knittycat’s tips

A Lambie Thank You to Snuffykin...

For all the very hard work she did on the weloveamigurumi swap, and for being the sweetie that she is,
I sent snuffykin this wee limbless Pocket Lambie named Laddie  (see snuffykin's awesome creations here)

Here are the Valentine's pressies I made for my Darling Hub...  (yep, I'm mixing Easter and Valentine's Day again, but I'll be back to Easter next time... Lots more Easter Peeps and Baskets to post, soon) 

For Valentine's Day and for Easter, I made limbless wee ami's and baskets for them.  Here's Peter Pickle Peep, the limbless chick that I made for my Hub for Valentine's Day (yes, I'm very slow to post.... I still don't have the rest of the Easter ones uploaded yet!)   I apologize for the quality of the photos... I'll try to take some better ones of these guys at some point.  I forgot them when I took the Easter pics.  :o/  Oops!

 

Here's a preview of the peeps I made for Easter ...  I'll put up more shots of them soon.  I had such fun making these limbless peeps!  And I had some wonderful yarn to play with, sent to me by my friend, Romana, of YarnCloud Yarns (www.yarncloud.com)!  The textures and colors were exciting and fun!  I loved putting together the various color schemes for each of the basket/peep sets.

 

More about this soon... (well, we can hope, can't we?)

Happy St. Patty's Day, Everyone!

 

Yep, I missed Valentine's Day... I'll try to post a few Valentine's things in an Easter post... (crossing fingers that I feel up to that). 

Here's a Big something Green for St. Patrick's Day

 

Marvel Comics the Incredible Hulk! for Matt's Birthday, with his best bud, Lambie Pie... ;o)

 

Our nephew, Matt, had been wanting a Hulk, since I started making these peeps, but I could never bring myself to make one... But, when I ordered a variety of green yarns to get the right shade for something I was making, one of them arrived and I said... Omigosh... it's Hulk green!  And I already had some bluish purple that would work for pants... so there I was, making the Hulk!  :o)  I intended to make him a LOT smaller, but he just happened!  ... these things have a life of their own. 

I actually finished him just a day before Matt's birthday (Whew!), last September!  But I  could never decide which photos to post, so he's been languishing, waiting to be seen.  He's not really my cup of tea, with his angry face.  I like CUTSEY things!  With sweet smiles!  But he was a challenge, and I learned a lot of things while making him that are useful in other projects, as well.  Lambie Pie says that he's much sweeter and nicer than he looks.

One of my fellow amigurumi artists said "he's not angry, just having a bad face day, I guess".    heh heh  And that's how I'm looking at him from now on!  ;o)

He's not cross-eyed, just a trick of the camera, and the reflectiveness of the eyes, I guess.

He's the largest peep I've made at 15" tall and nearly as wide!  And he's knitted in one piece from toes to top of head, and then each of his arms knitted in one piece, from fingers to shoulders, and sewn onto the torso.  I did make notes while working on him, so hopefully I will be able to share the techniques that I discovered, and developed, in the future.

You probably can't tell from my photos, but the waist of his pants is ragged and ripped looking, with a scrap of white shirt left stuck in it, and the hems on the pant legs are ripped. I didn't do a good job of capturing that in the pics, unfortunately. Didn't have him for long after finishing him, and had to take the pics in a hurry.

I'm kind of fanatical about not wanting to attach pieces, as you might have noticed, and I was pretty tickled with the method I finagled for making his torn up waist, and hems on his pants, with my trusty knitting needles, all in one piece with his body, and never having to sew any bits on! YAY! Too bad it shows up so poorly on the pics.

 

Also, I found a new and very simple method of making hair while working on Miss Piggy, for my DH (she's still not finished, unfortunately, so obviously not posted), and I used it to make the Hulk's hair.  It's a really versatile technique, and very easy to do, too.  You can make short or long hair using this method.  I hope to write up a tutorial for it at some point.  Or I will at least post a simple description of the process.  As long as you use an eyelash or fuzzy yarn of some sort, appropriate to your project, it is super easy to do!  And I do like easy!  :o)

 

Happy St. Patty's Everyone!

 

After the last post, filled with what I haven't completed, I thought it would be nice to show you some of what I HAVE completed lately:

It's been a very PINK spring!  :o)

 

We have two very Pink Ballerinas:

Pippa Potomus for Mia's Birthday

and Katerina Kitty Ballerina for Kristina's Birthday

 

Katerina rehearsing for her debut! 

