A Fluffy JDAM

Since this is obviously a habit of mine, I have returned once again from neglect.  Given that I post to coincide with my mood and my mood is oft unpredictable, and  apparently neglectful, I'll nonetheless apologize for my time away. 
That out of the way, I had finished my brothers promised bomb sometimes the week before Christmas.  In true Chango form, I have decided to post about it two months after the fact, yay.
A rundown of what I’m actually talking about…

• What:  JDAM (military) Bomb my brother requested
• Yarn:  2 Lion Brand Jiffy Solid Yarns, one in Dark Grey Heather, one in Silver Heather, and a little bit of mystery yellow acrylic (possibly Red Hear) in a contrasting yellow
• Other:  Some matching thread, some coordinating felt (acylic), and the much important polyfill

1. The Bombs nose, 2. The Bombs guts, 3. 002, 4. 001

For something that didn’t exist before, I think I did pretty good.  Granted the pattern I  had to make up isn’t the most difficult of things to make.  In fact I’d say cylindrical and conical shapes are much more mindless than a square when it comes to crochet.  You don’t have to worry about turning and making sure your tension is spot on for a perfect rectangle/square.  Warning though, if you’re just starting, do your rectangles/squares, although not a noticeable, you can screw up mindless tasks really easily.
So, if you look at pictures of actual JDAM’s you’ll notice the curves from the nose to the body to the tail are much more gradual then what I actually did.  I wanted to make it more accurate, but my brother wanted it with much more pronounced points.
For the most part, the whole softie was pretty easy to make, cone, cylinder, cone, easy right?  Well yes, but the felt “sleeves” (which are removable) or whatever they’re called (anyone?) were a pain to make.  Lots of hand stitching (too small for the machine) and lots of little holes to cut out for my crappy little embroidery scissors.

1. The Bomb 002, 2. The Bomb 003, 3. The Bomb 001, 4. The Bomb 004

Out of the whole ordeal, I learned a couple things:

1. Acrylic is killer on my sensitive little fingertips
2. Burt’s Bee’s Hand Salve is a Gift of the God’s and possibly made from unicorn tears; it’s that heavenly
3. Going off on my own and making something up on the fly isn’t as terrifying as I initially make it out to be
4. I did pretty good, if I do say so myself
5. I need new embroidery scissors…

I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

Umm, let me amend that, I’ve Got a Single Abnormal Buko, heh.  I suppose it was a much too ambitious plan for me to do for my own made up sewing project.  Way too many curves and way too many modifications :/  I hope when I get more proficient at sewing and can come back to this one and perfect it much more so I can at least not feel embarrassed to give one away :D lol.

1. Buko 1, 2. Buko 2, 3. Buko 3, 4. CAT!!

For one thing it’s as crooked and well it CROOKED Dx.  Maybe if I didn’t mess with the segments so much, I think it would have been much better to have gone with felt all the way but I wanted to try fabric, again, ambitious.  You can’t really tell on the pictures, but the crooked contributed to the lopsidedness.

I’ll try again when I get around to buying some felt :D

Cattens does not approve of this message D<

Mom’s booties: update

So since my mother hasn’t been wearing her house shoes I decided to try them out.  I opted not to line them before I gave them to her because, judging by the scrap fabric I had on hand, I thought everything would be too bulky to line them.  I had already deviated and used a hook size too small since I had yarn too big and thought that would compensate, plus my mom has small feet.  But alas, it came out perfect, too perfect to line.

So back to me trying the booties on, we have tile downstairs, except for two rooms with carpet and the odd rug or two scattered around.  Whenever I walk on the tile it hurts the bottom of my feet.  Maybe because its the wool, or homespun, or Lion Brand, or even most likely the crochet structure, but it hurt my feet to wear.  If you can imagine walking on marbles, well it wasn’t that bad, more like marbles covered in wool (o_o sounds bad lol).  So lining it is!

Next project:  Bootie Lining 8D  Something thin enough so there’s no bulk, but cushiony enough to cushion (heh).  I’m not sure I have enough scraps around the house since I barely sew, but I’ll try different fabrics out till I can give them back to my mommy :)

BTW I don't mean to turn you off of the idea of using wool, there are a lot of different wool yarns out there and some are super soft and feel like butter :3  The yarn I'm using for my shawl is wool superwash and its super soft and doesn't scratch or itch at all and I have sensitive skin.  Although I supposed, depending on where you live, nice quality wool might be hard to come by...

::eta:: I had to clear up some confusingness on my post and add stuff I left out.

Mom’s Crooked Pillow

So my mom had wanted a neck pillow for a while now and no one knew where to get it.  I think she really needed one because she ends up sleeping while sitting up a lot, both in the car and at home lol.

So, I decided to make one :D

Notice, it’s crooked, lopsided, and lumpy x3 I don’t have a lot of experience sewing and sewing curves seems to be my breaking point right now.  The lumpyness comes from the uneven front and back and from the stuffing, I had no idea how to fix it, if you have any advice for the future please feel free to comment (if you’ve stumbled across my blog lol).

It was also the first time I sewed a zipper and it wasn’t as hard/freighting as I expected.  I have to say I think I did a good job on it for my first time, even if it does look like a monsters grimace. 

At the end of the day, my mom liked it :3 and more then that, she uses it <3

Amigurumi Optimus Prime Tribute Doll

Amigurumi Optimus Prime Tribute Doll
Originally uploaded by voxmortuum

Found Craft on the Web: Optimus Prime

Awesome Transformers amigurumi by awesome crocheter voxmortuum. It's probably the best one I've seen, but then again I haven't seen a lot of them :p  Check out his/her(?) other works, Pennywise is a creeptastic favorite of mine.

It always amazes me how creative people get with their crochet :3 and people still think its a grandma craft. Aside from the indirect homage to geekery this one takes me straight to my childhood :D