theknittycat's tips & techniques

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!!

2011-12-24T13:29:00.000-08:00

Much Joy!

Many Blessings!

Wishing all the joys of the season to all of you,
from theknittycat and Mr. theknittycat

Grover / Super Grover for D's Birthday 2009(?)

2011-08-16T12:32:00.000-07:00

Wheeee! Super Grover flies again!!

Smarter than a Speeding Bullet!

"onward and upward to do brave deeds.... up up and awaaaay...."

Look someone needs help!

This is a job for

Super Grover!

Up up and away!

But first I have to hold Mother's hand to cross the street

...................

I'm still craftless, with hands wrapped like mummies now, but my poor Hub needed a Peep for his birthday. What could I do?

I had made Grover / Super Grover for him two years ago, but Grover was packed up (along with the other peeps) when we made a temporary forced move, because our place was being re-roofed. Soooo ... I unpacked him and he flew in to sing Happy Birthday to my Hub! ;o)

"Happy birthday to youuu

happy birthday to youuuuuu......."

Grover was made much like Elmo and Cookie, but with facial features added. I hadn't intended to make an open mouth, but after knitting him up like the others, I just felt he NEEDED that big jaw. So unlike the all-in-one-piece method I used to make the open-mouthed Stitch and Sackboy, since this was an afterthought, I made the jaw separately, sort of a watermelon wedge shape, and sewed it on. His red mouth is an i-cord, sewn to the jaw. I also added a kind of flattened sausage shape for his upper lip, and two little sausages for eyebrows.

This was definitely more work than using the flap /loopy legs technique for the mouth while knitting the head.

Grover mugging in mug shots. ;o)

Isn't that a cute little belly?!

His mouth is flexible and can be posed.

Super Grover's emblem is one of my few felt efforts (because I'm not good at that), and is attached to the cord of his cape, so that it's gone when he is in his secret identity of Grover. :o)

Making his helmet was interesting as I remember, but it was two years ago so I don't remember much. :o/ I knitted the helmet, but crocheted the visor so it would have more body. I do remember that I crocheted the visor sideways.

You might observe that the visor is a bit flattened in some photos. That happened while he was packed away and I didn't notice till after I took most of the pics. Easily fixed though. :o)

close-ups of helmet

My hub and I were really happy to see Grover Peep again! Yay! And now he gives us smiles every day. :o)

You may be seeing more of the peeps who were packed away in future posts.

Fuzzy Brushed Amigurumi and how they got that way

2011-07-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

A Short History of Fuzzy Brushed Amigurumi (crocheted and knitted toys)

In response to a question asked regarding my post of Fuzzy Hello Kitty, I mentioned the history of the Brushed Amigurumi Technique. There was a little confusion (lack of clarity on my part) and the commenter thought it was my technique, but no, I'm not so clever as that. ;o)

(I've noted here my recollections which I have verified as best as I can with net research.)

Who's on first?

As I remember, my first encounter with this idea was in 2007, the first year I was making amigurumi. Wibit, aka Roman Sock had made a fabulous Pomeranian, and described her method of getting that marvellous furry effect by brushing mohair, or mohair blend yarn with a wire pet slicker brush.
http://littlegreen.typepad.com/romansock/2007/09/my-pomerianians.html
http://littlegreen.typepad.com/romansock/2007/09/free-to-a-lovin.html

Roman Sock's adorable Crocheted and Brushed Pomeranian

You can get the free pattern here:
http://littlegreen.typepad.com/romansock/files/pomeranian.pdf

Roman Sock posted a tutorial on how to brush crocheted fabric, including the results with several types of yarns, here:
http://littlegreen.typepad.com/romansock/brushed-crochet.html

The Next Mentions of Using a Pet Slicker Brush

The next mention of this amazing brushed yarn technique, that I remember seeing, was from Roxycraft, who has a terrific photo tutorial on how to achieve a fuzzy look with ordinary yarn and a slicker brush.

---link to Roxycraft's photo tute ---

http://tamiesnow.typepad.com/roxycraft/2009/06/tutorial-making-brushed-amigurumi.html

And later she did a crochet-along for a very cute fuzzy panda, with video tutorials.

(sorry, that pic won't post - click on the first link to see the panda)

--- links to Roxycraft's crochet along and video tute ----
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/09/crochet-along_fuzzy_panda_amig.html
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/09/crochet-along_lesson_one_-_the.html
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/09/crochet-along_lesson_two_-_ass.html

And there was also chezmichelle's fuzzy critters and information. Possibly around mid 2008? Around the same time that I saw Roxycaft's, or maybe a couple of months before. The wee fellow directly below was crocheted with bamboo yarn, which chezmichelle said gave an excellent result.

Link to chezmichelle and her cute free patterns here:
http://www.suncatchereyes.net/Fuzzball.html

Unfortunately, like many of us who had blogs on vox.com, chezmichelle lost hers when vox disappeared and much of her info seems to be unavailable.
(except for a few bits and pieces, without photos, through the wayback machine's web archive http://www.archive.org )

P.S. to the vox.com issue - I did transfer my blog to blogspot.com - I have never had the time/energy to fix the look of the early posts, whose formatting got rather messed up in the process of the transfer. But at least the content is all there.

What kind of yarn fibers work well?

It seems as though you can use this brushing technique with most yarns, but best to test your yarn by brushing a swatch before starting a project. Some will work better than others. I've seen wonderful results from wool, bamboo and acrylic yarns, and I'm sure other fibers will work well also. Cotton yarn may not yield the results we want, but I haven't tried it so can't say for sure. I've used Caron's Simply Soft, Vanna's Choice and Bernat Softee Baby, acrylic yarns, and all worked well. I'll post a wee limbless kitty soon (hopefully) that I made with Simply Soft. The outcome was very soft and silky. Vanna's Choice came out wonderfully fluffy and fuzzy (see my Fuzzy Hello Kitty).

It's very simple to do, and really magical! :o) A very nice crocheted or knit amigurumi suddenly becomes a fuzzy, furry, cuddly softie! Okay, maybe not suddenly, it's a bit of work to get it to a really fuzzy state, but it's still like magic to me! :o)

xposted to weloveamigurumi.livejournal.com and theknittycat.blogspot.com

Ewok to Baby Wookie for John's birthday, April 2011

2011-07-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

"I have always held a secret belief

that Ewoks are actually …..

...... Baby Wookies"

Before all of my fellow Star Wars fans get mad ....

Just Kidding!! heh heh

......

...................

.........

While making this little guy, I thought that his pre ears/helmet look was so cute that I didn't want to sew the helmet/ears on, so I made them removable. And he DOES remind me of a wookie! ;o)

This was my freehand version of the crocheted ewoks that I've seen on the net including chiwaluv’s cutie
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chiwaluvchis/4512124020/
- there's a popular pattern available here:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/62785763/pattern-for-ewok-star-wars-mini

I crocheted him with with TLC Amore, a fuzzy boucle yarn, which is what decided me to use plain yarn and BRUSH Fuzzy Hello Kitty! Yeesh! I thought it was challenging to KNIT with fuzzy yarn!! But when you’re crocheting, you can’t see the STITCHES!!

Since I can't craft at the moment because my hands are healing (hopefully), I thought I'd post a few of the peeps I've been making, and have made in the past, who have been so woefully neglected because I never have a chance to stop knitting/crocheting, long enough to do any posting! ;o) I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as my Hub and I do.

Lucy's Fuzzy Hello Kitty

2011-07-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

Yet another Hello Kitty

Lucy's Hello Kitty

My most recent and hopefully my last Hello Kitty. Not that I don't think that HK is adorable, I just don't like working with so much white. By the time I finish that big white head I'm pretty bored with white yarn! ;o)

This one was made for Lucy and Baby MaryJane on the occasion of Lucy's birthday in May. :o) She has a little music box button inside that plays Brahm's Lullaby when you squeeze her tummy. :o)

You can hear the little music button playing here in this little video I made.

(little meaning simple, not small unfortunately)

(yeah, I know - I'm no budding cinematographer. Heh heh)

Lucy's Hello Kitty was crocheted with Vanna's choice yarn, just a plain acrylic (but nice stuff), and then brushed with a wire brush to make her all fuzzy! In the white areas I held two yarns together, adding Lion Brand Microspun for a little shine, but when she was brushed you couldn't really see the Microspun.

Here she is before fuzzing up. I had just brushed one foot for a bit, at that point, to try out the technique.

It's really amazing how well that works. I purchased a small dog slicker brush, but an even better tool that I used a lot is something called a nap riser brush, which I purchased here from knitting-warehouse.com. It's like a mini slicker brush that you slide over a finger. It lets you get into small spaces and you have a lot of control.

It does take some work to get this effect but I find working with fuzzy yarn to be challenging with knitting, and crazy-making with crochet! So fuzzing up plain yarn after I've knitted or crocheted a peep is an interesting alternative.

What amazes me is that after all that brushing and fuzzing, very little fiber actually came off of the yarn. I've tugged on the fibers and they seem very secure still.

Did you know that Hello Kitty has a tail?! She DOES! I didn't know that till I did my picture research for this one. And this is the fourth one I've made! I just never noticed before. Yes I know she's a kitty, but she's kind of a humanistic kitty. And besides, I'm kind of notorious for leaving off tails! heh heh But Lucy's HK has a tail!! Hurray!

More pics in my flickr photo stream.

http://flickr.com/knittycat

As some of you might remember, I injured my knitter mitts (hands) in my crazy Christmas marathon, and have been crocheting my peeps for awhile - okay that's been interesting and I've learned some tricks. :o) But being a knitaholic, I am really missing knitting them. Well, a couple of weeks ago ... Ummm this is embarrassing ... I overdid with the crocheting, and now I can't do ANY crafting!!! Eeeek!! Making peeps keeps me sane.... Now what? Heh heh. My hub has suggested learning to knit with my toes. Heh heh

Hmmm. I think he's scared. ;o)

Since I'm so behind in posting my peeps, I've got plenty of them waiting in the wings, and I may find time to put up a couple more of my adventures in crocheting them, while waiting for my hands to heal up enough to allow me to work on them some more.

I hope that everyone is enjoying the new weloveamigurumi community theme and their summer!

(xposted to weloveamigurumi and theknittycat's tips)

Froggie Frogmorton the Froggie Peep

2011-05-04T13:08:00.000-07:00

Yay! I actually made something during a weloveamigurumi (live journal group) ami-along that fits the theme!! :o)

As part of my Spring Birthdays/Easter crunch, I have several gifts still in progress for my Hub's sister and Mum, in Scotland. (They're late, but they're used to getting their peeps from me late. It's now a tradition. ;o) There are so many people to make things for and just not enough hours in the day!)

I finished this froggie on Saturday, just under the wire for the "in-the-pond" ami-along! WooHOO!! Okay, I know, I know - the rule in WLA is that it doesn't matter if you post items that aren't related to an ami-along, and it DOESN'T! But it's exciting anyway! Ha Ha! And I'm still making Octo-Buns (more about those later) - so I'm right in time for THIS month's under-the-sea ami-along!! *does the happy dance*

And yes, I AM easily amused. ;o)

Frogmorton in Motion

Frogmorton is my very first crocheted frog! And my first not-KERMIT frog!
(knitted Kermie's are here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/knittycat/tags/kermit/ )

Froggie Frogmorton in his little lotus flower bed/tub

I'm still unable to knit (with my sore mitts), and being less adept at crocheting ami's (and slow as molasses at the moment), I'm sticking to simple shapes. ;o) Happily, there are LOTS of cuties to be made with simple shapes!! (I've written a post all about my crocheting adventures and why I'm crocheting my peeps at the moment, but haven't had a chance to post it yet)

Frogmorton with his very yellow bath pouf

My Hub's sis loves yellow and orange!

Frogmorton in my hand

He's kind of ticklish. ;o)

Frogmorton collage

He LOVES a bath with his fuzzy yellow pouf! :o)
(the pouf is also a ring - so you can always keep it handy in case you have an emergency need for a teensy weensy bath pouf. heh heh)

Doesn't he look like a teddy from the back? hee hee
That was a surprise!

The bottom left of the collage shows him with a photo of my inspiration
(on my iTouch - iPhone without the phone)

He's based on this adorable design by LuvlyGurumi

her pattern is here:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/72851232/froggy-gurumi-crochet-pattern

I didn't work from her pattern (I always work freehand) but it's the same frog. Totally her design. I came across her brilliant designs a while back, and have always wanted to make knitted versions of them. They're sooo adorable!!! Love love her lambie!! And her lion, with a bonnet-mane (!), is just too cute!!! :o) And the other day I saw that she also has the cutest BUMBLEBEE!! And she has a wonderful bunny and pup too! Oh sooo much cuteness!

LuvlyGurumi's store with LOTS of adorable patterns is here:
www.etsy.com/shop/LuvlyGurumi

I'm looking forward to getting back to knitting my peeps, but in the meantime, I'm having fun crocheting them now! Hurray! :o)

HAPPY EASTER! HAPPY SPRING! and Mimi the Eggy Peep in her Hot Air Balloon

2011-04-22T15:30:00.000-07:00

Meet Mimi the Eggy Peep in her Egg Cup and ....
flying in her Hot Air Balloon! :o)

Mimi the Eggy Peep in her Egg Cup

I'm so sorry that I've been so swamped with making gifts for Easter and the many April birthdays in our family, for the past couple of months, and haven't been able to post anything! I have still to write up the last installment of my Christmas peeps, and so many more peeps that I haven't had time to post.

After my "knitting injuries" from my far too zealous Christmas knitting, I've been *gasp* crocheting my wee peeps! Oddly, at the moment, it hurts less to crochet than to knit! But I have to take it slowly. And I've been gaining even MORE respect and admiration for the amazing creations that my crocheting amigurumi-making (toy-making) friends come up with all the time, than I already HAD! I'm finding it a lot harder to crochet ami's than to knit them ! Eeek! heh heh (even though I've been crocheting other things than toys for YEARS!) But I'm happy to be crocheting them till I can knit again. I do have to stick with simple shapes, though. No teensy limbs!!! ha ha! I tried! ;o) I've actually written up two posts chronicling my foray into crocheting toys but haven't yet had the opportunity to get the photos posted and finish them. So that's something to look forward to. ;o)

I'll be posting more of my simple crocheting efforts soon. I just HAD to get these pics of Mimi up right now, since my Hub and I got such a kick out of playing with her while taking them! I hope you'll take a peek at the "Screaming Mimi" video we made. heh heh

and Mimi with her Hot Air Balloon!

