[loves]

I made this hat for one of my best friends for Christmas (yeah, I'm awful at crafting things on time so it wasn't completed in time for the holiday but it was done quite a bit before now at least!  ).

Her name is Ariel so The Little Mermaid is a big thing for her.  She gets stuff with it on it all the time.  A looooooong time ago when I first learned how to knit, the first thing I made to branch out from scarves was a fish hat for her.  It wasn't until recently that I learned that, while she wears the hat frequently, it's actually too big for her.  Instead of trying to make that hat work, I wanted to make her a whole new one since my skills have waaaay improved then (plus crochet is much better, right??  ).  I figured making her a Flounder hat was the absolute perfect solution and thus made this:









Sorry for the cruddy pictures.  I don't have a good set-up and I totally forgot to take pictures until she was wearing the hat and literally about to leave.  I had to beg her to stay a couple more minutes so I could even get pics 

Regardless, I am SUPER pleased with how it came out!  I managed to get the dorsal fin to turn out PERFECT.  Plus, I was able to make it fit her head amazingly.  I also like that the tail can be made to stand up, or flop down in any direction she likes.

And, best of all, she loves it!  Nothing better than that! 

Questions and comments welcome (and encouraged!)!

I figured this was the place to post my question.  If not (or if it's been asked before), forgive me!

I was wondering what tips everyone has for taking good pictures of their finished crafts.  I've tried many different methods for taking pictures of the things I make (I predominantly crochet), but can never get them to look "professional" like other people do! 

It probably doesn't help that I don't have a fancy camera (it's a point and shoot, but it's really good quality) or know a whole lot about photography, but I figure there are some tricks that I don't know really know that could make my pictures look much better without getting a better camera (tips for good backgrounds, adding lighting specific for the photos, or camera settings maybe?)

Thanks in advance to anybody willing to offer some tips! 

I'm an occasional poster, long-time lurker on here but I haven't posted any of the things I've made in quite awhile since I've been real busy.  Here's a couple of projects that have absolutely nothing to do with each other!  Haha

First project is a pirate eye patch I made for a costume for my boyfriend.  It's embroidered with a Jolly Roger and is sc'd to fit with a reverse sc border around it (images are clickable thumbnails):



The second project was an afghan made for my boyfriend's mother.  The only direction I got was that she wanted something that looked antique.  I don't know about you, but when I think antique and crochet, I think lacy.  My mom found the pattern for me but I looked it up and this looks like it is it: http://www.free-crochet.com/detail.html?code=FC01111&cat_id=302.  It was pretty easy to work up after making one or two motiffs and I really enjoyed doing the lace part and connecting them.  I found the border to be awful since it's worked up as one whole thing and I managed to mess it up at least once which means I had to tear the WHOLE row out (considering it went along the whole outside of the blanket, that was pretty painful to do)  .  Anyways, on to some pics!



Close up of motiff:


Close up of pineapple border:


Questions and comments welcome!

I made this as a gift to my boyfriend that loves Kirby. I wanted to make it HUGE, which I think I accomplished pretty well. It's also free-standing because I had the foresight to put pellets in the feet to help weigh it down. I'm very pleased with how it turned out especially considering Kirby's body looked a bit lumpy before assembly because of the way I like to make spheres.  Images should be clickable thumbnails per usual.










The kitty is for size comparison (and is also not mine). I have more pictures in the pdf for the pattern which can be found here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/56189094/Kirby. If anybody uses it you should let me know if there are any mistakes as I haven't worked through my notes. You should also let me know so I can see what you've come up with!

Questions and comments more than welcome!

My boyfriend had an awful, stressful day today and I figured I would make him up something real quick to surprise him with and hopefully cheer him up a bit.  We spent quite a chunk of time looking at crochet books before at the bookstore and he found a pattern for a cute little turtle and asked me if I would make him it.  I told him I could make up one for him from my own pattern, so I figured I would do that today for his cheer-up surprise!  On to pictures! (clickable thumbnails)









As you can see, Sam doesn't quite stand so much as he leans using his shell as a sort of kickstand, but it's all good!  I whipped him up in a couple of hours so he's small and simple, but oh so cute (in my opinion at least  ).

