luna

luna 1

Hard to believe how hap­py this made me, to cro­chet something. 

Life’s been busy, and I feel rather deplet­ed every day when I get home. But I know that if I carve out some time to make some­thing rather than zonk­ing out in front of the TV I would feel much bet­ter, much more ener­gized, much more nour­ished in my spirit.

I’ve been want­i­ng to make a luna moth for a while. Was look­ing for an origa­mi dia­gram actu­al­ly, but could­n’t find any on the inter­web. So I thought I’d go back to what I do best, with my trusty cro­chet hook and yarn.

Some­one I real­ly admire once asked me what it’s like to cro­chet, refer­ring par­tic­u­lar­ly to the tiny anatom­i­cal heart I gave her. I said it’s like sculpt­ing with yarn. 

You see, it crossed my mine to write out a pat­tern, because I haven’t post­ed a pat­tern for a long time, but writ­ing a pat­tern kind of takes away the spon­tane­ity of free-form cro­chet­ing, of sculpt­ing with yarn, which was what I need­ed at the moment. But you can see that the veins on the upper wings are clear­ly off, so I might make anoth­er one to improve on it, and I might jot down the stitch­es then.

I had some per­fect­ly spark­ly yel­low beads for the eye spots.

luna 2

Like I said, I’ve been want­i­ng to make some kind of moth for a long time. The inspi­ra­tion for it is kind of ridicu­lous. I keep see­ing this com­mer­cial for Big Bang The­o­ry in which Shel­don asked Amy, “are you sure your moth-like per­son­al­i­ty won’t be drawn to this blaz­ing fire that is myself?”

I don’t watch the Big Bang The­o­ry, but I find the descrip­tion “moth-like per­son­al­i­ty” inter­est­ing. It reminds me of a con­ver­sa­tion I had with a for­mer super­vi­sor, whom I also admire very much. She asked, “so you say that you have this huge fear of con­flicts and angry peo­ple, yet you picked a pro­fes­sion in which you have to deal with peo­ple who are in con­flicts and angry all day?“ 

I don’t know why I choose to work in social ser­vices. Some­times I wished I could go back in time and choose archae­ol­o­gy or pale­on­tol­ogy as a major. Some­times I think I would be much hap­pi­er and less stressed out in gen­er­al if I stud­ied dinosaurs instead of the var­i­ous ways peo­ple hurt one anoth­er. But I’m not so sure.

Any­way, I was feel­ing deplet­ed, so I made a moth, and it made me hap­py. That’s all I can say for today.

I did­n’t sew a pin back on it yet, but I think it might look good as a brooch. Not too over the top, right?

luna 3

Wish­ing you a peace­ful rest of the week.

 

this week’s awesome finds

A bit bummed that I don’t have new art or craft projects to report, but I am work­ing on a knit­ting project, it’s just going to take me quite a while longer to get done, so in the mean­while, here’s anoth­er awe­some find post! :D

 

Maybe I’ll try mak­ing soap gifts again. Last time it did­n’t turn out so well with the dinosaur toys, but Lego peo­ple might work bet­ter because they lay flat. From Craft Test Dum­mies.

 

The sweater I’m mak­ing is in moss stitch. Need to make anoth­er one in stock­inette stitch so I can put on a teacup pock­et :D From Col­or­ful Stitch­es.

 

Felt­ed dry­er balls, prac­ti­cal and hilar­i­ous. From Petals to Picots. 

 

I’d love an octo­pus sweater. Video tuto­r­i­al on Craft.

 

Love this fox and its green eyes. Clever book­mark from Wake and Whim­sy.

 

This looks super fun to make! Crazy paper hats from Make and Takes.

 

One can leave hotel staff with an extra token of appre­ci­a­tion by leav­ing a hand-fold­ed bun­ny in the room. Or these will make very cute gift bas­ket items for baby show­ers. Or one could impress peo­ple by whip­ping out a nap­kin ver­sion of the bun­ny at din­ner. Bun­ny-fold­ing is indeed a must-have skill. From Rock­et News 24.

 

Have an awe­some Wednes­day, everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

I real­ly like the look of garter stitch. Might have to make a pair soon. Mit­ten pat­tern form Martha Stew­art.

 

Awe­some retro-look­ing chevron clutch. Pat­tern from Fiber Flux.

 

Cat cup­cakes! Adorable­ness over­load. Pat­tern by Stuff Susie Made.

 

Also in garter stitch, I real­ly like this skirt. Maybe in less bright colours, but I would total­ly wear it. From Knit­ty.

 

This is so awe­some! OctoMitts! On sale on Rav­el­ry by Spilly­Jane Knits.

 

Sweet­est hand muffs ever. Free Rav­el­ry down­load by Miz­pah Thomas.

 

Have an awe­some week, everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

lichen

lichen 1

Have been work­ing on this cardi­gan over Jan­u­ary. I have two piles of left­over grey yarn, nei­ther is enough to knit a whole sweater so I thought I would com­bine them in a ran­dom strip­ing pat­tern. The rip­ply tex­ture of garter stitch and the dif­fer­ent tones of grey remind me of the lichens I saw on a road trip to Bruce Penin­su­la two sum­mers ago.

DSC01999

 

I fol­lowed this cardi­gan pat­tern from Pier­rot. It’s has a nice chart that I learned to read with the help of this won­der­ful doc­u­ment. I fol­lowed all the instruc­tions for stitch count, increas­es and decreas­es in the chart, but I used a larg­er nee­dle (7.5mm), made but­ton holes all the way down the front (though they’re not quite spaced even­ly despite my best efforts. Oh well) and knit­ted every­thing in garter stitch, which I think has a sim­ple, rus­tic look to it that I real­ly love. Like lichens.

Here’s the back view…

lichen 2

And I thought some nice unpol­ished wood but­tons would go well with the sim­ple garter stitch.

lichen 3

I’ve been want­i­ng to make a ver­sa­tile grey cardi­gan for a while and I think this is it! I’m very hap­py with it. And I think I’m start­ing to appre­ci­ate the slow­er pace of knit­ting. I still avoid cir­cu­lar nee­dles as much as pos­si­ble (I chose this pat­tern main­ly because it’s knit­ted flat and seamed), but maybe one day I’ll start to appre­ci­ate them too. And because it’s knit­ted quite loose­ly with the rel­a­tive­ly large nee­dles I cro­cheted all the seams togeth­er with a 6.5mm hook.

On a slight­ly sep­a­rate note, I men­tioned a cou­ple of times that I’ve cro­cheted the Mason­ry Jack­et, but it turned out real­ly rather stiff and does­n’t look all that good on me. So I’m pret­ty sure I’m going to take it apart to make some­thing else. I’m think­ing of knit­ting a basic sweater in garter or moss stitch. Would be nice to wear over col­lared shirt. Will keep you posted! 

Have an awe­some week, everyone!

 

 

parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

 

watercolourWas help­ing Mike with a design project, he need­ed a sketch for a pho­to con­cept. This was fun to paint, with ref­er­ence to one of my favourite songs. Though after com­ing across the Mup­pet ver­sion of the song now every time I think about “pars­ley, sage, rose­mary and thyme” I hear Miss Pig­gy singing in my head.

Hope you’re hav­ing a good weekend!