This cute little ninja was made from a pattern in Creepy Cute Crochet, just like the monkey in a fez.  I made it for another a co-worker's birthday.  Instead of making a card* for the ninja, I had everyone write their birthday message on a 2"x3" piece of card stock.  Then I taped each one on a pin (the ones with the flat flower heads on them) and stuck the pin in the ninja.

He looked super hilarious with about 12 messages sticking out of him.  Look at this macro shot!  I love seeing all the details that I can't see with my own eyes.  That felt is so cool looking.  The shiny, deadly shuriken is a large silver sequin I cut with my cuticle scissors.  The tie on his head is crocheted in the pattern, but I could not, for the life of me, figure out what the pattern said.  Mine came out looking like a big knot of black yarn.  The felt was much, much easier.

* I considered finding a photo of a dojo to print on card stock and use as a backdrop/card for the ninja ... but I ended up liking the pincushion idea better.

This is a birthday card I made for a coworker.  She's into squirrels, and this stuffie pattern turned out awesome before, so I used it again.

The tree is a photo Andrew took that I Photoshopped.  Everyone signed the card under the tree.  

It all came out even better than I had hoped.  I just adore that tree branch font!  And this time I gave the squirrel a little shock of hair.  Is it wrong to love cute this much?!

Oh, look at how big number 34 is getting!  Some differences are starting to show up in the spikes of the cacti.  This one's spikes are all white.  Some have dark spikes along with the white.
And number 45 has *red* spikes.  Right now they are all still basically all the same shape, but if the spikes are any indication, it seems as though we have a nice mix of cactus types.
The little puff of spikes in the dirt is number 3.  He and number 85 died since last month.  They just shriveled up one day.  I suspect I was over watering, so I've cut back.  To see a whole family photo with numbered notes, check out my Flickr.

The City Folk Go Carless

We've been talking about getting rid of our car for a while.  You know, to simplify.  Apparently, we weren't moving fast enough for the car, so it decided to take matters into it's own hands.  I'll spare you the gory details, but most of last weekend and a huge portion of this week was spent dealing with the car and the aftermath of the car.  Excluding the gory details and the ass-kicking week that left me no time to craft-blog, we're happily carless now!  Yay!

And now for the reason I was thinking about the tape on the presser foot trick ...
I've been carrying this small notebook in my purse with my to do list written in it.  For important, persistent information I was using post-it notes on the inside cover.  But with rough daily use in my over-stuffed bag, the post-its were getting all mangled.  I was afraid I was going to end up losing them.

While I was trying to come up with a solution, I noticed that the front cover was just larger than a 3" x 5" card (my favorite!) and I decided to add a see-through pocket.  I have a bunch of clear vinyl I bought years ago that I've always wanted to use.  I cut a piece the size of the notebook cover, taped it to the notebook, put the whole thing in the sewing machine, and then IT WOULDN'T MOVE.
Hey, look!  I found the macro mode on Andrew's little camera!  This is the mangled mess of threads that happens when you try to sew something that doesn't glide under your presser foot.

That's when I remembered the tape trick.  Disaster averted!  Plus, now I can carry around several 3" x 5" cards with important info on them to keep them separate from my ever-changing, often completed, and occasionally ripped out pages of to do items.

I'm on a super-simplify kick recently (always?).  I've tossed the big, fancy to do list templates, although I've kept the web application where I'm keeping all the lists of things to do ... someday. :)  My little notebook is strictly for things that absolutely must get done.  If something is still on the list when I get to the bottom of the page, I usually don't carry it over - it gets put on a 'someday' list.

"Lean and mean," that's my new motto.  OK, maybe not so much the "mean" part, but "lean and kinda nice" doesn't rhyme.

(I left for a moment to consult a rhyming dictionary ...)

OK!  How about "lean and routine"?!  I think that works.  Some people hate routines and find them stifling.  I love them.  If I don't have to think about all the mundane crap, then I have more brain power for the things that really interest me.  Bring on the monotony!

