More procrastination...?

I swear I am working on getting my patterns all typed up and bundled. While doing it, I had an idea.  What would an Octo look like if I made it with a African Flower motif to start.  This is the result, I know if I make a second I have to work on the flower part as it left gaps big enough for stuffing to seen which means it can be pulled/worked out.  I used the left over yarn from my purse and scraps from the pillow shame I made back in april.



I am currently working on a Mythic Amigurumi Booklet that will have the patterns I wrote for chibi dragons, cthulhu, abnormal unicorn, and a dragon egg pouch.

100 Posts! Giveaway!

So I am officially over 100 posts.  I know I mentioned a while back that when I hit 100 posts I would be doing a giveaway so here it is!

Rules- Anyone, anywhere can enter.  If your are under age (younger then 18) please make sure with a parent or guardian before entering as I will need a physical address and name to send the prize to.

To enter all you need to do is to leave a comment on this post.  In the comment mention which item from the list you would like, you can leave it up to random luck and just say any, or say you want specifiably a Unicorn/Bunny/Cthulhu but you don't care which color, or you can even pick the specific one from the pictures. 
If you don't say what you want I will pick for you.
 Any double comments will be ignored as an entry so double commenting is not going to earn extra entry's.  Replies to an other comment will not count as an entry either so make sure you are making a comment on this post and not replying to someone comment.  If you decided you want something different then what you original commented just reply to your comment with any corrections. 
All comments left by Anonymous will be disregarded you need to make sure you leave a name so  when I announce the winner the prize can be claimed by the right person.
Winner will be announced in a new post which will be titled 'Winner' I will leave an email address as well as instructions on what to put in the email so that I can ship them the prize they pick.  So keep your eyes out for it and rember to leave a comment!
 Contest opens the second this post goes live, and ends December 1st 2012 at 12:00am my time (Central Time) so any comments made after that time will not count.

Prizes- One of the fallowing items
Amigurumi Unicorn - Rainbow mane or Silver mane
Amigurumi Bunny- Assorted colors see image
Chibi Cthulhu - Assorted  colors see image

Again anyone can enter, the winner will be chosen by a random number generator, numbers will be assigned to comments in the order they are left.  So friends, family, friends of family, followers, and even strangers you all have a equal chance of winning.  If enough people show interest I might let it choose three winners instead of just one.  So feel free to share this post with friends and get the word out, the more people commenting the bigger the chance for multiple winners.

I will be mailing the prize or prizes out the first week of December, so long as the winners get back to me in time, after Dec 7th if the winner(s) have not responded a new winner(s) will be announced and they will have 7 days to respond.  That way it will hopefully get where ever it is going before the holidays.  If your local (live in Missouri nearish st louis) we can meet up so you can pick up the prize in person.

Good Luck!

(All amigurumi was made in a smoke free, pet friendly environment.)

In the Garden with Totaro and Hello Kitty

Only one day left to go out and enjoy the Japanese Festival at the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

They did a photo shoot out in the Japanese garden with some of the amigurumi I made with other plush items they got in.  I was so excited to see the post go up on there Facebook page, but really devastated when I realized all the comments where pretty much negative and all by the same person and having nothing to do with what the post containing the picture was about.  They where all just realy negtive feed back from someone who didnt seem to like this years Festival, which is sad because I had a great time.

I just find it hard to get and stay excited about having them post my work to their page when it is now connected to all that negativity.  It would be one thing if they didn't like the craftsman ship and where actually commenting on the toys in the image, or about the Gift shop in general which is what the post is about but why post such negativity, and negativity that is not even justified (candle light walks are by defection done in the dark by candle light, and the festival she is comparing it to last year was a special one time event hosted at the garden that was Chines and separate from the Japanese festival they hold every year) in this particular post.

Not to be a stick in the mud but man I was excited when I saw it had alot of comments and now I am just upset.

I blame this rant on all the Nigori Unfiltered Sake we had at dinner. #ThanksChad for the sake

Japanese Festival!

So we got to go out to the festival Saturday walk around and have some fun. I enjoyed the garden and even got a paper parasol painted with a Sakura tree on it to help keep the 102 degree heat off.

I have to say what I enjoyed most (besides getting to be there with my husband) was the Japanese ladies who did 4 different cooking demonstrations with samples of everything they cooked.  They als talked about how making bentos they always make sure to have 4 colors of food to make sure the kids are getting alot of the vitamins and minerals they need.

The top image, is a bento box one of the lady's moms used to pack for her to take for lunch to her kindergarten class when she was growing up in japan. 

The cooked all traditional home style items that would have been something they ate when growing up in japan and items they still cook today for their kids here in the US.

The items they made where--
Stuffed Lotus Root (In the bento box it is the item on the far left) which is two thin slices of lotus root with a ground meat mixture sandwiched between then lightly pan fried with a pan sauce over.  These where crunchy and only slightly sweet.  I plan on trying to make them for dinner one night, or even make a larger batch to take to the group I game with.
Japanese Style sweet Omelet (in the sample bowl image its on the bottom left next to the fake grass) This was a very different dish for me I had never tasted anything like it.  It was not  my favorite part of the sample but it wasn't bad just different... very um not anything like you would expect.
Steamed Veg & Japanese mustard dressing (broccoli and carrots)  They had cute little metel cutters that where about 1/2 in wide they used to cut stars, flowers, and even kitty faces out of carrot slices the sauce was realy good with them I could see it turning a broccoli hater into a lover easy.
Rice Ball with Sesame and salt - Literally just rice seasoned with sesame and salt but still good.
Finally my favirt item of the sample--
Butter Mochi!!  It was a very sweet and dense style Japanese cake which I can not wait to try making!

