Crafty Pants!

Remember Owly? Well, he now has a buddy that is adept at hiding cottony stuff too!

Along with my cotton puffs, I use cotton swabs quite often for makeup application. So of course, I had to make myself something to hold those, too. Who wants an icky cardboard/plastic box on your counter?

I made stumpy using Lionbrand Lionsuede, which has a great texture and gives a very sturdy result. The pattern is quite easy, so here it is, incase you’d like a stump to hide your cottony treasures in:

Stumpy the Swab Stasher

Yarn: Bulky (Lionbrand Lionsuede)
Hook size: G

Special stitch: Bpdc, Fpdc

Main Stump:

1: With light color: ch 4. In 1st chain (4th from hook) dc 15. Join with sl st. (this makes a circle).

2: With main color: Bpdc around each post of each dc [15]. Join with sl st.

3: Fpdc around each post of each dc [15]. Join with sl st.

4: repeat row 3 until the stump is the height you like. Mine was 7-8 rows. Finish.

Little Branch:

1: With light color: ch 2. In 2nd ch from hook, sc 5.

2: With main color: sc in each st around until branch is the length you desire. Sew branch to stump

And that’s it! I’ll try and get the owl pattern up soon, but I want to experiment some more, possibly with felting, or using lion suede…

What secret is he hiding, sitting there on the edge of the cabinet?

Why, he’s hiding my cotton pads! I was looking for those!

I diligently use a toner every night, and I have been keeping my cotton puffs/pads in their original bag, in the bathroom cabinet. The only problem with this is that the bag is oddly shaped, and it is a bit annoying having to repeatedly open and re-seal it every night and morning. So, I experimented and made myself a cotton pad holder. The yarn was way too soft and thin, so I had to starch him with white glue. I also crocheted some wire circles to the edges to keep him nice and round. I’m thinking I want to make another go at him, but with thicker yarn so that he wouldn’t need starching or wire. I also plan on making a matching stump Q-tip holder…

So I really failed at thing-a-day… I started strong, but with a weekend ski trip, and late nights till 10pm+, I really haven’t the gumption to be creative each day. Honestly, I’ve had to save all that creative energy for work lately. But, I did use day one to complete a project I had been meaning to get around to. I LOVE my tea, but I am in reduction mode, so I refuse to buy more than three or four types of tea, and I have to finish one before I can buy another. I had three ugly tea tins that I was re-using, so I decided to cover them in some beautiful Amy Butler paper.

The brown/blue one is black tea, the pink one is red tea, and the green flower one is green tea!

The penguin is my teaboy. I LOVE him! He automatically lifts my tea from the water when the timer goes off, so I never over-brew my tea again!

Mr. Ele, the Elephant, decided he was quite unsatisfied with the gentlefolk of San Francisco. So he tipped his hat to the Golden Gate Bridge, and flew up to Seattle. No, not with his ears, silly! On a plane, of course. There, he met a a beautiful girl, whom he fell madly in love with.

But alas, he towered over her, and looked quite terrifying from her viewpoint.

Egads! He had encountered the Seattle Freeze!

Made using this pattern.

Two-point-five weeks into my life in San Francisco, and I got a great job! I’m very excited to start, but I still have a few days left of ‘vacation’. I had fun the first week wandering around. I still love to explore, but I’ve had to limit myself, because I really haven’t any moola yet. With all these amazing shops around, no one in their right mind could resist, so I had to quarantine myself. To ease my ‘new stuff’ desire, I decided to make something new.

I made it with Lion Brand Cashmere Blend, which I got on sale for 60% off. I used about 1.5 skeins, so I might have enough left over to make a matching one for a Christmas present.

Puffy Slouchy Hat
Bulky weight yarn, size K hook. For Worsted weight use a J hook

The numbers in the [] say how many stitches there should be.

Puff stitch: (YO, insert hook in next st, YO, pull up a loop) 4 times, YO, and draw through all loops on hook. (Here’s a video)

You do not have to join rounds, and this will create a spiral, and there will be no seam. Use a stitch marker if you do this, and keep the stitch count the same.