On my last post on the crochet boards I decided that, since I'm a zoology major, any post I make involving animals will be accompanied with some fun facts about the animal species so...

Did you know??
The upper part of a turtle's shell is called the carapace and the bottom part is called the plastron.  The scales that make up the part of the turtle shell we can see are called scutes and are made of keratin which is the same protein that forms a variety of structures in animals from mammalian hair to bird feathers and even the rhinoceros's horn!  Turtles are the only animal in which the scapula (shoulder blades) are located inside of the ribs.  The lungs of turtles are attached to the top of their shell which is why you should never hold a turtle upside down for extended periods of time (as all their other organs will compress their lungs!)  Almost all turtles have temperature dependent sex determination (TSD) in which the temperature at which the eggs are incubated at determines the gender of the offspring.

Hopefully everyone enjoys Sam and the fun facts.  Questions and comments are more than welcome!

[amazing]

The other day I watched Free Willy on Netflix with my roommate. I used to love that movie and it was because of that movie that Killer Whales were my absolute favorite animal as a child. I had three stuffed whales, my favorite being Willy of course (the other two were Luna and Spot). I had sheets with Orcas on them and even had a cool 3D puzzle thingy of one. I've been trying to come up with all sorts of animals hats to design and make and let's just say, seeing that movie again was my inspiration.  Here's what I came up with! (clickable thumbnails)





There are more pics at my blog since I get excited and take ones from about every angle  

Even though I do not have the guts to wear this hat, I am pretty much in love with how it turned out.  It fits great and looks exactly how I pictured it in my head.  The earflaps look like fins (to me at least   ) and his dorsal fin is even floppy like Willy's! haha

Now I am a Zoology major at my college and I figure I couldn't let you guys off the hook without some fun facts about Killer Whales, so.....did you know??  The Orca or Killer Whale (also known as the blackfish) is the largest member of the dolphin family. Killer whales are considered apex predators which means that they are at the absolute top of their food chain and have no natural predators. They also have very complex social systems that are only rivaled by elephants and higher primates like us!

I could geek out and go on a whole lot longer, but figure you should just wikipedia them because they really are amazing animals!

Of course, questions and comments are always welcome

**EDIT**  Can't believe I forgot to say that if anyone had any suggestions for an animal they'd like to see made into a hat, I'd love to hear them and might just work some of them up eventually!

[needs]

Hey guys!

Eventually I'd love to make up my own patterns so I can sell them or items I've made from them.  As a first step towards this direction, I decided I want to come up with a number of animal-related hats.  Hats are simple enough to make and functional, plus they can be really really cute too if you do it right!  Also, it's a great way for me to combine my favorite hobby (crochet) and my passion in life (animals--I'm a zoology major  ).

For my first endeavor towards this goal, I figured I'd come up with a pattern that could be used to make a horse hat or unicorn hat depending on the addition or subtraction of a couple of elements and the colors you choose to use.  There is a world of color combinations to explore, but this is what I came up with (pics are clickable thumbnails):











As you can see, I really need one of those head mannequin thingies so I don't have to subject my poor flamingo to anymore hats on his hind-end, haha.  The pictures aren't the best either (especially of the unicorn hat), but I couldn't wait any longer to post them so you hopefully get the idea 

I tried designing them so the earflaps look like the rings on the sides of a bridle and the braids would then be the reins (you may notice that the unicorn hat isn't technically finished since it doesn't have braids yet, but I wanted them to be pink and don't have any pink yarn yet), but I'm not sure that came across well?  Oh well, I like it at least

I didn't put any ears on the unicorn hat because I thought it would be a bit excessive with the horn and all.  However, my mom insists that the hat needs the ears, so I wanted to know what you guys thought!  I might stick some on there if everyone thinks it needs it 

Also, I have a question to anybody reading this; would you or anybody you know be willing to wear something like this?  I know one person that went crazy when she saw the horse hat but she is a little bit crazy herself (in the best way possible of course!)

