The Anatomy of a Crochet Aardvark: Part Three - Monday Funday

I do enjoy Mondays, but only because my parents are awesome and take Katie (my youngest) when Isaac has gymnastics.  Then I can craft for almost an hour while he gets his sillies out.  Yay.

Rnds 26-42, 45 minutes

Rnds 43-52 finished the head and body portion, one ear finished, 45 minutes (yay gymnastics!)

So all I have left is one ear, four legs, a tail, then sewing it all together.  (2 hrs, 5 minutes time spent so far.)

The Anatomy of a Crochet Aardvark: Part Two - One Stitch At A Time

I named my Etsy shop One Stitch At A Time because that's how a piece is made - literally building stitch upon stitch one at a time until you are left with something fantastic (hopefully!).  For me, that's the best part of crafting.

I got a bit of a start on my aardvark early Sunday...

Rounds 1-14 done, 15 minutes

Rounds 15-25, 10.5mm eyes added, stuffing added, 20 minutes

That's all for Sunday, but Monday is usually a good crocheting day because Isaac has gymnastics.  Later!

The Anatomy of a Crochet Aardvark: Part One - The Tools

It's been a while since my last blog entry, but I had a brainstorm and just HAD to do this project...  I want to show a crochet project from start to finish, pictures and all. 

This is not going to be a tutorial by any means, more of a demystification of the process that takes such basic ingredients as a hook and yarn and makes something with so much personality. 

A great final product has a lot to do with the pattern (and designer)... designing is a mix of art and math.  I haven't designed anything but the baby lightsaber, which is basically a big tube, but it's a start.  (Side note - the Medicine Hat Stampede and Exhibition has contests for art, and the only category for crochet is the Fibre Arts Original Design... I would love to win, but I have to design something first!)

For this project I will use a pattern by my favourite designer June (of Planetjune).  I love her patterns because they are very well-written, detailed and realistic - everything I would eventually like my designs to be.  It is a bonus that she allows (and even encourages) sales of the finished products from her patterns.  You can find her patterns here: www.planetjune.com/crochetchrisie
(Bonus for me: I'm now part of her affiliate program, so if anyone goes through the above link to her shop and purchases something I get a small percentage in shop credit with PlanetJune.  Cool!)

For obvious reasons I can't share the actual pattern, but I can tell you that crocheting required learning something akin to a new language.  Everything is written in shorthand, and has a set layout that a good pattern will follow.  An average line of a pattern looks something like this:

Rnd 3: (2sc in next st, 1 sc in next st) six times (18)

Translation ~ round three - two single crochet in next stitch, one single crochet in the next stitch, repeat that stitch pattern six times, end round with 18 stitches total.

Anyway, that's probably still gibberish to pretty much everyone and if you're still with me - yay! - let's move on.  :)

So what do I need to make this adorable aardvark?

Brownish yarn, a 3.5mm hook, a stitch marker, two 10.5mm safety eyes, scissors, a yarn needle to weave in ends, polyfill stuffing and time!

I was going to make this all one big post, but I think it will be more fun if you can follow along as I go.  So I'll pause here, and I will try to update you on my progress every day or two.  Hopefully this project won't take super-long, but it should be worth a few posts.  :)

Until next time!

Book Review: "The Magicians" and "City of Fallen Angels"

So, I guess I promised a review of "The Magicians" by Lev Grossman.

For some reason I thought this book was a YA novel, but it really wasn't. By the time they got to a part with transmorgified fox sex I was pretty convinced this was not for kids. Anyway... the book was interesting. Part Harry Potter (magic school), part Bright Lights, Big City (aimless in the city after finishing school), part Narnia (fantastical world quest)... it was actually broken up into four 'books', because it was a lot of different things. I got a little bored in the middle, so much that I considered putting the book away, but I forged on and it got pretty good again. And if I'd had the next book on hand when I finished this one I would have started the next one right away. But, it took me a lot longer to get through this book than the next book I read... could have been more words in it though. (The font was pretty small.)
3 and a half stars out of 5

And, I also read the fourth book in the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, "City of Fallen Angels".
Not to give too much away to those that may want to start from the beginning of the series, it is a continuation of the previous three. Jace, Clary, Simon, Isabelle and gang continue fighting demons etc. The author does a pretty good job of creating a new 'world' with Shadowhunters (demon fighters) and Downworlders (vampires, fairies, warlocks, etc)
According to the back jacket the series is going to be a movie (series) from Sony Pictures, so I guess we'll see about that. Looking for the next Twilight series I guess.
The book was fine, good mystery, but like the previous books it felt pretty 'light'. It definitely didn't have all the layers of The Magicians. But that's okay. I'd recommend the Mortal Instruments series to those who enjoy a good supernatural YA read.
4 stars out of 5

Waiting for me to read, "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman and "A Discovery of Witches" by Deborah Harkness.

Update to Books I've Read

I finished "Virals" by Kathy Reichs the other day, and I think I'd give it 3-and-a-half to 4 stars out of 5. It had a good mystery and a good story overall, but I just couldn't really lose myself in it. I'm not sure why. I've put a hold on the next in the series "Seizure" I think it's called. I hope that now I'm familiar with the characters that it's easier to relate to them.

I started on "Magicians" by Lev Grossman. So far it's really interesting. It has really great reviews, so we'll see. :)

I have a few books on hold at the library and I've taken advantage of their new 'shelves' online. You can put books on your 'for later' shelf, so that's what I've been doing. Then when I'm done with the ones I have on hold I can get the others that I'm interested in. I just thought that was a good idea for the library. It's nice to have a list of books to read.

Anyway, I'll probably eventually make some sort of list of books I've read or series that I'm interested in. You'll see that it's pretty heavy on the 'urban fantasy' side of fiction. That's just how I roll. :P

Books I've Read Recently

I've been reading a bit more recently, and I thought I'd blog a bit about the books I've read.

Joey (with a little help from me) got me "The Nine Lives of Chloe King" by Liz Braswell for Christmas. It's actually three novels in one volume, so it was pretty hefty. But it was an easy read because it's technically a YA novel. I like to read young adult novels because they are fast and there are a lot of options for the supernatural romance-y types. Did you know teen girls like vampires? Hmmm, me neither. ;) There was a tv series based on the books (same name) on ABC Family last year and it was pretty good. There was a lot of differences though, and I liked both. At least the books were able to finish the larger story.

So, there's this girl who gets 'cat-like' powers and discovers she's part of an ancient race of cat people. She has boy trouble and school trouble and mom trouble, and also assassin trouble. So, good times basically.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars. :)

I also started into a 3 novel volume of Buffy books. The first was "Coyote Moon" by John Hornvolt. Buffy novels are tricky because it's hard to capture their 'voices', but this one was set season 1ish, so it wasn't too complicated. Good mystery, easy read...

3 and a half stars out of 5

Last night I started "Virals" by Kathy Reichs. I'm only a few chapters in but it seems pretty good. This is her first YA novel, she writes the books the tv show "Bones" is based on. I'll let you know how it is. :)

Later all!

Felt Poinsettia

So I can't add my latest craft on Ravelry because it's not crochet, so I thought I'd throw up a quick blog post so I can link to it... I'll make a bigger post after Christmas to roundup all of the stuff I made for gifts this year. But this is the one I wanted to show.