So, how *did* I come up with the tape over the presser foot trick for sewing vinyl?  Well, here's the story:

In the 90's, the goth/industrial dance club I frequented started hosting a fetish night once a month on the Saturday closest to the full moon.  To encourage fetishiness, they offered a hugely discounted cover charge if you came in  "fetish" attire, which included vinyl clothes.

Being the thrifty soul I am, I became determined to get myself a fetish outfit.  I found a kick-ass, hand made vinyl dress in a shop on upper Haight.  I almost swallowed my tongue when I saw the price tag -- $110!  It sort of negates the whole cover charge savings to buy a super expensive dress to wear once a month ... plus, did I mention I was thrifty?

So, as I always do, I thought, "Hey, I can make one myself!"  I went to my favorite fabric store in a basement on Mission Street and bought a simple sundress pattern, a zipper, and some black vinyl.  I bet I didn't spend more than $8.

Once I got home, I learned that you can't pin vinyl because pins leave permanent puncture marks.  Either I taped the pattern pieces to the vinyl or I traced them on the fabric-y inside of the vinyl to cut them out ... I can't remember which.  Problem Number Two was that I was very intimidated by the zipper.  And, knowing what I know now, I think I would have totally bungled it with all those bulky layers of vinyl.  I probably wouldn't have thought to just leave all the edges raw and unfolded ... which would have worked great.  Luckily the vinyl I bought was very stretchy, so I decided to skip the zipper.  I was able to slink it on and still have it be tight where it was supposed to be tight.  Problem Number Three was that when I put the vinyl in the sewing machine IT WOULD NOT MOVE.

By this time, I'd spent hours on this project and I was a little panicked.  I don't remember exactly how I came upon the tape solution, but I probably started rubbing everything in the apartment on the vinyl to see if it stuck or not.  How wonderful that the one thing that doesn't stick to vinyl is also sticky on the other side so it'll stay on the presser foot?!

I apologize for the headless photo.  I wanted to show you the dress, but OMG the only photos I have of it suck so bad.  The white haze on the right is the camera strap for crying out loud.  This one at least shows some of the details of the dress.   And ... isn't that pose embarrassing enough?  Do I have to show you my terrible looking head?  Well?  That's what I thought.  Thank you for understanding.

If you've ever tried to sew vinyl or plastic, you've discovered that the metal presser foot on your sewing machine STICKS to it like nobody's business.  

What can you do?  The solution is simple: just put a piece of tape over the bottom of the presser foot.  Really, that's it.  I used an xacto knife to cut out the bit where the needle and thread go through.  When you're done sewing the vinyl, just peel off the tape. Ta da!

I used this technique to sew a vinyl dress and to add a pocket to the inside cover of a small notebook.

Here is the progress on the purple peacock cardigan.  OK, so I thought I could make a rectangle and put a button (or something) where my hand is and have the front just sort of  hang open, but that totally won't work and these pictures show you why.  In the side view, you can see that the front points of the rectangle point down and look stretched out .  The vertical lines of the pattern bend around from the back in an unflattering way:  along my back, they curve from top to bottom (looks good), but in the front they point down and back as if being wrapped around a bulging barrel (not so good).

In the front view, you can see that the vertical lines of the pattern are pointing out in an upside down V from my hands, which gives the illusion that my gut is bursting forth and rending the the sweater in two.

The back view of the sweater looks pretty good.  Here you can see how the pattern should flare a little at the bottom edge.  There should be about two extra lines of motifs on both sides.  The flare should be mirrored in the front so the garment would hang correctly.

I knew before I made the rectangle that if I wanted it to look fitted I needed to make it hourglass-shaped, but a combination of (a) laziness and (b) hope that the pattern stitch would be super stretchy let me take the easy way.  Isn't it funny how taking the "easy way" usually ends up as more work in the long run.

