Craftiness of 2011 :)

First of all, let me wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I know I'm a little late, but we've had our family visiting for Christmas, and after they all left, I kind of collapsed and haven't done anything productive for days. But I'm back now, rested and ready for the new year ahead. Will have lots of studying to do this spring (taking an extra class to make up for skipping one this fall), but hopefully I'll be able to blog a little as well :)

To make up for neglecting my blog the past months, here is a summary of the craftiness I did last year :) I didn't think I'd accomplished much, but looking back, I realize that I've done quite a lot! Starting with my own designs in chronological order:

Nesting Love Birds, a free pattern for Valentine's Day.

Three Cute Little Bear Dudes, all made after the original bear pattern (Forest Dwellers vol.1)

Cute Little Dudes - Forest Dwellers vol.4. All birds :)

Cute Little Dudes - Alien Invaders.

In April I got a smart phone, so I knitted a protective purse for it as soon as I could. Important not to scratch the touch screen! :)

Great Big Wasp.

Great Big Aphid.

Finally got round to finishing the Great Big (male) Firefly (to the left). Sorry about the pale picture, I'll never take photos in bright sunlight again! No pattern yet...

Great Big Crane Fly. Longest bug legs ever! Pattern will be done soon, I promise :)

My aunt asked me to make two little bugs for her, so I made these. Mini versions of the Great Big ones. I'm working on the patterns, but I have to remake them to get proper pictures. Hopefully the patterns will be done before Easter :)

Cute Little Dudes - Trick or Treat! vol.1. I had another set planned, but ran out of time (too much school work!). Will save the second set for next Halloween :)

A friend of mine wanted me to make a great big dragon that he could give to a kid for his birthday, so I made this. It's huge! Arms and legs are jointed. I was told the kid's birthday was in October, so I rushed to finish it, but then it turned out the day was not until November. Oh well. At least the kid was happy. From what I heard, the dragon was being fed dinner as soon as it arrived. That's a good sign, right?

Crocheted and felted witch's cauldron, a free pattern for Halloween. I had originally planned to make up lots of creepy stuff to put in it (eyeballs, severed fingers, bat wings, etc.), but once again I ran out of time. Will save the ideas for next time :)

As a Christmas present, I made this heart (from my free heart pattern) that I filled with nice smelling things and put in a pretty bowl with some pretty white stones.

And the very last thing I finished last year was a remake of the Kitty Princess, the first pattern I ever made and published. Gave it to a cousin for Christmas. I am in the process of rewriting the pattern and adding new photos, and hopeully it'll be done before school starts in about two weeks :)

So. That was all of my designs. I did some other things too, but a lot of the projects I started last year are still in progress, so I have no pictures to show you... I will post the few that I have, though :) Again, in chronological order:

In the beginning of January I took out Rose Langlitz's book Tasty Crochet and started crocheting some food. I was obsessed for a while, but I only managed to complete two things, a pear and a salami/lettuce sandwich:

I have more half-finished food items lying around, but no pictures... 

After that I knitted a new bag for my rpg dice, the Dice Bag of Doom! Pattern free for download on Ravelry.

My next obsession was bugs, as Lesley Stanfield's new book came out, 75 birds, butterflies & beautiful beasties. I made a black slug, plus some butterflies and caterpillars that I pinned to a cork board:

Then I moved on to Hansi Singh's bugs. I started with a praying mantis that never got finished, but I made earthworms, a sea slug, Kraken (giant squid) and a Blackdevil anglerfish:

 

 

Again, I have lots of WiPs that hopefully some day will be done. They are just too pretty to be stashed away in a bag...

During the summer I got started on June Gilbank's dinosaurs. I think I've started about five of them, but none are done yet. It's just silly, really. On one (the Parasaurolophus), all that remains is sewing on one last leg! Sigh. I think I have an aversion against finishing things :/

I found this really cool knitting pattern on Ravelry, of a dancing goddess figure:

The pattern itself is very simple (knit in the round, and it consists of only two parts, so very little sewing is required), but I wasn't quite happy with my knitting (uneven stitches and a few holes - I'm no good at knitting in the round on double-pointed needles!), so I decided to felt it. Unfortunately I felted it after stuffing, so it almost didn't felt at all. It just became sort of lumpy and disproportionate. I wanted to make more of these, but I'll have to do it differently next time.