Wheeeeeeee!

Video of Screaming Mimi Taking a Ride is here!
(be sure to have your sound turned on... hee hee)

I got this idea from a photo of an adorable design by "Crocheting Crab"

Who has a free pattern here!

I didn't use a pattern but I've made notes of making Mimi in her eggcup so I may have a pattern in the future (you're on your own if you want a balloon like mine, though, heh heh)

We're wishing you all a beautiful and Blessed Easter and

HAPPY SPRING!!! :o)

Betty Baby Bot - Crafty Christmas 2010

2011-01-12T11:27:00.000-08:00

=^..^=

Baby Bot and Maria Teresa - My Crafty Christmas 2010
- Or how to poorly plan your holiday crafting. Part 2.
(see Part 1 with Hello Kitty in Kimono here)

Betty Baby Bot

Baby Robot for Mia's Christmas

When I saw this super cute crocheted doll, designed by kandjdolls I just loved her! (a frequent reaction I have to their adorable designs - see the Hello Kitty in Kimono inspired by another of their designs) and I wanted to use her as inspiration for a knitted doll.

precious crochet pattern by kandjdolls here

(what has this got to do with a Baby Bot?
Well... be patient, it all connects together... eventually heh heh)

She was to be a fun and colorful, no-deadline project, to clear my head after making Stitch and several other requested peeps. I had made her first booted foot and leg when I found out, in late October, that I needed to make a bunch of gifts for Christmas - so after my initial panic at the time frame, I thought - cool! I have one started! And since time was so short (only two months before the holiday!!!), starting with her seemed like a good idea.

It wasn't.

I can make larger and more elaborate peeps for birthdays because there are fewer items to make at a time, but at Christmas, because there are too many to do, I don't make gifts - except for wee ornamenty sized ones for the kids, as time permits.
(see examples of these wee Christmas peeps)

What made me think I could make more and larger ones this time with only two months to do it in?!

So back to the doll foot...
On I went, happily knitting away at this doll (alongside other projects of the needed gifts, including Hello Kitty in Kimono), days were going by, weeks were going by, when I realized that I was making her way too large for the time I had available!

So I stopped there, put her aside and made smaller and simpler projects that I could complete in the time I had.

End of fairy tale.

Heh heh

Nope. That's not what I did. I stubbornly continued working feverishly on her, alongside the other projects needed. For weeks.
*sigh*

As Christmas drew closer, I grew more and more panicky when I saw how far behind I was.
So then I cut my losses and made something simpler.

Nope.

I kept trying to get this doll, now known as Maria Teresa, made!

About two weeks before Christmas I was working on creating the elaborate hair that I had decided to put on her (*sigh*). and realized that it was going to be 3 to 4 more days of hard work, with a bunch of other projects still needing to be completed. And much worse than that, although my Hub and I both loved how she was turning out, she was going to be way too delicate for our very active wee niece.

Aaaarrrgggghhh!!!!

(I don't normally like to show these peeps before they're finished, but after telling you so much about her, it didn't seem fair not to let you see what I was talking about. So please forgive her mussy state.)

Maria Teresa unfinished

She's a large peep! For me, anyway, at 12 inches

Size I prefer making

So, suddenly, at that late date, I had to make something else! And quick! I couldn't get waylaid and wander off into another lengthy project! Something with simple shapes which I could use thicker yarn to make, rather than the fine stuff that I usually use. Looking through my stash of inspiration pics, and trolling the net for ideas, I chose to make a knitted version of these super adorable, cutie crocheted robots! (apparently from a Japanese crochet amigurumi book Amigurumi Collection Vol. 6 by Uzunotsuke - here Also available from some sellers on etsy.com - search for the book title)

This photo of the beautiful one crocheted by masakiti was the one that inspired me, but there are a number of them around.

masakiti's inspirational robot

That worked out great! Betty Baby Bot was born! (Hurray! Finally I got to the point!)

Pushing her buttons and Tuning her in

My Hub and I really LOVED her!! So much that I plan to make a mini version for him! :o) And she was a great hit with our wee niece!! Yay!! She immediately grabbed Betty (or Baby Bot as we call her) and ran around with her, swinging her by a leg, or an arm as she played. Yep. Maria Teresa wouldn't have survived. Heh heh. But Baby Bot was happy as a clam! Yay!

Maria Teresa's fate is still undetermined. She still needs that 3 to 4 more days of hard work, putting together and sewing her hair, and I'm loaded up with belated Christmas projects (pushed back because, even working day and night - with several all-nighters - I still ran out of time). She may go to someone else, or maybe she’ll be saved for Mia when she's a bit older (or, my Hub says, maaaybeee, we'll just keep her! heh heh).

Baby Bot was a fun project (or would have been without the time crunch) and I tried out a mix of yarns that was quite successful. I needed to make these projects from my stash, not a big hardship considering its size, but since I needed this to be much faster than my usual knitting, I also needed worsted weight, not baby yarn! That, I don't have much of. For her stripey legs and arms, I did have some Bernat Berella 4 in baby colors, leftover from my years of charity baby blanket knitting. For the minty part of her (everything but arms and legs), I held two strands of baby yarn together. It worked so much better than I expected!!

Using 1 strand of Bernat Softee Baby Mint and 1 strand of TLC Baby in Powder Pink Sparkle, I knit her on size US 4 needles. Tight. (5's would have been better but they were somewhere in projects and I didn't have time to look for them.) I was really pleasantly surprised at how the fabric came out. You'd never realize it wasn't one strand, and I LOVED the effect of the subtle variations in color that it created! Definitely want to try more of this kind of combo! And I was very pleased with how her mouth turned out... I wanted it to look like that transistory-wirey stuff and I just made several long skinny yarn knots on one length of yarn (actually two strands tied together) and stitched it down in a mouth shape. (See my yarn knot eyes tutorial for info on how to make knotted yarn eyes and other things.)

She's flawed of course. Especially since I knit her in 5 days (plus the time to put on her face) instead of 2 or 3 weeks, as it would have normally taken me for a simply shaped peep that size. But despite her flaws, we love her. (and apparently so does Mia) :o) And she's a really good hugger!

Still more of My Crafty Christmas 2010 in upcoming posts... Bet you can't wait!! ;o)

Hello Kitties in Kimonos!

2011-01-08T09:09:00.000-08:00

=^..^=

Last post was all about my Hello Kitty in Kimono,

Cutee Hello Kitty!

and after showing my HK to my very dear friend, Chiwaluv, she said that she was inspired to make one as well! COOL! I love to inspire! It's like a domino effect - thereseguzman and kandjdolls inspired me, and then Chiwaluv is inspired by my inspired creation... how many more will join the group? :o).

I just have to share Chiwaluv's wonderful (freehand) creation!!

Chiwaluv's Hello Kitty in a Kimono

Isn't she beautiful?! (see more here) What beautiful clothes! And I absolutely adore those SHOES!! Cutest little feet I've seen on a peep / amigurumi / softie.

Sooooo... I'm not writing up any pattern for my HK but, as Chiwaluv writes LOTS of patterns, maybe we can cajole her into writing one for a knitted Kimono Kitty!! ;o)

Check out all of her other patterns! Both knit and crochet. She's wonderfully prolific and the cuteness knows no limit! :o)

Next post - more of my poorly planned Crafty Christmas 2010. ;o)

Hello Kitty in Kimono - Crafty Christmas 2010

2011-01-04T17:06:00.000-08:00

=^..^=

Hello Kitty in Kimono for Jennea - from my Crafty Christmas 2010

I put in a sneak peek of Hello Kitty in my last post (for New Year's Eve).

A very simple animation. :o) But this post will give you the full intro.

When I was getting my HK photos ready to upload to my photostream on flickr, I noticed that if I put a few of them together, it made her move, and even bow (just a happy accident) ... I couldn't resist! I just had to animate her. ;o)

Isn't that FUN?! I love animated gifs! :o)

Hello Kitty in Kimono for Jennea

(holding still for her closeup)

a better view of her sleeves, and from the back

How to Poorly Plan Christmas Crafts
HK in Kimono is one of the multitude of projects that, two months ago, I suddenly, and unexpectedly, found that I needed to make for Christmas. Since time was very short, I very cleverly designed projects that were much larger and more involved than my usual ones! arrrgh! And I'm not a speedy peepmaker!

size of HK in Kimono compared to
my first HK for Nicole

(from my first year of peepmaking, 2007)

So after making this "brilliant" plan and working like a madwoman for weeks, nearing the deadline I realized that the peep I had been working on for a good portion of that time (several weeks) turned out to be inappropriately delicate for her intended recipient, our lively, and very young niece, Mia. So approaching the last minute, I had to start all over with another project for her! (you'll be introduced to her replacement, Betty the Baby Bot in another post). It happens that I totally LOVED what I wound up making for her (and so did she), but it would have been much more fun to have made it more leisurely.

It's been very challenging, but, working night and day, I got MOST of the projects done. (yeah. I do NOT recommend crafting this way - made me really sick) My Dear Hub's Piglet got postponed till after, and so did the Meowth for our wonderful nephew, who sweetly offered to let me make his after Christmas, so I wouldn't be so pressured. :o) Wasn't that a lovely Christmas gift? I made him a simple thing (the pokemon character, Electrode - a red and white ball with a face) to tide him over till I make Meowth, and so he'd have something to open from us on Christmas Day, and now I'm off to make a tiny Meowth! ;o) And finish Piglet... and make my Hub yet another Lambie!! He LOVES those lambies! heh heh

Peeking at Peeps
Here's a peek at the projects I made for Christmas (all made in 2 months - there were four more, but those had already been sent to Scotland when I took this photo). Please forgive the poor quality of the photo. I was in such a hurry at that point that I'm just grateful to have any pics at all! Their individual photos are better, and I'll be sharing those in future posts.

a wee peek of the group on the couch, waiting to be packaged up for gift giving

- toys for the kids and ornaments and earrings for the adults.

(yes, I did a lovely job of composing. I especially love the disordered mass of ornaments. ick.)

The gifts consisted of

5 large peeps:
Betty Baby Bot, Lizabeth Cuddle Lambie, Rosalie Flying Piglet, HK in Kimono, and Maria Teresa, the large doll that Baby Bot was replacing (who still needs her hair sewn on before she becomes a gift).

4 medium peeps
to Scotland (not in photo)
Elmo (who was actually finished in October), Dorothy Goldfish, Goldfish "Bowl", and Mirabelle Mousie

3 small peeps:
Terence the Terrapin, a Christmas tree with Santa sack, and the Blue Guy from the HTC cell phone commercials (my Hub loved those commercials, and that little guy!)

and 13 ornaments for the adults
No, your eyes don't deceive you. There are only 9 ornaments in that photo. I made 4 more after I took that pic. (They look a lot prettier when they're not mushed up in a mass! heh heh)

Plus 4 pairs of crystal earrings.

Whew!

And now some background about Hello Kitty in Kimono! Finally! :o)

My Inspiration
I was inspired to make this peep when I saw this adorable amigurumi Kimono Kitty

made by http://therese-guzman.blogspot.com/

from a Kimono Kitty pattern written by kandjdolls. (brilliant designers, by the way!).

http://www.kandjdolls.etsy.com http://ravelry.com/people/kandjdolls

http://flickr.com/kandjdolls

The Kimono Kitty was crocheted, and of course I'd be knitting mine, but that's not a problem since I was only using the photo as inspiration. (as most of you know, I knit everything freehand, without patterns.)

Although flawed, I'm quite pleased at how HK in Kimono turned out. I made her in Jennea's favorite color, purple! And Jennea, a big HK fan, loved her! :o) Yay!! If I'd had more time I'd have liked to make an accessory for her. I was thinking that a parasol would be super cute! So if I ever have some spare time for it ... Yeah. Sure. Heh heh

Eyes and How Not to Make Them
I had some trouble making HK's eyes satisfactorily, and have discovered that Lion Brand Microspun is NOT a good choice for knotted yarn eyes (see my yarn knot eyes tutorial). Since it’s so loosely spun, the knots don’t cohere into a “fused” ball, but separate. Soooo… back to the drawing board.

Since her eyes are oval and I didn't have any glass eyes in that shape, I resorted to a new method that, recently, I’ve been utilizing on occasion - flattened knitted ball eyes. I made a pair with Red Heart Lustersheen (a very light sport or fingering weight yarn), and those worked just fine. This is the first time I’ve made oval ones instead of round ones, but it wasn’t a problem. :o)

One more thing to add before I close...

No Pattern Available but Hints on How to Make Her
Several people have already asked me for a pattern for this knit Kimono Kitty, but I made no notes at all while knitting her (I was in too much of a hurry to stop and write what I was doing), and I won't be writing anything up for her. But she is made up of very simple shapes;

Two tubes for her legs, a tapered tube for her body and kimono, and wide flattened tubes for her sleeves (stuffing a narrow tube shape at one end of each sleeve for her arms), with white balls on the ends for paws (or you could make whole white arm tubes and tuck them into one side of each sleeve). And a rounded 3D rectangle for her head - kind of a shallow box shape. It should really be a bit more squared than I made it - similar width to height, I was so focused on not making it round that I made it a bit wider than I should have, but I still love her. :o) And rounded triangles for ears.

That, of course isn't quite the way I made her since I hate to sew bits together. Except for her arms, she's all one piece, and her paws are one piece with her arms.

More Posts?
I'm really hoping to make time to post more often, and get caught up on sharing my backlog of finished peeps. They feel very neglected not to have had their day on the blog! They will most likely be posted as the whim takes me, and not in chronological order, but that doesn't really matter anyway, does it.

We hope that you all had a lovely holiday (I hope you planned your crafty gifts better than I did!!).

We wish you the happiest new year ever! :o)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! and HK in Kimono in motion...

2010-12-31T10:06:00.000-08:00

Wishing you all a wonderfully Happy New Year!

