Winter accessories, just in time for summer

My Nessie amigurumi consumed most of my attention during the week I spent working on it, but then after finishing it I suddenly checked three other things off my list. First, I finished my semi-secret project, a pattern from Beth Doherty's Amigurumi Super Happy Crochet Cute. No pictures or details at this point because I'm thinking about making it a present, but I will say I'm happy with how it turned out. Right after that, I finished off the Eternity Scarf I started as a bus-trip project... and put it on, and promptly realized I have no idea how to wear a bulky cowl. Fortunately I have about eight months to figure it out, since this winter seems to be pretty much over.

I also finally got around to blocking something! This is my Bias scarf, which I finished in December but never wore because it needed blocking. So yes, it did take me three months to get over that small hurdle, and of course it was a pretty simple project. I do think I needed to be a little more aggressive with the blocking, because I want the scarf to look more like mesh than ribbing. But, with the ridiculous summer weather we've been having, getting a scarf ready to wear is not a priority.

And of course, I just started and finished a hat in the past few days (another project that will have to wait for next winter to get any use). More about that later.

Nessie, completed

I finished Nessie a few days ago, and mailed her off to my friend who requested her. It was a little hard to part with her - my very first, from-scratch amigurumi! Plus, since I crocheted it all in one piece, I had to put the eyes in very early on. The eyes are what turns crocheted shapes into something alive and adorable, and Nessie had eyes almost the whole time I worked on her. Very hard not to fall in love.

I wrote down the pattern as I went along, so I'm planning to crochet it again, both to test my pattern and to make myself my own Nessie. It's been very rewarding to discover that I can, after all, make my own successful amigurumi without a pattern. Since I like following directions and was pretty unsure of my design skills, I've been happy using patterns, but I've always had the sense that I should at least try to do something on my own. Now that Nessie is done, I feel more confident about trying a few ideas I've been sitting on for a while.


UPDATE, February 2015: I have decided to make my design available, free of charge, as a PDF download. You can get it on Ravelry, or download it right here! Please note that this pattern has not been tested or tech edited. It is intended for crocheters who already have some experience making amigurumi. If you have any questions, suggestions, or corrections, please contact me!

Nessie

The past few days of warm weather and blooming flowers made me feel like spring is definitely here, and now, even though it's quite a bit colder today, I still feel like I should be outside. But, I also want to be doing something productive. If I had a yard or a garden, I would be all set, but as it is, I'm inside despite the sunshine, working on a new project.

That's not to say that I'm not loving what I'm working on. A friend of mine asked me to make her a little Loch Ness monster and after trying to find a pattern that looked like what I had in mind (and could handle - we both love Hansi Singh's Loch Ness monster but I'm not up to that yet), I realized it was time for me to move away from the safety net and come up with my own pattern.

It's been a surprising process so far. I breezed through the parts I expected to find difficult, and have been stuck on what I thought would be simple for two days now. What's challenging me is getting the body to be both the right shape and the right size, which is taking more math and visualization skills than I was ready for. I think (I hope) I've got it now though!

Nothing much

Actually, I've been crocheting and knitting more than usual, because the activity that has appealed to me most this week, for some reason, has been watching Say Yes to the Dress on Netflix. Since I rarely watch tv without  wanting to do something productive with my hands, I've made unexpected progress on my crochet project (semi-secret!) and the Eternity Scarf that I started last week. I did most of the ribbing on the bus to and from New York last weekend, and now I'm watching people buying their wedding dresses in Kleinfeld's while I work on it, so this scarf has acquired a sort of Manhattan flavor in my mind.

By the time I finish it, of course, it will probably be too warm to wear it, but at this point that's a good thing... I'm ready for spring.

My first hat

Hats make me nervous. I'm not a frequent hat-wearer, so I've never been very tempted to try making one. But my sister asked me to make one for her, and I'm happy to do family requests, so after sitting down with her and Ravelry and finding a pattern she liked and pinpointing what color exactly she wanted, I started on the Phannie hat.

It's actually a very easy pattern, and the fit was pretty good the first time. But due to my hat nervousness, I had to take it out and try making it a little slouchier, then take that out because it looked weird and make it up normally again, then increase the size of the band, then decrease it, before finally deciding that I had to be done with it and the problems were with me, not the hat. I sent it off to my sister last weekend and she seems to like it. So, yay first hat! Now that I've passed that hurdle, I went out today and bought yarn for the Diamond Ridges hat. I've had my eye on it for a long time, but some of the Ravelry comments made it sound a bit intimidating. We'll see!

Finishing

Wednesday night was a night of finishing projects. First, I spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out the bind-off for an iPod sock cozy I've been knitting:

I decided back in my brief podcast phase that my iPod needed some stylish knits to wear, but it took me until this Saturday to finally get started. Although I spent half the day wrapping my head around the cast-on, after that it was amazingly quick, for my third knitted project ever. I don't love the yarn I used since it's obviously supposed to stripe for something (human) sock-sized, and only sock-sized. But, the knitting pattern is really nice. It's so nice that she included links to tutorials (although I ended up going with these instructions for the bind-off). The pattern has a bunch of variations, so I think it will be a good way for me to practice new techniques on a quick and relatively unimportant project.

After doing that, I also finished my stash-busting granny square afghan. When I was about halfway through, I wove in all my ends, so it didn't take long once I finished the last round of crochet to weave in the rest. In terms of making blankets, having it be completely done less than half an hour after you stop crocheting seems like instant gratification to me.

Panda friend

I have not yet introduced the panda friend I made over Christmas vacation:

My sister is very fond of pandas, so when I saw the teddy ornaments pattern on All About Ami, I knew I had to make her one. I used the yarn I had on hand which produced a much bigger panda than the pattern intended, so since he ended up too big to be an ornament, he is just a very round and rolly panda friend. I think he's cute.