WIP TMNT pattern

I am going to write up a patter,  and make a set of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
It is hard to find a good pattern for them, I have seen a few and they just don't look right. 
I don't want to pay for a pattern that that I would just have to adjust and tweak when I could just write it the way I like the first time.

I will try to make a pdf freebie when I make the next turtle and have the pattern all flushed out.

I have a fully finished Ralph now.  There are a few tweak I will make on the next turtle I make.  Most will not be visably noticable as they have to do with the shell  and how I attached it, I am debating on attching it to the body before I stuff the body to sew onto the head.  I dont know if this will make it easier or harder,  I do know I need to under stuff the next shell.

I will be taking these guys to Fear The Con being held June 13th - June 14th, 2014 at the
Maryland Heights Centre.  They will be up for adoption when I am working the check in desk.

Still debating on if I should offer them as a set or sell them individually.  I do know I will be trying to make more then just one set. Maybe I will have a set that is for sale, then a few turtles with out mask's so people can pick there own mask color?  Then I could offer up diffrent colors outside of the red, orange, blue, and purple of the original TMNT.

 

FINISHED!!!! Johnny blanket

I finally finished this monster of a blanket.    
        
I have been working on it since I got the yarn on Christmas.   This sucked up 16 skeins of a novalty yarn, that bobbles between lace weight and bulky weight.

I did not try and do any fancy stitch work here as the yarn and color would just over welm it so its just a plain DC Afgan, that is 48 inches wide by 90 long give or take stretch, and BOY does this stretch.

Its over cast out today, I missed the sun when it peeked out but the outside lightning was better then any merky indoor shots I took.

This will be going to my sister husband Johnny who is monstrously tall which is why I made it so big.  Normally I would only go to 36x60 for a afghan or 60x60 if its square.

Voting time for my Aloha Pillow Sham entry!

The Aloha April contest voting has started!

If you have a reddit account (and if you dont go make one!) head over to /r/crochet/ and you can join the wonderful community.

If you want to vote, the voting poll is *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧Aloha April FO Voting Thread ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

To vote just log into reddit, and go to the link above for the FO Voting and UP vote, by clicking on the top of the little crochet hook next to a users name for the project you like best.  To tell if you did it right the top half of the hook will turn orange, if you clicked to low you will have down voted someone (taking points away) and the bottom half will be orange.  Please vote reasonably and try not to down vote.


Here are photos of my entery into the contest, if you want to vote for them my user name over on reddit is u/EmberTouchtehFire


You can find the patterns I wrote to make your own under the Free Pattern's tab.  This pattern motif is very versatile and you can make anything out of it that you can imagine.

Making your own yarn?



Navajo Ply'd Peruvian Yarn

I am sure a while back you saw my spinning wheel posts.  Well here is some of my semi-finished work.

 

I used Peruvian wool roving to make my single.  I have not perfected my drafting so my singles come bout a bit wobbly thin and think so I  needed to make sure when I ply'ed I did it in a manner that would help hide those spots.  I decided to go with the Navajo Ply'ing as it created a 3 ply yarn with out having to cut up my single into 3 even sections and ball them with out loosing all the twist I put in. It came out bulky weight even though I was hoping to a bit thinner, I guess that's where I will need more practice learning to spin thinner.

 

I am no expert at spinning. I am actually new to it.  So I would love advice, tips and honest critics'.  I spun my singles on the Turkish spindle I made below, its just 5 chop sticks and some rubber bands but it works great, it might be a bit light weight, but it worked well for me.  It was to light for me to ply on, so I used the spindle my mom worked up to ply on as it is much heavier and a top whorl and helped prevent the kinking and back twist that happened when I tried my lighter Turkish.      



I need to 'finish' they yarn still.  I am spinning up the remainder of my roving to add to the ply ball, which I never finished off so that I could add more single to the ply if I could work it up.



I have not 'finished' a yarn before. I read that you have to wash it then wack it against something to set the twist.  It sounds intimidating but I want to make sure I have all my roving available spun up so I only have to wash and wack once.

 

Hand made Turkish with Single on it.

I think it will also 'fluff' up more after washing so I am not sure what I will make with my finished yarn.  There is not a lot of it I have not measured it yet but it will probably wind up going into something small, and with it being wool possibly a winter item that I will have too wait till winter rolls around again to use (if it ever decides to end since it snowed 2 days ago and now is warming up again).

 

I hope that I will get more fiber for my birthday in June so I can practice spinning more. I would love an other blend that isn't just wool like a bamboo or alpaca roving or batt.

 

I need more practice.  I honestly broke my single a few times during plying and had to back track and repair my single before finishing on.  Eventually if I can get good enough to spin  a sock weight yarn I will start dabbling in trying to hand paint my finished yarn.

If I get realy good I might even treat myself to a professionally made Turkish spindle.  Or even one of those kick spindles I keep watching videos for leaving hands free to work and draft which seems to be my biggest hurdle when spinning.  It doesn't help that my arm span is small, friends of mine even pointed out there 9 year old has a arm span the same length as me.  *Sigh* that started all of the T-Rex tiny arms jokes.  Which are funny until I look down and 'Oh my arms are to short to do that too'.