Filled with LOTS of amigurumi and Peeps!! :o)
with Love from theknittycat / Shar and Mr. theknittycat / anthor

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-27T03:11:00.000-08:00

We wish you a very Merry Christmas
and all the joys of the season!
with love from theknittycat (Shar) and Mr. theknittycat (anthor)

I know, I know, I'm late! I'm so sorry. Busy finishing last minute Peeps!! ;o)

And Happy Holidays to All! :o)

Pattern Notes for Stitch - Lilo's Friend

2010-10-05T18:01:00.000-07:00

^..^

Oh, YEAH?! Just try and MAKE me!

As requested, I'm making my pattern notes for Stitch (of Lilo and Stitch) available.
(for more pics and Stitch's story, please see previous post)

This isn't a complete pattern, but most of it is there and I've spent the past few days cleaning it up and filling in some of the blanks. But it is still an incomplete and untested pattern. But it's free so I guess you're not risking much. ;o)

I won't be making another Stitch, so I won't be bringing this to any further level of completion, but if you find any glaring errors or come up with improvements that you'd like to share, please email or comment and I'll pass the info on. :o)

You'll find the link to the PDF for Stitch's Pattern Notes on my patterns page. You can click on the “Patterns and Tutorials” link at the top of this page or just click here.

Stitch is knit in the round (I used two circular needles) and his torso, 4 arms, and head are knit in one piece. Legs, ears, eyes, nose and color patches are knitted separately. There are no seams. I would not suggest this for a beginning knitter. But determination is a wonderful thing. :o) I have included links for tutorials for some of the techniques I use.

I know that some of you totally enjoy these larger projects (Yesterday, I saw an etsy listing for a crocheted Mickey Mouse, and a Snoopy too, the size of a 10-year-old child!! WOW!), but since I really dislike making these larger ones, I have promised myself to make only the smaller peeps from now on. The larger ones take so much time, and I don't like to devote so much of my time to one project. There are sooooo many more peeps that I want to make, and that I have on my list as requests, So this was my last of this size. It was a labor of love for our nephew.

Back to the wee peeps! Yay!

Oh, my fingers are itching to knit another Hello Kitty ...
I'm just dying to make one after seeing a totally adorable crocheted one that K and J Dolls has available! But I have too many other peeps that I need to get to, so I don't know when I can squeeze her in. Drat!

Here's my one and only Hello Kitty, made in my early days of toy knitting (made for an adult - thus the bead bling).

The one by K and J is just wonderful! I love their designs! If you crochet your creations (I don't, because of hand issues), and if you work from patterns (I don't do that either), you should definitely check them out!

A last note... I'm just finishing up a new pattern for Elmo (it will be for Cookie also), using a more standard toy knitting approach than my original doubleknit pattern. Though the original was easy to do, and it was fun to use the doubleknitting, I really prefer the results of doing it this way. It's neater all around. The stitches are tighter and you have better control over the increases and decreases. (doubleknitting by nature is looser because of the slipping of stitches) I'm just finishing making one more Elmo using the pattern (another request, but a good opportunity to test the pattern again) and then I'll post it.

Okay, I know you want to know where to find that giant crocheted Mickey Mouse pattern! Heh heh.
He's here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Chonticha
along with a bunch of other wonderful designs! Including a super adorable crocheted Lilo AND Stitch pattern! This designer is so talented!

And here's the link for K and J Dolls' Hello Kitty,
http://kandjdolls.blogspot.com/2010/09/kimono-kitty-by-theresa.html
and to the rest of their patterns. I just love everything they do!
http://kandjdolls.blogspot.com
http://kandjdolls.etsy.com/

Oh, pfui! In getting the links, I just read that they’ve had to take down their HK patterns due to a complaint by Sanrio. :o/ Well, you can still use the photos as inspiration, anyway. That’s what I do. ;o) It’s certainly reasonable for Sanrio to stop people from profiting from their property, but wouldn’t it be nicer to ask the transgressors for a percentage of their profit instead of robbing the world of such cuteness? *sigh* She did such a great job of designing those HK’s! :o/

Hope you're all having a great week! It's raining here, and in Sunny Southern California, it's a welcome relief! I love the rain. :o) Especially after that scorching week of Indian Summer we just had.

Wishing you all the Best!

Animated Amigurumi Peeps - Stitch (but no Lilo)

2010-09-30T01:25:00.001-07:00

                                                                                                                                         ^..^
FINALLY!!! A very belated gift for Tony's April birthday (yes, APRIL! I'm so behind!)
Update: Pattern now available! See the following post (link to the pdf is on the patterns page):
    http://theknittycat.blogspot.com/2010/10/pattern-notes-for-stitch-lilos-friend.html

- Stitch -
the little blue alien from Lilo and Stitch

Oh did this guy give me trouble!!! He's much larger than my usual, and with that huge head, it was like wrestling with a fat blue baby!! :o) Four arms, 16 claws, 8 toenails, 16 big TEETH!! Whew! He took me AGES! I started him in February, and just finished him last week!!! (okay, yes, I did make a lot of other peeps in between, but he was so exhausting for me to work on, I had to keep putting him aside!) But he's finally done and Tony really really loves him! So it was all worth it! Well ... now that it's done, it was worth it!! ;o)

I'll never do it again! I've sworn off making large peeps and I'm sticking to small and tiny ones! :o) Okay, my friends say they've heard that before... but this time I MEAN it! Really! Honest! heh heh

I knit Stitch from the bottom up. His body, arms and head are knitted in one piece with the medium blue yarn, and his legs, ears and nose (and color patches) are grafted on.

here he is with some of my photo references

Aren't those marvelous buttons for his eyes?!
I tried sooo many different things and was not happy at all, then my dear Hubbard came home one day with these beauties! :o)

and here with more photo references

and from the back showing his tattoos(?) Well, his dark blue markings.
I'm not sure what exactly they are.

Did you know that Stitch had a little nub of a tail? I didn't till I started researching photos! :o) I forgot to take pics of the bottoms of his feet, but they have blue circular patches (you can see them a little bit in this pic above) - knitted in, not sewn on, since I could do them in the round while I made the circular bottoms of the feet.

And so you can see his relative size - here he is in my hand and from the side
(see the notch in the top area of his ear?)

Just for reference... this is the size of
    peep that I like to make! :o)

Cookie Monster Peep

Restraining his enthusiasm!

(and another notch, in the bottom area of this ear)

You can kind of see in this picture that he's nice and squishy.
Nice and cuddly, except for his giant button eyes! :o)

With two layers of knitting and curled around at the bottom, even as large as they are, the ears came out surprisingly poseable. :o)

RAAAAARRRRRGGGHH!

heh heh

Something about his big open mouth seems to fascinate people. :o)
Everyone wants to stick their hands in it! heh heh

including ME!

I told Tony that Stitch is like that wall sculpture in Rome (Boca Della Verita - the Mouth of Truth)...
If you tell a lie while you have your hand stuck in his mouth, he'll BITE it! ;o)

Almost a Pattern
I don’t have an actual pattern for Stitch (and won’t be writing one), but I did discover, just last night, that I made LOTS of notes as I was knitting him, which I had totally forgotten doing. I wrote out nearly everything I did, but not quite - there are missing bits. I did not complete the head decreasing instructions, and did not note how I made the patches for his tummy and back. (Frankly, I didn’t do such a great job on those patches anyway - you could do better, I'm sure.)

I may make my notes available in a pdf later, if folks want them.
UPDATE: Pattern now available. See this post for pattern information

Color Patches
As you can see, there are a lot of color patches on Stitch. I'm dreadful at knitting colorwork! I just hate doing it, and it never looks neat to me, so I usually avoid it very carefully! heh heh But since Stitch had all these different shades of blue, I had to work out something. As usually happens, I try various ways of knitting the color in, and wind up chucking that idea, and making separate patches of the colors and grafting them on. :o/

Weeks after knitting Stitch's color patches, I recently was working on Snorlax for Matt (see next post for Snorlax and Jigglypuff) and came up against my nemesis again... colorwork! I made a determined effort to find a good way to do intarsia in the round, since I always work in the round (intarsia worked flat is not such an issue). So I did a bunch of research, and tried a few things out, and was - again - very dissatisfied!! Well, in my opinion, it seems there isn't a "good" way, just work arounds. Gave that idea up and relegated myself to another set of less than satisfactory patches to stitch on. But then I came up with a better way to make the patches! I was very pleased with the outcome on Snorlax and wish I'd discovered the idea while I was making Stitch. But better late than never, I guess. And I'm less disgusted at the thought of making another peep with color patches again! But I'll still avoid it when I can!! ;o)

Update: you can see how I made his teeth and claws in the pattern, which is now available.
See the next post (the link to the pdf is on the patterns page):
http://theknittycat.blogspot.com/2010/10/pattern-notes-for-stitch-lilos-friend.html

Teeth
In case you're wondering how I made Stitch's teeth (all 16 of them!!) ... since I reeeeaaaallllyyy did NOT want to make sixteen little pieces and sew each of them on (YUCK!) I tried a few different ideas and settled on knitting them from side to side (actually in the round so they'd be 3 dimensional) in a long strip, using short rows for the shaping (details in my notes). That worked fine! :o) They're two strips of teeth, which I later sewed into his mouth. After grafting the teeth in (using kitchener stitch) I still felt there should be some overlap of his blue lip onto his teeth so I went around his mouth, pulling the blue fabric over the teeth and stitching it down. Yes, it was tricky with that big blue head attached to the big blue body hanging off of what I was sewing!! heh heh My hands still hurt!!!

Claws
For his claws and toenails I knitted short I-cords and pulled them in between the stitches of his paws and feet. For the toenails I used one I-cord for each foot. For each foot, I pulled the completed cord through every couple of stitches, over and under, horizontally. For his claws I made one I-cord for every two claws (two for each paw, making four claws per paw). I pulled the finished cord into one stitch and out another, a couple of stitches over, and stitched them in place to ensure that they wouldn't pull out. That worked extremely well, and I used the same method for Snorlax's teeny claws (see next post).

Vox.com
One last note:
Today is Vox.com's last day ... so goodbye to vox ...
and HELLO! to blogspot.com! :o) So far I'm quite happy with how well things work here! Yay!

Cute Sackboy for Sale! & Oscar the Grouch ...

2010-09-10T02:00:00.000-07:00

Or ... what to make when you're feeling grouchy ... Oscar of course!

Sackboy Peep on flickr

I get quite a few emails from folks asking to purchase a knitted Sackboy like the one I made for Matt, but considering the fact that my poor Hub is still (a year later!) waiting for me to make one for him, I don't think that's feasible - even if I would ever consider selling any of my peeps (wouldn't that be slavery??). As most of you know, I only make them as gifts of love, for friends and family.

But... I have found a solution for those seeking to purchase (rather than make), a Sackboy ...

for sale at amazon.com!

Click here to go to the page where you can buy a Sackboy

Cute, huh?! :o)

I had planned to make a Sackboy for my Hub's birthday last month, but life intervened and things have been kinda crazy for a while - so no Sackboy Peep yet. :o/ So when Matt mentioned seeing this little guy at thinkgeek.com I had to check it out. As is usually the case with thinkgeek, they were sold out by the time I got there, but I found them at amazon.com! Yay!

And, YES! My hub now has his very own Sackboy! - just to tide him over till I can make one for him - he still wants my peep version. ;o) Don't feel too sad for him, I've made him dozens of peeps! Just haven't gotten to Sackboy yet. Someday I'll get caught up on my peep posting and you can see some of his collection. Okay... That may never happen, but I can TRY!

This little Sackboy from amazon.com is made out of knitted fabric but (sadly) is stuffed with something rather firm, and isn't soft and cuddly, but he's very cute for display! We love him!

Click here to see all the other cute Sackboys (and girls) at amazon.com

So what peep did my Hub actually get for his birthday this year?

Oscar!

Oscar the Grouch

(The Muppet from Sesame Street for anyone who doesn't know him)
Or "Garbo" as I tend to call him when I can't remember his name. ;o)

I had to restrain his enthusiasm as he was so excited to have his photos taken. ;o) You'd think he'd be used to it, but he says that Elmo and Kermit and Cookie usually grab all the attention.

He goes along with my Hub's other Muppet Peeps, Elmo and Cookie and Kermie, whom you've already seen all over the place, and Grover, whom I made for his last birthday, but haven't posted yet.

Oscar has a little friend, Bitty Kitty, whom he loves very much, and he's not grouchy with her at all. :o)

Bitty feels very comfortable and secure when she's with Oscar.

Oscar Loves wee Bitty Kitty and watches over her carefully

Bitty Kitty is very very tiny

My Hub says I should show you the large photo as well, so you can get a good look at her. :o)

Yep, Oscar's trashcan is a bit (!) small... Duhh... I was knitting away without looking at his can (no pun intended! Hee hee) and got a bit carried away with his size. He's knitted all in one piece, so the trashcan was bobbing about, below my needles, and still I never noticed! Heh heh

"UGH! Tight fit!"

Happily my Hub loves him, just as he is! Yay! And so do I. :o)

Hope you've all had a lovely summer! ;o)

You can find posts about the other Muppet Peeps here, and pics of lots of the peeps here: www.flickr.com/knittycat

Notes on moving a vox blog to typepad, blogspot and wordpress...

2010-09-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

UPDATED WITH MORE DETAILED INFO ON MOVING A VOX BLOG TO BLOGSPOT

see the bottom of this post for more information

After the shock of the news of vox's demise wore off a bit, the concern over the task of moving my blog to another site set in. However, importing this blog to other sites was surprisingly easy! Tweaking the sites to look how I want them to was time consuming (especially doing three at a time!) but the actual import was no problem.

Importing to typepad, with the automatic set-up that vox is providing, was glitchy at first (maybe because I was moving very soon after the notice appeared on our blogs and there may have been a lot of folks going at once), and I did have to restart it, but all the posts and pics moved over with no real issues.

Importing to wordpress was super easy and super fast! :o). And from there I was able to import to blogspot. Wordpress has an import choice specifically for vox. Click this and give your vox info and it's done.

Blogspot was less simple, since blogspot only has the option to import a blogspot export file. Hmmm. Not very good marketing strategy, is it. However, once imported to a wordpress blog, you can export your blog to a file from wordpress (too bad vox didn't give us this option), and then convert this file with this handy wordpress2blogger utility:

http://wordpress2blogger.appspot.com/

The only bad thing is that there is a file size limitation, so this may not work for large blogs. There may be another utility for larger ones out there. This utility converted my wordpress file perfectly and I was able to quickly import it to blogspot.

