Month: October 2010

A brief shop announcement

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I’m trav­el­ling to the land of Dim Sum and Chi­nese Greens! :D

Since I won’t be able to fill and ship orders while I’m away, and I real­ly need to spend the next few days pack­ing and orga­niz­ing things before we leave on a jet plane, I have to tem­porar­i­ly close my shop start­ing today. I felt a bit sad doing it, but I imag­ine vis­it­ing a dif­fer­ent coun­try and see­ing new scener­ies will inspire new ideas for the shop when I get back :D

The shop will reopen on Mon­day, Nov.29. My list­ings won’t be vis­i­ble on my Etsy page while the shop is closed, but you can check out some of the tiny plush­es I have list­ed so far here, if you’d like.

Thank you for visiting!

 

 

(last) weekend adventures!

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We had an action-packed week­end last week, but our inter­net was bro­ken ear­li­er this week so I did­n’t post them until now.

 

Adven­ture #1: used-book­store-hop­ping with a librar­i­an friend :D (This did­n’t exact­ly hap­pen on the week­end but it was an adven­ture, so I thought the pic­ture belonged here.) Took this pic­ture with Zumi at a patio, which was just down the street from my very first apart­ment in Toronto.

 

Adven­ture #2: mak­ing a marsh­mal­low-cov­ered cake. I burnt the marsh­mal­low in my first attempt, but for­tu­nate­ly the cake was still good, so we replaced the burnt marsh­mal­lows with fresh ones and it was per­fect! I was rather proud of the gold­en toasty colour.

Adven­ture #3: to the Dis­tillery! I love going to the dis­tillery and walk­ing on the streets paved with red bricks and tak­ing pic­tures of old win­dows. And plus we were going there to have our annu­al birth­day din­ner with some of my favourite peo­ple :D so it was an extra excit­ing adventure!

It was real­ly fog­gy that day. This build­ing was behind us while we were wait­ing for the street car.

And we’re here! Greet­ed by an awe­some crea­ture. There’s just some­thing sad and lone­ly about him. He promised he won’t bite.

 

Zumi isn’t very skilled at tak­ing night pho­tos, so I switched back to my trusty pink cam­era after dark. It was still real­ly fog­gy. I real­ly like the warm orange glow of the windows.

And the trees wrapped in lights like gath­er­ings of fireflies.

So, adven­ture #2 was sup­posed to be a birth­day present for our friend Dan, who gave me a bas­ket-full of (plush) veg­eta­bles for my birth­day :D :D :D I’ve been look­ing for them for so long but they were out of stock at Ikea! Thank you, Dan! We could pre­tend we’re liv­ing in one of those old fash­ion farm­ing soci­eties where we trade cake for veg­eta­bles! :D

This week we’re going to con­tin­ue to pack, and I’m going to make some “unique tags” for “easy iden­ti­fi­ca­tion” of our lug­gage (as sug­gest­ed on the air­line web­site). I also real­ized that we don’t have any prop­er lug­gage tags so I’m going to make some of those as well.

Have a great week ahead, every­one! :D

A last-minute shop update

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Made a few more things for the shop, but they will only be around for a cou­ple of days before I close the shop for 3 weeks on Sun­day! (I’ll be trav­el­ling to Hong Kong) Since the shop will be closed for most of Novem­ber, I made these with “hol­i­day cheers” in mind, in case any­one wants to make ear­ly orders for Christmas…

Meet Snow Mush­room! :D

So, when I make some­thing there’s often a sto­ry run­ning in the back of my head. It’s total­ly imag­i­nary, but the Snow Mush­rooms are called the Snow Mush­rooms because they’re sup­posed to be wood­land crea­tures that appear on snow days to spread hol­i­day cheers with their spark­ly caps. Yes. Snow mush­rooms also like to hang out in a group of 3…

Along with a delight­ful s’more, with rosy cheeks! :D S’more does­n’t real­ly have a sto­ry to tell. He thinks just being cute is enough. Period.

Feel free to vis­it them at the shop before they tem­porar­i­ly retire on Sun­day Octo­ber 31! But don’t wor­ry, they’ll be back on Mon­day Novem­ber 29.

Cheers!

It’s not just for the witch costume, kids.

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Broom­stick! For mak­ing broom­stick lace! :D

I’ve been intrigued by broom­stick lace for a long time and yes­ter­day I final­ly got around to try­ing it. I went online to search for videos and instruc­tions but then real­ized that my copy of Cro­chet Stitch Bible actu­al­ly has instruc­tions for it.

So… here’s my very first piece of broom­stick lace. A 16mm cro­chet hook was act­ing as the broom­stick and I used a DK weight yarn with a 3mm hook. It’s a bit wonky, but I final­ly under­stood how it works and it’s actu­al­ly quite straight­for­ward after a few rows.

With a bit more prac­tice on mak­ing it more straight I made this cuff with the same “broom­stick” and a worsted weight yarn and 4mm hook.

 

I just made it long enough to wrap around my wrist and then cro­cheted the short ends togeth­er. I real­ly like the colour of that yarn.

