Owlishly

Meet Faith!

She loves being sweet and pretty and all things pink! Her favorite thing to do is to dress up in her flower costume.

So this is the latest little girl I've been working on. My pattern's almost completely done, I've just got to go through and add images. Tonight I was putting the finishing touches on her, like her eyelashes and hair, and little flowers embroidered on her leg. I wasn't very pleased with the way she turned out before I embellished her, but she's grown on me (pun intended!) and now I think she's quite sweet.

I thought I'd say a word about all the names I've chosen to date for my patterns. They're all named after family members so far, of course with the exception of the luchadores and the football player, who isn't really named per se, he does have a last name embroidered on his back though. Anyway, I try to go for some assonance, and if I don't have a name that I like that way, then I just go through my gigantic family name database and starting with my favorites (people or names) I try to see what fits. This little girl shares my youngest sister's middle name, and so far so good. Anyway, I'm off to bed, but here's a few more images of Faith to enjoy:

Luke in the dinosaur suit is done!

Here's what the first two pages of his pattern look like:

I'm already finished with another one- this time a little flower girl.  I'm typing her pattern up and I still have to take pictures of her, but I've started on another one still.  I guess that's what happens when you only watch a kid appropriate movie a day- thanks for the inspiration Peter Pan, Bambi, and Alice and Wonderland!

Grrrrr! That’s what all the dinosaurs say mama!

According to the Boy at least. Here's the latest pattern that I've come up with.

Here's a side view of his little belly and big 'ole head.

He was super quick and easy. Definitely a nice aside from the more intricate patterns I've been doing lately, and both kidlets seem to like him a lot, so that's always a good sign. Without the spikes, he's 6 inches tall, so with them he's probably 7 inches. All in worsted weight yarn as usual, but this time with 6 mm craft eyes. I think another reason I was able to make him so quickly was that he didn't have any hair, but even without hair I still think he's super cute!

okay, okay, I’m working on stuff

I'm thinking I'll be able to take pictures soon, maybe tomorrow-ish it my little maniacs cooperate, they haven't been the happiest campers of late, and the Boy has a cold that's wreaking havoc on his personality and ability to listen to me.  Of course I'm not so sure its just the cold, but that's what I'm attributing it to.  I think you'll like the little guy I've come up with, he's all dressed up for Halloween.  The Boy and I have been discussing costumes at length, he wanted to be a whale, so I'd been trying to figure out how we were going to make that, and then he wanted to be a dinosaur, but my little sister's old costume was lent out and wasn't ever returned so there went that! So now I think we're at a cowboy... AGAIN... seriously, he needs to move on, he'd worn the the past two Halloween's.

So after the aside, the new amigurumi is holiday themed, and little too.  I thought I'd make some easy ones, and this one was pretty easy, and really fast, pretty much 5 hours of crocheting for this little guy.  I know 5 hours isn't *that* fast, but for this one, it's a fast project.  Anyway, I'm off to bed, I need strength if tomorrow is anything like today was!

Ta-da!

It always seems like such an effort to get a pattern done you know? I don't like mistakes and it bothers me when I find them in other people's work so I try to go over my patterns again and again. Plus, I like a certain aesthetic. I know it doesn't always appeal to everyone, but as cluttered as my life is in real life, I need some cleanliness in my work. I also like bright colors.

Now I get to start working on the pattern for my little boy doll, I try to get things done quickly, I really do. I hope I can get it done a lot quicker than it took me to do this one. I think it might help if I wasn't watching the second season of Bones while I worked on it, I just can't help it, I get sucked in.

Anapaulaoli’s mama elephant amigurumi

I bought Ana Paula's little elephant mama & baby pattern two weeks ago, but didn't want to work on it until I was finished with my football player, so since we went to visit my aunt I was able to work on it over there each night after the kidlets were in bed.

I wasn't able to make it as quickly as I thought I would, but I think it's super cute, I forgot to embroider the mouth on it before I gave it to my aunt, but I still think it's sweet.

When I make the baby I'll probably make some modifications, like making the ears bigger and the legs maybe a little smaller, but it's a great and easy pattern.  The only thing is that the Boy was upset that he had to give up his elephants, because to quote him- "but mama, elephants are my favorite aminals in the whole wide world!"  When I told him his aunt was sick and wouldn't get better he thought it was okay for her to have this one, as long as he gets the next one.

