Nerdy Adventures: 3 November 2013

First off, my adventures in Crochet this week...

I know it's late but,

Pretty much everything I have crocheted this week has been Halloween related. We had a Halloween raffle at work and I was asked to crochet something to make it Halloween themed. I made another tiny ghost using A Morning Cup of Jo's adorable pattern. I finished it in no time at all and thought that I should make something else as well. I decided on a pumpkin because it seemed like the easiest thing to make quickly. After a quick Google image search I found that there were loads of pumpkin designs out there. Lots of them appeared to be created by crocheting a ball and using a long tail of yarn pulled through the centre to create segments. The pumpkin turned out to be another really fast project. With the addition of a felt face, my pumpkin became a perfect Halloween ornament. I'm pretty impressed with it! The ghost and pumpkin in the picture aren't actually the ones I made for the raffle, I gave them away before I could take any pictures! To make up for it, I crocheted another pumpkin yesterday. This time I took LOTS of pictures.

Here is a quick tutorial on how to create the pumpkin shape.

The pattern is very customisable. You could use a crochet ball of any size or proportion. This one starts with six stitches, increases up to four stitches between every increase and has six rows of single crochet before decreasing back down to six stitches. The stalk is made by picking up a stitch in the centre between each segment. The stalk on my pumpkin has six stitches and is crocheted three rounds high.

I want to acknowledge that this design is heavily inspired by other pumpkins I found online. Even though I didn't specifically use these patterns the pumpkins from hip2thrift and Little Things Blogged where definitely inspiration - both are free patterns too if you'd like to make your own! Also these ones from Mohustore, which are so sweet and adorable, like all her designs!

***

My gaming adventures this week have been fairly scattered. I spent a lot of my week nights working on Halloween crochet and going out for dinner (which is actually rare for me on a week night, but this week I went twice!). Despite not having a huge amount of time for gaming I did start three new games. The first was Costume Quest. I had heard of this last year but I didn't have a chance to play it (probably because it was only on Xbox live and PC at the time). It was on sale on the app store for Halloween and I couldn't resist. The game is a cute little RPG about a brother and sister who go trick or treating and find that their night is ruined by monsters who are trying to steal all the candy. It sounds pretty childish, but it's cute and funny and the game's heroes turn into giant manifestations of their costumes when they go into turn based battles. I played the game for an hour or so on Halloween and it felt like exactly the right thing to do. At some point I'll find some time to finish it.

The next game I started playing is also by the developers behind Costume Quest - Double Fine Productions. It's called Middle Manager of Justice! and its available for free in the app store and on Android. This one is definitely worth checking out. It's hilarious (especially if you have worked in any kind of bureaucratic setting before) and is pretty good for a free to play game. The basic idea is to hire heroes, train them and send them off to battle bad guys, all the while making sure that your heroes stay motivated and the citizens under your protection are happy. I'll definitely be going back to this one when I have the time. One tip for new players: make sure you buy a rec room as soon as possible or you will have a lot of sad heroes on your hands!

Finally I have one more game to discuss; a point and click adventure called Lilly Looking Through. This one was on sale on Steam. I watched the trailer and was charmed by the beautiful animations and art style. The game has a demo, which I immediately downloaded. It's a standard point and click adventure about a small girl who is trying to rescue her friend; nothing new there. The puzzles are based around a mechanic of moving from past to present by putting on a pair of magic goggles. I don't feel like this mechanic is new either, but it is a nice touch in this game. The real strong point are the charming animations. Real care and attention has been put into all of Lilly's movements and gestures as she interacts with her environment. It's just gorgeous. I've only progressed through the first six puzzle scenes but I'm enjoying it so far though. I definitely want to see Lilly through to the end of her adventure.  

***

Despite all the gaming and crocheting I still found time for reading Dark Currents: Book One of the Agents of Hel series by Jacqueline Carey. I read this book for an online book club that I follow. I don't want to say the name of it because it's kind of rude and I worry that all the amigurumi on my blog would attract young readers and this is definitely an adults' book club. For age appropriate fans of fantasy romance books however, this book club is definitely worth your time!! It's hosted by Felicia Day (known for the Guild and her YouTube channel Geek and Sundry). The group has a panel discussion about a new book each month and posts it on YouTube. There are also forums on Good Reads to discuss the books.

Dark Currents is one of the better books that the club has read (in my opinion at least!). It's an urban fantasy murder mystery where the central character is a half-demon liaison to the Norse goddess Hel. The book strongly reminded me of the Sookie Stackhouse series, which I've read about six or seven of before I became bored with them. It's the same kind of idea; supernatural creatures coexisting with humans in a contemporary setting, multiple potential love interests... I prefer Jaqueline Carey's writing style however. I really enjoyed Dark Currents and will probably keep going with the series at some point.

That's it for this week. I'm not sure how full next week's post will be because Nanowrimo is in full swing! I've kept up with my word count so far, fingers crossed that I don't start slacking off!

Have a good week.
-Em.

Nerdy Adventures: 27 October 2013

Crochet...

It was a productive crochet week this week! I finished the tiny ghost pattern by A Morning Cup of Jo and made up my own pattern for a baby Squirtle. Here are a few pictures. I even made a Pokeball to brighten up the pictures.

Finished Object Friday: Tiny Crochet Ghost

I don't normally pay a lot of attention to Halloween; it's not really celebrated by anyone over the age of seven in Australia. For me it's an excuse to buy chocolate and lollies "just in case" someone in costume shows up... but more often than not I end up eating the whole lot myself and that is perfectly OK with me :-P This little ghost pattern from A Morning Cup of Jo is starting to change my mind about Halloween. I found the pattern yesterday and couldn't resist making it that evening. 