Pippa and Katerina are cousins and have a lot in common - they both love pink and they both love to dance!

 

and we also introduce:

Kermie 2 for Kristina's Birthday (okay, okay, he's not pink!)

 

Kermie 2 and Katerina are very close 

Chatting and

                    Strolling

Family Portrait

        and Advice from Big Brother

And a sparkly little Marisa Mousie for Jill

 

And before that...

the Peep that we've fallen in love with...  I ordered some cool new yarn to try - Moda Dea Fur Sure, and when I saw this lovely yellow fuzzy stuff, it just cried out to be a...

Peepsie Peep!

We're all crazy about her and so glad that she was an experiment with the new yarn, and not a gift for anyone, so we get to KEEP her!  YAYAYAY!!!

 

Peepsie says "Peeep!"

Which means, "Hi!"

Pudgie loves Peepsie Too!  :o)

And here's...

Mossalia the wee Mermaid - my first mermaid experiment.  I LOOOOOVE mermaids!  :o) 

You can see that I caught her (carefully) barehanded.  We did not keep her, of course, but had a nice chat, took some photos, said "goodbye", and watched her swim away beneath the waves.

 

And we can't forget the comic fans amongst our ranks...

(okay, I'm one of them, I admit it.)

Marvel Comics' the Human Torch.
FLAME ON!

- my impressionistic interpretation - for Matt.  :o)

He's quite small (prox 3 1/2" not counting flames, 4" with flames).  I think he kind of looks like a fire elemental. :o)

Knitted on size 2 needles with Senso size 3 crochet thread.  Flames crocheted in strips and sewn to body.

 

And if you have been saving up things to do "When Pigs Fly"....

The Time has Come!

We have a Pink Flying Piggy!

Petunia Phlying Piglet

 

Complete with an easy pattern to make her!  To make Petunia, I came up with a new (as far as I can determine) idea for making the legs of a 4-legged peep, all in one, along with the rest of the body.  She’s knit in the round, all in one piece (except for wings of course), including legs, ears and tail and just stitching the sides of the legs and ears together when the knitting is done. A nice easy project. I really enjoyed making her!  :o)

Pattern for Petunia Phlying Piglet can be found here!

 

More about Petunia and the Loopy Legs Technique in the next post!  (which won't be too long away, I hope, because it's nearly finished!)

Hope you are all having a lovely summer!  Lots of fun in the sun (with your sunscreen of course) and playing at the beach, and BBQ's, and happy times!  :o)  Stay Cool!  (I sooo want to put ",Dudes" here!  heh heh)

Please check out www.flickr.com/knittycat for larger photos and all of the peeps.

:o(   ERRATA:

Well it was bound to happen... An error in one of the patterns, and a big one!  Poor Nellie the Elephant has an error in the instructions for her feet.  :o/

The corrected pattern is in the pdf now, if you prefer to download Nellie again. (since 04/09/08 so if you downloaded it after that date, you have the corrected pattern) 

Or you can substitute the following instructions for the ones in the pattern:

Nellie's Feet:

* FEET PATTERN *
Feet
C/o 6 st onto two circs.
Rnd 1: Kfb each st around (12 st)
Rnd 2 and all even rnds: k around
Rnd 3: kinc, k1 around (18 st total)
(increase every other st, using
the increase of your choice - I use the kinc
throughout because it is less noticeable)
Rnd 5: kinc k2 around (24 st total)
(increase every 3rd st)
Rnd 7: k2tog k2 around (18 st total)
Rnd 9: k2tog k1 around (12 st total)
Rnd 11: k around
Stuff quite full and Bind off.
Sew feet to bottom of elephant evenly spaced.
Put front feet as far forward as looks good, so
she won't topple forward.

........

My apologies to anyone who was caused any grief by my error. 

And profound thanks to Susan of spinblessing.com for finding this and bringing it to my attention! 

On to happier news...

:o)  NEW PATTERNS!

Eggy/Bunnies

Download Eggy/Bunny Peeps Knitting Pattern

Wee Lambies

Download Wee Baby Lambies Peeps Knitting Pattern

Petit Fours

.

Download Petit Fours for Peeps Pattern

And, coming in the not too far distant future I hope:

Kermit Peep! (Yes, Really!)

and Hello Kitty Peep!

  (--- update --- these have been delayed again, though I have made progress on Kermie)

They're in the works (meaning that I'm working on them), but I'm veeerrry slooow, so not sure how long it will be.

