had fun writing the pattern for this cute little guy! If you try it, please let me know if you like it. Thanks!

Instructions for Crocheted Owl (2.1 MB PDF file)

Owls, Part 1

Two or three weeks ago I got a request from a colleague of Jeff’s to make a coffee cosy. The original request involved a suggestion of pink and purple, but as the day wore on it became apparent that she really wanted animal face of some sort. And then it transpired that she was a Rice graduate. So the face was decided.

Specifically, I was going to come up with a Rice Owl coffee cup cosy. In blue.

Feeling (a) in need of a challenge and (b) up to a challenge, I set off to design my own coffee cup cosy. Along the way, I also designed a matching amigurumi, also an owl in Rice colors. In Part 2 I will unveil my tiny little owl and the pattern for said owl, but in the meantime, let me introduce you to the OWL COFFEE CUP COSY.

This owl would like you to have a lovely cup of coffee. He is snug on a cup, and plenty insulating, and features blanket stitching on top and bottom for decoration.  He has an eye patch and yellow eyes. The eyes are made from yellow felt circles and flat sew-on button eyes.  The nose is a crocheted triangle.

You may see an owl in the background? Designing that owl has been … interesting. Let me introduce you to the mistakes preliminary designs of the owl before I introduce you (in a couple days) to the final owl. First, there was a slightly more … oddly hexagonal body shape.  It was not practical. Then there were wings that were nicely shaped, but impossible to reproduce and way too long for the body. They couldn’t stay, but I might use them elsewhere.

I kind of liked the other eye patch pattern that I made. It has “eyelashes.” I think with the right project these could be really cute with something.

Once my brain can figure out how to complete the final bits of the owl pattern, I will happily post it for a free download, in case anyone likes my rendition of the owl and would like to reproduce it!  It’s always a lovely challenge and a welcome change to make a pattern once in a while instead of just following a design. Wouldn’t want to do it all the time, but sometimes …

My other reason for making this pattern was not being happy with any of the owl patterns I saw. Didn’t like the wings, or the eyes, or the shape exactly. So I made my own. The final one isn’t quite like this fat little guy in this picture (he was version 2), but it’s pretty close.

The owls (and I) say sionara for the evening and we’ll be back soon.