Dinos, Dogs, and a cold

Kali and Katie ready for bed.

As you know I decided to take the week off from orders. I think it went well until I caught my father's cold. So since about Thursday I've been battling the first sickness of the season. That was also my first full day of doggie sitting in the windy city of Troutdale. While everyone was pulling up to tables of turkey dinner, I was on the couch trying to feel better. Thankfully Kali and Katie were awesome pups, glad to spend the extended weekend with them (Wednesday night through today). Lots of chilling and marathoning tv and movies on Netflix. Nothing better when you're sick than to just try to relax.

It wasn't a total bust week. I did get to make a few little Dino clad dolls. I kinda love this pattern too. I made the green/yellow one first. She is a keeper, and I do mean that. She is mine now I have claimed her. But I wanted to make a few adjustments to the pattern once I was done. Which is why I made Mr. Gray. I was happy that the adjustments worked out and I was able to make them both before I got sick.  

Adjustments:

• I decided after getting most of the first one assembled it needed a tail. So I whipped one up right fast. So glad I did. Looked off without one. The back spikes looked off before the tail.
• On Mr. Gray I decided that the body was a little fatter then it needed to be, so I reduced that a touch.
• I also widened the tummy strip too. Thought that was a bit wimpy. 
• I centered the hood design too. 
• Next was giving him actual feet. Stick legs were easy to make but bumping out the feet wasn't hard either. And looks better.
• I gave a little more of a hand. It looks more like the pattern picture now.  (The thought of thumbs came to mind but on something this small I didn't see the point.)
• And since I didn't have buttons I did yarn eyes. Which came out pretty good. Might stay with those instead of buttons in the future.

Aren't they cute!!!

~REVIEW: Dino Dayne~ 

▪ Pattern Readability - 

5 Yarn Balls. Very well written, no issues there. 

▪ Ease of Pattern - 

5 Yarn Balls. Great pattern for a beginner.
The hood is probably the hardest piece and it was easy to follow.

▪ Adjustments - 

5 Yarn Balls. Honestly you don't NEED to adjust this pattern. I just did for personal taste, cuz thats how I roll. 
 

▪ Final Product -

5 Yarn Balls. Super cute and bigger then the pictures make him look.  
 

▪ Personal -
 5 Yarn Balls. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE! First dino pattern I've come across that works. Next is to find dinosaur pattern that isn't humanized. 

▪Overall Score -

Easy math. . . .  a full 5 Yarn Balls!!

 I also started on a minion pattern but since I wasn't feeling well he barely got started. I will most certainly get back to that pattern, just might be a bit. Sad, because I thought my off week was going to be super productive. But instead of projects, I just made mucus, Eeeeewwwwww.

 Now I'm at a new pup gig, not far from the last one. This is a two weeker, came on suddenly. Rocco is a cutie, pictures next week for sure. And as I try to get over this cold I will again start on orders. That is once I pick up the yarn I need from home.

So I hope everyone else enjoyed the holiday and I'll write next week. *fingers crossed*

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Happy Crafting!

Elmo

So this week I worked on Elmo. I got frustrated by about Thursday because I ran out of red yarn and I thought I had more. So I couldn't finish him till after Saturday when I picked up more yarn. Not the biggest fan of this one. I think his head came out funny, mostly because of the open moth pattern. I think I put the eyes on funny too, but the kid getting it won't see it that way I'm sure. She'll just be happy to have her own Elmo. His nose is actually orange, the flash just washed it out in these photos. 

I cut down the original mouth pattern because I thought I was going to be too big, and it would have been. At the size I made it the moth on him was too big. I think the way the head is constructed makes it look weird after you stuff him as well. So this probably isn't a pattern I'll do very often if much at all.

I do think I could make a cute Dino out of the Head/body bit of this pattern. We'll have to see on that though. . . .  Elmo also marks the end of the Christmas orders. I still have more orders to get to, but he was the last to be finished for the holidays. So I think I'll take this week and work on something for fun. Of course I also might just get working on the rest of my orders. Who knows, I have to decided fast though. I have to pack for a house sitting gig that starts Wednesday. 

REVIEW TIME

▪ Pattern Readability - 

5 Yarn Balls. Its actually a well written pattern.

▪ Ease of Pattern - 

4 Yarn Balls. Part of the pattern for the Head/Body is a little funny. It tells you to 'increase/decrease (blank) times evenly spaced'. I hate when people write this. It makes it harder on the reader.
 

▪ Adjustments - 

4 Yarn Balls. The moth adjustment I made, plus I think this can be improved on. Just not totally sure how I should go about it yet.
 

▪ Final Product - 

4 Yarn Balls. Its cute, fairly easy pattern, and mostly accurate.
 

▪ Personal - 

3 Yarn Balls. The head on this guy really bugs me and he needed thumbs too.
 

▪Overall Score -  

4 Yarn Balls even. 

He may have scored high but like I said I'm not likely to make him in the future. At least not without making some changes. I do want to try the dino thing though. Now that could be cute.