Update...
Warning: I have discovered that importing to blogspot with the wordpress file will bring links to photos in your wordpress library, if the photos in your posts were previously in your vox library (and not at flickr, photobucket, picasaweb or another photosite). What this means is that if you delete your wordpress account, the photos linked to in your posts will disappear. :o/ If your photos were not in your vox library to begin with, this is not a problem. Also, if you just keep the wordpress account, it's not a problem, either. The solution that I will have to apply is to change the link manually for each one affected to point to the photos on flickr.com. Since I have a very small number of posts (though quite photo heavy), this won't be as daunting for me as for many of you with hundreds of posts to go through.

I've spent a few days with the three sites and so far, I'm most pleased with blogspot. Here are my thoughts on the three sites:

Wordpress

Though wordpress has the nicest looking interface for composition and design, it has some real problems with pictures. And since my blog is totally picture heavy (except for this post, of course), this isn't a good thing for me. Also, it's difficult to change the size of your text. Other than some header options, there is no sizing button, or font button in their composer. You have to manually change the HTML! Ugh!

While posting this to wordpress, the font sizes went all wonky. I can't see any size tags in the html window, so ??? Like I said, there are problems with this one. :o/

Typepad

I wasn't pleased with Typepad at all. It's too restrictive. And I couldn't even have my own banner at the top of the blog. Their theme choices were very meager and allowed very little tweaking to allow you to make it better or even personalize it. Now this is a free account, so maybe there are more options for paid ones, but since I'm offering my tutorials, and patterns and hints as a service and gift for others, I'd like it to continue when I'm not around to pay a fee to keep the site, so I need a free site. I didn't do much with this site since I disliked the look I was able to achieve there, so I can't speak as to it's functionality.

While putting in this post, I have played with the tools a little and there are some nice posting features. An option to go full screen, so you can see all of your post, instead of being restricted to a little box (wordpress has this option as well, but blogspot only has the option of making the fairly generously sized box longer, not wider), and some additional fonts, that the others don't support, including, Comic Sans MS. As well as having Heading1,2,3 etc, it has a lovely array of font sizes in a strange little wheel (instead of small, normal, large, extra large on blogspot, and paragraph, Heading1, heading2, etc. on wordpress). Presumably you can really tweak the sizes if you have the patience, since you cannot type a number into this box but must use ctrl-shift-uparrow or downarrow to adjust it. My efforts were, however, not successful. I also see an "insert a file" button, that the others don't have, and that has an intriguing sound to it. I'll have to check that out.

Blogspot

Although the interface at blogspot isn't as classy-looking as the one at wordpress, while playing around with it to set up what I wanted, I found it to be surprisingly functional! I was able to do pretty nearly everything I wanted to do, and with minimal effort. And most importantly, everything WORKED! This, of course, is a big deal! :o)

I was delighted to find that I could not only set the size and font of what i was posting (with limited font choices), i could also change the size and font of the text across my entire blog with built in, and easy to achieve, customizations to the template. And there are lots of other easy-to-do customizations of the look and content, so I can really make this look how I want it to look.

I was frustrated at one point with the site header in the theme that I chose, as it was forcing the text to be all caps in the name of the site, and I wanted all lowercase, but everything else was working, so I figured I'd live with it for the moment. But then I discovered that I could easily get to the HTML of the template itself, and modify it! And it was simple to take out the instructions to force uppercase. Hurray! :o)

Results

If you'd like to take a look at the results on all three sites, they're here:

theknittycat.blogspot.com

theknittycat.typepad.com

theknittycat.wordpress.com

Leave a comment if you'd like to let me (and others) know your opinions of the sites, when moving your blogs. Of course, after the 15th of September you'll have to leave your comments on one of my other sites (I'd suggest blogspot since it looks like that will be the winner for my purposes), since we won't be able to do so on vox after that. :o(

Best of luck in your new homes, everyone!

UPDATE 09/17/2010 -

MORE DETAILED INFO ON MOVING YOUR VOX BLOG TO BLOGSPOT

Vox to blogspot

1. Sign up for an account at wordpress.com
    (yes, I did mean wordpress - you need to get an export file of your blog from wordpress
     because blogspot won't import from vox directly)
2. Import your vox blog to wordpress
    a. go to your dashboard by clicking the button at the top left of the page
    "my blogs" then "dashboard" from the dropdown list
    b. on the left side of the dashboard is a list of links, near the bottom is "tools", click this to open the box
    c. click on "import" in the box (below "tools")
    d. find "vox" in the list in the center and click it
    e. fill out the form
    "host name" is the name of your vox blog - mine was "knittycat" for knittycat.vox.com
    "username" is the email address associated with your vox blog
3. Export your wordpress blog to a file and import it to blogspot following the instructions here:
    http://wordpress2blogger.appspot.com/

Ta daaa! You now have your blog copied to both wordpress and
blogspot. Any photos that were in your library on vox are now in your
wordpress library and are being linked to by your blogspot posts.

(This online conversion program may not work for large blogs as the file size limit is 1meg. However an exported blog is all text with links to pictures, so may not be as large as you think. If your blog is larger and this app doesn't work for you, I can't help, but try doing a google search for other ways to convert a wordpress export file to a blogger import file. In the meantime, your blog is safely copied to wordpress.com)

If you have any problems, check the help forums on wordpress.com and blogspot.com, but I didn't have any difficulties with it.

Good Luck! :o)

knittycat.vox.com has MOVED! Vox.com is closing

2010-09-03T00:24:00.000-07:00

Vox.com is closing!

Wow! What a shock! Bloggers at vox.com just found out that the site is closing in less than a month (September 30th, 2010, and we have to move everything or lose it all!

I've just imported www.knittycat.vox.com to
www.theknittycat.blogspot.com,
www.theknittycat.wordpress.com, and
www.theknittycat.typepad.com
(not to livejournal because lj does not allow importing from another blog for some sad reason).

I'll try each of them out and see what works best. Maybe moving to another site will turn out to be a good thing. We’ll see…

I'm just really happy that I was able to import my posts to other sites!! Whew! All those peeps ... nearly lost in oblivion... what a scary thought!

But now they have lots of room to play! Alll over the internet! ;o)

Obviously, this is a work in progress... getting the formatting fixed may take a while. But at least the posts will survive... I HOPE! :o)

Sadly, I'll be losing my vox.com site counter. :o(

Today's count was:

vox site counter September 3, 2010

I will cross post to all three sites for a while, to test them out, and let you know my findings.

A sincere thanks to all of you who have followed my silliness on vox, and who have been so patient, waiting for me to come up with a pattern occasionally. I hope to see you in my new home. And to hear from more of you, since the commenting at each of these new places is open to anyone, not just members!

Pudgie in Pajamas for Dorothy's Birthday

2010-05-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

It's been ages since I've had a chance to post any amigurumi, though I've been knitting like mad, as always. Last night I was thinking about one that I made for my mum-in-law's birthday last year, and just really had the urge to put him up, soooo....

Introducing Pudgie in Pajamas Peep
and his dear friend, Pookie Bear Peep

Pudgie in PJ's always giggles when you tickle his tummy... but the original has a different reaction! heh heh

Pudge is our adored giant cat. We're all a bit obsessed with him, and my Mum in law treats him like a grandchild ('cause he IS, of course! heh heh), so I figured she'd enjoy getting her very own Pudge to cuddle with. :o)

......pic of pudge....

Pudgie and Pookie are very best friends and love to be together.

They love to cuddle and giggle and nap, and they love a nice cozy lap to sit in.

They are so happy, living with their GrandMaw, and they thought that the trip to Scotland was very exciting! (we didn't send them till Christmas, though because of the mail strike in the UK - we didn't want to take any chances!!)

They enjoy having a nice dish of tuna and box of choco, and a nice bowl of honey, and having lovely bedtime stories read to them.

Pookie gets annoyed when you tweak his ear. Oops!

I made Pudgie freehand (as usual) and didn't make any notes, so I have no pattern plans for him. I am hoping though, that at some point I can get up the energy to share the simple slip stitch technique I used to make his head all in one piece (including ears). I do hate sewing on all those bits and pieces!

The inspiration for Pudgie in Pajamas was this totally adorable Tabitha kitty design by Debi Birkin.

Isn't she adorable? If you want one of your very own, Debi has a pattern for Tabitha here:
www.debibirkin.com

More pics (if these weren't enough!) on my flickr pages here
www.flickr.com/knittycat

I'm hoping to post her other birthday peep, Kathleen Bunny, soon! I fell in love with Pudgie in PJs and Kathleen Bunny, who are larger than my usual wee peeps (they were made for cuddling), and it was hard to send them so far away, but their grandmaw loves them, so it's all good! :o)

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HAPPY EASTER!! A Plethora of Peeps! :o)

2010-04-04T13:28:00.000-07:00

HAPPY EASTER!!

A Plethora of Peeps...

Finally the peeps I've been working on for Easter are DONE!! and ready for giving! :o)

Little Eggy Peeps sitting atop their wee pouch nests
if you missed my previous preview post about this wonderful self-patterning yarn
and a simple pattern it's here.

Lots of Eggy Peeps and Easter Eggs and Eggs with Leggs :o)

Eggs with Leggs sitting on their little nests. :o)

My favorite egg.

an egg ring pin cushion for my sis. I tried it and it works GREAT! I have to make one for myself! :o)

a basket of eggs showing the very cool patterning this great yarn makes!

okay I love this photo! heh heh Eggys with Leggys! hee hee

Easter Eggy Peeps tucked inside their little pouch nests

We wish you all a very Happy Easter!!

and a joyous Spring!!

Don't you just LOVE SPRING?!!! Yay! Flowers and baby animals and sunshine!! What could be happier?! :o)

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What happens to the eggs the Easter Bunny Brings? :o)

2010-04-02T20:48:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered what hatches out

of the eggs laid by the Easter Bunny?

(click on the picture if it's not moving...)

hee hee

Eggy/Bunny Pattern pdf is available here.

When I made this nest (part of the many peeps and accessories made for Easter gifts), I couldn't decide which side should be the outside, because I liked the patterning of the yarns so much on the knit side, but it looked more like a basket than a nest on the knit side... soooooo... And that's how I get my ideas! heh heh

I don't have a pattern for the nest/basket, but it is a simple circle with sides, made with two bulky textured yarns held together (in this case Bernat's Soft Boucle and TLC Amore). See the directions for the Eggy Peeps in the previous entry. It will be the same, up to the point where you begin to decrease. You won't do any decreasing. Just keep knitting around till it's the height you want, making sure it's enough to get the top to curl down (sometimes stockinette's inherent curl is your friend), and then bind off. You don't want a loose bind off for this. The handle of the basket is simply i-cord. Make sure it's the length of the curve that you want to tuck it into, so it won't show.

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Eggy Peeps, Pretty Easter Egg Yarn, And Free Pattern!! :o)

2010-02-27T11:42:00.000-08:00

I recently got some beautiful self-patterning yarn, Bernat Baby Jacquard, to make some socks and while looking at the socks I had made from one of the skeins, I thought that it would make wonderful Easter Eggs! :o) Soooo....

Chiwaluv and I were "chatting" about the Easter Eggs and Eggy Peeps, that I'm making for Easter gifts, and it occured to me that you folks might like to know about the yarn for your Easter knitting and crocheting.

I'm including notes for how I knit my eggs, plus a few egg pattern links, both in crochet and knit ....

Easter Eggs and Eggy Peeps in progress

inset is the pattern on the bottom of the egg

The one with feet (in progress - ends still sticking out and feet just pinned on) is from the
same skein as the hatching egg!

a bunch of eggs and one Eggy Bunny in progress
(the orange and yellow striped egg is made with a variegated yarn
-Red Heart Kids, I think- for a special nephew who adores those colors)

This Bernat Baby Jacquard yarn is just terrific! From one skein, you will get lots of eggs, each different from the others. The eggs I've made (so far) are from three different colorways, but just from one skein, I've gotten several egg designs with real variety! :o)

I'm also making little nests and bags for the peeps. Nothing so elaborate as last year, since I'm still quite sick, but I LOVE making these sweet eggies!

Knitting the self patterning yarn in the round creates these wonderful patterns that they were designed for, but it would be very interesting to crochet with it (or knit the eggs flat) to see what kind of patterning that makes, too! :o)

My version of eggs is super simple. They could be done on dpns or converted to flat but I knit them in the round on two circular needles. If you haven't tried two circs yet, this would be a good opportunity to try them on such small projects - it's soooo much easier using the two circs than working with dpns, and it's much easier on your hands as well. Of course that's just my opinion that they're easier to work with - 'cause I'm not coordinated enough to use dpns. ;o)

Pattern Notes:
Using Bernat Baby Jacquard or other self patterning or variegated yarn and (2) U.S. sz 3 circular needles...

I make my eggs like I'm making a ball for the first half, then just add a couple of extra plain rounds to the middle (in addition to the couple of plain rounds you normally do) to elongate it. Then for the decreasing
rounds, I do two plain rounds between the decrease rounds instead of one which makes the tapered top.

Disclaimer: These pattern notes have not been tested, so if you're unsure, use one of the patterns written by the experts that I've linked to at the bottom of this post.

