Owlishly

Snowflakes in 80 degree weather

snowflake little girl, originally uploaded by *mia*.

So this was my contribution the the Holiday Softies Awards in the Let it Snow catagory.  I'm wondering about writing up this pattern, it took me forever to figure out the snowflake, it's just not my thing, and I'm amazed at how easily some others whip them out.  I totally procrastinated with this too! I got it in around an hour before the deadline, because I didn't actually figure out the snowflake until this afternoon, I don't know why, but multiples of 6's confuse the heck out of me and I just don't like to think about them. :)

I've made a butterfly pattern, and a little ladybug/bird pattern but I'm not done embellishing them yet, so technically I'm not completely done.  I've been the queen of procrastinating lately, there's been some family issues with an imminent death that's kind of overshadowing everything right now, and it's the first one in my humongous family that's going to be someone who I grew up around, someone who has directly and indirectly influenced major events and memories in my life.

Okey dokey, back at home finally!

So we're back home, we came back yesterday and thankfully with the little rain that we got, the smoke and heavy air was cleared enough to make it comfortable.  We have an older house and it's settled through various earthquakes and decades, making it draftier and more prone to allow soot in.  Today was a clearing out day for us, getting the air circulating enough so that it doesn't smell like a BBQ restaurant in our bedroom :) I'm working on a couple of patterns right now and I'm almost finished up with 3 of them, a ladybug/bird, a butterfly & a snowflake, hopefully I'll be finishing them up sometime this week.  Now off to bed, happily my own again!

Displaced for the moment

Well, just when I was getting good and settled with writing regular post *smirk*, or at least trying, we were evacuated from our home.  There were 3 fires going on near our house and one was getting pretty close on Monday afternoon, so we were kicked out of our neighborhood.  It's technically safe to go back home right now, but the air quality is so horrible that we'd probably be in the hospital with smoke inhallation if we tried to go home tonight.   So we're at my parent's, with little to no time to crochet, better air and slower internet!  Anyway, I just wanted to post a little update and let everyone know why I've been absent of late, take care!

Lucy, Lucy bo bucy

Here she is finished! Now just to finish up her pattern, she went to the hospital today after her photo shoot in my grandpa's trees and I think she was a big hit. Here's the side view with her humongous shell :)

Back later with more details.

ETA, the pattern's finished, took forever and I'm in dire need of sleep! g'night.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

Aren't some crafty women just absolutely amazing? (No offense all you crafty men!) But yesterday I was procrastinating working on my sister's turtle girl and thought I'd take a look at some blogs in my blogroll, and pretty much went to mollychicken's and never left. Gawd, sometimes I wish I were British, she's hilarious, and cheeky and I'm so envious!

Meanwhile, I'm not getting my little turtle girl done as quickly as I'd like, in fact it's achingly slow, and I've made the shell 3 different times, though each time it's been removable, but I like it just on, otherwise it loosens up too much.  I don't know what the deal is with the slow going, but I think she'll be finished by tomorrow, in fact I'd better work on it now to finish up embroidering her hair & smile.  I've already been given instructions on what to do for the hair by the recipient herself, picky picky sister! I guess she's got some leeway right now though, she's in the hospital and probably will be until mid to late December cooking her baby and trying to keep the little girl in until then.  It's all a very new (and scary) experience for us since my family culture is home births, both of mine were born at home with a midwife who also happened to be my aunt, and that's what she was planning until she started having trouble at 23 weeks.  Her midwife (my aunt's no longer able) had her on bedrest but a week later it was time to head for the hospital where she's rather unexpectedly stuck for now.  So a turtle who had been in the works for a while, has now jumped to the front of the line.

Okay, so there was the little bit of this, and now since I'm realizing the time there'll be no little bit of that- I've got to finish up that turtle!

New and Improved Enoc the Elephant boy!

And now ladies and gents, for your consideration- Enoc!

I think this is probably the best one showing the trunk as I'd originally had it, I know it looks a little silly this way too, but really, where do you put it and how do you position it that it doesn't look a little nutty? I think I'm just going to call it a day with him, and move on. Besides, I can't do anything else to him since I gave him away at a baby shower on Sunday! :) I also make a little bear hat that I only took one picture of since I was literally sewing the ears to the head in the car before going in. Talk about embarrassing, I get too stressed out when I do something like that, but what can you do? This month money is especially tight and I didn't have time anyway with the little sickies last week to go out and get a gift, but lot's of times I like getting something handmade anyway if the person actually knows me and knows what I like. Yeah, I'm a bit particular, and it's sort of funny because I sometimes don't understand when others aren't. Anyway, here's the hat, I think it's cute, it's infant sized, I didn't measure it exactly, I just know it wouldn't go over my 15 month old's head without a struggle!