We also did our Thanksgiving festivities early this year. With me house sitting and one of my sisters working retail, we thought it would be easier on everyone to go ahead and do it early. So a normal Thanksgiving Saturday for us around here. Hope everyone else has a good holiday and takes it easy on the Black Friday sales. No need to kill yourselves over a lousy deal (as you can tell I'm not a Black Friday fan. I just don't get the camping out and killing people to get to the door and certain item thing).

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Happy Crafting!

Experiment #626

Since Bowser was finished on Halloween, I've been working on a cowgirl rag doll and Stitch. I'm happily surprised that my orders are almost finished out. I only have one more doll to make on the Christmas orders list. But more lined up after the holidays, Wooo!!

For the Rag Doll I had to change up the leg pattern. I wanted to give her cowboy boots and took some time to modify the original pattern to fit my needs. I've said in the past, pattern making isn't my favorite and can be a really big pain, but this worked out pretty good on the first try. I also brought out the hat pattern I used on Rufus the dog back in July. I guessed on the hook size I needed to fit the doll and got really lucky. Although once I added her hair I wish I had used a bigger hook. I underestimated hair volume and had some trouble figuring out how to place the hat and how to do her hair. Live and learn I guess.

For this doll I also add a horseshoe design on the dress. I couldn't find any patches I liked that were small enough for her dress and went the rout of embroidering it myself. Not too bad for free hand. And I'm glad I had the PERFECT button for her dress too. I think this doll came out perfect and I couldn't be happier with it. I really hope my niece enjoys her new friend.

 Next we have Experiment #626 a.k.a Stitch. Our lovable outlaw alien. 

If it wasn't for this order it probably would have been a while before I got to this great pattern. I will most defiantly be making this one again, and in more colors too. I have almost no bad things to say about this pattern. Almost. 

The pattern as a whole is quite solid and I didn't notice, what I'm gonna call a typo, till I was assembling. I think the ear patterns were miss labeled and just need to be reversed. Not the biggest of deals but I made note of it for next time. Its why the pink inner ear looks lumpy. Either it was miss labeled or someone forgot to mention that the directions are in UK crochet and not US. Yes there is a difference in stitches between the two. Not sure which is right but I'm gonna go with typo. 

I also decided to make a few extra pieces with this. I started with the tummy strip. They wrote that into the body pattern but I've had issues in the past of these just coming out wonky and made the decision that a little more work was better then not being happy with the look later. And honestly it wasn't that hard to do up. They also addressed this issue in the pattern and gave a tip on how to fix it, but I just passed on that potential headache. The next two pieces came at the very end after I'd put this adorable alien together. If you've ever seen Lilo & Stitch you know he's got markings on his back. This pattern didn't have them at all and I just couldn't stand not putting them on. He didn't look right to me without them. So I took maybe the better part of an hour to make them up. They aren't perfect by any means but they are, kinda, close. This is me being super anal, again, about making things look correct when they are reproductions of popular characters.

And I love that he sits up on his own. I love this little guy.

 Review Time:

▪ Pattern Readability -  

 5 Yarn Balls. This has been one of the best written patterns I've had in a while. A+
 

▪ Ease of Pattern -  

5 Yarn Balls. This is a decent pattern for a beginner. They even give a GREAT brake down on how to assemble.
 

▪ Adjustments - 

 4.5 Yarn Balls. Honestly it was mostly because of my preferences. But the ear thing is the only knock down. And it's not even a big deal.
 

▪ Final Product -  

5 Yarn Balls. Anyone can make or have this adorable guy.
 

▪ Personal - 

 5 Yarn Balls. I'd give it a higher score if I wasn't on a 1-5 scale. And I think the makings make a difference.
 

▪Overall Score - 

 4.9 Yarn Balls. . . .  technically. We'll just call it an even 5.

It was super fun making Stitch this week. Next up we have Elmo. I doubt he'll be much of a pain, just a lot of red yarn. But you never know right?

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Happy Crafting!

Halloween is gone.... But Bowser is done!!!

So to start. . . . . .  HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! A day late but its my favorite holiday of the year so I gotta say it. Hope everyone did something fun. Be it trick-or-treating, partying, or chilling watching movies. Everyone has their own way to have fun. I did the latter and watched Doctor Who as well. I happily wore my Dino hoodie and tail I made years ago around the house all day.  (Side note: In the picture, my hair isn't actually blond. The flash just washed out the very light green. Annoying but there it is.) Easy to make any hoodie into a Dino Hoodie. I found the tutorial on Pinterest. It may be targeted for kids but I could care less. I made one for me and my brother, we love them to say the least. As for my tail, I winged a crochet tail and added matching felt from the hoodie. All I gotta do is loop a string to a belt loop on my pants and secure with a button and walla I have a tail. 

