I managed to find 2 L shirts and an M shirt!

The M shirt just did not work at all. It was FAR too short and small and was just all kinds of wrong. Again, we’re not trying to get arrested for indecent exposure here!!

The next shirt I tried was a Large black pinstripe dress shirt. It was also very short in the front, so I had to put the buttons to the back and tightly wrap the arms around my waist.

It looked super cute with a black elastic belt keeping the sleeves in place!

The final shirt was also an L and was a thicker fabric. It kinda feels like flannel..

I was able to do it up in the front without pins! but it was still a little short in the front. As for tying the sleeves into a bow, it just wasn’t going to happen. The fabric was far too thick to be able to tie it, so I went with the elastic belt again.

Maybe with the buttons in the back it would work better?

Looks pretty good! The length is exactly where I want it at!

But what about the back?

I’m not really ok with this. It was so bunchy because of the thick fabric

The size of this shirt is perfect, but the fabric is too thick. I really love the plaid.. So it’s quite unfortunate.

WAIT A SECOND!!!! My boyfriend got a red plaid cotton shirt for Christmas… if it’s also an L, it might work……

It turns out it is an L! I had to pin myself into this one, as the snapper buttons were not cooperating.. But the thin cotton is AMAZING. I could even make a bow in the front

But it’s VERY short. Eek I definitely should have worn leggings.. :/

But how would it look with the buttons turned to the back?

Cute. And the length is good. The back needed a bit of fixing. It was damn near impossible for me to fix it myself.. :/

Ok. So I have to look for L dress shirts in a thin cotton so that I can replicate this Yay!!!

But I think my favourite is still the orange dress shirt dress.

I wonder if my boyfriend will let me steal it….. I’m sure it would be much happier as a pretty dress! And I would be much happier too!

Eek, I still have to ask him if he’s willing to part with any old tee shirts for me to refashion into tunics I probably should hold off on that.. Don’t want to push my luck!!

Since it’s almost spring…

(Clearly, it’s not almost spring.. but I digress)

Since it’s almost spring, I thought that it would be cute to turn some of my cat-eaten tee shirts into dresses for when the weather warms up. So I started Googling and found a ton of tutorials and ideas on how to up-cycle old shirts and even old knit sweaters! So many cool ideas and so many new bookmarks on my phone!

Then I saw some tutorials on how to turn a dress shirt into a dress! So I started thinking about my boyfriend’s dress shirts.. He has a lot of dress shirts and there are a ton that he doesn’t wear.

So this morning, I raided his wardrobe and used this cute tutorial from Glamzzle.com: How to Wear A Men’s Shirt Into Tube Top, Tube Mini Dress and Skirt. It’s very cute and there are some videos and lots of pictures.

I used the first video from the site and one of my boyfriend’s white dress shirts and ended up with:

The instructions tell you to button has high as you can, but if I did decide to rock this (not so much!!!), I would have to put a snapper on it, as the button location was not working out so well!

It would be much better in a larger size, as the length would be longer and the sleeves would be longer so I could make a proper bow with the sleeves, as it kinda looks like I’m wearing a towel.. Not ok. The size of this shirt is 15 1/2 – 32 (whatever that means!! lol)

The next shirt that I grabbed was a cute purple one! I had a feeling that this one would be smaller than the white one – and I was right… so the front was “you’ll-get-arrested-wearing-this-in-public” short.. From the back it could pass as a top over leggings or something, but the front just was not working:

:/ not ok. I’m really not ok with this at all!!! This was a size (S) 14 – 14 1/2

Again, if the size were bigger, it would have been much easier to work with and it would have been longer!!!

So then I grabbed the final shirt. A burnt orange coloured shirt that is (M) 15 – 15 1/2

I’ll be honest, my expectations weren’t high. But after fiddling about with it, I ended up with THIS:

BAM!!! Success!!

With this shirt, instead of having the buttons at the front, I turned the buttons to the back and grabbed the sleeves and pulled them tightly around my waist. Instead of tying the sleeves, I held them in place with this elasticated belt.

