Two new Bugs

In early January I promised that I would finish some of the patterns I’d been working on for ages, and I’m happy to say that I did! I have two new Great Big Bugs to show you

(Actually, the patterns have been done for a while now, but I never got around to posting about them. Ahem. Shame on me, bad blogger…)

First, I finished the pattern for this Great Big Crane fly. She seriously has the longest legs I’ve ever seen, and definitely the longest bug legs I’ve made!

Personally I don’t like crane flies much, they remind me too much of spiders. Flying spiders! This crocheted one came out a total cutie, though, but in case she still freaks you out a little, here’s a little trick for incapacitating it:

See? Completely harmless

The second pattern I completed was the male firefly, the mate for the first firefly I did years ago. Finally they can be together

Last summer I got a new camera that can take proper photos in the dark, so I actually got some pretty good pictures of the firefly glowing. The glowing parts that you see are its bum and eyes:

And while I was at it, I took new pictures of the female firefly and updated the old pattern with better glow photos. Here’s a picture of the two glowing together:

Aww!

Three Great Big Bugs at once :)

I finished three Bugs this summer, a wasp, an aphid and the male firefly. I started the firefly shortly after I finished the female last fall, and the other two I started some time around Christmas. The bodies and most of their body parts had been done for months when I finally sat down and finished them. You'd think that assembly is the easy part... :P

Anyway, here they are:

The wasp is modeled after the Common wasp (Vespula vulgaris), and it's my most complicated pattern so far, with all the color changes on the body. I tried to keep it as easy as possible, though, with the patterning and the decreases/increases on separate rounds :)

The aphid is modeled after the Rose aphid that I've seen on my grandmother's roses. They are mainly green, but they also come in red/pink or black, so feel free to experiment with the colors on this one :) There are a couple of rounds of front post single crochet on the body of this Bug, but apart from that, it's not a complicated pattern.

The firefly is the same species as the first one (the common glowworm), but the male and female look very different. The male is a fairly ordinary brown beetle with a glowing bum, while the female stays more like the larva her whole life, and never develops wings.

The patterns for the wasp and aphid are available on Ravelry, and I'll be adding them to Etsy soon. I'm still not quite finished with the firefly pattern, because I've been so busy with my exam lately. Things should calm down soon, so I hope to have it ready before the weekend :) I've thought about listing the two fireflies as a set, though I'm not really sure how this would work on Ravelry. Do they allow you to post the same patterns twice, in different combinations? I'll have to do a little research and get back to that. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the aphid and the wasp :)

I'm still here

Just thought I'd post a little something to let you all know that I'm still alive :) I just finished taking notes from a really long chapter about eukaryotic cells, and I thought I'd take a small break before I start doing the exercises. *sigh* I read through the chapter last week, but for some reason I didn't take notes. Don't ask why... Next week I plan to start on the math. I haven't done it sooner because I need to borrow a fancy calculator from a friend who won't arrive in town before Sunday :/ Hope I have time to do it all. I figure that if I don't spend more than two weeks on each chapter, I'll get through the whole book by the end of November. Fingers crossed :)

Though I really need to focus on my studying this fall, I hope I'll be able to get some crafting done as well (I have to do something, or I'll probably go insane). I'm almost done with a new Great Big Bug - a firefly - and I have another one started. Plus I'd like to make another firefly as a mate to the first one. I have only four legs left to make! I'll do my best to finish it by this week :) For the body I've used glow-in-the-dark yarn (yellow Bernat) for the first time! I ordered it from here, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it to people ouside of US or Canada, the shipping cost was insane compared to the price of the yarn :/ I tried ordering another brand (white Nightlights) from another site, but they had problems with overseas shipping, so I didn't really have a choice. Of course I could have waited until they had their issues fixed, but you know me :p Anyway, here's a sneak peek at the firefly:

She's quite large, and the back end really does glow! I'm pretty pleased with this one :)

Oh, another thing... I've managed to get tangled up in a craft project with a deadline of  August 31st, so that naturally has priority right now. Not sure how much I can talk about it yet, so if you feel like I haven't posted much craftyness lately it's not because I haven't done anything :) I promise I'll tell you more about it when I know how it turns out!

And then there's the tatting :) I'm hooked! On the bus here I started a new project, and during the next two or three days I finished my first "big" item, a crocodile bookmark :) Thought it would be cool to put in my biology book. The pattern is called "Alligator bookmark" from the book Animal Bookmarks - A Tatted Zoo by Dianna Stevens, but I think it looks more like a crocodile than an alligator. I like crocodiles better :)

Bookmarks are both practical and fun to make, and I think it's becoming a new obsession :) I'm not at all a fast tatter, so I can only make a few rings and chains every night, but I've just finished a thistle bookmark from this pattern. It doesn't say how many colors to use, but I made mine in green and pink. Pictures will probably be up on Flickr and Facebook tonight or tomorrow :)

Firefly & bombardier beetle

Okay, so I couldn't keep my hands off my new beading book, I just had to try out a pattern. My color selection is a bit limited right now, because some of my beads (important ones like black and white) have disappeared somewhere between my grandmother's, my boyfriend's parents's house and our apartment in Bergen. I have no idea where they have gone.. Together with the beads I have also lost some macramé bracelets I'd made along with all my macramé supplies :(

Anyway, as expected, the book being in French was not a problem :) First out I made this bombardier beetle, or Brachinus Explodens as the book calls it. The bombardier beetle is not a bug you'd want to mess with. If disturbed, it can shoot a spray of almost boiling hot chemicals from its behind, with impressive accuracy. The book uses clear nylon string like fishing line, but I use metal wire, which I guess complicates things. The legs are not quite like in the pattern, but I'm happy with them.

One critter obviously wasn't enough, so this morning I made another one :D It's a glow-worm, Lampyris Noctiluca, which I think is the common firefly. It's the female that glows, they don't have wings to cover their bums, and they use the light to attract males in the late summer/early fall. They do exist here in Norway, but I've never seen them. Fireflies are really cool, I wish I could see one in real life :)