A Brief Hiatus

Sorry I've been gone - I haven't really known what to say these last few weeks.  Life has turned on its head, and it's getting precariously close to moving day... I'm trying to adjust and prepare.  I hope that I will be able to write again soon with more cheerful news. 

Party Favors!

I've been stressing about recent events, haven't been able to sleep much... so I've been working on the party favors for my son's upcoming birthday party. He said he wanted me to make chicks for him, and thanks to the wonderful world of the interwebs, I was able to find a great pattern!

Gotta watch these little guys, their numbers may get out of control before I know it...

This free design can be found here: http://lucyravenscar.blogspot.com/2011/04/tiny-chick-free-amigurumi-pattern.html

I used medium worsted weight yarn and a size F (3.75 mm) hook.  I used safety eyes and embroidered the mouth... I'm really bad at French knots.

So cute!  I'll be making around a dozen.  If I have time, I'll probably find another design or two.  Probably won't have more than ten kids show up, so I should have time to make a little collection... especially since sleep isn't coming easily.

Just look at that face... :)

Tera Online Guild Project

Since so many of my guild members on Tera Online are creatively inclined, and since I am terrible at drawing, I decided to make each of my guild members' favorite animals, photograph them together, and then send them to their respective owners.  Anyone not comfortable giving an address (or too young, etc) will have their animal added to my donations, and those that receive an animal by mail will have a duplicate made and donated as well. :) Some of the patterns aren't ideal for donation, they might have small parts etc, and in that case I'll make a more suitable version of the same animal.  One for a friend, one for a stranger.

I've already finished my first animal (an alligator) and its duplicate -- beginning work on the second.

Found a pattern on Ravelry that I'll use to make a scarf for my very favorite brother :) he's too far away for me to give him a hug, so a scarf will have to do.

Multi-tasking is necessary for my scatterbrain lately.  Sorting, packing, cleaning, stitching.  Such is life!

Project Updates & More on Ravelry

For anyone who might be interested in following my projects more closely, seeing partially-finished pictures or seeing more specific information about the yarn that I use, my Ravelry site is for you!

You can find my profile here:

Stitchforgood on Ravelry

I'm also going to add a link to the sidebar so you can find it later.

This way I can add more pictures and projects that aren't part of my donations project without spamming blog entries :)

I should have more donation projects finished soon... meanwhile, the packing must continue...

Cotton Addiction

 I went to my favorite yarn store today, Nature's Yarns in Fairfax.  Really good quality yarn, really pretty colors, always tempted to buy the whole store.  They have the best selection of high quality cotton yarn I've seen (along with a lot of other fibers--I tend to gravitate toward cotton). 

One of the books I got yesterday was Crocheted Bakemono (Monsters!) by  Lan-Anh Bui and Josephine Wan. Many of the patterns call for fun colors, which I don't often get to use because most of what I make are animals. 

The yarn usually comes twisted up, as you can see to the left and down below.  You can see the whole array of colors in a variegated or painted yarn design this way.  These particular yarns are Cascade brand Ultra Pima. (Except for the smaller skein up top there, which I'll explain later.) So soft!

 Got a nice pink-purple, dark teal, seafoam green (which looks grey in that picture, but it's not I promise ha-) and a sky blue.  They'll look great in any combination.

 I came home and wound them into center-pull skeins on my yarn winder.  It doesn't take very much time to do, but I find it sort of mesmerizing... the yarn swift spinning as the winder pulls it and twists it perfectly.  I used to hand-wind my yarn into balls, and sometimes I still do with the sari silk, but using the winder is a lot faster and prevents knotting in the process.

 All four colors together (you can see the seafoam color a bit better in this picture, but it doesn't do justice to the shine of the teal color).

And this little guy is an acrylic/cotton blend from Berroco.  It was so shiny that my camera didn't want to focus up close, but the colors are so amazing, I can't wait to find a project for this! :)

These yarns give excellent results in amigurumi... so far I've only tested it out in baby gifts for friends, but I'm very glad to have a larger supply now so that I can make some for my donations project.  It's so nice to work with... (grabs hook)

Two for the road

Two more for the pile, tagged and ready to go!  :) Getting closer to my goal for my first donation drop-off.  Got some more books in the mail today and am very excited to try some of them out, who knows what will come next!

Still working out my upcoming housing situation... it appears that a house isn't in the cards, so I'm going to have to look into alternatives.  I definitely want to get these little guys to the hospital before I have to uproot.  More information when I have it ~

(Design credits: Puffy Pals by Sayjai for the frog, and the mini ami bunny from Amigurumi World by Ana Paula Rimoli)

Now on Tumblr

Introducing my new blog on Tumblr, http://stitchforgood.tumblr.com/

I hope that I will be able to spread more information about this project using different outlets, and I hope to be able to connect with others who share the same passion for crafting for good causes.  If you have a Tumblr account for a project similar to this one, please let me know so I can follow you there. I'll also be reblogging posts about good causes.  There will likely be more short updates on Tumblr as well, whereas I'll leave the more extensive posting to this blog.

Good things were meant to be shared! :)