Zoidberg!

And the Furturama crafts continue! I give you Dr. Zoidberg!

He has a fully crocheted body with felt clothing. The clothing was hand sewn and is removable! He was made in the basic amigurumi style and took me around three days to complete (working in about two hour chunks). I started him last weekend after posting Baby Bender. I also started an even smaller Fry, but then realized I don't have any orange yarn for his hair. Oops, oh well. I'll just have to keep my eyes open at the thrift shop for a while (where I regularly volunteer).

Took some better pictures! Here he is with his entire ensemble.

      

 

As I mentioned his clothing is removable and here's his basic body style!

As a side note I've been thinking about starting up something with Etsy, but I can't decide if that would make my crocheting into a chore. As it is I don't usually make these only for myself, I make them to make my sister jealous or my husband awed. It's fun to get a little attention for something I do, especially since I don't have a whole lot to show off otherwise (though it helps that I volunteer now). Selfish reasoning aside I also don't know what I would charge for such an item. I can judge off of other Etsy sellers, but sometimes I just think they're prices are outrageous! For example remember my failed plush Toothless? I've seen several that, in my opinion, are just as far away from being Toothless and are priced around $250.00 for ones the same size! Small crochet amigurumi range from $10 to $70 for something like the little Nintendo bomb and star that I made for Christmas.

It's a difficult decision, but for now I'm happy to take (paying) orders.

"I'm Bender, baby, please insert liquor!"

After much pestering from my husband and sister I present baby Bender! This version of baby Bender was taken from Futurama season five, "Lethal Inspection" and comes complete with Mexican beer!

This was a rather ambitious and tedious project, taking me an entire week of diligent work. How did I do it you ask? Why by eyeballing it of course! No patterns, no direction, and no hope! Fortunately Bender refuses to be anything less than awesome. I hope I have done him proud.

He is by far the largest amigurumi style crochet I have attempted, and although he has some minor defects, he is an overall success! I started at his mini antenna and crocheted down to his "crotch plate" in one go. I then made his feet, but unfortunately by then I had used the entire skein of silver yarn so of course I had to go buy more. I finished off his other attachments and then put him together! I added a few details, such as his door and mouth, and then threw in a beer to keep his power cells fueled.

 Here he is from the episode.

And HERE he is in physical form! 

So, what do you think?

Nananananananana Nananananananana BATMAN!

You know it!

The body is crochet, the extras are all cut out from felt. My favorite part is that he has no arms and legs, and he doesn't even need them.

The only annoying part was the bat symbol. Too small my friends...too small, and yet packed with awesome goodness. This is how I spend my Friday nights. Oh and this was made as a gift.

Stage One: Complete!

OK, what you see is the first stage to completing a very large floor pillow. Surprisingly this pillow top was crocheted from 1 inch strips of sheet (idea courtesy of another crafting blog my sister showed me). Do you have a guess to how much of the sheet it took to crochet this? (Find answer below)

The hardest part was since the sheet is in strips it doesn't want to pull through the loops like a nice round piece of yarn. I could only work for an hour at a time before my arm was too sore to continue. Though it was an improvement over cutting the sheet into strips, which resulted in my thumb going numb for two days.This took me about a week of various sessions to complete.

Also, Futurama has nothing so do with the pillow, other than it offered background entertainment and it's size is that of a regular DVD.

Flash kind of bleached out the above picture. Oh well. Below is just a detail shot.

(The answer to the question: an entire queen size flat sheet.)

Murloc 2.0

 After I made the murloc for my brother-in-law my husband asked for one too! I let him pick out the colors and then I went to work.

As you can see I do these little guys in stages. First the body, and then the legs. I should really write out a pattern, but I always seem to forget once I've started.

 Attach them altogether and then start on the embellishments.

Huzzah!



I don't want to be a writer... I want to be an author!

Alas, let me warn you that this entry will not have a bunch of colorful photos or impressive pieces of work. Instead this is about that other passion of mine: writing. The only problem is people often misunderstand that writing in itself is not something that I dream of, its the act of telling a story in a beautiful and cohesive way. I love disappearing into exaggerated worlds and wonderful ideas. So I guess it's no surprise that I love the young adult urban fantasy genre; which just so happens to be what I write as well.

My most recent book fits in well with the other young adult series. Outlandish creatures, dangerous foes, incredible strengths and abilities, all wrapped around a girl trying to figure out how to live a normal life. Little does she know that she is just as fantastic as the world around her.

Unlike the majority of young adult books this girl is not in school. You see, I disagree that YA spans just the tweens and high schoolers. It reaches into the early 20's, and I am proof.

Anyway I'm not here to discuss the specifics of my book (as much as I would like to, but I don't want my ideas stolen) I just wanted to confide in my ever amounting list of three people that read this blog that I am very nervous and anxious to begin the next phase. I want so much to be published, and I know I'm not the next Stephanie Meyer or J.K. Rowling, but I want my book to give all the young people like me a chance to escape from the world...even if it's just for a little while.

So as I begin to write my query letter and prepare myself for the inevitable (and multiple) rejections I just want you to wish me luck. I have a journey ahead of me and it's going to be rough.

Just remember...I don't want to simply write. I want to tell stories and entrance readers...I want to be an author.

This isn't how he was supposed to be...

Let me begin by expressing my disappointment in this project. I was so excited to create a huge cuddly Toothless that I dove right in and spent the first day entirely in front of the sewing machine. He took me two days, which may not seem like much of an investment, but I was absolutely devoted to making him. The pattern I followed was posted by a gal on Deviant Art and since I don't sew much I thought my chances of sewing one by "eyeing" him wouldn't be very good. Now I wish I had just winged it. Her pattern was a nice place to start, but it produced a disproportionate dragon, one that I tried very hard to fix.

Alright, so you might be looking at this and thinking "he's really not that bad" (or you might be as laughing at how bad it really is) but I have to admit that he's not really horrible. But he's also not Toothless. I figured I should still post him since being a crafter doesn't mean everything I make will turn out perfect. I spent a lot of time on him and I've decided to recognise my efforts by putting him here. He may irk me and make me want to cry with how hard I worked, but I did my best with the pattern I had. (Next time screw the pattern.)

I want to try to make a new one, but I'm afraid it will take a while...especially since I don't have enough fleece left (and since I'm unemployed I need to wait for the good sales).