Meet Lawrence

Before I begin and get completely carried away with my crochet madness, here's a picture of that necklace in the really cute package that I told you about. Isn't that just the nicest presentation you've seen? I thought so.



Anyways, I suppose you're wondering who Lawrence is, aren't you? Well, Lawrence is the little piglet that I just finished crocheting. I used a pattern from Elisabeth Doherty's book, "Amigurumi: Super Happy Crochet Cute." You can check out her amazing work here. My little Lawrence in no way comes close to her art, but I love him. I like how (unintentionally at first) his legs and ears are a bit crooked, I think it gives him that wobbly newborn look. He's really tiny, too. He fits in the palm of my hand, well, he does extend out onto my fingers a bit, but I have teeny hands). I was very tempted to name him Wilbur after the piglet in Charlotte's Web but I thought that it would be too obvious a name for a pig (well, aside from Piglet). He took A LOT longer to crochet than I had anticipated, about four of five days. It probably would have gone faster if I wasn't watching t.v. the whole time. Plus I only learned to crochet a few months ago. So I guess that's pretty good.

I'm going to take a break from crochet for a couple of days so that I can actually study for my finals (I've got one next week and another the week after that and I've yet to crack a book). But soon I'm going to start my mom's mother's day gift. I'm going to make her a little doll that looks kinda like me. That sounds a little self-centered, but I think it'll be cute. I'm not going to attempt to crochet clothes, instead I'll make them out of old t-shirts. I'll put up some pictures when it's done (that is, if I ever get started).

My First Sampler!

I got my first Sampler in the mail today! I know, I know, many people already know about this wonderful thing so this is old news. But this is my first, so let me have my moment of indulgence. I was super excited to get the silkscreened fabric patch from Andy Eats Only Candy that I was coveting (it's the background piece). Now I just need to think of some way to use it. There was one package that caught my eye as soon as I opened the box, it contained a beautiful necklace from wabisabi brooklyn. It was in this little muslin (I think) drawstring bag with a dragonfly stamped on it. It's not in this picture for some reason, but I'll put up a pic soon to show you how pretty it was.

Presenting......My Bag!

Here's my bag! It used up only the front of the dress and I used the dress's lining to line my bag. It took me about a day to make, most of that time was spent on the embroidery. I used the dog and the cat iron-on patterns from Jenny Hart's Stitch-It Kit. Here are some close ups.

The dog is on one side of the bag and the cat is on the other. I used embroidery floss that (closely) matched light brown and the pink squares. I really like the subtle effect it creates.

I've been duoble thinking the idea I had to sell my bags on etsy. While I like my bag and plan on using it, I don't think it's good enough to sell. Perhaps I'll practice some more and then see if I improve.

When I was ironing the pattern on I forgot to put something underneath and the pattern went through and onto the bedsheets. Oh well, that's what I get for being too lazy to get out the ironing board. I actually like how that looks, if it were my bed I would put more all over. Unfortunately it's my dad's side of my parents' bed. Whoops.

Sadly, it's more Violet than Marilyn

I bought this dress on sale at Old Navy last summer because I loved the pattern and it looked really good on the mannequin. Big mistake. On me it looks like a tent. I knew this dress had to go when I wore it to school one day. As I was going down to the subway platform, two trains passed by and blew my dress up. As I'm sure you've noticed, this dress has no waistline, which made the blowing up of the dress even more awkward. Instead of it looking cute like Marilyn Monroe in "The Seven Year Itch" (you know, that typical Marilyn image in the white dress blowing up around her legs) the dress did this weird inflating thing so that I ended up looking more like Violet Beauregard in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (the girl who turns into a giant blueberry). Not a flattering look at all.

So why am I telling you this (and putting images of giant polka dot berries in your mind)? Because I am going to turn this dress into a bag. I'm thinking it'll be a hobo-ish shoulder bag with embroidery on it. I've done this repurposing before and am actually considering starting an etsy store to sell my creations. I used to make handmade gifts for all my relatives but I don't like a month of intense crafting before the holidays and then nothing else all year. I usually just wing it when I'm making something, but this time I'm going to make a pattern so that I can make more bags quickly. I'll post some pictures as soon as I'm done.

By the way, sorry the picture is so blurry, I've got a pretty crappy camera. My brother showed me how to get pictures on here (with an eye rolling how-do-you-not-know-this kind of look on his face) so there are more pretty pictures to come. Anyday now.

Welcome

First impressions count way too much. What if I'm in a crummy mood? You're going to judge me based on this one little bit of writing (or long bit, I haven't decided yet).
So, anyways......
Can you tell this is my first venture into blogworld? I'm not very well aquainted with technology, I'd rather be in the library sniffing the old books, so please bear with me as I figure out what exactly it is that I'm doing. Maybe someday I might even attempt giving you pretty pictures to look at. But not today, sorry.
Well, I've been learning to knit and crochet this past year or so, and I've decided to actually work on my embroidery, so there will hopefully be pictures of that stuff coming soon. I've got more to say on that, but I don't want to set your hopes so high that they'll come crashing down when you see my stuff.
Ummmm, what else shall I tell you? I don't really know what direction I'm going to take with my little corner of the web. Will I focus on crafts? my minature dollhouse? random musings? my cat? the weather? my crazy family? what I'm reading? I have no idea.
It's one of the first really nice spring-like days here in Toronto. This past week has been mainly dreary, drizzly depressing days. Those kind of days are only good for curling up with a good book. My book of choice for those days is The Secret Garden because it provides hope that eventually there will be sunshine again.
I suppose I've bored you enough for one sitting.
Well, good-bye.