Football player amigurumi

So I was caught off guard last weekend when football season started, I don't know why but I thought I had at least another week. I'd been talking to the mister about making a football player since May and time just seems to get away from me. He was pretty sweet about letting me work on it a lot of last weekend and then this one just past, but during the week I just needed a break from the little guy, I was pretty much done, but I needed to do the finishing work, meaning the embroidery and felting and all that fun stuff that just didn't seem very fun. I ended up making the Girl a little jacket out of fleece, I had an embroidery idea and didn't have anything to embroider it on, so when I'm finished I might post a picture, I pretty much just winged it so I don't know how good of an idea that'll turn out to be.

Back to the football player, he's done in my alma mater's colors but I didn't actually make it a UCLA uniform. I even made little spikes on his cleats and gave him a bit of a butt, after all, we can't have a football player without a nice tush!

I'm not satisfied with the face, but seriously, what else is new? I don't know if I'll add a nose or eyebrows, he just seems to be a bit vacant.

From behind. That silly Johnson took forever, and doesn't even look very neat, I do like the sparkly gold yarn, for some reason I didn't realize that it was a pricey as it was. Good think I had a 40% coupon at Joann's.

His butt cracks me up, it was probably my favorite part to crochet! Too bad you can't see it very well, I didn't have much time to get the pictures taken or loaded onto my computer, otherwise maybe I would've also noticed how dirty my lens is too, sorry.

I just wanted to toss him in because I tried to get a better picture of him too, it's kind of hard to see his pants though. I'm definitely preferring the pants over the shorts on him, he just looks more proportionate this way.

Anyway, that's what I've been working on lately, I'm probably going to type the patterns out for both of these guys, just not this week, the kidlets and I are going to visit an aunt with my mom and grandparents tomorrow and probably won't be back until Friday. I don't know why it's such an issue for me to type out the patterns, as I make my dolls I write the patterns out in a notebook, so I have all the information, I think it's just such a hassle because I tend to be too much of a perfectionist and want to make sure everything about the patterns and pictures are just so.

So I think every two or three days works for me

I think of things to write at the oddest times, or at least the most inconvenient.  I get in a little crafty frenzy and try to get a bunch done, and then if I happen to take a night off, it's the hardest thing for me to get started up again.  That's what happened to me this week.  I'm almost done with my latest amigurumi, another boy, this time UCLA themed (Go Bruins!), but I just can't get myself settled into finishing the face.  I'm finding myself doing anything but during the few and very precious hours I have between the kidlets hitting the hay and it being my turn.

We've been cable free since June last year, and I guess TV free in general except for blockbuster.com which I love to no end.  I miss being able to plop down and watch TV, but the thing is, I'm already struggling at being a good mama without the added attraction/addiction of TV, and besides, once the West Wing was canceled, I really couldn't bring myself to support our TV habit.  Mr.Owly is even worse than I am, if he starts watching something he's zoned out to everything around him, so it's definitely no TV for him.  My little guy watches one dvd a day on average, whether it's a movie or a little tv show, that's pretty much all he gets, even though he could watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom *all day long* if we let him.  My little girl just isn't very interested in what's on anyway.

So, bringing my aside back into what I was originally discussing, I've watched Midnight Cowboy, Blades of Glory, Frida Kahlo's A&E biography and a pilates dvd and not crocheted a thing the past couple of nights.  I need a kick in the pants, and I'm hoping writing about it's going to do it for me.  Especially since I always start feeling a little guilty when I haven't written anything here longer than a couple of days apart.

I have been thinking about halloween costumes for the little ones.  The Boy wants to be a whale, he waffles between an orca and a blue whale, and I just don't quite know how I'm going to do that one.  My sister and I went to Joann's last night to return some yarn that was the wrong color and we were looking at the clearanced fabric and saw the foam nearby and had a little mini epiphany, I'm thinking we might be using some foam in the costume, I'm waiting until next week to buy it though since that's when I can use my gazillion 50% coupons.  For the Girl, I was thinking a peacock, she's only one so it'll have to be pretty sturdy, but she really likes seeing them at the zoo, and she's always grabbing for some feathers that I have on the fireplace mantle.  I saw a clip over at Martha Stewart from her show where she made wings from wire and panty hose so I may give that a try for the feathers.  Anyway, my little break is over and I've got to get a baby out of the bath, the husband is beckoning!

The amigurumi boy now has pants!

Boy amigurumi now in pants, originally uploaded by *mia*.

I just wanted to show the little guy now that he's wearing pants, I think I like him better this way.

We're at my parents house sitting for the weekend, so the picture wasn't taken in the greatest lighting, but I wanted to stick it up here anyway.

I've been working on two other amigurumi's right now, a pattern that I bought on etsy, and another one of my own design, hopefully I can get at least one finished this weekend, but the hubster is helping someone from work move tomorrow so I'm all day alone with the kidlets, which doesn't leave much time for crochet.