Owlishly

I *heart* mail!

I just realized looking at the date that it's 3 months to the big 3-0, or as I like to call it, my second annual 29th birthday. :D

Back to the regularly scheduled programming, I was thinking earlier about all the neat things I've recently received in the mail and how I fail to mention them miserably. I lurve getting mail, you wouldn't believe the giddy mood it puts me in, you can ask my husband, he'll swear to it, in fact, he thinks I'm a bit of a dingbat in that regard. But anyway, I ordered a ton of patterns a couple of weeks ago when I was riding high with a funded paypal account and before both of our cars decided to flake out on us. I hadn't photographed them until tonight so I can share what my lovely mail carrier brought me!

Eeek! The famed six-pointed star afghan,  Annie's Pattern Club leaflet # 87A50, I was soooo coveting this one for the longest time, and everytime I saw it on ebay I could never bring myself to pay more than $10 for it, and believe you me, it got pretty expensive some times. Finally I bid and everyone else must have forgotten about it, so I was able to come in fairly inexpensively. I'm so excited, and this'll probably be a WIP until both of my little ones are elementary school age. The only disappointing thing is that I'm fairly certain that the seller is making copies and selling them, a blatant copyright violation, because with mine, it doesn't feel like other paper from 1983/4ish whenever it was originally distributed. Also, the pattern number & sides of the afghan photo are cut off in an off putting way and inside the pattern it just looks like a copy, the colors are too saturated and not smooth enough either, so that's worrying, I'm going to have to think about this one a bit since I'm fairly straight laced when it comes to something like this- especially copyright violations. Moving on to happier thoughts...

I bought some reprints from PatternBee since I wasn't going to wait around to find the actual transfers- the embroidery bug bit me and I wanted Mexican ones now! I may get around to collecting the vintage patterns, but for now I'm going to try these out. The one above is actually Vogart 142- 28 Fiesta Motifs For Colorful Touches of Mexican Gaiety. The little guy eating a banana with the bird is my favorite of all of the transfers in this set, it's just so cute, and I love his little panza!

This one is really Superior Transfer Pattern Mexicana- 32 Motifs for Household Linens- Design No. 120. Since I'm a babywearing mama in real life, I think I'm going to start out with the mama wearing the baby on her back and the chicken on her head, and then the woman in the window strumming away is my next favorite.

This one is really Walker's No. 702 Gay Mexican Motifs for Kitchen and Tea Towels, the style is a bit different than the others, but cute nonetheless, I'm always up for dancing women even though when I folklorico danced I don't remember any of the dresses looking like her's!

Sadly, I don't know this one's real name yet, but the hunt is on, I'm itching to get started on some of the designs, but the thing is- I don't know what to embroider on, I'm thinking on this one, and it's keeping me from starting anything, I hate when that happens.

I don't know this one either, anyone wanna help a girl out? I probably should take a lesson in housekeeping from her!

Can't wait to use these too, I love the Kurt Halsey birds, over at Craftster you should see how creatively and beautifully some people have used his designs and I can't ever not get Mexican ones!

Last but not least! I really love what's happening over at Sublime Stitching, Jenny Hart is amazing! The Chihuahua's are for my sisters, I'm not that big a fan, but they both have one, so I'm thinking they'll be getting some Christmas embroidery. I love Dachshunds! We grew up with them and my mom and dad still have one, she was the sweetest and smartest and now oldest dog we'd ever had, she's actually about 6 months older than my youngest sister, so she's 19 years old already. When our kidlets are older that's the first dog we're getting, whether the hubby thinks they're girl dogs or not!

Amigurumi hair tutorial

I wanted to share how I make the hair for my amigurumi. I always wished that someone had shared this information when I was first getting started, and I searched high and low for a couple of months before deciding on a way that I wanted to make the hair. One of the reasons I like making hair this way is because I like that it doesn't create a massive amount of bulk, and yet doesn't look like the doll is bald either. I'll try to include images of both boy and girl hair, and to make it easier to distinguish between the two I'll use images of my light skinned brown haired boy, and then for the girl I'll use the images of my olive skinned black haired girl. I'm not necessarily the best at writing understandable instructions for everyone, so I'm including a large amount of images so that hopefully those of you that tend to be visual learners can easily understand as well.

I think in order to keep it simple I'll write out the instructions first and then just have all the images afterwards; if there is something that I think is of particular importance I'll annotate an image.

