The Pony Earflap Hat - Rainbow Dash Edition

For my niece's fourth birthday, I created a My Little Pony Rainbow Dash Hat. I used the basic hat pattern from the Lil' Vampire Hat pattern in Beastly Crochet. I freehand crocheted some triangles and folded them over for the ears. I used yarn from my stash, and made the mane using basic doll hair technique.
I also took longer strands of the same yarn and made the braids. Not too shabby for an improvised design!

3/4 View

The Back

The Side

As you can see, my model was the adorable and placid stuffed Rottweiler my husband got me for my birthday many, many years ago. He's not the most desirable model for a hat, but his head wound up being the perfect size.
Hope you enjoy! She sure did:

Making Something Beautiful

I was having a bad day about a month ago - stressed, anxious, worried - and to ease my discomfort, I decided that instead of dwelling on the negative, it would make me feel a lot better if I created something beautiful.
On my last trip to the grocery store, I found Crayola Dry Erase Pencils, and was so intrigued that I decided to buy them and give them a try. They were almost $5.00 which is quite a splurge for me; I rarely impulse buy.
The basic pack comes with 8 basic colors and a sharpener. The pencils look like color pencils, but are noticeably softer. Also, a warning - due to their softness, they are quite hard to sharpen, even with the included sharpener. If you're able to find a better method of sharpening these bad boys, please feel free to share it with me.
After I had them all sharpened, I created a quick-and-dirty standard artist's bowl of fruit with the fruit I had on hand at the time - which happened to be a lot because, as I mentioned before, I just came back from the store.
Here are my results:

Yeah, I admit - I signed my name to my dry erase board art. Haha!

After a month, it's still up there - a reminder to create something beautiful when I'm experiencing rough emotions. 

Hope you enjoy!

Pumpkins Galore - 2013 Edition

 Last Halloween, I carved four wonderful pumpkins and managed to recover pictures of three. Sadly, I dropped my camera on concrete and it ate my pictures, so I had to take new ones in haste before the pumpkins got all soft and icky (they tend to do that in Washington state, since it's pretty wet and somewhat warm in the fall).

Without further ado, my terrific pumpkins!

Here's one of my favorite Tolkien character, Gandalf. Unfortunately, I have no idea where I acquired the picture used to make the stencil, but I've included it for anyone who would like to make their own. If anyone can find it or knows who the artist of this vector drawing is, please let me know - I'd love to give them credit.

Gandalf pumpkin

Vector drawing of Gandalf

The Klingon Imperial Emblem can be found with a simple Google Image search. I decided to do a shaved effect with my Dremel tool, which came out fabulously!

Klingon Imperial Emblem pumpkin

and last but not least, an attack pumpkin. This photo was taken after we had the "DANGER: CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS" tape that was lining our driveway removed, so you're not getting the full effect. Part of the leg was hanging out into the driveway, as if the pumpkin snagged an unlucky trick-or-treater as they passed. We dressed up one of our prop Halloween severed legs, stuffed the end of a pants leg in the pumpkin's mouth, then gave it a liberal spattering of blood (which the misty rain quickly washed away). The spilled candy bucket was a nice touch!

Attack pumpkin!!!

I hope you enjoyed my pumpkins. I'm planning next year's carvings - feel free to drop me some ideas in the comments!

Back After a Long Hiatus

Hello friends and fans - I apologize for the lack of posts recently, but since I've graduated from the Library Information Services program at SFCC, I have plenty of time to catch you up on what I've been doing recently while I look for employment.

I've been canning a lot lately! My husband bought me an All American Pressure Canner, so I've been going to town with that. I've canned beans, meat, soups, broth, veggies - anything that I can get my hot little hands on!

Chicken Broth

In the crochet end, I've made this cute little breakfast food set a while back, which I recently donated to my 3-yr old niece's play kitchen (Egg pattern HERE, Bacon pattern at Lion Brand HERE, Cup of Coffee pattern HERE) :

Yum Yum!

I also made cool dinosaur pillow covers for a second cousin (sorry - these are originals! No pattern.):

T-Rex

Stegosaurus

Brontosaurus

I've been giving away some of these beautiful tiny bags (also originals, but bags are pretty easy-peasy):

Black Cotton

Camo Cotton

Red Acrylic

Natural Cotton

Blue Acrylic with Fancy Clasp

Rainbow Acrylic with Metal Ring in the Bottom

I made this cute little roly-poly penguin (free pattern at Lion Brand, requires account):

I made a terrific gift basket for a friend who moved into a new place:

Wine, Glasses, Butterfly stickers,
and an Assortment of Kitchen Supplies

I cooked some delicious food:

Deviled Eggs

Broccoli Soup

Stuffed Sweet Pepper

Bugs on a Boat

Meat and Cheese Platter

Green Smoothie

I carved some awesome pumpkins:

United Natural Foods Logo

Spock

Autobot Logo - Transformers

Thor

...and I gave away all of my painting stuff. Seriously. I know I paint well - but I haven't touched any of my painting stuff in over a year - it was time for it to move on to a new home, and for me to focus more on crochet, canning, gardening, home brewing, and my various other hobbies and interests.
I've been giving away a lot of crochet stuff lately - it just winds up sitting around and collecting dust, so I feel better giving it to someone who will provide my art with a loving, appreciative home.
I apologize to you guys - I'll try to keep up with this blog, and start posting more often. Next post, I'll show off my current project, a crochet commission for a friend. Thanks for hanging in there!