1: ch 4, 12 dc in first st, join in ch. (Just grab one loop from top of the chain. This makes the seam less visible, and this will make a circle.) [12]

2: ch 3, work 1 dc where chain is (in same st as join - ch3 counts as first dc), 2 dc in each stitch, join with sl st (remember, the ch counts as a st!). [24]

3: ch 3, work 1 dc where chain is, (work 1 dc, 2 dc in next stitch) around. Join. [36]

4: ch 3, work 1 dc where chain is, (work 1 dc in next 2 sts, 2 dc in next st) around. Join. [48]

5: ch3, work 1 dc where chain is, (work 1 dc in next 3 sts, 2 dc) around. Join. [60]

6: ch 3, 1 dc in each st around. Join. [60]

7: ch 3, 1 dc in each st around. Join. [60]

8: ch 3, 1 dc in each st around. Join. [60]

9: ch 3, puff st in same st as join, dc in next st, (puff in next st, dc in next
st) around. Join in top st of first puff. [60 sts: 30 puffs, 30 dc]

10: ch 1, (sc in top of puff, sc in next dc) around. Join. [60]
* It will look like you are skipping stitches here, but you aren’t. Just
remember, sc in top of puff, skip spot, and sc in top of dc post. Make sure you have 60 sts here!

11: same as row 9. [60 sts: 30 puffs, 30 dc]

12: sc around, same as row 10. [60]

13: same as row 9. [30 puffs, 30 dc]

14: sc around, same as row 10. [60]

15: ch 1, sc in each st around. [60]

16: ch 1, (sc in next 3 sts, dec over next 2 sts) around. Join. [48]

17: ch 1, sc in each st around. Join. [48]

18: same as row 17. [48]

19: same as row 17. [48]

20: same as row 17. [48]

21: ch 1, (slip st in next st, ch1, slip st in same st) around. Join in first sc.
Fasten off, weave in ends.

NOTE: As I mentioned in my original craftster post, I had intensely studied a pattern online. I don’t have a printer, so I tried to visualize it as a crochet chart. I have an insane memory, and graduated with a 3.98 GPA by only reading the texts the night before the tests. When I made this hat, I thought I was only being inspired, but I essentially recreated the hat. People have pointed it out, and I am very disappointed that I wasn’t being creative, I was just recalling it. SO, all accolades should go to the original author here: http://patternsbydot.blogspot.com/2005/11/bobble-beauty.html. My sincere apologies. I know it’s hard to believe, but it wasn’t intentional at all. I posted this at craftster, but I never got around to posting it here. :/

I made this stationary for the swap and thought I would share it. Just print it, cut it, and cut off the corners, and you have a fun pants-themed stationary set! I was inspired by an inside joke my boyfriend and I have, but I think everyone can appreciate the message. Although, some people might feel that the opposite is true! ;P
Here is the printable stationary:

Over at Craftster  I finally decided to participate in a swap. I chose the newbies only swap because it would be the perfect introduction to swaps.  My partner liked Nintendo and had a sense of humor so here are the things I made:

Crocheted Boo:

Gnome, Mario Mushroom and Boo. These guys are made from polymer clay and the gnome is about an inch tall:

Hand carved stamp:

Stationary. I made magazine envelopes to go with too:

Everything together:

I also made a wooden ring for her, which is not pictured. It is the beech wood with beeswax finish, like the ones available in my shop.

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I’m still inspired by my roommate. She bought the cutest mini garden gnome (it came with a book, too!) and I couldn’t resist. I had one very small block of white sculpty so I made the gnome a mushroom. But then I decided he needed another gnomey friend.

The guy on the left was my first try. I found it was far to hard to add detail on a 1 inch tall guy when all you have is a pencil. So, I made the guy on the right and painted the detail. His nose is lumpy because he got punched in the face. Actually, it’s because I couldn’t get it right and painted over it too many times!

What should their names be?

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I don’t really discuss my shop often because I consider it more of my art than my crafts. But I do have to share the new wood that we bought. It’s called Mozambique, and it has a stunning wavy grain. It’s really hard to get a picture that really does it justice…

Etsy :: Exotic Mozambique Wood Ring

This wood is what inspired us to find a good food-grade polyurethane to use on our rings, because the wax really hid the gorgeous grain. We made samples of all our previous rings with the poly finish, and posted them. They really turned out quite nice if I do say so myself:P

We also bought one more kind of wood, but the samples are still in progress. I’d count all these in with my 50 in 2007, but that would feel like cheating!

My super wonderful roomie and I got into a little innocent trouble. We stenciled a wee gnome, and thus there are gnomes spray painted all over the property. Don’t worry, we didn’t do it anywhere that caused damage. Just head scratches (”Why is there a gnome on the garbage can?”). I’ll take pictures on a sunny day:P

I discovered she has a thing for gnomes, even though she’s never heard of David the Gnome! So, I carved her a little stamp so she can have gnomes wherever she goes! It’s only about 1.5″ tall, and I’ll tell you, making sure I didn’t accidentally remove his little itty bitty eyes was a true test of my motor skills… I think I’ll make a set of stationary with him and give it to her as a set!

The first picture is my pencil sketch, and the second is the stamp:

Sketch vs. Stamp

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