Crochet Beholder Amigurumi

Hello! One of my resolutions this year is to actually post on my blog, so here I am! I'm going to aim for at least one post a month, but if you want to see more of my nonsense, do feel free to find me over on Instagram.

So, in my last post (from JULY 2018! Far out I've been slack!) I talked about how Scott and I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons with a group of our friends. We're still doing that and when I asked Scott what he'd like for his anniversary present this year, he requested a Beholder, which is a monster from D&D.

I found a great pattern by Aja Moniz on Ravelry and used that for the base of my Beholder, but I did make a few changes.

The pattern picture shows a Beholder with six eye stalks, but Scott wanted his to have ten, so I made a few extra stalks. I also decided to use safety eyes instead of using embroidery. The mistake I made with the safety eyes is that I decided to do that after I'd finished crocheting the eye stalks so if I made another one, I'd crochet the rounded bit of the eye, stick in the safety eye, and then continue to crochet the stalk.

I also wanted the Beholder to have more teeth as the official D&D artwork shows that they are very dentulous. Instead of crocheting the teeth, I cut out strips of fangs from white felt and then used a felting needle to attach the strips to the mouth area.

I intentionally used some different types of safety eyes, but I wish I had have had even more variety in eye colours. I think that since each eye of the Beholder has a different power, having different colours would be a cool way to indicate that.
 

Scott picked out the yarn for his Beholder and the purple that he chose for the body is some that I actually dyed myself! I liked how the colour come out, but the wool itself was pretty stiff and scratchy so it went into the stash box instead of being used for the scarf I originally wanted to make. It was a good yarn for amigurumi though, and it wasn't rough enough that it hurt my hands to use. Unfortunately I don't actually know any of the brands I used for this project as they have all been in the stash box without their labels for a long time!
 

I don't think he's as scary as the "real" Beholder, but Scott likes him anyway!

- Lisa xx

Dragon scale drawstring bag

Hello! It's time for another update on this increasingly sporadically updated craft blog! I am wondering if I should write some posts about my plants? I am doing a lot more gardening than craft these days as even when I ignore my plants for a week they keep doing things (unlike all those WIPS ... ~___^). Something else that I have been doing lately is playing Dungeons and Dragons! My husband, Scott, wanted to have a go at being a DM (Dungeon Master) and he needed some players to facilitate the game for. So I put the call out to my friends, and Spooky, Jeneva, and Moon were all keen ... and wanted to each bring along their husband, partner, and son (respectively) so we ended up with quite a large group!

If you do not know much about D&D, all you need to know for the purposes of this post is that to play each player needs a notebook, a pen, a set of dice, and a character figurine. My character for this campaign is Seraphina Underfen, who is a Halfing Druid, but I have a couple of other figures for characters I want to play in future campaigns plus a wolf, a bat, and a unicorn because they were cute and I thought they'd come in handy ~___^

So I thought I would make a dice bag to hold my dice but then as I was making it I thought that maybe it should be big enough to hold all my things and so it got bigger and bigger and bigger until the almost ridiculously sized "dice" bag you see before you today existed! It does not hold my spell binder though, so maybe next I should make a cover for that.

 

The pattern which was the kicking off point for this bag is the Dragon Egg Dice Bag by Cindy de Vries on Ravelry. The alterations I made were; 

• increasing the rounds on the bottom to nine (from four)
• doing nineteen rows of rows six and seven (in Cindy's pattern, row six is the base for the scales and row seven is the scales themselves)
• adding twelve rows of trebles to make the ruffly bit of the bag above the drawstring

For the drawstring, I just chained to a length that I thought looked good and then trebled into each chain stitch to make a long flat cord. I wove it through the v-stitches of the last "row six" and then just pulled it to tighten the top of the bag. I am a little concerned it might stretch with prolonged use, but it looks fine for now and I can always replace it in the future.

The yarn I used was one that I found at the discount store; the brand is "Knit&Purl" and the colourway is listed as "Myalla" but I brought some other balls of yarn which is a different colourway on the same day and they are also apparently "Myalla" so maybe that just refers to the gradient effect they both have. It's a 100% acrylic yarn and I used three 150g balls to make this bag. I used a 4mm hook for this project.