I hadn't planned to make a Kermie pattern, but I found out that our niece, Kristina, likes him, so I'm making her Kermie 2 for her June birthday, and while I'm working on him, I'm recording what I'm doing.  I ran into a bit of a  problem though, I didn't remember how I'd made his feet and hands.  :o/  So that's been a bit challenging, but I'm recreating them.  it would actually be easier for me to re-invent them, to just start fresh, and go at it, but since so many of you have professed a desire to make this particular Kermie, I'm doing my best to make the new one as close to my original as possible.

Hello Kitty peep was going to be next, but the need to make a Kermie for Kristina has bumped him ahead, and Kitty is on the back burner for a while.  Also, it turns out that I find knitting with white yarn rather boring, so I'm not anxious to get back to her.  But I will, eventually.

I've been experimenting with speaking into a digital recorder while I'm knitting, recording the steps I'm taking.  This is working lots better than stopping to make notes as I'm knitting, because it doesn't interrupt my flow very much.  Whereas writing as I go is very disruptive.  I really recommend this method to pattern writers.

         ..........................................................................................................................

Kermie Update:

Time has passed and I haven't gotten this posted, or completed either the Kermie pattern (though I have completed Kermie 2), or the Hello Kitty pattern.  :o( 

Health issues have imposed themselves between me and what I want to be doing.  So please forgive my slowness.  I do hope to eventually get it all done, Hopefully in our lifetimes.  ;o)  Well it would be really difficult for me to get it done AFTER my lifetime! 

Future Tutorials:

I've also begun a couple of photo tutorials that I hope to finish in the not-too-far-distant future (but going by my track record, I wouldn't  hold my breath waiting if I were you.)

These are the ones that I have started:

 1. making yarn knot eyes (a la Jean Greenhowe)
 2. double knitting for peeps

I haven't found any available for these, so I'm attempting to fill that void.  At least put a crumb out there.

And there's another one that I'm currently working on:

3. knitting in the round on two circs - from a different perspective
(though there are plenty of great tutorials on this already available, while describing the process to a friend, I recently noticed a great similarity in knitting this way to knitting flat, and I'd like to illustrate it to take the mystery out of a really easy, and useful, technique.)

Next post will be about what I HAVE completed lately! 

We hope that you are all having a lovely summer so far, and aren't suffering too much from the heat!

You can see that Pudge doesn't!  ;o)

"For he loves the sun and the sun loves him."

                                        - Christopher Smart

What comes between Easter and Mother's Day?

This post, apparently.  ;o)

This blog is becoming a holiday affair... Quite unintentionally, I assure you.   But since I make a lot of peeps as holiday gifts, it's just been happening that way.

I'm busting out of that mold today, though.  

Belated Easter for Kristina & Mia:
Last Sunday, we had a happy family gathering, celebrating 3 birthdays, and belated Easter for our two younger nieces, whom we hadn't seen since Christmas.

  Mia and Kristina got their Eggy/Bunnies, Eggletina and Eggalia:

 

(Made with Softee Baby "Rocking Horse" and RH Baby Teri "Baby Print")

Their fuzzy lambies, Lambie Pinkletoes and Lambie Meringue:

(made with  TLC Baby Amore and Paton's Be Mine*, respectively)

(Patterns for the Eggy/Bunnies and Wee Lambie Peeps will be coming in the next post.)

* I am not recommending knitting peeps with Paton's Be Mine though, because it's so hard to work with, even though it does make a yummy soft and fuzzy fabric. *

And we (finally) gave Kristina her Christmas Cookie Monster!  Made after Christmas, to replace the one that Kristina didn't get at Christmas.

When we gave an Elmo to Mia and a Cookie to Kristina for Christmas, wee Mia "adopted" Cookie with such fervor that no one had the heart to take him away from her, least of all, sweet Kristina.  So I promised to make Kristina a replacement.  And finally, she has him! And she was delighted with him!  Hurray! 

(Cookie Monster Pattern is available free!  See this post.)

Here are all three Cookie Monsters, D's - the original - and Mia's and Kristina's.  You might notice that D's felt that he should have a Christmas scarf as well!  :o)

Tony's birthday goodies:
The main purpose of our gathering, was to celebrate Tony's birthday.  For the occasion I made some goodies for him.