This time, though, I'm sort of saved from the extra work because I realized after making this rectangle that I don't have nearly enough of the purple yarn to make the cardigan I want to make ... unless I change it to a spaghetti strap cardigan.

This won't be the end of the peacock cardigan ... or the purple yarn.  I posted the pictures to my Flickr account so I could make notes about the things I'm pointing out in this post.

Yesterday's post got me thinking.  I'm not sure why I've always been a little snobby about doilies.  Maybe it's the name, maybe it's the proper sitting-room vibe, maybe I'm just a snob.  But lately I've been seeing some awesome doily action around the web, and I'm starting to reconsider my position on doilies:

beautiful necklaces

lace and doily lampshade

cute doily earrings

a covered tree

doily dolly hair

rock babies

crochet dog and chair and other stuff

everything at the Starch It Flickr Group

cow heads

and, of course the skull-a-day doily skull  aka "skoily"

A while back I posted about starting a flower-themed granny square blanket ... and how I'd given up because there were too many ends to weave in ... and I was almost unanimously implored to keep going and just cover the ends as I changed colors.

Well, I didn't give the whole story in that post, so let's start at the beginning ...

A while back I ran across this article on decor8 about the Philadelphia Headquarters for Urban Outfitters.  If you click through, that first photo made my heart start racing!  Look at that HUGE crochet wall art!  Look at those monter-big balls of yarn!  Too cool.

Well, that image has never left my head.  I want big crochet on the wall.  YES I DO.  Eventually I took my second-to-largest hook (it's labeled "N") and made this:
Big and floppy and disappointing.  It was a round, granny square pattern from one of my books.  It just didn't work big and it really wasn't *big* enough.

My next idea was to do granny squares with flower shapes in the middle that way I could just hang the mini-blanket on the wall from a dowel.  That's when I made the square in the original post.  And, as you know, I complained about all the ends to weave in.

So, at everyone's urging, I tried again and covered my ends as I went ...
But I didn't remember what hook I used for the first one and this one came out much smaller ... plus I stared with 11 petals instead of 12 (I swear I can count, really) ... so the whole thing was a bust ... EXCEPT that covering your ends as you go *totally* works.  Too cool.  Although it doesn't work so well when you have a row like the outside green row which doesn't have a lot of stitches where your ends are.

So then I went on a hunt to find a flowery pattern that would let me easily cover my ends as I go.  This Irish crochet flower was just the thing...
The green bits on the outer row are yarn threaded through the picots where you'd join them to other flowers.  The petals are very 3-D and really look nice.  There's also a detailed article on different kinds of joining techniques in the Summer 2008 Interweave Crochet that shows how to join motifs like this.

BUT, because the petals are only attached at the base, if I hung this up on the wall, all the top petals would flop down.  Argh!!!  I feel like I've drifted *way* too far from my original inspiration.  I'm thinking I might try to find some super-huge cording and create a super huge crochet hook and make a super huge motifs like in the original photo.  If I find cord big enough, I could just use my arm as a hook, right?

And, my gift to you, since you waded through this whole post, is an Alex-style beauty shot ... not that my photography skills come anywhere close to hers.

Yay!  It's always so much fun to have a giveaway.  I loved reading about all the super-creative stuff you guys do with your printers.  You are totally ingenious!

Well, no reason to make you wait ... let's announce the winner:

Sequana

Congratulations!  Thanks again, everyone, for all your kind words and enthusiasm.  You guys are awesome!
Sorry about the premature "xxx" winner announcement this morning.  I set up the dummy post a couple of days ago, but I didn't realize I set it to publish automatically.  Oops!  

When I type, I use "xxx" as a place holder.  When I talk I use "xyz" as a placeholder.  I'd use "xyz" for both, but it's a little harder to type "xyz" than just "xxx."  It is weird to use verbal variables in my sentences?  Probably.