I had not done a project with the pineapple stitch before, which is the stitch that makes up the dragon scales. My scales do not lay as neatly as Cindy's, but I still like the effect ^___^ The pineapple stitch was a really interesting one to do as it's done a little differently from most other crochet stitches. I definitely want to try another project with it!
 

Below you can see how much bigger my bag is compared to my D20 ^___^

I'm a huge geek for stationery, so I also had to get myself a special pen to use for our D&D sessions; I choose this pom-pom flamingo at I found at the Japanese variety store because it's simply adorable! The added bonus to this is it's also a really good pen. I went back to see if I could get another one as a backup, but they didn't have them anymore so I hope this one lasts a long time!

 When I'm not laying them out for photos, I keep my pen, item cards, and figures in this adorable turtle pencil case which was a gift from Spooky ^___^ (she got it from Teeturtle!)

So in my dragon scale bag, I have my turtle pencil case, my old character sheets, and my dice ... still in their original plastic case. I wonder if I should make a dice bag to go inside my dice bag ... ~___^

- Lisa xx

Sushi to fish amigurumi

Hello! It has been a while since I felt the urge to get out my crochet hook, but recently it was two of my lovely friends' wedding anniversary and since we were going to be at their home to play D&D that evening, I thought a little gift would be in order! I know this is a little bit weird for an anniversary gift but there was a convoluted thought process behind this particular gift ...  but I won't bore you with that ~___^

I used a pattern by Irene Kiss which is available for free on Ravelry. I found the pattern very easy to follow, but I do suspect, as usual, that I tensioned a little too tight as it's a bit tricky to do the transition from sushi to fish and back.

No guidelines were given on hook size but if I made this again, I would maybe use a 4mm or 4.5mm hook (I used a 3.5mm for this amigurumi).  

The only real adjustment I made to the pattern was to make the nori wrap in the round so I didn't have to seam it together at the end and I also added a few more rounds as I thought it would be very difficult to get the fish into the sushi with only seven rows; I did fourteen rows instead. The trade off to this is, of course, that the sushi is bigger and takes up more room inside the fish! 
 

I used the same colours as Irene, but most likely different yarns as I used what I had in my stash.
 

Doesn't the little fish tail look cute sticking out of the sushi? ^___^
 

There are no photos included in the pattern regarding how the sushi and the fish are sewn together. I turned the sushi roll inside out and then stuffed it base first into the fish, so that the white square with the hole in the middle was lined up to the fish's mouth. In the photo below you can see my orange yarn stitches, but when the transition in complete it isn't noticeable.
 

 

Instead of crocheting the whiskers on the fish I tied on a length of yarn to each side and I stitched on the eyes with a little leftover black yarn. 
 

You can see how fat this fish gets when it has the sushi roll inside!
 

When I was making this pattern I wasn't convinced that it was going to work (that's more a comment on doubting my abilities than doubting the pattern though!) so when it was all sewn together and I could change it from a fish to a sushi it felt very exciting!

My friends both enjoyed their magical sushi to fish amigurumi and I really enjoying starting (and finishing!) a crochet project. 

I've been doing a lot of crafty things at work (I'm working as a Young People's Services Librarian right now which means lots of Storytime and School Holiday crafts) and I'm also working on a crafty business plan with some friends so even though I'm not posting on here as much, I am still working on things! ^___^ I hope to be able to share some things from the latter project with you soon! Although, if you want Storytime ideas, just let me know! ~___^ 

- Lisa xx

Four-leaf clover headband for St Patrick's Day

Since I dyed my hair green in January, I have had people telling me that I'm "a bit too early for St Patrick's Day!". So I decided to just embrace it and make myself a huge and slightly ridiculous four-leaf clover headband to wear! If you want to make your own, it is quick and easy and you could most definitely finish it before St Patrick's Day ^___^

 Materials needed:

• assorted green yarn (including a fluffy novelty yarn)
• crochet hooks to match yarns
• yarn scissors
• tapestry needle
• scrap cardboard
• pencil
• paper scissors
• hot glue gun

To start, you will need some green yarn. I went through my stash and pulled out as many different shades of green as I could find. They are all different weights and are a mix of acrylic and wool - and that is ok! You will only be using small amounts of each colour, so small stash balls are perfect for this project. Also, make sure you pull out a selection of crochet hooks so that you can match the hook to the yarn.