Things to know and need before you begin:

For all my instructions, the rounds are *not* joined, using a stitch marker, place it in the first stitch of each round to know where to begin the next round. Additionally, you should know how to make an adjustable ring to begin both the head and hair, if you don't know how to make one there are plenty of crochet stitch guides/dictionaries/books that have instructions, as well as online, one example is here. You'll need yarn in two colors, for the head and for the hair. Additionally, you'll need a yarn needle to sew the hair to the head, and embroider the hair/yarn to the wig cap. And to not forget anything, have polyfil/stuffing handy to shape the head, and craft eyes if you plan on using them for your doll.

Head:

To make the hair for an amigurumi, have the head already made. I like to work with 5's since for me they're a lot easier to increase and decrease mathematically. For this example I'll use a head size with the diameter being 50 sts in the largest round. The head will be increased by 5 to be 50 sts at it's widest, so rounds 1 - 10 will increase from 5 to 10 to 15 to 20.... up until you reach 50 in round 10. Make rounds 11 - 20 50 sts in each round, and then began decreasing rounds 21 - 27 by 5 sts each round so that it goes 45 to 40 to 35 to 30...until you get to 15 sts in round 27. (Of course all this is just for explanatory purposes only, and you can make the heads whatever size you'd like, I'm just including head dimensions so that it'll be easier to understand the hair instructions.) At this point I usually fasten off the end and leave around 12 inches of yarn to sew the head to the body at a later point.

Also, this is a good time to stuff the head with polyfil/stuffing

Hair:

Now, making the hair cap is essentially making another head without the decreases. Using the color you've decided upon for the hair follow the same directions for the head, just with a slightly looser gauge.

Round 1- Make and adjustable ring and sc 5 sts- 5 sts.

Round 2- 2 sc in each st- 10 sts.

Round 3- [sc 1, 2 sc in next st] 5 times- 15 sts.

Round 4- [sc 2, 2 sc in next st] 5 times- 20 sts.

Round 5- [sc 3, 2 sc in next st] 5 times- 25 sts.

Round 6- [sc 4, 2 sc in next st] 5 times- 30 sts.

Round 7- [sc 5, 2 sc in next st] 5 times- 35 sts.

Round 8- [sc 6, 2 sc in next st] 5 times- 40 sts.

Round 9- [sc 7, 2 sc in next st] 5 times- 45 sts.

Round 10- [sc 3, 2 sc in next st] 5 times- 50 sts.

Rounds 11-17- sc in each st around- 50 sts, fasten off and leave a longish tail for sewing the hair to the head.

For me, this size wig cap is sufficient for this size head, especially since I like to have a little more room to shape the hairline by embroidering the hair to resemble someone's actual hairline with bangs, or sideburns, etc.

Now is where it begins to get more creative. Determine where you'd like to place the hair, usually it helps to experiment with eye placement at the same time. I don't fasten the craft eyes to the head until I've seen both where the hair is going to be and I'm comfy with how the eyes give the doll an expression. Once you've made that decision it's time to sew the hair to the head.

(Just a quick aside- since there are different ways to make amigurumi hair you can also cut lengths of yarn in the hair color and knot it to the wig cap in a methodically spaced manner and then pull the hair up through the wig cap so that the knots are on the inside of it and then sew it to the head and be done with it. This isn't how I typically do the hair for my amigurumi and I don't have images illustrating this way in this tutorial, maybe I'll make another one at a later date.)

Using the aforementioned tail, as well as a yarn needle, sew the perimeter of the wig cap to the head. This is really the only place that I attach the wig cap the the head, it's proven sturdy enough and there's no need to make this more time consuming than necessary. Sometimes when you're embroidering the hair onto the wig cap you'll catch part of the head underneath the wig cap with the needle, its no big deal and if you're worried about the wig cap coming off of the head, this'll be an additional method of security. You can use the remaining yarn on your needle to start embroidering the hair, or else just weave it into the head/wig cap to get to the next part.

Another tip is that after you've pulled a length of yarn to use to embroider the hair, pull the yarn so that the needle is at the halfway point of the length of yarn. You'll use the same amount of yarn to make the hair, but it'll be thicker and faster when you double the yarn on the needle.