 

 

Aloha April matching sham! ~Pattern~

So I decided I didnt want to match the pillows exactly I wanted the second sham to look like its part of the same 'set'.

I supersized the motif, pattern ajustments as fallows--

Working with a double strand (holding 2 strans together) and a large hook (I used a P)
Ch 8 slst into ring
sc 22 into ring
ch1 sc 2 into ring, ch 9 slst into top of sc, sc 4 ch 9 slst, sc 4 ch 9 slst, sc 4 ch 9 slst, sc 4 ch 9 slst, sc 4 ch 9 slst, sc slst to firt sc  (should have 6 loops)

Then work the fallowing over the chain 9 ~~sc 2, hdc 2, dc 4, trb 4 ch 3 slst, trb 3,dc 4, hdc 2, sc 2,  slst into the middle  2 st between chain 9's ~~and repeat from ~~


For the corner motif ajustments--

Ch 6 slst join in the round.

SC 12 around the chain slst to join

SC 2, chain 7 slst into top of stitch, sc 4 ch 7 slst into top of stitch, sc 4 ch 7 slst into top of stitch, sc 4 ch 7 slst into top of stitch,sc 4 ch 7 slst into top of stitch, sc 2 slst to join. (Should leave you with 5 chain loops)

Work over all the chain loops-
Sc 2, hdc 2, dc 2, trb 3 ch 3 (this chain will be your join stitch so when you are joining to an other motif ch 1 slst into motif ch 1 instead) slst into top of stitch, trb, 2 dc, 2 hdc, 2sc

 I now have a matching set of spring/summer pillow sham's!

I cant wait for the voting process over on r/crochet to start, as there are so many other people in the contest with great projects to go up against.

Workingon something new- have a peak! --photo update---

This is my newest WIP.

I went to a yarn swap yesterday, and one of the yarns I got was this Blackstone Tweed, which is a woo/mohair/angora mix thats a 2 ply.  I loved the way the specks in it workd up so I though I would try and make a doll.  The only issue I have is the yarn keeps braking under tention, this is a small doll because I only got a small amount of the yarn (1/4 oz or less) and I have to keep knotting it back together ever few feet because its a 2ply I cant really hide the join.

This is also the second time I painted my own eyes.  Sadly its 11pm here so I didn't get good lighting and they look flat, but in person they are sky blue with a bit of sparkle.

The scarf is a mystery wool that I just did a simple 3 st tunisican crochet till it was almost doublt the lenght of the doll.  I went with blue to try and make the eyes pop out more.  Also because it looked like a Sherlock-ish style scarf (BBC TV version).

I am unsure how I will finish this.  If it will be a guy or a girl or even a creature.  I have enough of the tweed left that I could use it to make a matching cap, ears, maybe a tail, or even wings.

I think if I go with a girl, I will try and do a new blush technique that will not rub off or wash out.  I have avoided trying this because I didnt want to ruin any of the dolls I had avalible to me at the time I learned it but I think this will make a good test run because I dont have plans for it outside of I wanted to use the tweed to make a doll.

I am still unsure if I like the way the nose is or not, it seems kinda chunky.  Which I think leaves it looking old mannish.  So I may cut the threads for the nose out and go with no other facial features besides the eyes and blush.



I was able to take a good(ish) daylight photo to capture his eyes! I added it in below.

First run at Tunisian crochet

Front and back comparison

I have dabbled at Tunisian crochet but never found it to my liking with in 4 rows or so.

So what changed my mine, why am I writing up this post?  Simply this, Starlight Tunisian Scarf .

Front

I saw u/SassySSS had worked that pattern up over on r/Chrochet posted some WIP shots of her scarf done up in this pattern with a few tweeks.  I liked the look of it so much so that I went back threw my hooks and decided to try and work it up myself.

I have been hooking this up all weekend when I was at Wizard World Convention, I even talked with a few people who took an interest when they saw me pull it out of my bag on one of my sit down between laps of the con.

The top image shows the front versus the back of the work.  The next image gives a better view of the front of the work.

Working Tunisian Shell row (cast on)

Return Row of the T. Shell(cast off)

For those of you who have not done Tunisian before, its worked a bit like knitting, you need a tunisian or afghan hook like in the images, one that has no thumb rest and a cap at the end to prevent stitches from sliding off the end.  The point to this style hook is because you work a row and as you yo and pull up a loop it gets left on the hook (like with knitting) this is the first part of the row or what I call the cast on part of a row, then you work the return row/cast off row working backwards.  Look at the cast off photo, I simply am doing a - Yo, pull threw two loops- repeat to end.  Onces you find the return your cast on/off is one row of work.

Unlike normal crochet, tuniscian is not worked into the top of a stitch but  threw the middle, normally you would think of this section as the post but its actually more like the top it just has the 2 loops going vertical.

