I've had ENOUGH

of my pile of UFOs! It reminds me of THIS Natalie Dee comic...I think my 3 main problems are...

1)I've been lazy
2)It's sadly becoming a chore
3)I haven't been REALLY inspired...

I feel like around January I was just ready to crochet until my fingers fell off...and then I just....stopped. I did create a few more things like some more flower pins, and I even competed in the ravelympics (which I failed btw). but NOW I'm ready to finish crap.

First things first, stuff for people. That's probably why it's become such a chore is because I'm making stuff for other people. It's not that I don't enjoy giving gifts to others, but when I finally want to make something for myself I just feel....guilty for doing it. That is also related to my laziness, I'm sure. Things that I will FOR SURE finish before I start my own stuff is...

1)Matt's Bender amigurumi (I've actually made good progress on this one)2)Andrew's cupcake cat (I've made progress on this one, too, but he's not even around anymore to claim it...)
3)Van's mustard beanie (It's pretty much done...I just have like another 2 or 3 inches to go, and with crochet that is pretty much nothing...)

After those are done (and maybe others forget I owe them stuff....)I want to start this cardigan, but in short sleeve. I think it would be really nice for the hot spring/summer we have here in the valley, I would finally get to buy and work with really nice light weight yarn for once, and actually have a cute CROCHETED cardigan (those are hard to come by since crocheting clothing doesn't always lie as nice as this does).
and I want to make the famous amineko. He's so cute and a serious must for anyone who is into amigurumi! and I have enough stash yarn to make him into any color my heart desires ^^

after all this I really want to make Peelander Amigurumi. For those of you who don't know who don't know who they are, do yourselves a favor and youtube PEELANDER-Z. They're a Japanese action comic punk rock entertainment band that is AMAZING live. They're not just amazing performers, they're incredibly nice people who I love. They treat me and my friends so well at every show, and have really become our friends over the years.

I originally made a Peelander-Blue ami as a gift to him (since he's a toy collector, and it was a small going away present since he left the band), and I really enjoyed it. It was alittle bit of a rushed project and my sewing skills (especially last minute) suck so if I made the others Peelanders they would be much more of an improvement....This is an in-progress pic of the P-Blue ami I made...

Anyway, I miss them and love them enough to make them amigurumi. I think it will be fun! My inspiration also came from this book which I finally got around to picking up...
too cute! I look forward to making these, too :)
Next post will hopefully be of my FOs!
-Rita

New Year, New Projects (and some old ones...)

Since I still haven't started working I've luckily had plenty of time to crochet (in between sleeping in and drinking coffee with friends :P). I still feel pretty bummish, but seeing the progress that I've made with my never-ending WIP pile AND creating new ones makes me feel a little better.

First of all, I finished my grandpa's lapghan. The nursing home lost it the 2nd day :/ but they found it, thankfully. He likes it, so that's good :) I really liked the stitch pattern I used on it.

2nd project that I'm trying to finish up (that I was hoping to finish by the New Year, but TOTALLY didn't happen unless I got carpel tunnel which is kinda bad news) was an argyle scarf I saw on ravelry (http://whipup.net/2009/07/28/simple-argyle-scarf/). I love tapestry crochet, but the fact that it's single crochet and using 2 different colors is a pain in the ass sometimes, but it's for someone I love and really owe a scarf to. I completely frogged the last scarf I made him, and the yarn was impossible to reuse (ugh, red heart) and it looked like a slytherin scarf :/ Anyway, here is the progress on the argyle scarf.

3rd project is a mustard yellow beanie for my former roomie. She used to wear this awesome traffic cone orange beanie when we were in school, but I think her mother stole it back from her, lol so she requested this one. I wanted to make it simple, but add some sort of look/texture to it so I started doing a ripple/wave effect. I think it's turning out pretty good so far :)

The following pictures are of the flowers I'm making as hair clips/lapels. I'm doing this mostly for myself, but I'm considering making more of these for my etsy shop, they're quick and fun to make, but I have yet to do the clip part on them yet. I'm thinking about doing them as a dual thing so I can switch between hair and cardigan (gosh, I love cardigans...). I got the pattern from the .Crochet Stitch Motifs book my friend lent me, except I adjusted it all the times I made a flower. Each one is slightly different, from the other, but basically the same thing.

This is the first one I made which is exactly like the pattern except I did different colors for each layer of petals.

This is the 2nd flower I made. It's the same amount of layers, but I took away the amount of petals to make it smaller. I also changed the type and amount of stitchs used in the center.

And this is the 3rd one I made. Same as the purple one except I adjusted stitches and made the 3rd layer of stitches the 2nd layer.

I will be making these into clips tomorrow <3 Hopefully they turn out really nice. That's my progress so far, next post should hopefully have updates from cardigans I plan on making for myself, and a continuation of the WIPs I have to finish. I've already scratched 1 1/2 off the list, I need to keep going!

~Rita

An update, FINALLY!

I've graduated from college, wow, I wasn't sure when the day would come but after this super busy, but great semester of student teaching, I'm happy to be getting back to doing something that I love - CROCHETING! The following is a list of WIP (works in progress) I plan to finish very, very soon now that I actually have the time.

• Grandpa's lapghan (80% done)
• Cupcake kitty (50% done)
• Bender from futurama (2% done)
• Mustard yellow beanie (10% done)
• "It's all business" clutch (5% done)
• Bunny Slippers (finished, but I'm remaking with better yarn and trying to make a bigger size)
• Mr.Boogie (50% done)
• EVERYTHING ON MY RAVELRY QUEUE!

Everything is really in no particular order, except Grandpa's lapghan needs to get done ASAP. I need to also embroider some little patch on there with his name since his nursing home likes to steal his stuff :/ no bueno.

More updates soon, with pictures, yay!
~Rita Pita~

Etsy shop and knitting!

It's been a week, and I've actually been able to get a somewhat decent amount of crafty time in. First crafty thing is I've actually listed an item in my etsy shop! Check out my listing here! I only listed one thing, but I'll have 2 more things to list soon, and hopefully after that more.

My next thing is my knitting, that's actually getting my better. I've gone from "wtf did i do here" to "oh i messed up, let me go back and fix this" - I actually understand what I'm doing now; I'm rather proud of myself! I started making a wash/drying cloth thing with some purling, but I got bored so I decided since I'm really into monogram R's to put an R!

I made an R on excel so I could keep track...
Here are my progress pics! That's the full thing and then a close up of the R. I'm actually quite proud of myself ^^! I'm going to finish up with about 20 more rows of purl then end with a 5 row knit border, then around the edges I'm going to crochet a nice border, Hopefully the ending product is really nice.

That's about it in crafty land. Now it's bed time, because I'm old and have to get up for work in the morning :(
~Rita Pita~

it's true...

I am trying to stay sane one skein at a time. Fiber arts has become a really big part of my life. I originally started crocheting just to make a present for a friend. I didn't think I'd like it as much as I did but after that first granny square I just couldn't stop! I'm glad I've found a hobby outside of music related things to have because I don't want to get burnt out on something that's become my life, and this is helping me do that <3

aaaaand luckily I've met some friends who enjoy it as much as I do (or just crafty stuff in general). Hopefully that's you out there reading this right now, and if not then welcome to my craft blog! I'll hopefully get some stuff up to show soon. I've got a lot of UFOs that need to be done and a terrible quality webcam to take pics with so that will hopefully encourage me to keep track of everything.

I've recently started student teaching, and with that I know I'm going to be super busy, but I know there are going to be days where I'll just NEED to get my hands on some yarn and a hook/needles and stitch away my stress!

~Rita Pita~