The last project I finished last year (not counting the Christmas presents) was this little dice bag:

The pattern is Deep Sea Flower Dice Bag, found HERE. Well, to be honest, it isn't actually 100% finished, since I haven't made the cord yet. I just got so tired of knitting with that stupid yarn that has absolutely NO stretch what so ever, I just tied it with a piece of yarn to be done with it. Love the pattern and the bag, though. Plan to make more some time, when I can get my hands on some lovely multi-colored Noro, which the pattern is designed for.

And that was all. Whew! Longest post ever... (It's taken over four hours to write!) Well. My plan now is to finish the patterns for the things I made last year, preferably as soon as possible. I'll have a lot less time once school starts, and I think that if I don't finish them now, I probably never will. So one of my new year's resolutions is to finish all my Bugs, Dudes and any other patterns before I start any new ones. Have lots of projects going right now, but no new Bugs or Dudes before the others are done. Period. Will try to post again soon :)

My home :)

Okay, so I won't tell you the name of the place I come from, but I can show you some pictures :) (And if you are from somewhere around here, you will probably recognize the place!) This is the first view tourists get when they come to visit, in rain or sun:

They pass "the beach" fairly quickly (sorry about the blur - the picture is taken from a moving car):

Then they can stop and watch the Shelduck pair and their ten ducklings :)

Tractor eggs neatly lined up or scattered all over (many people here are farmers, or like to think they are when they find the time):

This is the part where my family comes from - practically the end of the world:

The washed up kelp rotting in the sun smells pretty awful at times...

But the birds love the stuff! At least the bugs and critters that live in it :p

A mother Mallard and her eight ducklings:

Then there's this...

The poor tourists come here to watch the birds and enjoy the scenery, but they often have a hard time getting anywhere because of flocks of sheep in the road. And they won't move until you push them with your car!

You can also meet this lovely cat:

You recognize Achilles? I know I've mentioned him before... He's not mine, but I love him! He is very cuddly and loves people, so in the summer he spends a lot of time wandering round the camping site to meet new people :)

But what the tourists really come to see is this:

The mountain and the birds that live there (well, used to live there, most of the populations are now declining rapidly due to over fishing and pollution of the birds' main feeding areas). The white stuff in the picture is not snow - it's bird poo! There are Gannets, Kittiwakes, Puffins, Cormorants, Guillemots, Razorbills and White-tailed Eagles.  Here is a pair of Kittiwakes, a colony of Gannets and a Puffin:

We can have some pretty awsome sunsets:

But this is definitely the best view of the world, from my grandmother's garden :)

Great Big Bumblebee pattern & more

I managed to finish the patterns sooner than I thought (I e-mailed the documents to my aunt who converted them to PDF and sent them back to me), so I actually listed the Bumblebee pattern yesterday. And I've made a sale already, can you believe that? I almost don't :D You find my Etsy shop HERE.

Oh, I forgot to mention in the post yesterday that the body of the bumblebee is brushed to make it furry and fuzzy and cute like a real bumblebee :) The pattern is actually based on the Buff-tailed Bumblebee, which is the most common species in Europe.

I edited my old Kitty Princess pattern and relisted it.

Also, both patterns are now found in my new Ravelry store :) I decided to try it because selling patterns on Ravelry is a little cheaper than Etsy, since there's no listing fee...

One final thing... I really could use some help with this, both me and my boyfriend are stuck trying to come up with a name for this pattern set:

The pattern is as good as ready, I just need a name for the little creatures. Now, I feel like I can't call them critters, because that would make them too similar to CraftyAlien's very cute knitted & felted ones. Calling them Something-something Friends also seems a little used... They are fairly small, with a flat bottom that allows them to sit up straight, and fit perfectly in you hand:

I plan to make a lot more of these sets, and not only forest animals, so I need a general name for all of them, and then the individual sets will have more specific names added to that. *sigh* Hate it when I'm stuck like this...

Ooh, I just had an idea... If I get any suggestions (as comments to this post), the winning suggestion will win a free copy of this pattern! I have a few thoughts myself, but I'm still undecided, so you have a fair chance of your name suggestion being picked :D (If I come up with a name myself you can still get the pattern from one of my stores..)

The kittens are growing :)

A couple of days ago we went to visit the kittens again. We found them sleeping on a thick sheep's fleece in the couch, quite comfortably.

That is, until I took the first picture and the flash woke them up.

Tina was curious, but lazy.

Kristian, on the other hand, looked like he wanted to kill the camera.