My dear college bud Cynthia asked me to make a toy for one of her close friends in Italy early this summer. Cynthia’s friend had requested “something American” and anything I make is American because I am American right?

While we were in college Cynthia used to always tell me what she dreamed about the night before. Her dreams were always funny to hear and I was always amazed with the details she was able to remember.

Cynthia also always loved dream catchers (and I never knew her to have a bad dream) so a monster that ate bad dreams just felt right. Of coarse he needed a web in his mouth to catch the bad dreams.
I hope this toy makes a newborn Italian baby happy.

Oh and before I forget! Plush You! is this Friday, Oct 10th at Schmancy in Seattle. If you live around there you should defiantly check it out.  I’ll be there!

The last of my Plush You toys for this year. Despite my husband suggesting the name Dropy McSplat I think I am just going to call this guy a gremlin, the kind that wrecked airplanes, not the kind that you cannot get wet.

He has the same base as this blue guy I made last year. But this year’s model sports spiffy goggles and a parachute.

The parachute was a real challenge to make but a lot of fun. Boning in an i-cord casing makes a frame that holds up the chute that is attached to the swanky backpack.

When asking my husband what I should name some of my toys he always gives me names in the form of Blanky McBlank. Most of the time I laugh and then tell him to come up with something better but something about Whaley McBlubber just felt right.

This white whale has been a white whale of mine for a while now. I originally wanted to make a whale that ate people after listening  to the Mariner’s Revenge one to many times. Then I realized that would require me to make a doll. I never played with dolls as a kid and I don’t feel right making them now. But I did want to make a tinny cabled sweater…

After three or four deformed whales and one grossly oversized waterspout I finally have a whale I love.

This guy will be for sale at Plush You, October 10th in Seattle.

Some of you might remember my Friday Doodle from a while back. By popular demand, meaning my Mom and the few other people who peeked at my sketch book, he is now a toy.

This guy will be for sale at Plush You, October 10th in Seattle.

I have been working hard the last few weeks trying to get everything ready for this year’s Plush You Show. As soon as I finish touching up the photos I will post three new toys.

Made this little guy foe a commission. He looks almost exactly like my original Kitsune but in a smaller more pocket size. Hope Esther enjoys him.

I live in Georgia and I often joke with people that I have never seen a “real” snow. Only a few times in my life have I seen snow that does not melt away with a single footprint. Because of this snow has always seemed a magical thing to me. So when I saw snow come up as a topic in the Holiday Softie Awards I was immediately draw to it. If I can’t have real snow here I thought it would be fun to make a little sprite that brings snow.

This little guy was probably my most challenging piece construction wise to date. When I was drafting the pattern for him I forgot some basic math. I had in my head that the circumference of a circle was TTr² instead of dTT. Stubbornly I cut the pieces even though I knew it is not look right and I even went so far as to sew them together. Looking at that huge head and tinny legs and body I had to admit defeat. A quick glance at wikipedia and a slap on the head later and I was fixing the pattern. See kids, math is important. It helps you make softies.

After remembering middle, possibly elementary, school math. I was ready to roll. First I made the body, legs and arms, saving the head to later. I wanted the feet to be crocheted but I had to fumble how to do it. I did not want to have a sewn line running horizontally across the arms and legs because that would destroy the bell sleeve look I was going for. So I ended up having to make the crocheted sections fit under the already sewn arms. It would have been much simpler the other way around. Then a quick running stitch along the top edges before attaching the arms and legs and it was all good.

As a final touch I painted the eyes of my little guy blue. I used Testor paints, the kind you use in models. Worked great. I like how the blue eyes are much softer than the classic black safety eyes.

Been working on and off again for almost a month on this little guy for the Holiday Softie Awards. Not happy with the photography yet so I hope to have “real” pictures soon.

I know I am not the only one to carry a small travel project wherever I go. But sometimes it can feel like it when you are the only one crocheting or knitting in public. Most of the time you get a lot of stares and people asking you “how do you do that?” But that is to be expected. I know this so I do not take out my project unless I am prepared for this.

But crafting during my lunch break is another matter. I always worry about showing people at work that there are things that I would rather be doing than working. Lucky me, my supervisor does not seem to mind if I work on my crafts during my lunch break. In fact she often ask about what I am working on. I still do not feel comfortable whipping my projects out in the break room, but a quiet lunch by myself in a small conference room with a crochet project is just what I need some days.

Anyone else crafting during their lunch breaks?

I had a stroke of luck late last week. I was very happy to hear that Crochet Me had entered it’s new beta for where the content is user generated. I posted the patterns I have available here and had fun digging around seeing what else was there. About 5 years ago when I started really getting into crochet it was almost impossible to find and patterns that fit my taste. Now with the some of the great new service like craftster and flickr it has become easier. I really like how the new crochet me helps you search quickly through many of these free patterns without having to dig through 100s of blogs. And it’s all free. Super cool.

The next day after playing with Crochet Me I got my Ravelry invite. It was all I could do not to dig through all day while I was at work. Ravelry has a great database of patterns. Unlike CrochetMe’s the patterns are not all free, but rather soemthign that lets you know before you buy or download basic info about the pattern and what others rate it. How great. Ravelry wants to make it when one day you will be able to sell your patterns trough their service. What a great idea.

All this talk about patterns. I should tell you what I have been up to. I have spent most of the last two weeks or so working on writing patterns. While I never lacked respect for designers, I have gained a deeper appreciation of how hard it is to write clear directions. I usually write my patterns in my notebook as I go, it is a strange shorthand that I doubt anyone but myself could follow. Hopefully I will be able to have some sort of pay off for all this work. Wish me luck!