Was feel­ing nos­tal­gic the oth­er day, and was in need of a new key­chain, so I decid­ed to make a Sailor Moon trans­for­ma­tion brooch. Luna (the cat) gave this to Usa­gi in the first ani­me series, so that she could trans­form into Sailor Moon. (pic from Pin­ter­est)

She wears it on her bow. (pic from Sailor Moon News)

Sailor Moon was huge­ly, HUGELY pop­u­lar when I was a kid in Hong Kong, so I had a plas­tic trans­for­ma­tion brooch that came with a box of cook­ies. It had since been lost :’(

So any­way, I cro­cheted one for my keys, and because it took me a cou­ple of tries, I end­ed up writ­ing down what I did, in case I want to remake it for friends who are also Sailor Moon fans, or maybe there are blog read­ers who want to make one too :)

I used:
Small amount of worsted weight yarn in yellow
3 mm hook
Tapes­try needle
Pink plas­tic pearl­ized shank but­ton about 3/8″ to 1/2″ in diam­e­ter (mine’s 3/8″, I think it’s a bit small, but it’s what I have)
Small translu­cent round or crys­tal shaped beads in red, green, yel­low and blue

(If you don’t have the but­ton and beads, you could also try using yarn and embroi­dery for a com­plete­ly tex­tile look, which I think would be quite nice also, and might end up swap­ping the beads for embroi­dery if they start com­ing off after the key­chain and keys get tossed around in my bag for a while…)

Pat­tern:

Pat­tern is worked in con­tin­u­ous rounds, all with right side fac­ing, no need to fas­ten off at any point. I’ve divid­ed the instruc­tion in sections.

Cen­tre cir­cle: In mag­ic ring (how per­fect!), ch 3, dc 11, sl st in top of begin­ning ch 3.

Moon sec­tion: Work­ing in back loop only, sl st in next dc, sl st and sc in next dc, 2 sc in next dc, 2 hdc in next dc, 2 sc in next dc, sc and sl st in next dc, sl st in next dc, work­ing in both loop sl st in next dc.

Out­side ring: ch 1, con­tin­ue work­ing in both loops, sc in same dc as last sl st worked, 2 sc in each of next 3 dc, now work in back loop only, 2 sc in next sl st, con­tin­ue work­ing in back loop only, [sc in next st, 2 sc in next sc] until you reach the first sc of this sec­tion, sl st into first sc of section.

Edg­ing: turn, work­ing in front loop only, sl st in next st and each st around, use invis­i­ble join to com­plete round, fas­ten off.

Per­haps this pic­ture will give you a bet­ter idea of the dif­fer­ent sec­tions (this was before the last round of edg­ing)… see the out­line of the cres­cent moon?

We will now attach yarn to this stitch on the out­line of the cres­cent moon, made by the front loops of the stitch­es, where the cro­chet hook is pointing.

Join by mak­ing a slip knot on the hook, insert hook under the stitch where you’re join­ing, pull up a loop through the stitch and pull through the loop on the hook.

Then, work­ing in the front loops that make up the top out­line of the moon, sc in next st, sc and hdc in next st, hdc and sc in next st, sc in next st, sl st in next st, fas­ten off, leav­ing a 6″ tail.

Using a tapes­try nee­dle, pull the yarn through the piece at the top left cor­ner of the moon, like so…

Then pull the nee­dle and yarn back to the front and sew the part just made to the front loops that make up the bot­tom out­line of the moon, like so…

Fas­ten off and weave in ends, and we’re done the cro­chet­ing part! It’s real­ly much eas­i­er than it looks, it will all make sense when you start mak­ing it, but if you need any clar­i­fi­ca­tions please feel free to drop me a note!

Then we fin­ish the trans­for­ma­tion brooch by sewing on the but­ton and beads…

And we make a back piece:

In mag­ic ring, ch 3, 11 dc, sl st in top of begin­ning ch 3.

ch 3, dc in same dc, 2 dc in each dc around, sl st in top of begin­ning ch 3.

If you’re not mak­ing a key­chain, you can just fas­ten off with a long tail, then sew the front and back pieces togeth­er, and maybe sew a pin back on and wear it as a brooch!

If you’re mak­ing a key­chain, then don’t fas­ten off at the end of round 2 in the back piece, and con­tin­ue like so…

[ch 1, sc in same st, sc in each of the next 4 st, turn] repeat 5 times, fas­ten off and leave a long tail for sewing. So that you end up with this…

Wrap the rec­tan­gu­lar part around a key ring (prefer­ably not with the keys on it, much eas­i­er that way, but I was too lazy to take mine off), and sew the edge to the top of the cir­cle, like so…

Then put the front and back piece togeth­er and sew all the way around. Fas­ten off and weave in ends.

Car­ry around and be magical.

(I real­ized that I sewed the front piece on a bit off, that was bug­ging me a bit, but it’s too much work to undo it so I left it. Being mag­i­cal does not mean being perfect.)

Have a hap­py day! :D

 

 

We were vis­it­ing my cousin in Ottawa, who had a baby a while ago. So, a week before we were about to leave on the trip, I was remind­ed of this adorable cup­cake granny square by Sewrel­la and I thought, I could make my cousin and her baby a blan­ket with this square!

I have nev­er made a granny square blan­ket before and have no idea how long it would take. But I thought if I use every spare moment to cro­chet I could def­i­nite­ly get it done in a week :D

And I thought I’d incor­po­rate oth­er squares that are less com­pli­cat­ed. I found this heart square pat­tern and thought it goes pret­ty well with the cupcakes.

Most of the squares were made while tak­ing the sub­way, which made my com­mute a lot more enjoyable :)

And it was done in time for our trip! :D

I joined the squares with the granny square join method also used by Sewrel­la for her awe­some bake shop blan­ket (check out her oth­er bake shop squares too! They’re very cute). I for­got to take a good mea­sure of the blan­ket before wrap­ping it up, but here’s rough­ly how big it is.

I used some scrap worsted weight yarn I already have, and Lion Brand Pound of Love, with a 5mm hook. Acrylic yarn tends to be stiff so I washed and dried it with some fab­ric soft­en­er, which real­ly helped make it feel more snuggle-able.

I hope my cousin and her sweet baby will enjoy it :)

Have a hap­py week­end, everyone!

 

 

Say­ing good­bye to August, and hel­lo to Sep­tem­ber with this fall colour seat cover :)

I’m actu­al­ly a tad sad about sum­mer being over soon, the days get­ting short­er, the leaves start­ing to fall. It felt like not too long ago that the trees were bud­ding. I guess we’ve had a late spring. I’ve always been more of a fan of spring than of fall. And the only way of mak­ing the best of the sit­u­a­tion is to start craft­ing for cool­er weath­er and the holidays.

I’ve been want­i­ng to try this “In Tre­ble” square pat­tern for a while. I love that it looks like flower petals or leaves scat­tered all over. I added two long chains on the top left and right cor­ners after tak­ing this pic­ture, so I could tie it to the back of the chair. Quite hap­py with how it turned out :)

Hap­py Fri­day! :D