I used Twinkie Chan's free lucky clover pattern to make my clovers; it's a nice and easy pattern and once you've made a couple, you probably won't even need to read the pattern to make each one. I had six different yarns for my clovers and I made three clovers for each colour so I had eighteen clovers total. The amount you need will depend on how big your clovers are and how extreme you want to go with your headband ~___^

Next, you need some scrap cardboard; I pulled a small box out of our recycling bin and cut it into an arch shape. I used the top of the headband to determine the bottom curve of the arch but then free handed the rest. It's ok if it is a little lopsided, but the closer to even you can get it the better ^___^ 

 

Use hot glue to attach the cardboard to the headband and then wrap the headband and cardboard arch with more yarn. I used Moda Vera Honey Joy (100% polyester, colour number 08) which is a fluffy novelty yarn which reminds me of moss. I don't know what project I originally had planned for this yarn, but I was pleased to find it in my stash! I put a small amount of hot glue on the end of the headband, stuck the yarn down and then began winding it all over the headband. You may need to add small amounts of hot glue on the cardboard arch as well, to prevent the yarn from slipping down.

Once your headband is completely covered, you can begin to stick the clovers on with hot glue!
 

 Ta-da!

I had much more clovers than I needed so I added some to the back as well! I still have one large light green clover left so I may make myself a matching brooch ^___^

I'm not going to lie - this headband is pretty massive! But I really love it. Good luck and no pinches, what's not to like? ~___^

- Lisa xx

Marceline the Vampire Queen amigurumi

Hello! The second edition of what-I-made-this-Christmas is all about Marceline! Marceline is the Vampire Queen from Adventure Time and, hoo boy, was this amigurumi an adventure to make! I made this amigurumi for my mathematical pal, Rebecca ^___^

If you're not familiar with Adventure Time, a picture of Marceline is below! I decided not to make the hat, gloves, or guitar though; mostly because I didn't think I could make the guitar and I kinda ran out of time to finish the hat and gloves.

I started off with the Bat Girl pattern by Ilaria Caliri, which was published in the 49th issue of Simply Crochet. I used Patons Dreamtime Merino 4 ply in grey for Marceline's body and a 2.50mm hook. I did add in extra rounds for her legs and arms though, to fit in more with Marceline's proportions. I added wire to her limbs so she is slightly posable.

Marceline's lush hair was easy but time consuming to do; I crocheted a wig cap and then looped lots and lots and lots of lengths of yarn through each stitch of the wig cap. I used three balls of Bella Baby cotton wool 8ply in black for the hair, but I didn't use up the third ball completely. The good thing about this lengthy process is that her hair is super thick and therefore can totally be done up in different hairstyles without showing a patchy looking scalp.

Marceline's boots are simply tubes, with red bows tied onto them. I put a little dab of pva glue on each bow, to hopefully prevent them from coming undone. I used the same Bella Baby brand yarn for all of Marceline's hair and clothes, by the way. It's a 75% cotton, 25% wool blend and it's very soft and nice to work with.

 

I wanted to make all of Marceline's clothes removable so that there is potential for making more of her outfits for future gifts. Her pants were a bit tricky since I've never crocheted any dolls clothes before and had little idea of what I was doing. I crocheted two tubes to go up her legs, and then kinda crocheted a big tube around the tops of them. I sewed up the gap between the pant legs afterwards. I didn't write any of the pattern down though, which I totally should have done. A lot of the time when I am trying to create something without a pattern I just end up trying things and frogging them and trying again until I get something close to what I want, and I am terrible at keeping records during this process.

Marceline's top was very simple; it is just a rectangle with slightly curved in sides (to make it fit to the curve of her torso better) and straps made with a chain stitch. I sewed snaps onto the back edges for the closures.

The last thing to do was to add details to her face; I used embroidery thread to create her mouth, her fangs, and the bite marks on the side of her neck.

Overall I am pleased with how she turned out, although I think a haircut might be needed to give her a proper fringe and tidy up the ends a bit. I did attempt a bit of a trim, but then I was worried I was going to mess up her hair (her time consuming hair!!) and didn't go any further.

The hat and gloves are definitely on my to-make list, and then perhaps I'll do another outfit for her. There is a cute blue dress which I think might be easier to make ...

- Lisa xx