He LOVES hot bright colors, especially orange, red, and yellow, so I made a simple cotton washcloth with a very bright colorway of Sugar and Cream.  Just a plain garter stitch. But it made a wonderful zigzag pattern, and the garter st made it nice and cushy.  :o)

Don't you love multicolor yarn? You never know what you're going to get.

 

 

Next - a money bag, stockinette st, in the round, bright yellow, lion brand soft baby, with a big red dollar sign on one side and a big red t on the other.  Filled with money of course.  :o) a teen boy's fave gift. 

 
An interesting feature is the closure: I felt that tying the drawstrings or using a bead would be too bulky, but it needed to close pretty securely so the money wouldn't fall out, so I knitted a strip and wrapped it around the drawstrings, snugly, and sewed it closed, making sure it still would slide.  It worked just great!

 

And last - but of course not least to a peep or amigurumi lover - a skateboarding monkey peep, Maximillion, with a backpack full of bananas! 

He prefers being called Maxie, by the way.

 

Making the teensy backpack was such fun!  I felt like Gulliver in the land of Lilliput.  :o)

We owe the skateboard to chez michelle... I'd considered making one, since Tony loves skateboarding, but I wasn't sure how a knitted skateboard would come out, so I hesitated to make it.  But then I saw this wonderful ami [here] by chez michelle and saw how feasible the skateboard was.

 

Construction  comments:

Maxie was made with Bernat Microspun Mango, and bright yellow, Lion Brand Soft Baby, using my Wee Lambie Peep Pattern (free pattern for the Lambies coming in my next post, along with the pattern for the Eggy/Bunnies).  I made him with longer legs and arms (appropriate for a monkey), and slight modifications for the ear shape.  And, of course I did some simple colorwork (which I don't like doing), for the face.  The face and head were made the same way as the lambies, but after stuffing and closing his head, I needle-sculpted his face to give him a more monkey-shaped muzzle.

His skateboard was made with two strands of size 10 crochet cotton, and size 1 needles.  Knit in the round, a simple tapered tube, then slipped a piece of cardboard in (cut to fit) and closed up.  Added seed beads for wheels and a piece of yellow beading elastic for a carrying strap.

My DH and I were really happy with him!  :o)  and so was Tony, which is what counts, of course. :o)

Marvel Comics' The Human Torch for Matthew:
I couldn't have peeps for the other nieces and nephews and not have something for Matt, of course, so we took the opportunity to give him the "Human Torch" I'd finished a few weeks ago.

 

Unlike the Thing, the Torch peep is much more impressionistic.  He rather reminds me of a fire elemental.  He's quite small, doubleknitted in my "classic peep" style, with sz 3 crochet cotton (Senso) and size 2 needles.  The flames were crocheted in long strips (I've forgotten the hook size), and sewn on. 

The moment I saw that yarn, I immediately thought "The Torch!"

Matt seemed quite happy with him.  :o)

I'll be posting the Lambie and Eggy/Bunny patterns with the next post, and I hope that won't be tooooo long from now.

Also.... I'm actually working on a Kermit the Frog pattern (as I've received MANY requests!).  Making a Kermie for Kristina's June birthday, but it's a challenge, trying to remember how I made the original!  :o) 

Wish me luck!

Many thanks to all of you kind folks who have been so supportive, and so willing to comment so positively on my flickr.com pages, and elsewhere.  I appreciate it more than I can say.  It gives me strength to do the arduous work of pattern writing. It's arduous for me, anyway.  I like to just grab my needles and some nice yarn and just CREATE!!  Stopping and thinking about what I'm actually doing is quite a stretch.  ;o)

Cheers!

Easter has come so early this year... I was really caught unprepared!  I suddenly realized one day, a couple of weeks ago, that I hadn't  made any Peeps for Easter!!!  No Peeps for Easter?  Now that's just wrong!

So... I've been furiously knitting to get some Peeps done in time. I'm writing up a couple of patterns as I go and I'd hoped to have them up in time for folks to use them for Easter if they'd like, but that just hasn't been possible.  I'll post them soon though.

 

EGGY/EYEBALLS
I was trying to think of something less cutesy than my usual fare, to make for the older boys (teens), and I remembered seeing these clever and adorable "Which Came First" photos =LINK= from mochimochiland, of eggs reversing to chicks!  So brilliant!  Coupling that with the fact that every time I make an Elmo or Cookie, my DH and I wind up playing with the eyeballs (and I do keep threatening to make eyeballs for the boys) - and the inevitable happened...

