Thanksgiving 2014

Happy Thanksgiving!  As usual, we hosted the Seattle Transplant Thanksgiving Dinner.  Great friends were in attendance to consume the boatload of food we always have followed by board games.  Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday!

DIY T-shirt Yarn

I find so many cute things to crochet on Pinterest, but the one that's highest on my radar is this cat cave.  It's made of t-shirt yarn.  I looked all over before locating t-shirt yarn at my local Joann's.  Unfortunately, the selection is small and they don't have more than 2 rolls that match in color/design and that doesn't seem like enough to finish one nest.  In my opinion, the stuff is also fairly expensive at $9.99 per roll.

Naturally, I've decided to make my own with cheap t-shirts from Value Village.  I bought a few men's XLs in shades of gray and black to see how it goes.  I located this great tutorial on making continuous t-shirt yarn (also on Pinterest) and set to work on the first shirt.  This is how it turned out:

It was more time consuming than I expected, though my time estimates tend to always be much shorter than actual time taken.  It also made my hands a little sore from the way I pulled the strips to stretch them out.  Overall, I came out with ~53 feet.  I'm not sure whether that's a lot or a little, but we'll find out when I start crocheting!  More to come...

Creative Collaboration: Snow White & Me

My Mom recently asked if I would crochet something to go in the Silent Auction at the school I attended for 1st - 8th grades.  Many of my former classmates have been selling crocheted hats and baby photo props, so I decided to make an amigurumi to be different.  After much thought, I talked to my friend and neighbor, HK, to see if we could collaborate on a doll and dress combo since she has been making adorable little girls' princess dresses.  We decided this would be super cute and went with a Snow White theme.

HK already had her dress pattern ready to go, so it was up to me to find a Snow White pattern.  Luckily, I came upon this pattern by Duchess Gala on Ravelry.  The pattern was easy to follow, though I did make a few modifications(all notes in my project on Ravelry).  The only difficult part was attaching hair since I had no experience there.  Outside of the hair being really thick, I think she looks great and matches HK's darling dress wonderfully.  I hope the recipient of the doll and dress really enjoy them... and that HK and I can do more fun collaborations in the future!

Amigurumi Kitty

My friend, R, presented me with this lovely amigurumi kitty cat last Wednesday, which was fitting since it was National Cat Day.

She designed it herself and pointed out that Ms. Kitty can fit any holiday by changing out her hair accessory.  She's so cute I just had to share!