I'm going to hoard the pattern I used to make these seeing as I would eventually hope to sell them, but I would like some other people to work through it to see how the sizing works out for them (and to make sure the pattern makes sense to somebody that's not me).  I figure the best way to do this is to offer to email it to the first three or so people that express interest?  If you are interested, you can PM me saying so and include an email address where I can email you a pdf file of the pattern.  Hopefully I am allowed to do this; I promise I won't give your email out to anybody or send you vicious emails or anything like that! In return, all I ask is that you keep the pattern to yourself 

Anyways, I appreciate everyone that took the time to look at my post, especially those that take the time to give me input!  Comments are always welcome!

I have been working on this project for over a year and have finally finished it!  It was one of the very first projects I started so this is very exciting for me to have finally have finished    On to some pictures (clickable thumblinks per usual)!



You can see the ladder I'm standing on to get high enough to even take a picture of the whole afghan since it quite literally takes up the entire living room floor when it's all spread out.



Picture with me sprawled out on it for size comparison.  I am 6' tall and the blanket is roughly 8' tall x 7.5' wide.  I had only meant for it to be about as tall as me but oh well, haha

The afghan is 28 squares tall and 26 squares wide and contains 728 squares if my math is correct.  I reverse single crocheted around the entire blanket in black to help hide the ends and hold it together since it isn't a nice rectangle.  It's been through one round of blocking but will probably going through another one before I'm officially done.

There a couple more pictures of it on my blog along with a link to a pdf file of the chart I used for the blanket here: http://nerdyhooker.blogspot.com/2010/12/8-bit-yoshi-blanket-complete-for-now.html and here is a direct link to the pdf file where it can be downloaded: http://www.scribd.com/doc/45809950/8-Bit-Yoshi-Chart.

If anybody makes any sort of project using the chart, link me to pictures!  I'd love to see them!

Comments and questions are always welcome 

Hi all!

I'm sure somebody's done this already here (and probably better than mine), but I made an R2D2 beanie for my roommate for Christmas and had to share! (all pictures should be clickable thumbnails)







Tried to get pictures that showed how the projector thingy actually sticks out from the hat.  It's all my own pattern and I'm not super experienced making up patterns, but I have my notes and can type them up if anybody's interested (I will eventually, but if I know there's interest I might try and do it a bit faster  ).  Here's some more pictures of it on me to give a better idea of how it actually looks on a real person.  Don't mind me covering up my face, it's really difficult to try and take a picture of your head from above and not look like a total dork







Thanks for looking!  Sorry if the pics are a bit superfluous, I got a bit excited.  Comments always welcome!

**EDIT**

I have now made up a pdf of the pattern.  I would just post it on here but there are a few pictures to try and explain things so it would be a bit complicated to try and transfer it over.

It's posted on my blog here: http://nerdyhooker.blogspot.com/2010/12/r2d2-beanie-pattern.html
Or you can go directly to the pdf link here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/45855169/R2D2-Beanie

It hasn't been worked through after I typed it up so if there's anything wrong, let me know!  Oh, and be sure to let me know if it works well for you too so I can stop worrying I've messed something up, haha.  Also, my blog post has a couple of clarifications on the pattern since the way I wrote it up may be a little strange.  Good luck to anybody that tries making it!  

My friends and I are going to the midnight showing of Harry Potter tomorrow and quite a few of us are dressing up.  I'm going as Hedwig (and will post pics of that from tomorrow in a separate post) and my one friend is going as Luna.  Everyone knows that a Luna costume wouldn't be complete without radish earrings, so I volunteered to make her some.  Here's what I came up with!  (pics are clickable for a larger image)

With flash:


Without flash:


I did make two of them, but the other turned out a little less great looking (and a tad bigger) so I just took a picture of the best one

My other friend isn't going in costume, but did ask if I would make her some lightning bolt earrings after seeing my handiwork.

With flash:


Without flash:


They're both fairly simple, but I still feel accomplished! I made them with embroidery floss and a really small hook.  I have my notes for each one too if anybody wanted me to type them up and post them.  They're really quite simple though if you have experience crocheting, and the lightning bolt works up in practically no time at all.

Comments are more than welcome!  I hope everyone going to the premiere tomorrow has fun, costume or not!!