EGGY/EYEBALLS
 

You can pretty much see how I made these from the photos... make the eyeballs from the Muppet patterns, and instead of closing them off, stuff them a bit (about a third of what you would normally) and then attach the egg yarn and start increasing again.

Okay. Now for the cutsey...
I just had to make them something cutesy too, didn't I?  That's what I DO!  :o)

I recently saw, and LOVED, these wonderful egg shaped amigurumi =LINK= and wanted to come up with my own, all-in-one-piece, knitted versions, and what better time than Easter for...

EGGY/BUNNIES!
 

Are they Eggs?

Or Are they Bunnies? 

EggyBunnies

Did you ever wonder what hatches out of the eggs that the Easter Bunny leaves?  Well, now you know.  ;o) 

And soon to come (next week I hope) - a pattern for them.  It's written and tested, but needs photos, etc. 

LAMBIES
The younger girls are getting fuzzy versions of my Lambie Peeps. Made the same way as the smaller ones, but with fuzzy yarn.  One is made with the new TLC Baby Amore, which is a very soft boucle, like the original Amore, but finer.  This stuff (both the regular and baby versions) makes a wonderful, kind of teddy bear, texture and is not difficult to work with, like most of the other furry yarns are.  NOT so easy to work with, but a super yummy texture, is the other yarn I used, Paton's Be Mine.  Lovely, soft fuzzy stuff! (sorry, no pics yet)

And... I took notes as I made the first one, and tested them on the second one, so I'll be posting a pattern for Lambies too!  TAA DAAA!  Well not "taa daaa" yet, I guess... We'd better wait till they're actually HERE to get excited!

For the older girls, I was inspired by this beautiful design =LINK= to make these ...

PETIT FOURS

Petit Fours and Eggy Bunnies for Easter

And a little cake

Cute, huh?  Well, we think so, anyway!  :o)  And you can use them as pin cushions, or earring holders too!

Speaking of yummy fuzzy yarns...
I tried out a lovely new yarn from www.Spinblessing.com (same place I get all my fabulous Kinki Amibari bamboo circular needles) for a couple of the eggy/bunnies - Red Heart Baby Teri.  It's white terrycloth looking yarn with shiny, pale pastels running through it.  Just beautiful!  And not difficult to work with.. Even on size 4 needles!  My DH has put in a request for a lambie made with it (when I'm finished with Easter of course), and that should be so cute!  :o)

WHAT HAPPENED to VALENTINE'S  DAY?

As some of you know, I have some health challenges that interfere at times with me doing the important things like playing with the Peeps, and on flickr, and here.  :o)  With a rather difficult series of bouts, I haven't been able to get any posts or patterns done in a while, or pics up on flickr.  But we're hoping that I'll be able to do more in the future. (you never know)  Soooo...

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!  A little late...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Pudgie loves being on flicker!  Nearly as much as he loves sitting on his Daddy's lap while his photos are being posted.  :o)  We tell him that he's "Famous Baby" and he smiles and smiles!  To see more photos of Pudgie and some wonderful ocean photos, check out my DH's flickr pages =LINK=

A Valentine's Day present for my DH...

Funghi for D's Valentine's Day

1 comment

This little fellow is Funghi (pronounced fun-jee, fun-gee, or fun-guy - depending on your mood).  He's a character that my DH loves, from my favorite Nintendo DS games, "Touch Detective" and "Touch Detective 2 1/2".  I just had to make him a Funghi for Valentine's Day!  :o)  No pattern forthcoming for this one - he's a one-of-a-kind, but I'll be posting the pattern for the heart soon.  It's the same as my

Unbroken Heart

"Unbroken Heart" =LINK= on flicker, so named because it's made in one piece, using slip stitches to shape the top lobes (bumps), and you never need to break the yarn.  (YAY!)

We hope that you have had a wonderful Valentine's Day and a very

Happy and Blessed Easter!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

 

We wish you all the very best Holiday Season! 

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year to All!

 

Our gifts to you:

Muppet Patterns!

Elmo Peep:

  link to pdf of Elmo's pattern

Cookie Monster Peep:

   link to pdf of Cookie's pattern

the Thing Pattern? 

Well, the pattern's written and the photos are in it, but it's not fully proof read. 

But here it is anyway!  :o)

the Thing:  link to pdf of the Thing's pattern

 

link to pdf of Nellie the Elephant's pattern

Much Joy and Many Blessings to Everyone!