I love how the collars stands out at the front! Super cute!

The back needs a bit of work, as again, the buttons are in the wrong place so the back came down very low. I would need snappers to hold the back up, and the shirt is missing buttons on the bottom, so buttons would definitely have to be added so that it’s not inappropriate!

Cute, huh! I’ll have to go to a thrift store to find some L or XL dress shirts to work with

Or maybe I just need to raid my boyfriend’s closet some more to find MORE shirts to turn into dresses!

Just as I was finishing up the pink crochet monkey for my boyfriend’s colleague, I decided to make a label for it.

Using the abundance of felt that I got from my mamma, I made a pink label to match the monkey.

After a bit of sketching and planning, I came up with…

I think I need more practice with letters… :/

I know it’s handmade and isn’t supposed to be perfect, but I’m always a hard-ass on myself.. I’d at least like the letters to be consistent in size lol! I found my fabric pen yesterday, so that will be a HUGE help next time!

Also, I didn’t know what to write. And “Handmade VickyC.me” does not make much sense hahah!! So I shall have to come up with something original and incredibly AWESOME!

For the back, I kept it simple and cute and embroidered a heart on to it. Surprisingly, it came out pretty good!

I finished by joining the 2 sides by using a blanket stitch around the edge with the red that I used for the heart. I also stuffed it a little bit to give it some shape.

Then came the issue of how to attach the label to the monkey. I decided to use wool, and could not figure out how to thread the wool through the felt. (It was after midnight and I’d been downing cough medicine all day.. lol so my brain cells were a little dysfunctional!)

After realising that I could not thread wool through the eye of an embroidery needle (yes, I made several unsuccessful attempts before giving up!), I used an embroidery needle to make a hole through both layers of felt. Then I used my big wool-stitching needle (not sure what it’s called!!) to thread the wool through the felt! SUCCESS!!!

Here’s the crochet monkey posing with his cute label!

Yes, I have to practice stitching lettering a little more.

And maybe I’ll add in some Lazy Daises (like on the bunny rabbit magnets), because they’re just the cutest!

I’ll keep you posted on my label-making in future blog posts! xx

But I had told my boyfriend that I would make a crochet monkey for his colleague who has a baby daughter. So I had a huge burst of productivity one evening and finished it up. Woot!

I’ve had this nasty cold/plague thing for a month now, so I thought it would be a good idea to wash the monkey before giving it to the little girl – I didn’t want to get her sick or anything!!! I have non-perfumed, allergy friendly washing soap, which I figured would be perfect for small children. Having never done a wash test with this specific wool, I was a little worried that it would all fall apart or that the colours would bleed. But I washed the little monkey inside a pillow case and it was fine. Nothing fell off and the colours did not run!

Except, the dryer made it all go fuzzy.. But it looks kinda cute!

Super fuzzy!!! haha!

I might try putting nose holes on the next monkey I crochet.. the muzzle looks a little empty… Thoughts?

And I’m LOVING the eyes! Remember how my first crochet monkey had crazy eyes? Not loving them at all!! But because the monkey is so dark, so I don’t think I could re-do them with black wool… I’m not even sure how I did the eyes on that monkey. With the newer ones, I’m doing … ??

[thinking...]

[checking Twitter...]

[still thinking...]

I think I’m doing one Foundation Single Crochet stitch and sewing it onto the face.. Or maybe I’m doing 2 chain stitches. I will have to pay more attention next time.. sigh.

And yes, that is an embroidered label! Isn’t it perfect? More about that in another post!

So my boyfriend took this pink crochet monkey to work with him and it turns out it was the little girl’s 10 month birthday! So perfect! And apparently she LOVES her monkey and won’t go anywhere without it!

Just knowing that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy… Just like a monkey who has just come out of the dryer ha!