1. Using two circular needles (I'm using U.S. sz 3's), cast on 6 st
with Judy Becker's Magic Cast On
(or cable c/o 3 on 1 ndl, k acr, p/u 3 on 2nd ndl from bottom of cast on)
2. Inc in ea st (inc1, k1) arnd (12)
3. K arnd
4. (Inc1, k2) arnd (18)
5. K arnd
6. (Inc1, k3) arnd (24)
7. K arnd
Cont. in this manner, increasing 6 st ev rnd till you reach the
diameter you want (I went to 36 stitches)
8. (Inc1, k4) arnd (30)
9. K arnd
10. (Inc1, k5) arnd (36)
11. K arnd 8 or 9 times
Start decreasing in the same way that you increased, but with an extra
knit rnd between (decrease 6 st ev third rnd)...
Oh and start stuffing before the hole gets small! ;o)
12. (K2tog, k4) arnd (30 st)
13. K arnd 2x
14. (K2tog, k3) arnd (24 st)
15. K arnd 2x
16. (K2tog, k2) arnd (18 st)
17. K arnd 2x
18. (K2tog, k1) arnd (12 st)
19. K arnd (only 1x to make it a little more rounded at the top)
20. K2tog arnd (6 st)
Kitchener st closed (or close as you would normally close a ball)

Hatching Easter Eggy Peeps

Make the same as the eggs, but switch to yellow yarn (I used a fuzzy yarn) after the first decrease round.
(I carry the egg yarn up through the egg to make the cap in one piece with the egg, instead of breaking and reattaching it.)
Add a cap by knitting a disk and sewing it on, or in one piece as follows:

When you have decreased down to 6 st again, switch to egg yarn
rpt steps 2-7 of the beginning of the egg pattern
Then decrease back down again as you would decrease for a ball.
1. (K2tog, k2) arnd (18)
2. K arnd
3. (K2tog, k1) arnd (12)
4. K arnd
5. (k2tog arnd (6)
6. Kitchener st closed (or use your favorite method of closing)

Flatten the shape you have just made and stitch it down with the tail of yarn.
Add a few bits of yellow below the start of the yellow rounds with duplicate stitch to make it look jagged, or you can slip some of the stitches on the first round of yellow.

If you want to crochet eggs, I would think it's the same premise except eliminate half of the knit plain rounds. So you'd increase every round till reaching your desired diameter (like making a ball), crochet around several times without increasing, and then decrease every other round to taper.

And here are free patterns from the experts...
Littlecottonrabbits' pattern includes really beautiful fairisle ones!
(I don't like to do colorwork, so I LOVE self-patterning yarn!!)

Jean Greenhowe's free pattern (knit flat)
http://www.jeangreenhowe.com/Images/Novelty_Eggs.pdf

Littlecottonrabbit's free pattern knit flat with fairisle instructions for pretty colorwork!
http://littlecottonrabbits.typepad.co.uk/free_knitting_patterns/

Curlypurly's, purlbee's and emmyknits, in-the-round on dpns free patterns
http://www.curlypurly.com/eggs.html
http://www.purlbee.com/knitted-easter-eggs/
http://emmyknits.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/easy-knitted-easter-eggs/

And here's a couple of crochet patterns that I found, too!:
http://knittingcrochet.suite101.com/article.cfm/easter_egg_crochet_pattern
http://www.thecraftytipster.com/amigurumi-egg.html

I bought the yarn here:
http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog/productdetail.jsp?pageName=search&flag=true&PRODID=xprd561154

Spring is coming! Yay!

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HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! from Lambie Loveykins

2010-02-14T11:40:00.000-08:00

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

with lots of Love from Lambie Loveykins,
and theknittycat and anthor

Yet another Lambie Peep! :o) This is the little guy that I made for my Hub for Valentine's Day - he wanted another Lambie! Seriously! He LOVES these little guys! (well, I do too!) He want's one for Easter, too! Good thing that I like making them. ;o) These and the Pocket Lambies are the only peeps that I like to repeat making... over and over and over...

We think she looks like the girls who used to sell candy and flowers at the theaters, etc. in the 30's/40's. :o)

Her heart-shaped hat...

Sorry, the bow from her little hat is a bit messy in the pic, and you can't see the back very well. I took these in a hurry because I just finished her last night! Yeeks! close one! ;o)
(being sick is putting me way behind in my knitting... and Easter is coming!!)

Hope you all have a day filled with Love! We send lots of Love to all of you and to your dear ones!

Hugs from theknittycat

more peeps of my peeps:
on flickr.com http://www.flickr.com/knittycat
and ravelry.com http://www.ravelry.com/projects/theknittycat

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MERRY CHRISTMAS 2009!! Christmas Peeps!

2009-12-24T15:45:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

We Wish you All the Very Best
for the Holidays
and throughout the New Year!

Peeps for Christmas!

Christmas Peeps!

We made it home in time for Christmas, Hurray! (In case you don't know, we were forced to move out for a month because the homeowner's assoc. was replacing roofs!), I've been frantically working on getting our delayed Christmas tasks completed

I haven't uploaded any amigurumi photos to flickr in quite a while, so haven't posted them, but I really have been making lots of things! Honest! Someday I'll get caught up. ;o)

Here are the little peeps I made for the youngest members of our family for their little Christmas treats.

Peeps for Christmas...

We have Rudolph the Red Nosed Pocket Reindeer Peep, White Chocolate Pocket ChrisMoose, Chubby Rudolph, and Chocolate Pocket ChrisMoose, and their grassy snowbank pockets. :o)

And this is my knit version of a totally adorable Lion Brand Rudolph crochet pattern

I made him like my Petunia Phlying Piglet, all in one piece, with the Loopy Legs technique.

I also made a Frosty Snowman Peep for our older niece - he was a failed experiment for a snowman that converted into a snowball (it worked, but not well) so I made him into a traditional snowman. The yarn is Moda Dea Cheerio, which is sparkly, and makes him look like he's made of snow! :o) Great yarn! Such a shame they discontinued it. I used that for the grassy snowbank pockets that the pocket Rudolph and ChrisMeese are in, too. :o)

And last but not least - yet another Christmas Elmo! This time for a young disabled friend of our nephews.

I've changed the method that I use to make this guy, and he came out much neater. I'll share a pattern when I can write up the changes. (And don't hold your breath, because I'm glacially slow!)

We hope that you are all enjoying your holidays and wish you all a Very Merry Christmas, a (belated) Very Happy Channukah, and a very Merry Kwaanza! Enjoy whatever you celebrate! :o)

Now I have to go give away all my cute little ami's!

More pics on flickr http://www.flickr.com/knittycat

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Sackboy / Green Lantern for Matt's Birthday!

2009-10-05T20:34:00.000-07:00

Sackboy, the character from the PS3 videogame, LittleBigPlanet, has become so popular that I thought he'd make a nice gift for our nephew, Matt, who is a collector.

I finished my version of Sackboy for Matt recently (knit without a pattern, as usual), and presented him for his birthday.

Voila! Sackboy Peep:

Sackboy Front View

I just barely finished in time!! Boy was it a pain to put that working zipper in! And I hate sewing things! ;o) I'm even MORE impressed with all of the amazing Sackboy's that folks have been creating after making one myself!

I used my loopy legs (flap) technique to make the mouth so I wouldn't have to sew it on. And it worked great! :o)

My Hub and I both liked him better before I added the decorative grey stitching, but for Matt, I wanted to be as accurate as I could, since he's a collector. I did leave off the two vertical lines at the back of his head. Just didn't like 'em. But I told Matt that I'd put them in if he'd like them - and guess what... he told me last night that he WOULD! Yep... a collector! heh heh So Sackboy Peep will be coming back for some cosmetic surgery! ;o)

My Hub is totally crazy about him, and REALLY wants me to make another one for him! Well.... actually, he said to make another one for Matt and he'll just keep this one!! ha ha ha! He wouldn't do that, of course, but he just fell in love with him.

Sackboy Peep with photo reference:

Sackboy Peep for Matt's Birthday

He has a working zipper, and I made a felt inner body so he could be opened. (ugh! That was a pain! And my Hub wants me to do this AGAIN!!!) When you open his zipper, you can see his little golden heart (a stone bead that's gold with a brownish edging). :o)

Sackboy Peep with Golden Heart:

Sackboy Peep with heart of gold for Matt's Birthday

I've seen so many Sackboys that other folks have made (including the Alan Dart pattern) wearing a pom pom hat and scarf, that I figured that they must be something that Sackboy wears, so I made him a set. We recently got the game (incredibly adorable and FUN!), but I haven't seen the hat and scarf yet. So I dunno. But here's

Sackboy Peep with hat and scarf:

Sackboy Peep with hat & scarf for Matt's Birthday

And since Sackboy loves to play dress-up and take on different characters, and because Matt has been very into The Green Lantern lately (new movie coming out, too!), and because GL is one of my all time favorite comic book characters... I made...

Taaa DAAAA!!!

Green Lantern Sackboy Peep!

Sackboy GL Peep recharging his ring

I like him best without the mask. :o)

I finished his little vest (with very poorly made emblem) just in the nick of time, and my Hub and I are so pleased with it. It's made like a little bib! heh heh I'm really happy I managed to squeeze in making it before Matt's birthday.

And here he is saying his official oath while charging his ring (hee hee) ....

Green Lantern Sackboy Peep for Matt's Birthday

The beautiful green yarn is Bamboo Soft Spell and Bamboo Charmed from www.yarncloud.com! It's a chainette yarn, and sooo nice to work with! Nice sheen, gorgeous colors, and has all those nice bamboo properties! :o)

Here's a better look at his power ring:

Sackboy Peep from Side

Sackboy GL Peep ring close

I would have liked to have done a better job on the ring, but just didn't have enough TIME left!!

Green Lantern Battery for Sackboy Peep for Matt's Birthday 3/4 view

Green Lantern Battery for Sackboy Peep for Matt's Birthday front

Close-ups of the Green Lantern's Power Battery...

which I'm absolutely nuts about! If we were meanies, my Hub would keep the peep and I'd keep the Lantern Battery!! ;o) I put 4 golden dollar coins in the bottom to weight it (they were just the right size - and makes the battery even more valuable and powerful - heh heh) and a chenille stem in the handle to give it strength and body.

It was fun taking a trip down comic book memory lane! :o)

.

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Pocket Pup Peeps! :o)

2009-08-16T22:50:00.000-07:00

First there were Pocket Lambie Peeps, and now we have Pocket Pup Peeps! :o)

this is Frankie Pocket Pup Peep

I made little Frankie for our niece after watching her adorable wee poodle mix romping about, recently. He's sooo cute! Had to make an ami of him! And having been making Pocket Lambie Peeps lately, I realized that the lambie yarn would be perfect for him. With just a bit of changing, the lambie could become a Pup!! Tried out one of those cute little glass animal noses (from www.glasseyesonline.com ), and it's just perfect for a dog, with their shiny wet noses! :o) My Hub and I are just LOVING him! AND he looks even so much cuter in person! So another one that will be very hard to part with. *sigh*

and this is Daisy Pocket Pup Peep

We were so crazy about little Frankie peep that I had to make Daisy Peep for us, or our niece was never going to get Frankie! ;o) I was soooo sad at the thought of sending him away, till Daisy came to stay. Daisy is in homage to the memory of my sweet little Bichon Frise.

More about Frankie ... he has this adorable bit of apricot on his back! Isn't that CUTE?!

Here's Frankie in his little bed/pocket, which is now Daisy's because I made a slightly bigger one for Frankie...

And more of wee Daisy

here's Wee Daisy with Wee Frankie (they're in loooove... *sings... Frankiee and Daisy were looveeerrrsss....* hee hee)

See him whispering sweet nothings to her before kissing her? ;o)

Frankie is a poodle mix - and you know what those Frenchmen are like! ;o) heh heh Yes, I know that Poodles didn't originate in France, but... we're pretending. ;o)

Unfortunately, theirs will have to be a long distance relationship, because Frankie is moving to Northern California to be with his new mommy, and Daisy is staying here with US! (YAY!)

And one more of Daisy, giggling because she's in Frankie's new bed/pocket

I just couldn't stop taking pics of these two pups!! heh heh I've got dozens of them!! Yeesh! Am I obsessed?

I'm knitting away, making lots of peeps, but I never get time to post them. So someday there will be a giant post from me with a hundred peeps in it! (just kidding! I'm lucky to get a peep posted now and then).

More peeps at my flickr pages http://www.flickr.com/knittycat

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Little Limbless Pocket Lambies Part One...

2009-05-05T19:34:00.000-07:00

A Lambie Thank You to Snuffykin...

For all the very hard work she did on the weloveamigurumi swap, and for being the sweetie that she is,
I sent snuffykin this wee limbless Pocket Lambie named Laddie (see snuffykin's awesome creations here)

Laddie atop his grassy hillock (pocket) and wearing his flowery garland

Laddie - Pocket Lambie for snuffykin

Laddie inside of his grassy hillock (pocket)

Laddie - Pocket Lambie for snuffykin

Laddie in my hand (he's a wee fellow)

Laddie - Pocket Lambie for snuffykin - in my hand

The back of Laddie's flowery garland

Laddie - Pocket Lambie for snuffykin

The page I sent with wee Laddie

Laddie - Pocket Lambie for snuffykin

You can see that he is wearing the original "grassy" garland that I made for him in this group of photos,
I made the "flowery" one after and sent them both. :o)

and here's Laddie with his two cousins, inside and atop their grassy hillock pockets

3 little pocket lambies

Apologies for the crummy group photos... I didn't have all of them together for long enough to take decent photos.
The first one on the left is Mitzy, who went to my Mum-in-law in Scotland for UK Mother's Day,
the middle one is Laddie,
and the one on the right is Mitzie, who stayed home with us as my dear Hub's Easter Peep

Yes, it's Mitzie and Mitzy... I liked the name! ;o)

I'll post more pics of Mitzy and Mitzie when I put up more of the Easter Peeps. :o)

More peeps pics (but no new ones other than these) on my flickr pages http://www.flickr.com/knittycat

HAPPY SPRING!! :o)

Don't you just LOVE springtime?! :o)

Flowers and Birdies and Baby Animals!! :o) Amigurumi Heaven!

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Valentine's after Easter AGAIN? :o)

2009-04-27T18:27:00.000-07:00

Here are the Valentine's pressies I made for my Darling Hub... (yep, I'm mixing Easter and Valentine's Day again, but I'll be back to Easter next time... Lots more Easter Peeps and Baskets to post, soon)

For Valentine's Day and for Easter, I made limbless wee ami's and baskets for them. Here's Peter Pickle Peep, the limbless chick that I made for my Hub for Valentine's Day (yes, I'm very slow to post.... I still don't have the rest of the Easter ones uploaded yet!) I apologize for the quality of the photos... I'll try to take some better ones of these guys at some point. I forgot them when I took the Easter pics. :o/ Oops!

Heart Basket & Peter Pickle Peep & 2 Peas in a Pod

And Next to the basket is....