Since the head isn't attached yet to the body when you start a new strand or double strand of yarn, you can tie a knot to keep it from coming loose and then pull the needle up through the head. Or you can just do what most embroiderers do and not knot it with the intention of it being secured eventually by just going over the yarn with your stitches. I tend not to secure it, partly because it's an additional step, and partly because I have a 3 year old and 1 year old who both play and pull and I've never had any issues with hair coming loose. Though, as I've said before, it really is all up to you and your comfort level, if you're making it for someone younger or who you think will pick and pull at it, then by all means knot away!

Boy hair:

Whether you're making a boy or a girl will determine whether you'll want to part the hair, or where you want to part it. With masculine hair I tend to keep it shorter and just have a small side part, I also begin by embroidering the back of the head with short stitches, working my way up the head so that it looks like the hair/yarn at the top of the head is laying on top of the hair lower down the head. I do this across the back of the head. Then as I begin to get higher I take a break doing that and move to the top of the head where I've decided upon the part. Here, I start using longer stitches, and make the hair part evident by embroidering up and down the head with the yarn always going along the same line up at the top of the head indicating a hair part. I think what I'm talking about now will be better illustrated by the images. Once you've filled in the hair as much as you like, you can add embellishments like little bangs or sideburns by just embroidering a bit more in the front, and that way it also covers up the edges of the wig cap as well.

Girl hair:

For the girlish hair styles discussed in this tutorial I keep it close to the head with either a ponytail or pigtails or braids. For a ponytail you just embroider the hair in the direction of where you want the hair around the head to gather to be tied. Do this back and forth until you're happy with the results and weave in the end of your yarn. Now cut yarn in the desired length so that when it's doubled it'll be long enough to resemble two strands of hair pulled back in a ponytail. Do this with as many lengths of yarn that you need to have a thick enough ponytail for your liking. Using the yarn lengths that you've cut, string them through the hairline and then you can either knot them or leave them as they are, and then gather them into the ponytail. Fasten by either using a rubber band, or just a scrap piece of yarn to tie the hair back.

For pigtails/braids it's pretty much the same idea, except you'll be embroidering the hair back and forth across the head to where either ear would be. When you're cutting the lengths of yarn to finish it up, you still need to double the yarn to ensure that you have long enough lengths for the pigtails, and even a bit longer for the braids since they tend to shrink up the yarn with their bulk.

Now, for the visual learners:

**For now I'm just going to put images in of the boys hair, and as I have time in the next week, I'll go back and organize the images of the girls hair. **

I've tried to make this a comprehensive as possible, while getting the right details in, without confusing you even more. If you've anything to add, please do so by leaving a comment, I'll try to respond to those as timely as I can, and that way others with similar thoughts will be addressed as well, instead of having multiple emails with the same questions/comments. I hope this has been somewhat helpful for those of you interested in how I make hair for my own amigurumi, and I'd love if you'd leave comments/links with what you've made using this tutorial!

Amigurumi Hair Tutorial by
Mia Zamora Johnson is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Issues

- I think I may have too many sometimes.

When people are demanding I don't ever really feel like complying. I would feel abashed asking someone for something in the way some people tell me that I need to tell them how to make something. The thing is, I'm generally a ridiculously helpful person IRL, especially with strangers, it's like I can't help myself. I don't know if it has to do with my old job as a reference librarian, or if I chose that occupation because that's the way I am. Either way, both online and in real life, when people demand help from me or tell me what I need to do in order to give them the information they would like I tend to get bucky and make it harder for them than it needs to be. I'm aware that this particular trait of mine isn't something that would endear me to others, but really, how hard is it to ask nicely?

I think especially online it's hard to get your tone across, and I realize some people are just abrupt and don't mean anything by it, but then don't you think they should work harder at trying to make others understand that they aren't being rude? Or am I being irrationally sensitive? I've been getting lots of requests for a amigurumi hair tutorial, and I was planning on getting one done once I uploaded all my photos onto flickr, I mean, I even took photographs every step of the hair way as I made my little guy's doll with a tutorial in mind. I still plan on doing it, but really, if you want something, and are asking to be given it free, don't demand it. How hard is it to be polite?

What's even funnier is that the latest demand came from a grandma! I expect polite behavior from everyone, but I have higher standards for older folks, and it's not that politeness shouldn't be required of everyone, but generally it seems like with older generations it's more of a given. I just don't get that people act like it's their right to whatever you have to offer, I don't know, is it just a me thing?

Anyway, I still plan on doing a tutorial, hopefully soon, but I just wanted to get that off my back since I'm not going to be confrontational on the craft forum that I was on, since that would be rude and embarrassing to the other person.