Again, the pattern used for this monkey is from RedHeart.com and can be downloaded for free HERE

Actually, we had decided that we wouldn’t do Christmas presents at all. Instead, we would pool our dollars to buy furniture. I thought this idea was wonderful.. But still wanted to give him something to open on his birthday.

We decided to celebrate his birthday on Saturday, rather than during the week on the actual day. So it’s the evening before his birthday celebration and I’m totally panicking. I figured that I would crochet something, but what?! He has a crochet sock monkey, he has a crochet teddy bear, he has a crochet laptop sleeve..

And then it hit me.

My boyfriend calls me “Goose”. I was trying to think back to why this nickname came about. And I think it’s because he used to say “silly goose” to me all the time, which I found hilarious. Or maybe its because I’m vicious and crazy.. lol I digress..

Regardless of the reason, the name has stuck. So I wanted to make him a crochet goose. I googled “crochet goose” to get some inspiration (and perhaps a pattern!), but I didn’t really find much. I ended up winging (ha!) it and made up my own pattern!!!

I did all of the crocheting on Friday evening. Thankfully, my boyfriend was too engrossed in his video game playing to pay attention to what I was doing. I started by turning the house upside down looking for my white wool. We recently moved down to the basement and the only wool that I had was the stuff that I took back home with me – none of which was the right colour for a goose!

I finally found the wool and started to make my “super secret crochet project”. My boyfriend would glance over at me and I’d hide my project under my blanky and try to not look suspicious. He made a few guesses at what it was, but didn’t get it!

On Saturday morning I finished the stitching and the little goose was finished!

The goose is 7.5″ or 19cm tall and is the most adorable thing EVER!!!

Look how cute!!!

The body head, neck and body are all one piece, so it was relatively straight forward to make. I just had to make sure that the increases and decreases were in the right place so that the body would be the right shape.

I lightly stuffed the wings and the beak(?!) so that they had a bit of shape, but weren’t too rigid.

The little goose has joined my boyfriend’s growing family of crochet animals Aren’t they adorable!!!

So cute! I’m actually really proud  of myself. I remember when I went to buy my first crochet hook and made that first lopsided crochet flower. It was so difficult and discouraging! I must have watched those youtube videos about 1,000 times! But that was only a little over a year ago! And now I’m reading patterns and even making up my own ones! Unreal!

You know what else is unreal…

How incredibly cute this goose is!

*honk*

In fact, upon entering the unit, the nurses would ask expectantly what we were working on and they were always amazed at the speed at which we could churn out the pieces! (I jokingly call my mum a one-man knitting factory – which is really not far from the truth!)

I began to grow tired of crocheting monkeys and decided to peruse redheart.com for more patterns. I found this super cute crochet teddy bear pattern and decided to give it a go.

I didn’t I’ve the right sized hook or the right kind of wool, so I made use of what I had, which was a 4mm crochet hook and DK cotton candy pink baby wool. Making the appendages took more time than with the monkeys as they are all made individually. They also have increases and decreases to shape the wrists, hands, ankles and feet.

Unlike the monkeys, it was difficult to put the work down and to pick it up again, as I had to keep looking at the pattern and count the rows and stitches to make sure that I was picking up in the right place. It was a bit of a pain!

I managed to make two of these little crochet teddy bears. I gave the first one, the pink bear, to my mamma for Christmas and the second one, which was also made with a 4mm crochet hook and beige worsted weight wool, went to my boyfriend when I got back to Canada.

Ok. Less typing, more pictures

I finished crocheting all of the pieces and placed it all together and thought…. “this does not look right at all”. I kept turning to my mamma and saying “this bear looks SO weird!!!”

And as the limbs were sewn on, it wasn’t looking very teddy bear like… :s the head and body looked all kinds of wrong.

but after adding the other leg and an ear, it actually started to look like a bear!

And with the addition of the nose and mouth, this little crochet teddy bear started to look awesome! I did not follow the pattern for the eyes and nose. Instead, the nose on my bear is actually meant to be an eye. But as you can see, it’s pretty big and would have looked crazy as an eye! So I made it into the nose instead.