Two Peas in a Pod

Two Peas in a Pod

We always say that we’re like two peas in a pod, and I’ve wanted to make a set for my dear Hub for ages! Finally remembered to do it. Simple simple… two little green balls with eyes and mouths, and for the pod, I simply knitted a leaf shape in stockinette and it obligingly curled all by itself. :o)

And a bigger pic of Peter Pickle (so named for obvious reasons... he looks like a PICKLE! heh heh) out of the basket

Heart Basket & Peter Pickle Peep

Making limbless wee peeps for my DH’s Valentine’s gift, and for Easter gifts has been such fun! (except for the exhaustion of making so MANY at one time) And it was a nice break from some of the more complicated one’s I’ve been making! :o) (two new "more complicated" ones to see soon) These little limbless guys have a special charm that my Hub and I love! :o)

I made lots of baskets for the wee limbless peeps for Easter, with lots of different yarns, mostly from www.yarncloud.com. Lots of different colors and textures! And this one for my Hub’s Valentine’s peep as well. It was lovely to work with all of this variety! Really fed my addiction! :o) The Heart is made the same way as my “Unbroken Heart” (made all in one piece with no break in yarn), in red mystery yarn, and tied onto the basket. The basket is meant to have a suggestion of a heart shape at the top, which is not apparent in these photos.... I'll see if I can get better photos that show it.

I'll post more of the Easter peeps and baskets soon. :o)

As always, you can see more of my creations at http://www.flickr.com/knittycat or on Ravelry (I'm theknittycat on Ravelry), and an index with links to my patterns and tutorials are at http://www.theknittycat.com.

Happy Spring to Everyone! Hope you're all enjoying the (crazy) weather, and all of the beautiful flowers!! :o)

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HAPPY EASTER! HAPPY SPRING!

2009-04-11T21:52:00.000-07:00

HAPPY EASTER! HAPPY SPRING!

Here's a preview of the peeps I made for Easter ... I'll put up more shots of them soon. I had such fun making these limbless peeps! And I had some wonderful yarn to play with, sent to me by my friend, Romana, of YarnCloud Yarns (www.yarncloud.com)! The textures and colors were exciting and fun! I loved putting together the various color schemes for each of the basket/peep sets.

More about this soon... (well, we can hope, can't we?)

Happy Easter! group shot

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! group shot - left side

Happy Easter! group shot - right side

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Happy St. Patty's Day - Something Green - the Hulk!

2009-03-17T15:38:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patty's Day Everyone!

Yep, I missed Valentine's Day... I'll try to post a few Valentine's things in an Easter post...
(crossing fingers that I feel up to that).

Here's a Big something Green for St. Patrick's Day

Marvel Comic's The Incredible Hulk for Matt's Birthday with Lambie Pie

Marvel Comics the Incredible Hulk! for Matt's Birthday, with his best bud, Lambie Pie... ;o)

Our nephew, Matt, had been wanting a Hulk, since I started making these peeps, but I could never bring myself to make one... But, when I ordered a variety of green yarns to get the right shade for something I was making, one of them arrived and I said... Omigosh... it's Hulk green! And I already had some bluish purple that would work for pants... so there I was, making the Hulk! :o) I intended to make him a LOT smaller, but he just happened! ... these things have a life of their own.

Marvel Comics the Incredible Hulk for Matt's Birthday - back

I actually finished him just a day before Matt's birthday (Whew!), last September! But I could never decide which photos to post, so he's been languishing, waiting to be seen. He's not really my cup of tea, with his angry face. I like CUTSEY things! With sweet smiles! But he was a challenge, and I learned a lot of things while making him that are useful in other projects, as well. Lambie Pie says that he's much sweeter and nicer than he looks.

Hulk Dares you to knock this peep off of his shoulder!

One of my fellow amigurumi artists said "he's not angry, just having a bad face day, I guess". heh heh
And that's how I'm looking at him from now on! ;o)

He's not cross-eyed, by the way, just a trick of the camera, and the reflectiveness of the eyes, I guess.

He's the largest peep I've made at 15" tall and nearly as wide! And he's knitted in one piece from toes to top of head, and then each of his arms knitted in one piece, from fingers to shoulders, and sewn onto the torso. I did make notes while working on him, so hopefully I will be able to share the techniques that I discovered, and developed, in the future.

Marvel Comics the Incredible Hulk for Matt's Birthday - hands and feet detail

You probably can't tell from my photos, but the waist of his pants is ragged and ripped looking, with a scrap of white shirt left stuck in it, and the hems on the pant legs are ripped. I didn't do a good job of capturing that in the pics, unfortunately. Didn't have him for long after finishing him, and had to take the pics in a hurry.

Marvel Comics the Incredible Hulk for Matt's Birthday with reference photos

I'm kind of fanatical about not wanting to attach pieces, as you might have noticed, and I was pretty tickled with the method I finagled for making his torn up waist, and hems on his pants, with my trusty knitting needles, all in one piece with his body, and never having to sew any bits on! YAY! Too bad it shows up so poorly on the pics.

Also, I found a new and very simple method of making hair while working on Miss Piggy, for my DH (she's still not finished, unfortunately, so obviously not posted), and I used it to make the Hulk's hair. It's a really versatile technique, and very easy to do, too. You can make short or long hair using this method. I hope to write up a tutorial for it at some point. Or I will at least post a simple description of the process. As long as you use an eyelash or fuzzy yarn of some sort, appropriate to your project, it is super easy to do! And I do like easy! :o)

Marvel Comics the Incredible Hulk for Matt's Birthday - in my hand and head close-up

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Index of my Patterns and Tutorials

Lots more Peeps photos to be found at http://www.flickr.com/knittycat

and Pudge photos at http://www.flickr.com/anthor

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 2008

2008-12-25T01:56:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! from Pudge 2008

We wish all of you a Joyful and Loving holiday

and a new year filled with Peace and Love

Christmas Peeps

Santas, Angela Mia, Trees & Elves for the kids

a Christmas kittycat for theknittycat

Lovey Dovey the Christmas Dove for my DH

Index of my Patterns and Tutorials Here

Lots more Peeps photos to be found at http://www.flickr.com/knittycat

and Pudge photos at http://www.flickr.com/anthor

Springtime Peeps! And a new Flying Piggy Pattern!

2008-07-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

Lots more Peeps photos to be found at http://www.flickr.com/knittycat
and Pudge photos at http://www.flickr.com/anthor

After the last post, filled with what I haven't completed,

I thought it would be nice to show you some of what I HAVE completed lately:

It's been a very PINK spring! :o)

We have two very Pink Ballerinas:

Pippa Potomus for Mia's Birthday

The End

and Katerina Kitty Ballerina for Kristina's Birthday

Katerina rehearsing for her debut!

Pippa and Katerina are cousins and have a lot in common

- they both love pink and they both love to dance!

They're very good friends, too! :o)

Katerina Kitty Ballerina with her cousin Pippa Potomus

and we also introduce:

Kermie 2 for Kristina's Birthday (okay, okay, he's not pink!)

Kermit THE Frog - Kermie 2 for Kristina - with frog legs

Kermie 2 and Katerina are very close

and they enjoy strolling and chatting

Katerina often goes to Kermie 2 for advice from her big brother

Also not pink:
a sparkly little Marisa Mousie for Jill

And before that I made...
the Peep that we've fallen in love with... I ordered some cool new yarn to try - Moda Dea Fur Sure, and when I saw this lovely yellow fuzzy stuff, it just cried out to be a...

Peepsie Peep!

We've fallen in love with a Peep!

We're all crazy about her and so glad that she was an experiment with the new yarn, and not a gift for anyone, so we get to KEEP her! YAYAYAY!!!

Peepsie says "Peeep!" Which means, "Hi!"

Pudgie loves Peepsie Too! :o)

And here's...

Mossalia the wee Mermaid - my first mermaid experiment. I LOOOOOVE mermaids! :o)

You can see that I caught her (carefully) barehanded. We did not keep her, of course, but had a nice chat, took some photos, said "goodbye", and watched her swim away beneath the waves.

And we can't forget the comic fans amongst our ranks... (okay, I'm one of them, I admit it.)

Marvel Comics' the Human Torch.
FLAME ON!

- my impressionistic interpretation - for Matt. :o)

He's quite small (prox 3 1/2" not counting flames, 4" with flames).
I think he kind of looks like a fire elemental. :o)

Knitted on size 2 needles with Senso size 3 crochet thread. Flames crocheted in strips and sewn to body.

And A NEW PATTERN!!!

if you have been saving up things to do "When Pigs Fly".... The Time has Come!

We have a Pink Flying Piggy!

Petunia Phlying Piglet

Petunia Phlying Piglet - the flying piggy for Dorothy

Complete with an easy pattern to make her! To make Petunia, I came up with a new (as far as I can determine) idea for making the legs of a 4-legged peep, all in one, along with the rest of the body. She’s knit in the round, all in one piece (except for wings of course), including legs, ears and tail and just stitching the sides of the legs and ears together when the knitting is done. A nice easy project. I really enjoyed making her! :o)

Pattern for Petunia Phlying Piglet can be found here!

Petunia Phlying Piglet - the flying piggy for Dorothy - Ready for Take Off!

More about Petunia and the Loopy Legs Technique in the next post! (which won't be too long away, I hope, because it's nearly finished!)

Hope you are all having a lovely summer! Lots of fun in the sun (with your sunscreen of course) and playing at the beach, and BBQ's, and happy times! :o) Stay Cool! (I sooo want to put "Dudes" here! heh heh)

Errata. :o/ and New Patterns! :o)

2008-06-27T17:41:00.000-07:00

Please check out www.flickr.com/knittycat for larger photos and all of the peeps.

Nellie the Musical Elephant

:o( ERRATA:
Well it was bound to happen... An error in one of the patterns, and a big one! Poor Nellie the Elephant has an error in the instructions for her feet. :o/

The corrected pattern is in the pdf now, if you prefer to download Nellie again.
(since 04/09/08 so if you downloaded it after that date, you have the corrected pattern)

Or you can substitute the following instructions for the ones in the pattern:

Nellie's Feet:
* FEET PATTERN *
Feet
C/o 6 st onto two circs.
Rnd 1: Kfb each st around (12 st)
Rnd 2 and all even rnds: k around
Rnd 3: kinc, k1 around (18 st total)
(increase every other st, using
the increase of your choice - I use the kinc
throughout because it is less noticeable)
Rnd 5: kinc k2 around (24 st total)
(increase every 3rd st)
Rnd 7: k2tog k2 around (18 st total)
Rnd 9: k2tog k1 around (12 st total)
Rnd 11: k around
Stuff quite full and Bind off.
Sew feet to bottom of elephant evenly spaced.
Put front feet as far forward as looks good, so
she won't topple forward.
........
My apologies to anyone who was caused any grief by my error.

And profound thanks to Susan of spinblessing.com for finding this and bringing it to my attention!

On to happier news...

:o) NEW PATTERNS!

Eggy/Bunnies

EggyBunnies

Eggs or Bunnies

Download
Eggy/Bunny Peeps Knitting Pattern

Wee Lambies

4 Little Lambs

wee Lambie Meringue for Mia's Easter

Lambie Pinkletoes for Kristina's Easter

Download
Wee Baby Lambies Peeps Knitting Pattern

Petit Fours

Petit Fours and Eggy Bunnies for Easter

Download Petit Fours for Peeps Pattern

And, coming in the not too far distant future I hope:

Kermit Peep! (Yes, Really!)
and Hello Kitty Peep!
(--- update --- these have been delayed again, though I have made progress on Kermie)

They're in the works (meaning that I'm working on them), but I'm veeerrry slooow, so not sure how long it will be.
I hadn't planned to make a Kermie pattern, but I found out that our niece, Kristina, likes him, so I'm making her Kermie 2 for her June birthday, and while I'm working on him, I'm recording what I'm doing. I ran into a bit of a problem though, I didn't remember how I'd made his feet and hands. :o/ So that's been a bit challenging, but I'm recreating them. it would actually be easier for me to re-invent them, to just start fresh, and go at it, but since so many of you have professed a desire to make this particular Kermie, I'm doing my best to make the new one as close to my original as possible.
Hello Kitty peep was going to be next, but the need to make a Kermie for Kristina has bumped him ahead, and Kitty is on the back burner for a while. Also, it turns out that I find knitting with white yarn rather boring, so I'm not anxious to get back to her. But I will, eventually.

I've been experimenting with speaking into a digital recorder while I'm knitting, recording the steps I'm taking. This is working lots better than stopping to make notes as I'm knitting, because it doesn't interrupt my flow very much. Whereas writing as I go is very disruptive. I really recommend this method to pattern writers.

..........................................................................................................................

Kermie Update:
Time has passed and I haven't gotten this posted, or completed either the Kermie pattern (though I have completed Kermie 2), or the Hello Kitty pattern. :o(
Health issues have imposed themselves between me and what I want to be doing. So please forgive my slowness. I do hope to eventually get it all done, Hopefully in our lifetimes. ;o) Well it would be really difficult for me to get it done AFTER my lifetime!

Future Tutorials:

I've also begun a couple of photo tutorials that I hope to finish in the not-too-far-distant future (but going by my track record, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting if I were you.)
These are the ones that I have started:
1. making yarn knot eyes (a la Jean Greenhowe)
2. double knitting for peeps
I haven't found any available for these, so I'm attempting to fill that void. At least put a crumb out there.
And there's another one that I'm currently working on:

3. knitting in the round on two circs - from a different perspective
(though there are plenty of great tutorials on this already available, while describing the process to a friend, I recently noticed a great similarity in knitting this way to knitting flat, and I'd like to illustrate it to take the mystery out of a really easy, and useful, technique.)

Next post will be about what I HAVE completed lately!

We hope that you are all having a lovely summer so far, and aren't suffering too much from the heat!

You can see that Pudge doesn't! ;o)

Bliss

"For he loves the sun and the sun loves him."
- Christopher Smart

What comes between Easter and Mother's Day?

2008-04-23T20:22:00.000-07:00

Please check out www.flickr.com/knittycat for larger photos and all of the peeps.

What comes between Easter and Mother's Day?
This post, apparently. ;o)

This blog is becoming a holiday affair... Quite unintentionally, I assure you. But since I make a lot of peeps as holiday gifts, it's just been happening that way.
I'm busting out of that mold today, though.

