Because Everbody Loves Hypnotoad!







This is the very first sculpture and polymer clay thing I've done and I'm quite proud of it. The hardest part was definitely working out his markings and the face...he's not exactly drawn consistantly. He's possibly slightly cuter than he should be but I don't care, I love him! (or maybe I'm just hypnotised to think I do...)

I was supposed to be doing essays...but instead I played around with makeup! Oh well!


It needs a bit of work but I like it. Barry M dazzle dusts are absolute genius.

I think that type of skirt is also called a cocoon skirt. That is a lovely dress though, its on my list to 'recreate' when I get some free time!
I personally would make it using a simple pencil skirt pattern/tutorial, but cut the waist and hips large so you get the poofiness when you gather the waist to the waistband/bust.
For those who can't see it I've uploaded the picture


Hope that helps!

They said it couldn't be done!
Then someone found a pattern.
But patterns are for sensible people! Why use a pattern when you can wing it, wasting yarn left, right and under the couch!

In other words, This is Colin, my crocheted fox fur scarf. I used the knitty pattern: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall02/PATTveganfox.html as inspiration but ignored all the instructions because I have never been able to get my brain around knitting and couldn't envision it in my head.

He's made from acrylic, for I am a poor student, but he feels like the softest and most expensive fur ever. He's a christmas present for my Grandma and she'd better like him or I'm stealing him back. He's so snuggly and warm. His eyes are brass buttons because I left my button box at uni.

Now, for pics!
Excuse my face, it was 1:30 AM





Oh god, now I can sleep.
~Xara

My best friend loves Steampunk and Lolita styles of clothing and a while back sent me some panels from a manga showing a knitted poncho she'd love to have made by someone. Now, I don't knit, but I am a deft hand with a hook, but looking at this I can't work out how to get vertical ribbing to work. Would it be best to make it in panels and then attach it to a tube for the neck or is it a loss cause to crochet and should I just suck it up and master knitting (or just accept that drawing a poncho is easier than making it!)

I'm attempting to freehand this and although I've had a few a few hiccups, mostly the two (TWO) times I started enthusiastically failing to remember that a fox is not an open ended tube, here's my slow but steady progress:

I'm going to make a detachable fox tail as well so it'll be long enough to function as a stole but not sure exactly how I'll pull that one off.

I can't stop stroking my yarn! Its so delicious. Feels like those really really expensive teddy bears.

...That's what my housemate said when I giddily showed her my Christmas yarn.
It's cherry red and jade green merino, plied with white corridale. The green is spun with a bit of peacock angelina fibre, and the whole thing is plied with a load of gold angelina and cotton balls to represent big snow drifts. Its part of the christmas present I'm making for my Mother, I hope she loves it.
I am giddy over this. Its pretty much my first real plied yarn (only the second non-test yarn I've made) and I'm so in love with it, as my pictures show! (possibly a little too much)


Plying in progress, during the rerun of Torchwood. Captain Jack is conductive to good plying!

After fixing, but before it had completely dried. The green is a LOT more green than in any of these pictures, which is annoying.

Detail of the yarn before fixing, fluffiness and sparklyness!

All dried, but still the green isn't showing up as as green as I'd liked.

Am I the only one who has the urge to make out with their yarn? Probably. It doesn't make our love wrong!

So here's my very successful Red Riding Hood costume.
Red fabric paint is brilliant stuff. It also stains skin almost exactly like blood, which was handy! The cape itself is a copy of a capelet I made last year with the hood copied from a random hoodie I found on the floor. I debated not lining it but I'm glad it did because walking around late at night in what felt like sub zero temperatures was horrible without the snuggly velvet.

Bitch, where's my coffee? Don't you know that Xara is very important? Find my mobile, I'm expecting a call from my agent. No, don't give me that talk, I don't care who died, you will be here and get me my ****ing coffee, capiche? Goddamn it, Xara doesn't need this.

Or something like that. I'm feeling very rockstar in these trousers.

These are my first attempt at trousers (or pants if you swing that way) adapted from some random pattern I had lying around. The original pattern were straight leg 80s style high waisted horrible, horrible things so I didn't add the yoke since the main part was high waisted enough, adapted it a bit, cut the legs super wide and voila, first pair of trousers. Finished with a big ol brass zip, because hardware is very in this season.




This starts my attempt to perfect wide leg trousers for autumn. Everything I read says that skinny jeans are staying in fashion for another season and I'm officially saying: No more! Give those of us who aren't tall thin leggy creatures something to wear that doesn't make us look stumpy and weirdly proportioned!

Now, where the hell is my coffee?

I've been doing a charity sewathon (cunningly known as sewablogathon!) at my site goodbye.nu for the Multiple Sclerosis Trust. So far I've made a dress and a skirt, but then a friend and I decided to do a 2 hour challenge and issued it out: Make something that reflects what you can see out your window.

I decided to make this bag. Totally unfunctional, but its cute.



The flowered fabric is the little flowers on the lawn, the red velvet lining is the red brick of my house, the straps are the crawling vines up the side of my house and the sprig of leaves is the hedge.

Its impractical, I'm not sure  the straps would hold a pencil but it was quick and cute.

My other thon posts: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=110585.0
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=110681.0

Sponsor me at: http://blogathon.org/sponsor.php?blog_id=337