Eventually, she’s going to have legs (I’m in the process of sewing her arms on in this shot) and she’ll be hiding a big nasty scary looking syringe behind her back. She’ll also have pink hair – Janes favourite colours are black and pink, so yanno, working with that.

The head and torso (which you can’t see under the skirt) are worked from this pattern by Owlishly. The skirt is freeformed mostly, but following the basic directions. The arms, legs and hair I’m making up as I go along. I don’t mind admitting I was just having too much trouble with the pattern for these bits, and after starting an arm over for the 30th time I decided to wing it.

I found this yarn on the cheap at Kmart and as it’s my favourite colours ever ever I had to buy it. And like I usually do, I bought it without a project in mind. I decided to use it for this very simple wrap because the colour changes add their own interest without the need for fancy stitch work. It’s coming along really fast, which is good. Though why I’m crocheting a winter wrap in the middle of summer is anyone’s guess.

What am I working on? Well, this:

Okay so that kind of looks like Muppet Surgery. What you can see there are the legs of a doll I am making for Jane. I’ve had SO many tries at every part of this doll I am no longer stressing if it doesn’t look like the picture. Right now I just want to get it done. Once it’s finished, it’ll be a nurse in a black dress holding a syringe behind her back. If it sucks, well I’ll just give her a gift card or something.

I had to actually BUY pink yarn for this, btw. I thought I could get away with using what I’d found at Savers, but the thicknesses were too variable. Dammit, now I have three balls of pink yarn.

Yup, still with the trees. The one on the right is done but for the decorations and the base, the one on the left needs a few more rounds, then the base. You can see on the left one I got smart and added the yarn decorations as I went. This is because it’s SUCKING to do them on the other one, getting the knots tied in the pointy bit is unfun.

Neither of these are the one I posted last week, that was frogged once the new pattern started to work well. These are a little thinner, and I think I’ve figured out a way to give them a nice rounded base.

SO, I have to finish these, then whip up the littler ones, then felt them all, which I hope to be able to do this weekend to get Evie’s out to her on Monday.

Well I finally got it finished (I say finally, but it’s not like I worked on it for 9 years or anything.) It’s been handed over to the new owner, Miss Di, who loves it to tiny bits. Phew! Always hard to know if a handmade thing is going to be the RIGHT thing to give, but she was pretty thrilled with it. So was I.  Here it be:

Looking at it I can see at least 19 different places I’d like to redo, but it’s gone now so I must let it go. LET IT GO.

In other news, the tree from the last WIP post has been frogged since the second draft of the pattern worked so much better. Racing to get them done and felted in time to mail one set is kinda fun!

The first version was a fail. The cone instructions I’d hunted up online gave me a square shape, more like a pyramid than a cone. I moved the increases to different places and here we go, a cone shape. A HUGE cone shape. Once this one is done, I’ll alter the pattern again and make it smaller for other gifts, partly because it’s close to christmas and partly because this is going on forever. FOR EVAH!

I have the pattern written out, once I figure out the best way to do the base I’ll post that pattern on here so other people can leap in. I’m going to felt it in my new handy camping washing machine. Felting in the electric machine is complicated because we use cold for washing, and felting requires hot hot water. Doing it by hand does work, but takes ages, so I’m hoping my little camper washer will speed the process up some.

Those of you who DID read me yesterday may remember the yellow circle I claimed was a star. Well here’s the finished piece:

It’s considerably less tidy than the one by the original pattern lady, but it’s.. uh. .. homespun charm. Yeah. That’d be it.

Again, if you’d like to make one, you can find the pattern here.

So. Welcome to a thing I’m doing now. YAY! It’s called WIP Wednesday and since in theory I will always have a WIP I will yak about it here, on Wednesdays. For those who don’t know, a WIP is a Work In Progress. Things that are currently being worked on, but are not yet finished (this is not at all like a UFO – Unfinished Object. These are usually somewhere along the line to finished, but have been abandoned due to boredom or other more exciting projects).

Let’s get cracking, shall we? Okay first up we have the Eiffel Tower:

This is being done in freeformish embroidery on cotton. It’s a leaving present for Di at work who has found herself a brilliant new job and is therefore running as fast as she can from the building. Since she loves all things French I thought I’d go the iconic Tower. It was a bit of a rush, but I’ve just realised I have a week longer to finish it than I thought, which is pure bonus. It’s nothing like as neat and tidy as I would like, but then again at least it looks handmade, right? (Work with me here)

Part two of Di’s leaving pressie is shaping up:

I only started it last night when I realised there was NO way I’d get the tower finished by Friday. What is it you ask? It’s a star, dur.  Okay you have a point, right now it’s a circle, but it WILL be a star once I’ve done some more circle and added some points. The reason is that Di and I always demand gold stars when we do a good job, so when I found this pattern I had to make one for Di.  I freely admit my crochet is wonky. I have given up demanding perfection from myself on the basis that I’m improving naturally, and it’s easier to woodge and hide mistakes than start over

Since leaving Second Life, I’ve had an utter explosion in creative juices, and I find it’s something I can do that will really lift my mood. Even just crocheting a line of a scarf or something is a wonderful mental break, especially when in the dumps like I get sometimes.  I’m trying to something a little bit creative every single day, and for the most part I’m doing that. Not by any means anything huge – I’m not doing a major oil painting every evening, or finishing an afghan every three days, but just a little something or other to keep the brain active and happy.

I do have oil paints I have yet to try, so I may crack those open this weekend. Can i paint? No. I can barely draw, but who cares. Getting over the idea that we need to be perfect at anything before we do it is a hard one, I’ve had many discussions with people about that.  For a long time I shied away from doing anything new because I simply couldn’t bear being terrible at something. I think jumping in to painting, crochet or anything else is a good cure for that.

I also love the all absorbing nature of sewing, or sketching, or writing. Losing all sense of place and time as you work on something that fascinates you is a wonderful thing, and a perfect mental break.  What you walk with at the end might not even be anything like what you were aiming for, but it’s yours and it’s new and you poured energy and care into it.

For those reading who are not “creative” I urge you to try something. It doesn’t have to be a big investment, a pencil and a small sketchbook should be under $10. Find something that totally absorbs your mind and soul and do it as often as you can. We live in a stupid, fast paced world full of mass production and angry people and bad drivers and god knows what else. Curl up with yourself and create a small something. It’s good for you.

Apparently. What you see there is the 88 balls of yarn I have somehow aquired, which since I’ve only been crocheting for about 18 months, works out at about 5 balls a month, excluding the ones that have been used, of course. It also doesn’t include the 4 balls of incredibly shitty acrylic I just tossed. Remember kids, cheap doesn’t always equal good.

So, since I am NOT buying yarn till I’ve used three quarters of what I have – I’ve 66 balls of yarn to get through. Hrm. Anyone need an incredibly long scarf?

Added bonus of stash sorting was the discovery of three hooks, several cards of buttons, fabric I’d forgotten about and a two piece frog pillow I pinned but never sewed. Score!