Ubercrafty

Hooking away!

I am still addicted to Amigurumi. I bought a book of patterns at the book store, have been trolling the Net for free patterns and discovered the treasure trove of cool patterns, Etsy.

This is Gato, the Cat. He belongs to BB but he helped out with dinner tonight, he likes to cook. Though his name is Spanish, it also is French for cake (gateau), so that might be why.

He has a friend, Confetti, the Elephant. He also belongs to BB. She likes to count his spots.

  I have in fact made several for Dumpling as well, but she would not lend them to me to photograph them. They are very busy playing in her room and couldn't pause for a picture. I'll have to try to take a picture of them at play at some point.

In the mean time, I attacked the first of the 5 Yo Gabba Gabba patterns that I bought from CraftyisCool on Etsy.

I started with Muno because he is only one color and it was very fast. Started him last night and finished today at Knitting group. I already made the head for Foofa as well. I have until next Wednesday to finish them all....

Untagling a wire-y mess

This is my couch and my problem:

OK, not the multiple fabrics... that's a long term project I've been working on. The wires. DRIVES ME NUTS! But the reality is that the laptops and the power bar have to stay, and ideally, we'd like to have the external drive around for backing up pictures and keepign large files (like movies and tv shows).

So how to deal with it, especially with 2 little kiddos proned to unplugging or tripping on the wires....

Well, I went to the home depot and had them cut a piece of mdf for me (6$ for the cuts, 19$ for the mdf)

  And this 8 L-brackets and 2 hinges, I did this:

I need to paint it to make it look really sharp, but man, I'm pretty proud of myself on this one!

I am officially a hooker

I almost wrote a post on Tuesday about how much I hated crochet and I just couldn't figure it out. I should start by saying that I am extremely prejudiced against crochet. As a kid, the only crochet I ever came across were those got awful suynthetic yarn bumpy slippers and toilet paper covers that combined the aforementioned yarn and Barbies. I guess Afghans too. I hate the holes in crochet. So why would I try, you ask yourself?

Well, on my trip to Chicago this spring, I purchased this book. I thought my kids would get a kick out of the monsters and I figured it's a hook and some yarn, how hard could it be. Ha! you are SO RIGHT! I went about to teach myself to crochet and in the process, almost made myself nuts. It seems all the instruction pictures show you how to single crochet on he first row (ie the chain) but they never how you the second row, so I could not figure out if I should hook into the front loop, the back loop, or as it turns out, both loops. Also, I was misunderstanding the single vs double crochet instructions and I was in fact not making single crochets but slip stiches.... in all my stitches!

I must have started and stopped the same project about 15 times. Finally I read and read every single instruction site and finally, these were clear enough for me to get it.

• Magic Ring instructions
• Single Crochet instructions

I have to admit, now that I have started, I can't stop!

I am currently working on the cat from this book.

And I am madly googling amigurumi. I like the animals, but I love the idea of making my girls some yarn foods to play with.... I fear I may quickly become addicted. It's so easy to take with me, just one hook and a ball of yarn or two. Currently, my "kit" resides in the Repetto shoe box that Mrs. Figby left behind. It's got a fold over flat with magnets to hold it shut...... and it makes me think of her, so it's just perfect!

Have you made any amigurumi? Tell me about it....