Hat Fail = Tea-Cozy Win.

This week I tried to crochet a hat. I saw a pattern on Ravelry for a lovely diamond patterned hat. Perfect for using up some hand spun yarn I had kicking around in my yarn stash.

Sadly I ran out of yarn half way through.  I've had the yarn so long I couldn't remember what the ply was, so the hat is also too small.  Hat fail.

I was showing the failure of a hat to my sister, when she pointed out that the demi-hat was about the same size as a small teapot.  Just like the one I've been putting a big tea-cozy on to keep warm, whenever she visits.  

After a quick unravel and a few pattern adjustments, (and a little bit of swearing,) I had a new tea-cozy. 

I even had enough yarn left over to make a pom pom.  Tea-cozy win.

That's no space station...it's a robot.

Here is the project I was trying to make when I accidentally made a Death Star.  A robot.

It turns out that if you add arms legs and an oversized head to an Ultimate Weapon, you get a rather friendly robot.

This guy is made out of 8ply cozy wool with a wire armature to hold the pose.  There are also eight washers in the feet to balance out the giant head.

Unexpectedly Evil

I accidentally made a Death Star.

I was working on another project when one of the parts started looking familiar.  With the quick addition of a button I had my very own crochet Death Star.

I hope to finish the new project soon.  I just have to deal with some pesky rebels first.

Mo-Mo the Octopus

I have a Christening coming up, so I've taken a break from human amigurumi to make this cute cephalopod:

I present to you Mo-Mo designed by Tamara Bower-Snow for Roxycraft. 

Mo-Mo is made with 4ply yarn and a 2.5mm crochet hook. For the eyes, I used black felt attached with a felting needle (no tedious stitching!). The highlights were a bit tricky, small bits of felt break apart under a felting needle. Instead I embroidered two French Knots and then used the felting needle to flatten them to the eyes.  

Who You Gonna Call?

Last week I saw the new Ghostbusters movie.  It was awesome.  Before it had even finished I had decided to make the new team.  Here they are:

 Erin                                               Abby

Holtzmann                                                  Patty

These amigurumi are made using 8ply yarn and a 3mm crochet hook.  The eyes are felt and the glasses are wire covered in yarn.  Holtzman also has some acetate glued into hers for some extra colour.

Finally here is another shot of the whole team.

New Amigurumi

I was looking back over my amigurumi collection and I realised two things.

1: It is time I made my own pattern and

2: I really don't make many female amigurumi.

Here is the solution. My first ever designed from scratch amigurumi:

The most kick ass character I could think of: Imperator Furiosa.  For those of you who haven't seen Mad Max, stop reading and go see it now.  (No seriously, go now.  It's got explosions AND a story. You don't get that with your average action movie.)

For now I'm off to crochet another character.  Who to choose next?

Does this make me a Crazy Stalker Fan?

December was a big month for concerts in Melbourne and I found myself at two of them: U2 and Muse. My flatmate is a huge fan of U2 and because the tickets were cheap I went along too. It was an awesome concert, even though we were sitting in the highest row behind the stage. During the concert I had the idea to crochet the band. So with the help of some hastily scribbled notes and some photos that my flatmate took, here is the result.



A few weeks later my favorite band Muse were playing. Having already started making U2, I thought I might as well make Muse too. Of course the lead singer was wearing a suit that made him look like a human mirror ball. A really hard effect to duplicate in yarn. But after some experimentation with metallic thread, I think it turned out okay.



And what am I going to do with all these little guys? I gave U2 to my flatmate for Christmas. Muse I am keeping for myself.

Something New.

There has definitely been a Doctor Who theme to this blog. It isn't all I've been working on. In real life I'm a free-lance animator. Recently the first project I ever worked on came on TV. I was so excited to see my work on TV for the first time that I had to crochet the characters from the series.



Here they are the lead characters from Wakkaville. To see what the real characters look like you'll need to be watching channel 9 at 11.30 on Saturday morning.

Thanks again to Justin for the photo.

A Complete Set of Doctor Who Amigurumi

Here they are at last the complete set of Doctor Who re-generations. I know most of you will have seen these already. But now, courtesy of Justin I have shiny new photos, that make these guys look much cooler than they do in real life.

First Doctor - Willam Hartnell



Second Doctor - Patrick Troughton



Third Doctor - Jon Pertwee



Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker



Fifth Doctor - Peter Davison



Sixth Doctor - Colin Baker



Seventh Doctor - Sylvester McCoy



Eighth Doctor - Paul McGann



Ninth Doctor - Christopher Eccleston



Tenth Doctor - David Tennant



Eleventh Doctor - Matt Smith



A huge thank-you to Justin Foo for taking the awesome photographs. For more of his work go to his blog justinfoophotography.com/blog.

More Distractions - Show Time.

After all the baby stuff it was nearly time to submit for the Melbourne Show. With work being busy as well I didn't have enough time as I would have liked. In the end though I did manage to get one cotton doiley and one toy dalek completed.


This is the doiley I submitted. I was very pleased to be awarded third place. This photo isn't very good and the doiley seems to have sagged quite a bit. I'll have to add more starch next time.


The Dalek didn't do as well. Not surprising considering I had to enter it in the "Any Article of Crochet Not Previously Mentioned" class. To be fair he was commended. But he was beaten by two lacy table cloths and a baby blanket.


No wonder he's sheepishly hiding in the corner of the display case.

Doctor Who

The plan is to crochet miniature versions of all 11 regenerations of Doctor Who. I know it's been done before and there are heaps of patterns on the internet. But they haven't been done by me.

Anyway here are the first five Doctors.


First Doctor - William Hartnell



He's supposed to have checked pants, but the check pattern I made up came out as diagonal lines. I think the stripes are distinguished.

Second Doctor - Patrick Trouton



The first doctor to be in colour. His pants are supposed to be tartan. To do it properly I would need to make a much bigger doll. Instead I just used the different colours in alternating rows. I guess you could call it pixelated tartan.


Third Doctor - Jon Pertwee



He still needs some neck detail. Also, although this regeneration was partial to capes I don't think he ever wore one exactly like this. By the way, curly hair takes ages to sew.

Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker



This is where things got complicated. Making the head, body and jacket was easy enough. The curly hair was tricky, but I only had to do the bits around the hat. What took most of the time was the scarf. I miniaturized the pattern from *the Doctor Who scarf website*. I had to repeat the pattern twice as I messed up and the scarf wasn't long enough. It took three evenings to make, but I think it was worth it.

Fifth Doctor - Peter Davidson



Another tricky one. Mostly because I made the coat the wrong colour to start with. On the up side it meant I could practice putting the red edging on.

Time to get this thing started.

This blog is going to be a collection of things I have made in crochet. Some of the patterns are ones I have bought or downloaded, other things I made up as I went along.

Okay enough talking time to show some pretty pictures.

To start with here is something I made a few years ago.



Yes that's right it's a crochet Dalek. Not a new idea amdowns posted a pattern a few years ago. However I wasn't happy with the details so I made my own. This guy is around 30cm tall and made with 8 ply yarn and a 3mm crochet hook. It was my second attempt. I have since made several others in different colour ways.



Most recently I made this one for my brother last Christmas.