Hello everyone and to everyone a happy new year!
I hope the holidays went by without a hitch and that you all received some great gifts for Christmas, cause I know I have.
At first when I was asked to make a wishlist for Christmas, I didn’t really know what to ask for. But then it hit me: I still needed some more pattern books! And so, for Christmas I got two amigurumi books that I’d been wanting for a while now, but didn’t get the chance to order myself: Amigurumi Toybox by Ana Paula Rimoli (who is amazing and you should check out her blog!) and Crobots by Nelly Pailloux.
I already have the first two books from Ana Paula, so I knew what to expect: absolutely amazing cute creatures that make the most awesome baby gifts. Her patterns are easy to follow and pretty much always turn out very cute, even if you’re not that much of an experienced crocheter yet. I immediately made the little tugboat that’s in there, since I needed a quick and simple project after the huge Moogle I made (pics come further down this post). It made the perfect gift for the grandson of my mothers hairdresser (yes, I am that desperate to find babies to give my ami’s to). Now I just need to make the koala’s, tree, unicorn, garden snake… and every single other pattern in there ^_^
Crobots was a bit more of a gamble for me, since I’d only ever seen the cover. But as soon as I had this book in my hands, I just knew I had to make all of these cute little critters as soon as possible (no, I haven’t started yet..) They do require a bit more skill and a lot more details. I already fear the embroidering I’m going to have to do on them, but then again, it’s always good to learn new techniques. I am also going to need to search the house for any nails, screws, bolts and pretty much anything that looks techy. But I’m pretty sure we have a big bag over leftovers somewhere from when we put together our furniture (yay IKEA!). I also ordered a few mixes of coloured beads, bugle beads and sequins and am still looking for a perfect batch of mixed buttons. It may seem like a lot of trouble over a few crochet patterns, but I can assure you, they nééd these details. The pictures in the book look really cute and I kind of want to make the entire set all at once. But I do believe I need to pace myself here and calmly start with the first pattern in there. The great thing is that they’re sorted by difficulty, so you can start with the easiest one and work your way up to the more difficult patterns.
Not only did I receive awesome gifts, I also got to give out a few. A while back, I gave you guys a glimpse into a work in progress: the giant Moogle head. Well, it isn’t just a head anymore!
Mog close-up
Just for scale: Mog in my reading-chair
From the back
This guy was requested by my sister-in-law, who wanted a life-sized Moogle named Mog to go with her cosplay for one of the upcoming conventions in the Netherlands. This is a creature from the video game Final Fantasy XIII-2.
He was a lot of fun to figure out, but surely took a whole lot of work. I used about seven skeins of white yarn, half a skein of light pink yarn, half a skein of orangy pink yarn, one and a half bags of stuffing and four sheets of purple felt. The tips of the wings are a bit yellowish, which I tried to replicate by using acrylic paint. I finally managed to get the antenna to stand up by itself using about a mile of wire. I don’t really like the way that looked, but then again, I had no idea how to fix it otherwise. My sister-in-law loves it either way and we will get to see some action photos after the convention.
By the way, this is the picture I used to figure him out:
Sadly, I did not write the pattern down as I went along, but maybe in the future, I’ll ask if I can borrow him back again and figure it out.
Which brings me to my three new year’s resolutions:
– Write down patterns for everything that I work out myself. Looking back on what I’ve made so far made me realise that I let slip quite a few, which is a shame really, especially if I want to continue to fill this blog.
– Never ever get fake nails again, even though they look awesome and I can still crochet with them. For new year, I thought it would be nice to get my nails done. About halfway through, it came to me that it might be very hard to crochet with these things. Luckily, I can still do it, but it isn’t as easy as it is with my own nails. I’m missing a lot of feeling on my fingertips and it’s pretty hard to pick at knots and stuff.
– Share every pattern I make with the world. Which shouldn’t be too much of a problem, as long as my boyfriend lets me use the computer. He’s been hovering for a while now, so I believe it is time for me to wrap this up.
Cheers, Lydia
Crochetnanigans 