Belated Easter for Kristina & Mia:
Last Sunday, we had a happy family gathering, celebrating 3 birthdays, and belated Easter for our two younger nieces, whom we hadn't seen since Christmas.

Mia and Kristina got their Eggy/Bunnies, Eggletina and Eggalia:

Eggletina, Kristina's eggy/bunny for Easter

Eggalia, Mia's eggy/bunny for Easter

(Made with Softee Baby "Rocking Horse" and RH Baby Teri "Baby Print")

Their fuzzy lambies, Lambie Pinkletoes and Lambie Meringue:

wee Lambie Meringue for Mia's Easter

Lambie Pinkletoes for Kristina's Easter

(made with TLC Baby Amore and Paton's Be Mine*, respectively)

(Patterns for the Eggy/Bunnies and Wee Lambie Peeps will be coming in the next post.)

* I am not recommending knitting peeps with Paton's Be Mine though, because it's so hard to work with, even though it does make a yummy soft and fuzzy fabric. *

And we (finally) gave Kristina her Christmas Cookie Monster!

Made after Christmas, to replace the one that Kristina didn't get at Christmas.

Christmas Cookie Monster for Kristina

When we gave an Elmo to Mia and a Cookie to Kristina for Christmas, wee Mia "adopted" Cookie with such fervor that no one had the heart to take him away from her, least of all, sweet Kristina. So I promised to make Kristina a replacement. And finally, she has him! And she was delighted with him! Hurray!

(Cookie Monster Pattern is available free! See patterns and tutorials.)

Cookie Monsters for Mia, Kristina, and D

Here are all three Cookie Monsters, D's - the original - and Mia's and Kristina's. You might notice that D's felt that he should have a Christmas scarf as well! :o)

Tony's birthday goodies:
The main purpose of our gathering, was to celebrate Tony's birthday. For the occasion I made some goodies for him.

Tony's sunset washcloth

He LOVES hot bright colors, especially orange, red, and yellow, so I made a simple cotton washcloth with a very bright colorway of Sugar and Cream. Just a plain garter stitch. But it made a wonderful zigzag pattern, and the garter st made it nice and cushy. :o)
Don't you love multicolor yarn? You never know what you're going to get.

Moneybag for Tony's Birthday

Next - a money bag, stockinette st, in the round, bright yellow, lion brand soft baby, with a big red dollar sign on one side and a big red t on the other. Filled with money of course. :o) a teen boy's fave gift.

An interesting feature is the closure: I felt that tying the drawstrings or using a bead would be too bulky, but it needed to close pretty securely so the money wouldn't fall out, so I knitted a strip and wrapped it around the drawstrings, snugly, and sewed it closed, making sure it still would slide. It worked just great!

Maxie - Maximilian Monkey for Tony's Birthday

And last - but of course not least to a peep or amigurumi lover - a skateboarding monkey peep, Maximillion, with a backpack full of bananas!

He prefers being called Maxie, by the way.

Maxie's backpack in my hand

Making the teensy backpack was such fun! I felt like Gulliver in the land of Lilliput. :o)

We owe the skateboard to chez michelle... I'd considered making one, since Tony loves skateboarding, but I wasn't sure how a knitted skateboard would come out, so I hesitated to make it. But then I saw this wonderful ami [here] by chez michelle and saw how feasible the skateboard was.

Maxie - Maximilian Monkey for Tony's Birthday back

Construction comments:
Maxie was made with Bernat Microspun Mango, and bright yellow, Lion Brand Soft Baby, using my Wee Lambie Peep Pattern (free pattern for the Lambies coming in my next post, along with the pattern for the Eggy/Bunnies). I made him with longer legs and arms (appropriate for a monkey), and slight modifications for the ear shape. And, of course I did some simple colorwork (which I don't like doing), for the face. The face and head were made the same way as the lambies, but after stuffing and closing his head, I needle-sculpted his face to give him a more monkey-shaped muzzle.

Maxie with his accessories

His skateboard was made with two strands of size 10 crochet cotton, and size 1 needles. Knit in the round, a simple tapered tube, then slipped a piece of cardboard in (cut to fit) and closed up. Added seed beads for wheels and a piece of yellow beading elastic for a carrying strap.
My DH and I were really happy with him! :o) and so was Tony, which is what counts, of course. :o)

Marvel Comics' The Human Torch for Matthew:
I couldn't have peeps for the other nieces and nephews and not have something for Matt, of course, so we took the opportunity to give him the "Human Torch" I'd finished a few weeks ago.

Marvel Comics' the Human Torch for Matt

Unlike the Thing, the Torch peep is much more impressionistic. He rather reminds me of a fire elemental. He's quite small, doubleknitted in my "classic peep" style, with sz 3 crochet cotton (Senso) and size 2 needles. The flames were crocheted in long strips (I've forgotten the hook size), and sewn on.

back of Marvel Comics' the Human Torch for Matt in my hand

The moment I saw that yarn, I immediately thought "The Torch!"

Matt seemed quite happy with him. :o)

I'll be posting the Lambie and Eggy/Bunny patterns with the next post, and I hope that won't be tooooo long from now.

Kermit THE Frog with borders

Also.... I'm actually working on a Kermit the Frog pattern (as I've received MANY requests!). Making a Kermie for Kristina's June birthday, but it's a challenge, trying to remember how I made the original! :o)

Wish me luck!

Many thanks to all of you kind folks who have been so supportive, and so willing to comment so positively on my flickr.com pages, and elsewhere. I appreciate it more than I can say. It gives me strength to do the arduous work of pattern writing. It's arduous for me, anyway. I like to just grab my needles and some nice yarn and just CREATE!! Stopping and thinking about what I'm actually doing is quite a stretch. ;o)

Cheers!

HAPPY EASTER! And What Happened to Valentine's Day?

2008-03-23T00:57:00.000-07:00

Eggy/Bunnies for Easter

We wish all of you a Happy and Blessed Easter!

Easter has come so early this year... I was really caught unprepared! I suddenly realized one day, a couple of weeks ago, that I hadn't made any Peeps for Easter!!! No Peeps for Easter? Now that's just wrong!
So... I've been furiously knitting to get some Peeps done in time. I'm writing up a couple of patterns as I go and I'd hoped to have them up in time for folks to use them for Easter if they'd like, but that just hasn't been possible. I'll post them soon though.

EGGY/EYEBALLS
I was trying to think of something less cutesy than my usual fare, to make for the older boys (teens), and I remembered seeing these clever and adorable "Which Came First" photos =LINK= from mochimochiland, of eggs reversing to chicks! So brilliant! Coupling that with the fact that every time I make an Elmo or Cookie, my DH and I wind up playing with the eyeballs (and I do keep threatening to make eyeballs for the boys) - and the inevitable happened...

EGGY/EYEBALLS

the Egg and Eye - Happy Easter!

Easter Egg/Eyeballs collage

You can pretty much see how I made these from the photos... make the eyeballs from the Muppet patterns, and instead of closing them off, stuff them a bit (about a third of what you would normally) and then attach the egg yarn and start increasing again.

Okay. Now for the cutsey...
I just had to make them something cutesy too, didn't I? That's what I DO! :o)
I recently saw, and LOVED, these wonderful egg shaped amigurumi =LINK= and wanted to come up with my own, all-in-one-piece, knitted versions, and what better time than Easter for...

EGGY/BUNNIES!

Eggs or Bunnies

Are they Eggs?

Or Are they Bunnies?

EggyBunnies

Did you ever wonder what hatches out of the eggs that the Easter Bunny leaves? Well, now you know. ;o)

And soon to come (next week I hope) - a pattern for them. It's written and tested, but needs photos, etc.

LAMBIES
The younger girls are getting fuzzy versions of my Lambie Peeps. Made the same way as the smaller ones, but with fuzzy yarn. One is made with the new TLC Baby Amore, which is a very soft boucle, like the original Amore, but finer. This stuff (both the regular and baby versions) makes a wonderful, kind of teddy bear, texture and is not difficult to work with, like most of the other furry yarns are. NOT so easy to work with, but a super yummy texture, is the other yarn I used, Paton's Be Mine. Lovely, soft fuzzy stuff! (sorry, no pics yet)
And... I took notes as I made the first one, and tested them on the second one, so I'll be posting a pattern for Lambies too! TAA DAAA! Well not "taa daaa" yet, I guess... We'd better wait till they're actually HERE to get excited!

For the older girls, I was inspired by this beautiful design =LINK= to make these ...

PETIT FOURS

Petit Fours and Eggy Bunnies for Easter

And a little cake
Cute, huh? Well, we think so, anyway! :o) And you can use them as pin cushions, or earring holders too!

Speaking of yummy fuzzy yarns...
I tried out a lovely new yarn from www.Spinblessing.com (same place I get all my fabulous Kinki Amibari bamboo circular needles) for a couple of the eggy/bunnies - Red Heart Baby Teri. It's white terrycloth looking yarn with shiny, pale pastels running through it. Just beautiful! And not difficult to work with.. Even on size 4 needles! My DH has put in a request for a lambie made with it (when I'm finished with Easter of course), and that should be so cute! :o)

WHAT HAPPENED to VALENTINE'S DAY?
As some of you know, I have some health challenges that interfere at times with me doing the important things like playing with the Peeps, and on flickr, and here. :o) With a rather difficult series of bouts, I haven't been able to get any posts or patterns done in a while, or pics up on flickr. But we're hoping that I'll be able to do more in the future. (you never know) Soooo...

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! A little late...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Pudgie loves being on flicker! Nearly as much as he loves sitting on his Daddy's lap while his photos are being posted. :o) We tell him that he's "Famous Baby" and he smiles and smiles! To see more photos of Pudgie and some wonderful ocean photos, check out my DH's flickr pages =LINK=

A Valentine's Day present for my DH...

Funghi for D's Valentine's Day

This little fellow is Funghi (pronounced fun-jee, fun-gee, or fun-guy - depending on your mood). He's a character that my DH loves, from my favorite Nintendo DS games, "Touch Detective" and "Touch Detective 2 1/2". I just had to make him a Funghi for Valentine's Day! :o) No pattern forthcoming for this one - he's a one-of-a-kind, but I'll be posting the pattern for the heart soon. It's the same as my

Unbroken Heart

"Unbroken Heart" =LINK= on flicker, so named because it's made in one piece, using slip stitches to shape the top lobes (bumps), and you never need to break the yarn. (YAY!)

We hope that you have had a wonderful Valentine's Day and a very

Happy and Blessed Easter!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Our gifts to you - PATTERNS!!

2007-12-23T19:06:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Merry Christmas!

We wish you all the very best Holiday Season!

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year to All!

Our gifts to you:
Muppet Patterns!

Christmas Elmo for Mia

Elmo Peep:

link to pdf of Elmo's pattern

Christmas Cookie Monster for Kristina

Cookie Monster Peep:

link to pdf of Cookie's pattern

the Thing Pattern?

The Thing for Matt's birthday

Well, the pattern's written and the photos are in it, but it's not fully proof read.

But here it is anyway! :o)

the Thing:
link to pdf of the Thing's pattern

Nellie the Musical Elephant

Nellie the Elephant is ready too!

link to pdf of Nellie the Elephant's pattern

Much Joy and Many Blessings to Everyone!

Please check out www.flickr.com/knittycat for larger photos and all of the peeps.

Nearly a pattern for the Thing, and other Peep patterns!

2007-11-24T12:55:00.000-08:00

Please check out www.flickr.com/knittycat for larger photos and all of the peeps.

A pattern for the Thing?! Is it possible that she's FINALLY finished it??

Well, It is possible...

The Thing pondering life and creation

Yes! I've finally finished writing the pattern! Whew! No wonder it took me so long to MAKE him! I had no idea how much work he was till I wrote it all down. Being quite a lazy knitter, I would never have tackled such an ambitious project if I'd known in advance how much work it would be. ;o) And writing his pattern was even HARDER than MAKING him!! Sheesh! All of you pattern designers out there, I take my hat off to you.... or I would if I were wearing one.

But don't let me put you off of making a Thing of your very own. Although the pattern is pretty long (at least for MY standards ... I like things I can make in a day or three!), each part of it is fairly simple to do. I do recommend that you are an experienced knitter, or at least a very adventuresome beginner! I knit him in the round on two circular needles, but you could use dpns if you are more comfortable with them (they always make me feel that I need two extra hands), and there are no seams to sew, but the head and arms, and brow ridge, are knit separately and sewn on. Other than knitting and purling, I use k2tog for decreases, and two types of increase stitches, the kfb and the kinc. Video help for the kinc here
http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/increases
scroll about halfway down the page for increasing in the right side of the stitch, where she calls it a KRL (“Knit Right Loop”, and KLL for the left side of the stitch). Then it's just knit purl knit purl.... and so on and so on.... till you have a big orange Thing! :o)

I will be posting the pattern in pdf format very soon (I just need to add photos to it first). It's my Christmas gift to Marvel fans and the knitters who love them! :o)

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A slightly belated Happy Thanksgiving to all!

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More Patterns Coming?

Nellie the Musical Elephant

In other peep news - I've nearly completed a pattern for Nellie the Musical Elephant (because our niece wanted one like her - so I took notes while I made hers - Hurray!).

Unbroken Heart

Also, I'll be posting a pattern for the Unbroken Heart soon as well.

Christmas is nearly upon us and I have LOTS of tasks (as I'm sure you all do), so I don't know how much I'll be able to get to, peep-wise, for the next month, but since I've been so bad at adding posts here, you probably won't notice. ;o)

Elmo & Goldy

The good news (for some folks) is that I'm planning on making an Elmo and a Cookie Monster for Christmas gifts and I'll be making notes on their

Cookie Monster

construction as I make them, so apres Christmas, there may be patterns for them soon.

We wish all of you
Very Happy Holidays!
And we hope that you have lots of fun preparing for them. :o)

Why Knitting Peeps is Fun... and info about Hello Kitty and Muppet Peeps

2007-11-06T11:49:00.000-08:00

Please check out www.flickr.com/knittycat for larger photos and all of the peeps.

Why knitting Peeps is fun...

Sissy in her new pink lace dress

You don't have to worry about gauge.