Working Row of TTS (cast on)

This pattern called for 2 stitches, the Tuniscian Shell (TS), and the Tuniscian Twisted Stitch (TTS).  With the twisted stitch, you hold the yarn on the side of the work closest to your body, sort of like when your do the Purle stitch in knitting, to pick up your loop you go threw and grab the veritcal bar farthest from you (see pictuer of WR-TTS CO) by snagging it with the hook so you are twisting the stitch as you pull it forward to do your -YO Pull threw-.  This will creat a little horizontal bar at the base of the stitch in the back, and that wavey bump row on the front of the work.

For the TS, you are working it sort of like unfinished DC Shells, you will start with a *yo on the hook, then go between the 2 vertical stitchs (way easyer then the TTS to explain) yo pull threw, yo and pull threw two loops* (now left with 2 loops on hook) then work the ** two more times in the same vertiacl stitch making sure to leave that last loop on the hook so at the end you would have 4 loops on the hook, then you would sk the next 2 vertical st's and repeat across.

Tuniscian apparently can leave your work looking slanted but a few good tugs and blocking can fix that.  I happen to like the slant in this pattern so when I block to open up the Shells I am going to try and leave it in.

Since I am learning this as I go it seems slow to me, I have roughly just over 3 feet finished since I pulled the hook out on Saturday to knock out a few rows whilst waiting for my Hubby (who is awesome he dropped me off at the door to the convention, and went to park 4 blocks away so I wouldn't have to walk in the windy cold) to get back.  the yarn I am using is one of the Red Heart boutique Unforgettable stuff is so slippery teh labels will not stay on them and I have 3 ball's all in different colorways.

The Convention was a blast, my husband while walking the convention floor looking at all the merchandise actually ran into Eliza Dushku who is one of my favorit actresses (sadly I was off resting my stupid sore feet so I missed it).   We got to have (read hubby payed and wont tell me how much) our picture taken with Matt Smith!!!  Who is actully realy nice, he was doing lots of poses for people who had the forethough to ask and bring props, and he took the time to personly thank every fan who came in to get there photo taken with him.  Also he hugged me I could have just melted then and there he is so sweet.

I also go tot visit my favorit store while at the convention Animeggroll had a booth set up at the contion as well.

Aloha April Finished -Pattern-

Aloha April Contest Entry

This is the project I have been working on to enter in a contest being held over at r/crochet.

I wanted to be able to take the sham off with out having to destry it so it can be washed, and when fall comes I can pack it away and maybe make a more fall themed sham.  I just tie off the top of the motif to the top of the motif on the other side with  a yard of yarn folded over  to make those little bows.

This also goes to show how lighting can realy change a picture.  It is over cast outside and raining off an on but I was able to get that bottom shot off.  Inside I took the top picture with 2 lights on (one behind and one in front) with what little natural light I could get from the window.  Funny thing is the indoor photo has the closest to true yarn color to the actual color then the outdoor photo and normally its the opposite, how ever the pillow's orange color is truer to the outdoor shot.

This is the pattern I originally posted for the flower motif--

1-ROW Ch 8, slst 1 in first ch.
2-ROW Ch 1, sc 16 into the loop.
3-ROW Ch 1, sc 2 over second and first rows (into the loop), ch 9 picot (ch 9, ss in first ch), sc 4 over second and first rows (into the loop), ch 9 picot (ch 9, ss in first ch), repeat from to 4 more times, sc 2 into the loop, ss 1 in first sc in this row.
4-ROW  *ln next ch 9 picot: sc 2, hdc 2, dc 2, tr 3, ch 3 picot, tr 2, dc 2, hdc 2, sc 2: skip 1 sc in 3rd row (loop), ss 1 in next sc', repeat from * to * 5 more times (except make last ss in the first sc of this row).

I wound up only needing 18 motifs (3 rows of 6 motifs) to fit my pillow. 

To connect as you work (recomended) for the first row, work one motif, then work the 2nd motife  but on peddle 2, when you make your picot instead of ch 3 work -ch 1, slst into picot on 6th peddle of previous motif, ch 1- peddle 3 will connect to the previous motifs peddle 5.   The 3rd-5th will all be worked the same. 6th motif you will be using to close the ring, work 1st peddle, connect the next two as previous with 2-5, work 4th peddle (no connecting), now in the 5th peddle work its picot into the 3rd picot from the 1st motif, 6th peddle into the picot of the 2nd peddle of the 1st motif.

For the second row, you will be working 2 peddles, then join the next into the 4th peddle from previous row (just pick a spot to start), then working counter clockwise connect your next peddle into the joint where peddles 5 and 3 joined. work next peddle into 4th peddle of that 2nd motif (going clock wise), work last peddle.   Repeat this for the next motif (add the next motif to the right of previous), but the last peddle will be worked into the 5th peddle of previous motif (the one to the left).   For the last motife of the row work one peddle, then connect to the FIRST motif of the row first -- 2nd peddle into FM's 3rd, 3rd, into FM  2nd/4th join (going counter clock wise) and so on.

I repeated the second rows join method for my third row then just tied off the tops of each motif to the ones on the other side.

I found it helped for me to think of one point as the top (1st peddle) and bottom (4th peddle) when connecting,