For the eyes, I think I did a foundation single crochet stitch and stitched it to the face. Pretty effective!

Just had to hide the ends and this cute little crochet bear would be finished

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture with the two teddy bears together.

This is my boyfriend’s beige teddy bear Isn’t he cute!!

I’m not sure if it’s because of the wool that I used or my generous use of stuffing that resulted in the teddy bears being so wide around the middle! My mum said that obviously the bears are pre-hibernation and they have probably been feasting on crochet sock monkeys lol

I decided to do Christmas on the cheap this year. Well, no. It wasn’t strictly by choice, it was partly out of necessity. There wasn’t really much time for Christmas shopping. And let’s be honest, braving the crowds during the holiday season is really unenjoyable!

In fact, in Christmases past, my shopping trips would usually end up with me perched on a bar stool, surrounded by shopping bags and feeling absolutely exhausted!

So this year, I decided to make my own gifts! my step sister’s both expressed their love of the crochet sock monkeys, so I made one for each of them in beige and green. I also made them a magnet each.

I love how the white stitches pop against the dark felt. These magnets are so much fun to make and look absolutely perfect!

For the men in the family, I decided to go with a fermented liquid present. My step brother-in-laws both got wine and my step dad got a bottle of cognac.

At around 9 pm on Christmas eve, I decided that it would be a great idea for me to crochet my own wine bags for the bottles. Yes, this certainly was a great idea.. But it left me with very little time in which to design and to make the things!!!

After much making and undoing, I had successfully made up my very own wine bag pattern

Because the bottles were different shapes and sizes, it was important that the bags have some “give” to them, as I wanted to make a bag that would fit all three bottles. This was especially true for the cognac bottle as it was quite wide around the middle. Making these bags on Christmas eve did not leave much time for coming up with unique patterns for each bottle (unfortunately!!!).

I ended up going with a granny square type of stitch, which has a very generous stretch to it.

The gaps between the stitches were perfect for threading a ribbon through.

While wine is a good gift – especially at the holiday season, being able to give it in a handmade bag makes it a little more unique I was really happy with how they turned out and I can’t wait to make more of these cute bags I’d love to do some with an applique on them.

I haven’t really been sharing much personal stuff on here. I’m not entirely sure why that is.. But maybe it would be a good idea.

So, I’ve been back home now for about 6 weeks. It feels like I landed yesterday.. But sadly, the end of my trip is fast approaching and I’m heading back to Canada next week.

While I’m happy to be going back, I’m so sad that I will be leaving home. I don’t even want to THINK about the emotional mess that I will be at the airport when I leave.

I went to see my relatives over the weekend and, while we don’t see each other very often, it made me sad knowing that it would be a while before I saw them all again.

I spent the night in my cousin’s empty room and in the morning took some time to look at some of the scarves and snoods (scarf+hood) that she had on the back of her door. The two that stood out were crocheted, so I thought “I can do this!!!”.. So that will be one of my projects when I get back

Speaking of “when I get back”, I got an email from my boyfriend last night that contained a picture of a beautiful glass table, which will be my new crafting table!

To give you a bit of back story, I have been a crafting nomad for a while. Crocheting in the car, on the bed, on the floor, at the coffee table. I did have a table for crafting – which was essential for when I was piecing my WIP quilt (which has to be finished by JUNE!! eek!!). But, we then got an enormous corner computer desk, which has made the room terribly small. That plus that fact that my naughty cat has decided that the craft table is in fact his day bed:

Not ok.

So when my boyfriend emailed me last night about buying a table, he didn’t give me any details. So, being the crazy person that I am, I responded by asking a ton of questions.. Like how much it was, where it was from, what kind of table it was.. etc. Basically, my entire email was just questions.