There are some broom­stick lace videos on Stitch Diva Stu­dios and they’re quite clear and easy to fol­low. I’ve also found the writ­ten instruc­tion on Cro­chet Cabana help­ful. The idea of the cuff came from the tuto­r­i­al on Kootoy­oo.

It makes me hap­py to learn new things :D

By the way, our inter­net is fixed! :D Though it’s kind of slow… I have a lot of pic­tures from the week­end that I want to post but am feel­ing weary that it’s going to either take a long time or crash the inter­net alto­geth­er… (not sure if that’s even pos­si­ble. I’m not at all techy and some­times I feel para­noid about techy things) so the pic­tures will have to wait until I’m sure that we have sta­ble connection.

Have a hap­py Wednes­day! :D

Comical neck warmer

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So, the inter­net at our build­ing is bro­ken, so here I am at the local library enjoy­ing free inter­net. Anoth­er rea­son to love the library :D

I’ve had a rather action-packed week­end, and one of the high­lights was vis­it­ing the new Michaels craft store just 3 sub­way stops away from my house! :D And because they were hav­ing a grand-open­ing sale, I thought it would be a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to buy a 16mm cro­chet hook — for $3!

Aside from it being on sale, I also thought it would be good to buy it because I want to try mak­ing the felt­ed buck­et hat from my last post. And also learn to make broom­stick lace, which requires the use of , well, a broom­stick. But peo­ple also use large knit­ting nee­dles. And I thought a large cro­chet hook would suffice.

I excit­ed­ly showed my friend who was vis­it­ing us for the week­end and her com­ment was, “it actu­al­ly looks rather com­i­cal!” (or some­thing along that line.)

Last night I tried cro­chet­ing with it. It takes a bit of get­ting use to, wield­ing such a thick cro­chet hook. I tried cro­chet­ing with 6 strands of yarn together.

And it even­tu­al­ly turned into a neck warmer.

I’m rather pleased with it :D

It took about half an hour to make and did­n’t use a lot of yarn. If one has a 16mm cro­chet hook and wants to try mak­ing this, here’s what I did:

Mate­ri­als:

5–6 dif­fer­ent balls of yarn. I used 2 balls of chunky, 3 balls of worsted, and 1 ball of DK.

A 16mm cro­chet hook.

A large button.

A tapes­try needle.

Row 1: I made a chain with all 6 strands of yarn held togeth­er until the chain is long enough to wrap around my neck loose­ly, then I made 4 more chains.

Row 2: In back loop only, sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc in each ch across, ch 1, turn.

Row 3–4: In back loop only, sc in each st across. Fas­ten off. Weave in ends.

Sew on but­ton on one end. The gaps between stitch­es act as but­ton holes, so one can adjust how much the two ends overlap.

It would be inter­est­ing to see it made wider and with dif­fer­ent colour and tex­ture com­bi­na­tion too!

Well, I hope the inter­net at home gets fixed soon. Or the library will be see­ing a lot of me this week…

Hap­py Tues­day every­one! :D

 

 

 

favourite things of the week!

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‘Tis the sea­son for can­dy corn! I was point­ed to a tuto­r­i­al for mak­ing can­dy corn trick-or-treat bags on The Purl Bee — they’re so cute! They would make great par­ty hats as well, I think!

While brows­ing on The Purl Bee, also saw these sweet felt­ed buck­et hats! I love the pur­ple one. I would real­ly like to try mak­ing these, as I’ve nev­er tried felt­ing in the wash­ing machine before, but I don’t have a 16mm cro­chet hook. So I was real­ly hap­py to see that there is also a non-felt­ed cro­chet ver­sion of the buck­et hat! Maybe I’ll make that for now until I get a 16mm cro­chet hook…

More sweet treats! Recipe for a GIANT s’more cake on The Birth­day Blog! (I also think that a blog that is all about birth­days and birth­day par­ties has got to be one of the most awe­some blogs ever.)

Spot­ted this via the Craftzine blog, fea­tur­ing a frost­ed cake between a giant piece of sol­id choco­late and two home­made gra­ham crack­er. I’ll be such a hap­py camper if I ever get such a cake for my birthday!

Equal­ly awe­some but per­haps not as sweet… a cro­cheted owl pel­let!

Found on Futur­i­sticky via the Craftzine. I nev­er knew what owl pel­lets were until last year, when I saw some real owl pel­lets on posters cre­at­ed by grade 4 stu­dents. It’s quite fas­ci­nat­ing what can be found in these, um, regur­gi­tat­ed bun­dles of undi­gest­ed food. And the cro­cheted owl pel­let even comes with pieces of cro­cheted bones!

And final­ly, a video! While brows­ing on Ama­zon try­ing to find a book to read on the upcom­ing 17-hour plane ride, I saw this!

A Kir­by’s game, all in YARN!! :D

I don’t play much video games except Tetris (and I’m real­ly rather good at it, if I do say so myself). But I’m rather excit­ed that there’s a game based on yarn. I prob­a­bly won’t spend $50 to buy it, but I will like­ly rent it just to see what it’s like!