You rarely have to weave in ends (they just get buried into the peep).

You can use any yarn that pleases you, including scraps.

They are generally very short term projects (instant gratification - something we knitters don't often get).

Pretty much one-size-fits-all.

They give you the opportunity to try out new techniques on a small project.

They're cute and knitting them makes you a very cheerful knitter!

They make the recipients happy!

Okay, they won't keep you warm like socks, a scarf or a sweater, but they will give you the warm fuzzies inside. :o)

Info about Hello Kitty Peep and Muppet Peeps...
I've been getting requests for patterns for a number of my peeps, and I want to thank you all so much for your kind interest in them! :o) I'm so pleased that you like them so much! As you probably know by now, I don't actually HAVE patterns for them. You may have already guessed that I'm not much of a pattern writer, since I like to make things up as I'm knitting them. This makes it a little difficult to reproduce them. :o) But I am making an effort to share the things I've learned, and I'm writing up instructions as best as I can for the little guys. I'll be putting up a "nearly" pattern for the Thing here soon, which has been taking up a LOT of my time, and frying my brain (at the moment, it's fairly complete except for the arms and hands), and then I'll be able to concentrate a little more on instructions for some of the other peeps. I do have some notes on a couple of the others that just need finishing, and I'll put them up as soon as I'm able.

Hello Kitty for Nicole in my hand

The Hello Kitty that some of you are interested in was actually a very simple variation on the classic peeps, which are made using the double knitting technique. My recommendation is that you start out by trying out the free pattern for the double-knit bear that is linked to on the intro page (Peeps! and how to make them... Introduction). It teaches the inside-out double knitting technique really well (that's where I learned it, though I had tried the right-side out technique previously), and it is the starting point for the classic peeps.

Then if you want to make Hello Kitty after that - her legs are a bit shorter and instead of increasing in the center of the front of the face, you increase at the sides, to make her head wide and rather flat, and quite large in proportion to the rest of her body.

(TIP: I find it unwieldy to do much increasing and decreasing while the peep is inside out, so I turn them right side out after the arms are made, and place the stitches on two circular needles to do the increasing for the head, or you could use dpns. Also, I've found that turning goes a lot easier if you turn the arms first. I also stuff the legs, arms and body at this point, using the back end of a size K crochet hook to push the stuffing into the limbs.)

I used a slip stitch technique to shape her ears so I wouldn't have to knit them separately and sew them on (which I heartily dislike doing), but it would work just as well to make them separately, or pick up stitches at each side of the head for them. I will eventually provide the slip stitch technique, but I'm not sure when I'll get to it, since there are so many things to do! So I'd suggest making the ears one of the other ways, and not waiting for me! :o) When I do make the bits and pieces separately, I knit them in the round with 2 circular needles so I don't have to make a front and back and sew them together. The ears on the classic peeps are double knitted while making the heads, and require a break in the yarn for the second ear, but no other sewing. (Have you gotten the idea yet that I don't like sewing?).

Cookie shows his stuff! Cookie, Elmo and Kermit

As to the muppets... I don't have any patterns started yet, but since I am making an Elmo, and possibly a Cookie for Christmas gifts, I will try to make some notes as I go. Except for Kermie, They are based on the classic peeps, but are larger, and have much larger heads. Then their eyes, Elmo's nose, and Cookie's cookies were knitted separately in the round, then stuffed and and sewn on. Kermie was approached totally differently, knitting his body and head in the round in one piece, then each limb knitted in the round, then stuffed and sewn on.

I hope this has been helpful to you. If you check back here occasionally, I hope to eventually get some patterns done and posted. But as I keep making new peeps, and I'm as slow as a snail at writing patterns (if a snail wrote patterns) ... I think it is going to be a looong process! :o)

The Thing in progress ... Jean Greenhowe Patterns and Kinki Knitting

2007-10-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

Please check out www.flickr.com/knittycat for larger photos and all of the peeps.

A Pattern for the Thing?
It's taking me a lot longer than I had hoped to write up a pattern for the Thing. Making him was a bit more complicated than I'd realized.

The Thing & reference photos

When I approach "sculpting" with knitting, I nearly always create as I go, without much, if any, plan. I sometimes have a specific image in my mind, or at least the approximate size and shape of the item. And sometimes I have an image or images on paper (like the

Hello Kitty for Nicole front 3 qtr

Muppet characters, Hello Kitty, the Marvel Comics' character, the Thing,

and Matt's character designs of Ted and NegA-teD, amongst others).

Matt's character, Ted - 2 versions

I simply begin, usually at the bottom, and work my way up, creating the desired shape with increases and decreases as I go. I am not really conscious of the difficulty of the process till some time has gone by and completion is not yet in sight. :o)
I'm sure that I wouldn't have tackled some of the projects I've made if I'd thought out the difficulty in advance! ;o) I like simple and quick projects!

Cookie shows his stuff! Cookie, Elmo and Kermit

With the Thing, I was knitting pretty intensively for a few weeks, so I guess he was rather difficult for me. Hard work, anyway. Though not difficult to figure out how to manage the shaping. He's pretty blocky. It's proving much more complicated and challenging for me to analyze how I did what I did, and put it in writing, step by step. I want to say "make this part as tall and wide as desired", but that's not much use to someone who wants to work from a pattern, is it.

So, the upshot is that it's taking me a lot longer than I'd hoped to put it all down in a useable form. Especially since I no longer have the fellow and have to work from the photos that I took. Happily, I took a lot of photos!
And here's a collage of some of the in-progress photos that I took during his creation:

The Thing in progress collage

I'm still hard at work, analyzing his structure and writing up the steps to create him, in between making other peeps, of course.
I have such admiration for all of those prolific pattern writers out there! How on earth do you do it?!

Jean Greenhowe Books...

Jean Greenhowe's Little Dumpling Ladies

On a happier note - speaking of prolific pattern writers - I recently received two of the absolutely marvelous Jean Greenhowe pattern books that I'd ordered from www.anniesattic.com!

Her knitted characters are just so wonderful! I especially loved the Little Dumpling Ladies! (just look at this adorable lady in the YARN SHOP!!) Besides, I'm rather a "little dumpling lady", myself. ;o)

Jean Greenhowe's Storybook Dolls

And, although I am unlikely to ever actually make anything from one of her patterns (since they are knit in pieces and sewn together and I dislike doing that, and they have LOTS of little details that make them gorgeous, but I don't like to fiddle with), I really enjoy looking at the pics, and thought that I might pick up a tip or two, like a different way of making hair, etc. Or just more inspiration! :o) Just looking at these beautiful creations makes me very happy! :o)

Kinki Knitting...

KA Circular Needle

I've recently purchased some new circular needles from www.spinblessing.com (I use circulars for all my knitting), and I'm just crazy about them! They're lovely, silky smooth bamboo, with nice flexible cables, really smooth joins, and SWIVELS inside the joins! I really love working with them! And they have sizes all the way down to US 0!

The brand is Kinki Amibari (KA), with prices starting from $7.35 for 16 inch needles (the length I use for knitting small items in the round). The sizes range from US0 up to US17 and most sizes cost under $8.00! Compare that to Addi Natura's (which are nice but don't have a very smooth join) for $13.00 to $16.00 each! The Kinki Amibari needles come in several lengths, though I didn't look at the prices of any but the 16" length.
Previously, my favorite needles, and really the only needles I liked to work with, were vintage nylon circs, which haven't been made in a lot of years. I've been collecting these needles for several years, getting them wherever I could find them, but it's becoming more and more difficult. So I'm ecstatic to find needles that I'm really enjoying using that are readily available! Hurray! Be forewarned though, there is usually a one week delay before the needles are shipped from spinblessing.com since they are ordering them from the manufacturer in Japan. But they're definitely worth the wait! :o)
Well, I just talked myself into going and ordering some more! Yay!

(A little post script: Please forgive the erratic spacing in this post. I'm having some trouble with the coding produced by Vox's compose window.)

Character Peeps - Marvel Comics' the Thing

2007-09-26T00:31:00.000-07:00

The Thing for Matt's birthday

I recently posted a new Character Peep to our flickr pages modeled after the Marvel Comics' character the Thing (link), and suddenly, it went a little mad in our e-world! :o) Apparently, there is a LOT of interest in the Thing (member of the Fantastic Four in Marvel Comics, and recently immortalized even further in a big screen movie). Folks were viewing and blogging about our humble little version, and interest in a pattern became apparent.

Making the Thing
Unfortunately, as I've mentioned, I rarely knit from a pattern, and usually knit freehand, inventing (sculpting the shape) as I go, so there is really no exact documentation of how I made the Thing. I can reconstruct a close approximation of how I made him, but the exact execution will be up to anyone who wants to duplicate my efforts.
Update: I'm hard at work, writing an actual pattern. I hope to have it finished within the next week, and I will post a link here as soon as it is ready.

The Thing & reference photos

I did take a few "in progress" photos, during his construction, and hope that they will help you to visualize the process. I will include them on the page with the pattern when it is completed.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE THING'S CONSTRUCTION:

There is really nothing very unusual about the construction of the Thing. He's actually engineered in the same way as any basic, two-legged, standing, toy, and can be crocheted, instead of knit, if you prefer. My version is knit in seed stitch (k1p1 then knit the purls and purl the knits) except for the shorts which are stockinette.

If you've made other toys or amigurumi, he is made using the same process.

Starting from one foot, knit the foot and leg in the round in the same way that you'd knit a simple sock or bootie.

Put the stitches from the first leg onto a holder and make the second leg the same as the first and add the toes to both feet.

Attach the color for the shorts and knit across both legs (front and back), picking up the stitches for the first leg from the holder.

Knit the torso in the round up to the neck, (changing back to the body color at the waist).
Knit the head and arms (including the fingers) and sew them onto the torso.

Knit the brow ridge and sew it on.
Knit the waistband and sew it on
Pop in the eyes and embroider the mouth

VOILA! The Thing!

Since he wasn't going to a small child, I did insert pipe cleaners into the legs, arms and torso, to give a little posability and stability (because he's so top heavy).
For much more detailed instructions, please see the Pattern for the Thing linked to on the

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Our gifts to you - PATTERNS!!

post. (now finished!) :o)

Peeps! and how to make them... Introduction

2007-09-10T17:35:00.000-07:00

To view the Peeps Collection, please visit our flickr site www.flickr.com/knittycat

My abortive attempt to blog the Peep Saga has been put on hold because it's taking me too long to get it going. Sooo... I've decided to start this little interim blog to more quickly address the requests for patterns and how-to's that are coming in, while I'm bogging along with the main blog. :o)
I make my Peeps (also known as Amigurumi) freehand, without patterns (unless I write one), and only some of them with a plan. :o) Almost all are knitted, as that is my current passion (and is much easier on my painful hands), but I reserve the right to toss in a crocheted one whenever the whim strikes. ;o)

There are four distinct varieties of peeps:
Classic Peeps,     Character Peeps,
        More Elaborate Peeps,
and Inanimates (food and other items).
Plus there are always guys that don't fit any of those categories,
   so they will be Special Peeps.

Katie's kitty peep

Classic Peeps:
Classic Peeps are made using the double knitting method from the legs to the neck.
For an excellent description of this technique, please see this pattern. www.free-knitting-pattern.com/doubleknitbear.htm
Although I cannot find the author's name on her site, she does give the following credits for the inspiration for this pattern:
"I got this idea from Jacquee Gillespie of Heber, Utah. The Double Knitting technique is from Beverly Royces’ book which is edited by Meg Swanson and available from Interweave Press." The doubleknit bear pattern author also has this pattern available for purchase in a package with other patterns here or alone here.
Double knitting, using the method described above, is a really fast and easy way to knit a simple three dimensional tube-like item. You knit the item inside out so that you simply knit one stitch and slip the next, across the needle (you don't need to pass the working yarn back and forth like you do with double knitting right-side-out). This knits one side of the item, then you turn the needles and knit/slip across the other side. When you finish, you turn the item right side out, and VOILA! It's one piece of in-the-round knitting that you did straight across! Magic! :o)
The body, legs and arms of each of the classic peeps are knitted with this method, inside out, in one piece, on one circular needle (you can use two straight needles if you prefer) and then turned right side out and placed on two circs (or on dpns if you're comfortable with them), and the head is knit in the round. The pieces are all together when you finish knitting, and there are no seams to sew.
In the pattern (above) for the doubleknitbear, the author suggests that the head also be done with the doubleknitting technique, but I find it unwieldy to do much shaping while doubleknitting, so I turn the peeps right-side-out before knitting the head, and continue in the round from that point.

Bunny Peeps for Easter

More examples of classic peeps:

Kermit THE Frog with borders

Character Peeps:
Character Peeps are based on existing characters and are created in a variety of ways, depending on the looks of the character, and my mood. :o) And the desires of the recipient, if they know about the gift before it's made.
Some of them (like Elmo and Cookie and Kitty and Super Bear) are started in the classic peep method, and veer off when the head is made. Some (like Kermie and Hedwig and Taz) bear no resemblance to the classic peep creation method, and are each approached on an individual basis.

Harmony - Dorothy's limey hedgehog

More Elaborate Peeps:

More Elaborate Peeps are also created in a variety of ways, depending on the looks of the character, and my mood. :o) And the desires of the recipient, if they know about the gift before it's made. But these aren't based on an existing character. The inspiration for them can come from anywhere, and their design may begin with looking at lots of pictures of real and imaginary animals (like for Linus the Penguin, and Harmony the Hedgehog) or may just be a product of imagination (like Marietta the Flat Cat, the kitty pillows, or the video game bunnies).

Some of them (like Marietta and the kitty pillows) are made using the double knitting technique, but most are knit in the round on two circs. There are a few exceptions, of course, like MiniMe the crocheted turtle, and Harmony the Hedgehog, who was knit partially in the round but, although the fuzzy back was knit at the same time as the front, they weren't connected while knitting and had to be sewn up (ugh!) later.

Raspberry with grey background

Inanimates:
So far, most of the inanimates are food, and most are created simply knitting in the round with two circular needles. There are exceptions, of course, including an "unbroken" heart which is created all in one piece, using slip stitches, with no break in the yarn to make the second lobe. Most of them, thus far, have been created as brain food for the ZomPeeps (more on that later).