I then, as a complete joke, I included this Louvre-worthy piece of art:

For those of you who don’t have an eye for the finest of fine art (lol, who am I kidding?!?!), that is a sewing machine. On a table. With a self-healing mat. And with a drawer that contains scissors, spare bobbins, etc. etc.

I actually thought that he was going to get a coffee table or something. It’s such a thoughtful gesture

While browing through different craft blogs the other day, I came across Handmade Ryan Gosling. Handmade + Ryan Gosling.. What’s not to love?!

I may want my boyfriend to say:

An awesome new table is so much more wonderful

Can’t wait to cover it in bobbins, rulers, wool and crochet hooks!! And NO cat this time!

Thank you boyfriend xo

I’ve been tagging along to keep her company and wholesale she has been knitting, I have been diligently building up my crochet sock monkey army! Their mission is to bring smiles and spread happiness! aww!

Since I’ve made so many of these little guys, I know the pattern backwards and forwards!

Ok, enough rambling.. I know you all want to see the pictures

Not sure what’s going on with the pink monkey and the light green one! So naughty these monkeys!

But what kind of crochet sock monkey army commander would I be if I hoarded them all at home?! I think it would make me a pretty crappy one. So 6 of the monkeys in the picture have been dispatched. they’re on their way to Hong Kong, USA and UK. I didn’t post these earlier as I didn’t want the recipients to see them before they arrived

I also made a few for Canada before I left.

Cute, huh!

My mummy saw the monkeys and we decided to combine our efforts… But more on that in a future post

For now, I will leave you with a picture of a monkey in a wig.

Big hair + fierce pose! I hope you find this as amusing as I did!

And I hope these little monkeys brought some smiles and happiness to your day.

I brought my laptop home with me, but made a cock up of my packing and left the power cable in Canada. Oops! Since my wonderful laptop has no battery, the power cable is essential. So I am writing this using my fancy-schmancy iPhone.

But why haven’t I written earlier? I could lie and tell you that I’ve simply been far too busy… But lying at Christmas time is naughty… To be honest, my inner technophobe took over and I have been too scared of using the WordPress app to write posts. Ok, you can stop laughing now!

Thankfully, my fear of this iPhone does not include the camera function (or the Facebook app!). In fact, I have a ton of pictures to share with you so provided this post posts properly (look at that alliteration!), I will write a couple more.

Alright, so crochet cables! If you thought that the intricate beauty of cables could only be achieved with knitting needles and a boatload of patience, then you are wrong! I know, right!

I met a lady on the bus back in Richmond, Ontario who had crochet these beautiful crochet things. She explained it to me and showed me, but I’m afraid that I was far too excited about the prospect of being able to crochet cables to actually pay attention.

I took some time yesterday to look for some instructions and to watch some videos online. But, I got really confused after watching so many different techniques. So I put my phone aside and decided to amalgamate all of the info from the pictures and videos. I winged my way through it and came up with this:

Isn’t it wonderful? I’m kidding. It’s not wonderful at all. My cat could do a better job.

But it’s a start. I think the first twist was quite successful.. However, I’m not sure what happened with the second twist.. I think I twisted the wrong way and got the forward/backwards thing all wrong.

The back of the first twist looks quite reasonable..

Sigh. Just ignore my thumb there!

Also, this cream wool is probably the worst colour to use for showing the texture in these “cables”.

I guess it’s back to the foundation row for these cable stitches!

I think that going forward, I’m going to follow one set of instructions at a time.. And to stop trying to be such a smart ass with this crochet business!

*Vicky’s Note

My boyfriend just took a look at this post and said “I don’t know what I’m looking at”… So I probably should have included a picture of what a cable stitch *should* look like.

Cables are essentially stitches that twist into a braid looking thing. There are so many variations depending on how you twist the stitches.

This is one of the links that I was looking at yesterday and has a pretty example of a crochet cable pattern: http://crochet.about.com/library/weekly/aa062798.htm

*** Vicky’s Closing Note

My mamma just looked at my cable swatch and said that it was wonderful! Thanks mamma! xx