Maybe one day they’ll make Tetris in yarn too.

Have a great week­end every­one! :D

 

Untitled

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Just hang­ing. Nei­ther here nor there. I don’t know what to call this. An apt descrip­tion of how I’m feel­ing lately.

On the tech­ni­cal side, I’m quite hap­py with how the “engrav­ing” turned out. It even inter­act­ed with the pig­ment and cre­at­ed a feath­er­ing effect.

weekend crafting

Posted on by trish

This week­end was a busy one! We did some long-over­due clean­ing and orga­niz­ing of the apart­ment, and I final­ly cleaned up my “craft cor­ner” (i.e. one third of the couch and cof­fee table) after a fren­zy of craft­ing last week in prepa­ra­tion for the open­ing of the shop. And what do I choose to do after all that clean­ing and orga­niz­ing? More craft­ing, of course! :D

I was think­ing today that it’s almost mit­ten sea­son, but not quite. So some fin­ger­less mitts would be per­fect, for fall and also for tak­ing out­door pic­tures in win­ter! (I can sure­ly remem­ber how painful­ly cold my hands were after an hour of pic­ture-tak­ing at the San­ta Claus parade last year.)

I saw this grey owl sweater on nee­dled quite a while ago and real­ly loved it. So I bought the pat­tern, hop­ing that one day I will over­come my fear of cir­cu­lar nee­dles and knit­ting cables and actu­al­ly be able to make this. Mean­while, I found this owl fin­ger­less mitts pat­tern on Rav­el­ry — and it’s a free down­load! (Though one needs to sign up to access it) They’re real­ly quick to make and I got both mitts fin­ished with eyes sewn and every­thing with­in 3 hours (I think look­ing for the per­fect, iri­des­cent but­tons for eyes took the longest).

I’m real­ly rather hap­py with them :D Per­haps I’ll bring them along when I go out tomorrow!

Well, I bet­ter go put away the scrap yarn and cro­chet hooks on the cof­fee table before my “craft cor­ner” starts to spread like weed again…

Have a great week ahead, every­one! :D

Announcing… genuine mudpie, the Etsy shop! :D

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I usu­al­ly don’t write 2 posts in one day but this is excit­ing — I final­ly set up my very own Etsy shop!!! :D :D :D

I have been want­i­ng to set up a shop since I first saw it in 2006! My friends have also been urg­ing me when­ev­er they request Christ­mas orders of cro­cheted mag­nets and pins (and by “they,” I mean Kit­ty. Would­n’t have been able to do this with­out your long-time sup­port and encour­age­ment, friend!).

And so that’s why I changed the head­er! Just want­ed it to reflect more of what I do and so it would match the shop ban­ner. I real­ly do like water­colour but I think I like cro­chet­ing plush­es more :P

Set­ting up the shop actu­al­ly took much longer than I thought — lots to think about in terms of poli­cies and ship­ping and stuff. I’m kind of ner­vous about it… will test it out to see how it goes!

So! I put up some Mon­ster­mal­low pins. The one above is one of them. I was so tempt­ed to keep one for myself… but I guess I’ll just make anoth­er one lat­er, so the shop is well-stocked!

And here are the oth­er plush­es in the shop! They’re ideas that I’ve been wait­ing to test out, like the All-Day Dim Sum.

I thought I must make the most pop­u­lar item from my pre­vi­ous designs (and by most pop­u­lar I mean my friend Kit­ty’s ordered it two years in a row) — the bok choy! For the shop I’ve made it into a set with anoth­er leafy Chi­nese veg­etable, the choy sum.

 

Mike is again a great help in set­ting up the shop. He set up the pho­to-shoot and took all the awe­some-look­ing pho­tos with his super camera!

I hope you’ll pay the shop a vis­it! :D

favourite things of the week!

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Part of the rea­son I like fall and win­ter bet­ter than sum­mer is prob­a­bly because I can make warm wool­ly things in cold weath­er. Like these Yeti baby slip­pers I saw on Craftzine the oth­er day!

They’re made from pat­terns on Needyl. There’s also a cro­chet ver­sion! :D Any kid out there who would like a pair of Yeti slip­pers? I used to have a pair of Yeti slip­pers. I wore them out and they had to be tossed away :( So, if I can find a way to make them large enough for my feet that would be real­ly awesome…

Anoth­er rea­son that I love fall so much is the leaves! The leaves! The colours are just heart-melt­ing. And this lantern idea from Res­ur­rec­tion Fern is just brilliant.

With just clear pack­ing tape and a few jars! Time to go on a walk for leaves… and pine cones!  I love pen­dants. I love mak­ing them and wear­ing them. And I love this pine cone pen­dant from Sto­ry­book Woods.

I espe­cial­ly love the fact that the pine cones are glued to a large but­ton strung on a piece of embroi­dery floss!

Hope you’re enjoy­ing the leaves and pine cones too! :D