Black motif

Today we went up to Big Bear Discovery Center to kind of cool off and lollygag the afternoon away. For some reason now I'm a bit freaked out driving in the mountains, meaning I pretty much can't. I'm pretty pathetic past 2000 ft above sea level, so the hubster drove and I conspicuously didn't look out the window, and instead crocheted motif 61 in black thread.

Here's a bit of a close up, I ended up taking these in the car on the way back down when we stopped at a gas station to get some water for the kidlets and a stomach settler for me.

The pattern is in an Ondori book that's in Japanese, but has so many beautiful motifs I couldn't resist buying it and trying it out. It's rather easy to follow the diagrams and even with my not being very adept at thread crochet, I was able to finish this up in 40 minutes, which is pretty good for me.

The motif was an attempt to see how to increase triangles in the round, I've been working on a custom amigurumi for someone from etsy and was thinking about adding a shawl/stole and I was wondering about the size. Now that I've done it, and since came home and tried it on the doll, I've found that it doesn't fit with the feel of the doll, nor is it big enough to look appropriate. Trouble is, I don't know what to do with it. I suppose I could go through and make all the motifs that catch my fancy in black thread and mount them and frame them? I don't know.

PS. Another reason I'm not a fan of mountain driving, or motorcycles for that matter- on our way back down the hill we had to suddenly stop because there had been a fairly bad accident with two motorcycles involved and a small car. It was very disconcerting, and I hope the man who looked the most hurt is okay, it was pretty rough.

Little boy

So my little guy is very aware that I make a lot of girl things and he's quick to point out that I've made dolls that look like his sister- so where's his?

Between hacking bouts last week I was able to work on this little guy and make him look somewhat similar to my little boy. He's wearing his favorite shirt with his favorite elephant on it, though I'm not enough of an artist to replicate the detail of the elephant in embroidery. Right now he has shorts, but I think I may lengthen them to make jeans, I'll show pictures when I've decided on the end result. I'm planning on embroidering them a bit more to make seams and hems to make them look a little more like his clothes.

Faces always give me a bit of trouble and I can never make the same ones twice, but especially with boys it's harder for me to make an expression that I want and like for the type of doll I'm making. I ended up making his body from the bottom up since it's easier for me to figure out the body and clothing as I go along, and I wanted to make the shirt look like an actual t-shirt insomuch as I wanted it to be loose from the arms and body.

His hair is as close as I could get it to looking somewhat similar to my own little guy's hair, though as of 3 days ago, he has much shorter hair, but there was no way I was ever going to attempt short hair - longer is so much easier!

I do feel bad about not updating more regularly, I sort of wanted to start this blog not only to document my crafting/crocheting growth/evolution, but also as an exercise in writing on a regular basis again, since I feel disappointment upon reading any recent writing samples of mine as compared to past academic and workplace examples. Not that my writing would be necessarily academic in nature, but that I would just have practice doing something other than mainly talking to my little ones day in and day out.

Unfortunately, I feel evasive, and since I haven't updated as often as planned, or I'd like I keep finding myself avoiding even coming here. I don't want that to be the case, and I think I need to remember this is an outlet for me, not a chore. Even now I keep finding myself distracted, so for the time being I'm going to get the kidlets to bed and hopefully get better at this with practice.

I feel so horrible, I’ve not posted anything of merit for weeks!

When I got sick, it really knocked the socks off of me, and not in a good way.  I've been working on a little guy for the past week-ish, but never am able to stay up past the kidlets to get any online time to get things done, even now I'm having to go because my dear sweet husband who bathes our kids every night is ready to pass the torch and hand the little girl over for dressing and getting to sleep.

I think I'll be able to get up tonight, so I'll try to get some progress pictures up, but we know how great I am about getting that done *eye roll*, I'll try though!

Poor, poor neglected blog…

I haven't had time to get anything done lately, we're catching up from a stream of visits and visitors and my crafting has gone by the wayside in lieu of sleep, and I'm not even getting enough of that lately.  I'm going to try to work on a couple of things this weekend and hopefully I can get some images up before it's over!

“And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”

The boy wanted to know where his neat shirt was and since he's been such a "wild thing" lately and wanting us to read the book every chance he gets I thought this would be perfect for him.

I got a quick picture before he wanted to wear it, so maybe I'll be able to get a better one of it in action soon, but for now this is all we've got!