It's a great pattern; so cute and SO quick to make. I don't think I've ever finished a crochet project in one sitting before. It took me just over an hour from start to finish while watching TV. The best part of the design are the tiny arms which are created with a chain. That means the whole ghost is crocheted in one piece and there's no sewing required (aside from the mouth). It's also a great pattern for using up leftover white or cream yarn, which, for some reason, I seem to have a lot of! I will definitely be crocheting more tiny ghosts in the future. I'd like to make a garland of them in different sizes... maybe they could even have little hats!! Hmm.

The pattern suggests that you use pink fabric paint for the cheeks. I didn't have any so I used some felt instead. Luckily I had some ribbon lying around that I could use to turn the ghost into an ornament. (This might sound strange but a lot of the ribbon I collect comes from those weird little loops you get in dresses and shirts that are supposed to help your clothes stay on the hanger but end up annoying you by sticking out or making you itch. I've been cutting them out for years and one day decided I might as well keep them and put them to use... that's not that weird right?). 

I forgot to mention this is a free pattern. I recommend that you grab yourself a copy and whip up your own little ghost to decorate your house this Halloween!

Thanks for stopping by. If you'd like to see more finished objects, check out the blog Tami's Amis :-)

Crochet Monkey and Experimenting with a Light Box

I find that the hardest part of blogging is taking nice photos! I don't have a lot of opportunity for taking pictures in natural light and end up taking most of my photos inside, during the evening. This has led to a lot of yellow photos. I've been on a quest to create perfectly white backgrounds in pictures of my crochet projects for almost as long as I've been crocheting (about two years). Finally, I think I might have discovered the secret.

When I was complaining about the poor quality of my photos to a friend, she suggested that I make a light box. I had no idea what that was so I had to look it up. Luckily a light box is very simple to make at home. I found this tutorial online. I used a cardboard box, white bin liners and a large piece of white card to make my light box. It took less than an hour to make.

Unfortuntely a light box isn't all you need for taking pictures with a nice white background. Unless you are lucky enough to have the perfect conditions, the pictures will require editing in a photo editing program. I used a combination of picasa and gimp. Both are free programs that you can download. I used picasa for altering the lighting in the image and gimp for erasing any unwanted shadows around the edges. After uploading the pictures into this blog post I can see that I didn't put enough time into editing the photos... you can see where I've erased the darker blue colour from the background. Ugh, not very pretty. The photos below are a lot better.

Even though I clearly need to work on editing the images I'm really happy with how they came out. They are a big improvement on the pictures I have taken in the past! The white background really helps to show off my crocheted monkey. The pattern is from zooimgurumi which is a lovely collection of animal patterns. I had to buy the book after seeing the adorable monkey pattern on the front cover. He's just so cute! The pattern is well written and easy to follow. I decided to make my monkey green because I didn't have any brown yarn when I bought the pattern book and I had to make him straight away :-P I don't think it detracts from he's cuteness though!

Crochet Catbug from Bravest Warriors

Have you heard of the YouTube series Bravest Warriors? I discovered it a few months ago and was instantly hooked. The series was created by Pendleton Ward who also created Adventure Time and it has the same wacky humour as the earlier show. For me the best part of the show is Catbug, a hyper adorable ladybrid who's voiced by a six-year-old (or there abouts).

Here is a picture of Catbug from the show. He's the cutest!

As soon as I saw him I decided that I wanted to crochet my own Catbug. After Googling "crocheted catbug" I found that there were already a few examples out there and even a couple of patterns, but none of them were exactly what I wanted. So I made up my own crochet Catbug!

I'm Catbug!

I'm really happy with how he turned out! I tried to reproduce this picture:

In one of the episodes of Bravest Warriors Catbug brings freshly baked peanut butter squares from another dimension and wears these cute pink gloves to carry them. The gloves are removable. 

I used felt to make the ladybird spots on Catbug's back, only I think I went overboard and added too many spots! Next time I will crochet spots and sew them on to avoid the raised edges on the felt circles.

The most difficult part of the whole design was embroidering the face. I usually use safety eyes for my amigurumi, but I'm glad that I gave stitching a go for this project.

I'm going to attempt to recreate my Catbug pattern and share it on this blog because the world needs more Catbugs! Aww, Catbug always makes me smile :-)

What is Amigurumi?

Most of what I crochet can be classified as amigurumi. As not everyone is familiar with the amigurimu style, I thought it would be a good idea to start this blog by answering the question - what is amigurumi?

The craft of making amigurumi came from Japan. The word amigurumi is a combination of the Japanese word ami meaning knitting or crochet and nuigurumi which means a "stuffed doll" (thanks wikipedia!). It's pronounced "ah-mee-goo-roo-mee". 

While the literal meaning is fairly broad, amigurumi tend to be animals or objects with anthropomorphic features. Typical amigurumi style is usually cartoonish and cute; animals have big eyes and disproportionately large heads and inanimate objects have happy, smiling faces. 

Amigurumi is most closely associated with crochet, but they can be knitted too. There are no real rules about what kind of crochet/knitted toy can be considered amigurumi, it's all about creating something that is cute and fun.

Here are some examples of amigurumi I have made in the past:

Lark the Monster by Tracey Strock

Modification of Spring Bunnies by Stephanie Lau

Snuggles the Penguin by Stephanie Lau

Spring Bunnies by Stephanie Lau

Tiny Chickens by Anna Hrachovec

Jack Russell from Ami Ami Dogs 2

Amineko Pattern

These patterns come from a range of different designers - some are free patterns :-) Click below the pictures for a link to the pattern page. The cat pattern is my own modification of the Spring Bunnies pattern (the blue bunny). 

Each design shows the amigurumi style in its own way and this is only a very small sample of the possibilities! Simply type "amigurumi" into Google to see the vast range of cute designs out there. 

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