I'm only sorry I wasn't able to take a better picture of it, I only took two and then had to leave before all the gifts were opened so I wasn't able to get to it again.  I was going to make a flower and just loosely tie it on in front of one of the ears, so that if she had a boy it could have easily been  removed, but like I said, I was way too last minute.  I had actually been thinking about what to give her for a while, because she wasn't going to find out the sex of the baby so I'd been trying to come up with unisex gifts for a couple of weeks, and I was almost done with a blanket that when I started I thought looked okay, but as it got closer to being done it was looking too girly, and what if it was a boy?  I think my gifts worked, and when she has the baby I'll send her something gendered.

By the way, I think I may be changing blogs, I like this one and I really am a fan of wordpress, but  I think I'm going to make the move to typepad.  It wouldn't be right away, but it's in the planning stages.  The sucky thing is that owly is already used over there, so I can't have the same blog name.  There will be an owl theme though, I like 'em!  Another thing is that whenever I see the word owly or hear it, I think of someone who is grumpy, and none of the other connotations that go along with it.  I already feel grumpy enough most of the time, and I don't want to be reminded constantly.  Anyway, it's something that's in the works and I wanted to let you know, but it probably won't get done until around Thanksgiving or my birthday, definitely before Christmas though!

The Rubster!

So I'd like to introduce you to the newest addition to all the little one's who are playing dress up- her name is Ruby, named after the hubby's sweet grandma, aka the Rubster according to my little sister. Her super cool outfit is based on one that my mom made for me when I was 3, I'm pretty sure it was 3, it may have been 4, but it was definitely way early '80s. Her hair is reminiscent of how my little sister had her hair cut when she was a little girl, I was never so lucky, I've got the crazy curls instead of nice sleek straight hair. Pobresita Ruby, I probably should've started with the french knots on the back of the strawberry, so that I'd get all the kinks out and they would'nt show up so evidently in pictures, but I'm pleased just the same. I think it's the face that always decides whether I like it or not, and I like this face. I hope you like her too!

Oh! and by the way, I've changed Enoc's nose/trunk, I really didn't like it there, so I ended up putting it back underneath his chin, he looks better that way to me, so look for an updated image soon. And now onto a little turtle girl for my sister!

Enoc the elephant boy

Here's the newest of the costumed little kids, his name is Enoc, named after my brother-in-law whose missing an H at the end of his name!

I wanted to make the ears have the indentation and it took a couple of tries before getting it just the way I wanted.  The trunk looks a bit silly to me right there, but where I originally had it underneath the chin looked funny to a bunch of other people, so there's my compromise.

Here's the view from behind, I like his tail this way, I tried sc-ing a tail but it was too loose.

The pattern's already finished too, I'm feeling a bit self satisfied for finishing it so quickly :)  I haven't written, though I keep meaning to, but I've got some sickies that I'm taking care of right now, and am trying myself not to come down with what they have, changing the bedding 3 times a night is 3 times too many for me!

Summer, my skunk-y sister

This is the little skunk girl finished, I named her after my middle sister though there's absolutely no resemblance. I'm getting such a kick out of her! I'll come back and update with materials and stuff after I'm done finishing up the pattern design, but I just wanted to throw some images up. (That sounded kind of odd.)

and here's a good view of the stipe:

Ta-da!

What to name a skunk?

I've made another little doll, this time a little girl wearing a skunk outfit, the hubby has the camera in the trunk of the car or I'd take a picture. I'm not quite done yet anyway, I'm figuring out the logistics of the stripe, I do think it's pretty cute. I've a dearth of girl patterns lately and thought a little girl wearing a skunk costume would be cute, the only problem is now trying to name her. I could use a family name, but I don't think anyone in my family would be happy to learn a skunk had been named after them, regardless of how cute it is. I'm debating assonance too, but I may just name her after my middle sister, I don't know yet. I've figured out a different way to do butt's too, I think for little kids it's cuter than actually making it look like 2 cheeks. What a conversation to have about crochet, huh!

We were away for the weekend and I didn't get much time for crocheting, though I did get a date with the hubby thanks to one of the best aunts ever! Finally the Girl is down for a nap and the Boy is watching his daily movie so I have some downtime.

I have a baby shower in two weeks to go to and we are super low on funds this month so I was thinking about making something for the baby. The mama and I were pretty close as little girls, but I haven't seen her in probably 5 years since every time we're supposed to see each other at some event one or the other has something come up. To make matters even more interesting, I don't know it the baby is a boy or a girl, from the invitation it appears that they're not finding out. I couldn't do that when I was pregnant, to me there were already too many surprises related to pregnancy that as soon as I could find out what the sex of the baby was I did immediately! I'll try to get back soon, I've got to go peel and slice an apple!

**update**

I haven't finished the skunk, and it's hard to see the white stripe because of the background and lighting, but here's what it looks like so far.