Here are some photos of the garden grounds, and some of the bonzi that were on display.

And finaly I will end the post with an image of the gift shops display of my amigurumi.

The Amigurumi stops here---MBG

I have finished 51 diffrent amigurumi in assorted unicorns, bunnies, and chibi cthulhu's.  I went up and delivered them all today so the stress of 'finishing' is over.  All in all I was able to make 14 Unicorns, 17 chibi cthulhu's, and 20 Bunbuns (4 of which are Skel-o-Bunbuns).

I took group shots of what I still had left to deliver but some how lost the group shot of unicorns and since I already dropped them off I cant take an other.  I will try to get a shot of the display they put them on this weekend when I go out to the Missouri Botanical Gardens Japanese Festival.  

I cant wait, I realy do hope they sell well and people like them.

 These bunnies just wanted to pile up and be unruly.  It was like bowling only with out a bowling ball the bunnies would just all decided to fall over randomly.  So their group shot is a Pile-o-Bunbuns.

Now the Chibi Cthulhu's on the other hand where more then happy to stand up and even stay in formation for their photo op.  Nothing beats a murder of Cthulhus.  Any idea what the plural for Cthulhu is?  I know a Murder is a flock of crows but I like the term for this grouping of Cthulhus.

Sneak Peak of MBG work aka Image Heavy post

Ok so here is the sneak peek at what I will be taking over to Missouri Botanical Garden for the Japanese Festival that is happening Aug 31-Sept 2.  My hubby plans on taking me up on  one of the day because we have know about it the last 2 years but never actully made it up for the festival and this just makes me even more excided.

I tried my best to group them by color, but the bunbuns where not having it so most of them got solo shots. 

 

So much crochet -.- in so little time.  I just hope they all find homes with people who love them as much as I loved making them.  I also wish I had a better way to take photos I have been using my phone and it tends to bleed out the colors =(

Off to the MBG

These guys are going off an an adventure to the Missouri Botanical Garden to have their pictures taken in the Japanese garden!

They will be the first batch to go up.  Hopefully everyone else loves them as much as I loved making them and they find good homes.

I have two styles of Bunbuns, the ones with cylinder like ears and the ones with big fat ears.  Personally I like both styles which is why I made both.  I tried to mix and match the colors for them in ways that worked.  I have two style Unicorns as well, Silver and Gold!  Of course not to be left out are the Chibi Cthulhu, one in traditional green and the other two in bright playful colors.

Abnormal Unicorn

 Here is my Abnormal Unicorn, I was inspired to make this when I was commisioned to make a Funnie Bunni


Things needed to make this are:
White yarn, roughly 10 yards or less
Gold or Silver yarn, for Horn and hooves less then 2 yards
Blue/Purple/Red/Orange/Yellow/Green yarn scraps for the mane and tail less then a foot of each color
I used an F (3.75mm) hook for the body/head/feet
darning or yarn needled to sew horn and hooves to the body
15mm Safty eye's (or you can felt black felt on)

I am from the US so I am using the US crochet terms the only things you need to know to make this pattern are, MR (magic Ring), SC (single crochet), INC (increase), and DEC (decrease). Some other terms I may use rnd=round, st-stitch, yo-yarn over.

Even if you have never crochet before this should be simple.  If you have never worked in the round before don’t be scared its easy!

Here is a link to the video I made when doing my Penguin to show how to start in a MR its exactly the same.

Head/Body Section

MR-6 (in white yarn)
R1 inc -12
R2 sc inc -18
R3 sc 2 inc -24
R4 sc 3 inc -30
R5-9  sc all -30
R10  sc 3 dec -24
R11  sc 2 dec -18
R12  sc dec -12
R13 dec -6

Hooves 4X

MR 6 (in gold/silver)
R1 sc 6 (color change to white at end of round)
R2 sc 6
R3 sc 6 (leave a long tail to sew into body with) 

Ears X2   -UPDATE 4/7/18-

chain 6, sl st into the 2nd st from the hook, sc, hdc 3, sc 2 into the last hdc turning and hdc into the same st again, hdc 2, sc, slst and finish off.

I have added a chart of this section to help with clarification.  The red chain is the starting stitch, the blue slip stitch is the ending stitch.

Horn

 MR 4, sc for 5 rows or for as long as you want the horn

 

Assembly 

Add eyes, I placed mine between the 7-8 rows. Stuff and sew body shut.  I didn't need to stuff my legs any more then just pushing the tails of my yarn and color changes into the legs, but if you want them firmer sew them half way onto the body and finish stuffing before you sew them the rest of the way.  I sewed them into the rows 10 threw 12, my front lets set wide under the eyes, and my hind legs closer together for stability.
 I sewed the ears on about 5 st's back from the eyes and a row up, on the same row but in the middle of the eyes I added the horn.  From here I did the mane, you can do it any way you want but this is how I did  it, I used a size D hook and used it to pull two strands of a color at the same time threw a stitch starting with the row directly behind the horn.  Make sure if you do it this way you always pull the yarn threw the same way so they all lay the same way. I went in from right to left (eyes facing me) and it made the mane lay to the right (when held eyes facing me).
 For the tail I added two strands of each color  onto a separate strand of yarn. I did a hitch knot, folding the strands over the base strand and pulling the tails threw securing them. I did this for each color then tighten the base strand and knotting it into a loop that I then sewed onto the base of the body. 

I wish I had made the tail longer, I pre cut all my strands for the mane and tail to 4 inch's (folded over so they are all 2inchs long) I think a longer tail would have been more appealing but it was just right for the mane. 


As always if something isnt clear just let me know and I will do my best to explain and/or provide video/pictures.