Its my go to costume if I didn't have the time or brain power to come up with anything else for the year (I usually space until the last minute. A curse but I now have my favorite stand by). Next year I kinda want to dress up as Osgood. Not sure which outfit of her's though, but I kinda want my own Baker Scarf. All the Whovian's know who Osgood is. If you don't watch Doctor Who, she is the embodiment of the fan base in one character. We ARE Osgood. 

I also finished off Bowser yesterday. Dear Lord is this guy a beast. He might not be much bigger then some of my other projects have been but he took a lot longer and was a ton more pieces than any of them. Most projects I can do in about a week as you've seen by my earlier entries here on Blogger, but Bowser took me the better part of two weeks. 

I am proud of him, although I have adjustments if I ever get a request to make him again. And with that statement we will begin the review.

 Most of Bowser's pieces are easy to make and require no adjustments. In this pattern, however there was one piece that the writer guessed on the number of rounds and essentially told the reader to crochet until you felt it was enough. This was irksome, especially since it was the shell ring (not pictured to the above), one of the bigger pieces to this creation. So I went about counting my rows till I had a tube big enough to go around the shell piece. I made sure to note this so I don't have to guess again. This was point one of bad pattern writing. 
I made an adjustment to the shell spikes that seemed like a no brainer and created less work when it came to assembly. The original pattern had the crocheter make a band of orange to go around the spikes after they were placed on the shell. I skipped that in favor of a color change on the last round. It seemed way simpler to me and honestly compared to their pictures looks just as good if a little different. My goal through out this project was to not make myself insane with the shear number of pieces involved. Which was why I opted to use felt on some of his facial features and nails. This was my first time using felt in a project and I think it made a bit of a different to how it could have looked other wise. Thumbs Up for felt!!
After the assembly of the shell I moved on to the daunting task of his jaw and head. Now the jaw its self is made of 10 pieces and is the only piece in which the writer went into some detail about assembling (helpful). And by far the only pictures of assembly that were provided. In all fairness the writer noted that they weren't the best at explaining how to put him together and said to look to the photos for placement help. This would have been just fine if the pictures weren't of about 3 angles and lacked in clarity. 

The Jaw was less difficult then I had anticipated. But I think the lower jaw would look better if it wasn't made out of three pieces, not to mention make assembly a tad simpler (me trying to make things easier on myself, again).  But it wasn't till adding the lower jaw flap, head piece, felt for the inside of the mouth, and collar that things got complicated and the directions too simple. They didn't mention where things should be attached at and left the reader to figure it out on their own. This was frustrating to say the least and cause a bit of stitching and un-stitching, then restitching. I joked that 'either I was going to bleed or get the head finished' while trying to figure the whole thing out. As you can see the head was completed and thankfully no blood was spilt. I learned a few things for next time. You must do the jaw, then the felt, head piece, stuff, and finally place the lower jaw flap. With the collar I wish it had been a tad smaller. I just think it was too big for the size of the head or you don't need the lower jaw flap.

The other helpful bit of information that was left out would have been the feet placement. It never specified which end of the leg piece they were meant to go. I believe I put them on the wrong end to start and before attaching the legs to the body decided to un-stitch them and put the feet on the other side of the leg and it looked better. Still I might try to rework the legs for the next time because I find them a bit bulky for the final product. Maybe its just me or how I put the legs on. 
I do wish that the writer had made a template for the eyes (the mouth as well), it would have made that bit a bit easier too. I ended up embroidering the iris on because I couldn't get the tiny pieces of felt to work with me. And other then them not look exactly the same, I think they came out well. 

Bowser's hair and eyebrows were about the only thing I could figure out form their pictures. They weren't very well described in the instructions. His tail and tummy strip were hardly a thought (in the instructions or in the pictures) and took some time to figure out the best placement. All in all this isn't a horrible pattern, especially if you like a puzzle.

 ▪ Pattern Readability - 

3 Yarn Balls. . . . the assembly and lack of good pictures brought this down. Any harder and the rating would be much lower.
▪ Ease of Pattern - 

 3 Yarn Balls. . . .  again it comes back to the assembling instruction. I can not stress how horrendous they were.
▪ Adjustments - 

4 Yarn Balls. . .  Most of the pieces were well written and I just replaced some with felt.
▪ Final Product - 

4.5 Yarn Balls. . . . He looks good, but maybe he could look better???
▪ Personal -  

3 Yarn Balls. . . . this would be a 4 if it was just about the final look (the legs just bug me personally). But the, at times, aggravation of this project has to factor.
▪Overall Score - 

3.5 Yarn Balls

WOW assembly dragged that score down. But thems the breaks.

So last weekend I did my first bazaar of the year and first 2 day one at that. I had some fun hanging out with one of my sisters, but it was a slow weekend for us down at the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars). This was my booth on day two. It rained really bad that Sunday too. But it wasn't a bad experience and there is always next year and other bazaars this year too.

 

Well on to the next thing on my list of orders and I should write next week with that project done. 

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and don't forget to like me on Facebook
 

Happy Crafting!