I put away the shower curtain fabric that I was using and got me some ironed fabric to use as a nice background and have spent the last few hours adjusting the pictures that were taken late last night.

Needless to say, I’m exhausted!

But all of the hours of end hiding were totally worth it. Look how adorable and perfect these guys are!

Which one is your favourite? Let me know in the comments!

I’m in the process of ironing out all of the final details for my Etsy shop and plan to have it up and running by the weekend.

You will be able to see these adorable crochet dinosaurs and a few of their friends there

Sorry that this post is so short, I’m sleepy, my neck hurts (read yesterday’s post to find out why!) and I have an entire ton and a half of crocheting to do over the next few days!

But I’m SO excited to get my store up and running and I can’t wait to hear your comments and feedback.

You know when you stretch and it’s the most satisfying feeling in the world? Well, I had one of these ridiculously satisfying stretching/yawns this morning and my neck muscles just seized up – it was instant pain, like being impaled by an ice pick or something. It is horrible and it gave me a stupid migraine. My bf thinks it’s a pinched nerve. Whatever it is, it is SO uncomfortable. I’ve just been a miserable grump all day!

Anyhow, I was not even THINKING about blogging. But then the mail came and I received the package that I ordered from the Mother Bear Project.

I had never heard of the Mother Bear Project until a few weeks ago when Crocheting Club on Facebook shared a link about this wonderful non-profit organization.

Basically, you donate $5 or more and the Mother Bear Project will send you the knit or crochet pattern for their bear. You then make these bears, send them back and then they get shipped off to Africa to children who have been affected by HIV or AIDS. The package came with one tag that is to be attached to the finished bear’s wrist. If you ship more than one bear, they will add the wrist tags on for you and send you additional tags in the mail for you to attach to future bears.

Before my grandma passed away, she used to knit vests for Oxfam and they would get shipped off to various countries. I couldn’t even tell you how many of these vests she made! It was crazy. This is probably one of the main reasons why I was drawn to this particular organization.

I think this is a really lovely cause and can’t wait to get started on crocheting up some of these bears.

My mum told me that when I was a baby, my dad said to her “every little girl needs a teddy bear”. I hope that the bears that I make will bring the same kind of happiness that I got from my first and most favourite teddy bear.

For any of you who are interested in making bears and being a Mother Bear, you can get the knit or crochet pattern from the Mother Bear Project Website you can also check them out on Facebook.

My current project is dinosaurs. You may remember a post from a month ago with some cute crochet dinosaurs! I made a Stegosaurus and a Brachiosaurus both from PlanetJune.com patterns. I’ve had 6 of these little guys commissioned, and am slowly working through all of them.

Here are 4 of them.. they need eyes and there are a TON of ends to hide. *grumble grumble* But, they’re looking pretty awesome so far

I also have a crochet penguin on the go from FreshStitches.com. Stacey crochets through the back loop only for her designs. I was not aware of this back-loop-crocheting until now, and it was a little bit weird to start with! I was really concerned about gaps. And when I started to make my penguin, it was SUPER gappy. I followed the instructions and used a 5mm hook and as I was going, I noticed that you could see a lot of holes between the stitches. Do you see these gaps?!

 BUT… ain’t no one stuffing their amugurumi with light bulbs! You know what’s super weird? When you put stuffing behind it, you can’t see the gaps! Crazy, right?! I thought so! And this is my penguin so far!

I actually have another FreshStitches project that I’m working on. I was on Facebook about 2 weeks ago, and saw that Craftsy was having a 50% sale on their classes. Stacey from FreshStitches has a class on there called Amigurumi: Design Your Own Monster. I’ve had my eye on this class for a while, as it looks really interesting. I never really had anyone sit down and teach me to crochet, and I’ve kind of just improvised and done my own thing. But I thought that it would be good to sign up for this class, so that it could fill in some of the gaps that come from learning without a teacher.

So I did.

And then, those sneaky Craftsy people sent me the confirmation e-mail with a discount code that could be used if I purchased another class.. Which of course I just HAD to do. So I signed up for Stacey’s other crochet class Amigurumi: Woodland Animals.

THEN.. guess what had arrived in the mail?! FreshStitches.com had her adoption event a few weeks back and my cute crochet Ivo Seahorse had arrived. I opened the box and squeaked – I don’t think actual words came out, just a series of noises. He is just so cuddly and perfect!

Isn’t he wonderful?! It was an intense day!

OH, and I’m not even done yet. So Craftsy had this promotion thing as well. Along with the 50% off, they were giving a full refund to 1 in 3 class purchases that were made. While I was oohing and aahing over the course materials, I got an email from Craftsy saying that I had won a refund for one of my purchases.

So back to my original point, I’m making the first monster from the Design Your Own Monster class. It’s great to be learning all of these techniques that I would totally not have been able to have learnt myself My monster is mainly single-crochet stitches, so I work on him in bed or watching TV as I don’t really need to concentrate. So far, I have 2 arms, a leg and half a foot.

I can’t wait to show you what all of these guys will look like when they’re finished.

So today, we headed over to Michael’s to pick up more of the fluffy white stuff.

I was looking at their selection and saw that one of the bags said “STUFFING TOOL ENCLOSED”. This made me very excited.. Before you judge me, don’t tell me that when you see “BONUS/EN PRIME” written on something you don’t start smiling on the inside. Because I know you do. And it’s OK!!

Anyway.. I have no problem with using the wrong end of my crochet hook to stuff my little creations with, but when I found myself faced with the opportunity to get a real stuffing tool to use, I just had to take it.

Think of how wonderful it will be. My monkeys arms will be stuffed properly (and professionally!) and I wont have to break my fingers trying to stuff dinosaur tails with a crochet hook that is bigger than the part that I’m trying to stuff.

Essentially, it will be life changing.

So I grabbed the bag off the shelf and started pressing on it to see if I could feel this magical stuffing tool. And then my fingers landed on a solid object in the middle of all of the fluffy stuffing. “YAY“, I said to myself and made my way to the cash.

I managed to somehow resist the urge to open the bag of stuffing in the car. You just know it would all go wrong and there would be bits of stuffing flying about everywhere. I’m already constantly covered in cat hairs, adding stuffing fibers to that is just not a good look.

So I’ve been home for a few hours and I decided, with much excitement, to crack open this bag.

I started feeling about in the bag, and I felt something papery.

I was a little bit confused.. And then I pulled this out of the bag…

I’m a Chinese person, so I KNOW what that is.. Heck, even a non-Chinese person with a take-out menu knows what that is.

THAT, is chopsticks.

So I opened it up and sure enough…

Yep. That’s a chopstick.

It even has instructions on the back – like a pair of chopsticks.

So, the free stuffing tool ended up being one half of a pair of chopsticks. AND, it’s not even straight.

But perhaps because I’m such a novice at this stuffing business, I haven’t learnt that one’s stuffing tool must be slightly curved in order to be effective..

You can but laugh.

So if you go down to Michael’s and pick up a bag of Fairfield Poly-Fil – the 20oz bag, and you will be the proud owner of a “Stuffing Stix”… or half a pair of chopsticks.

I’m going to be opening an Etsy store at some point in the not too distant future. I’ve been stretched a bit thin in the last few weeks, so I haven’t given myself a date to actually launch my store, as I’m missing a bunch of stuff – like labels! (And no, they’re not going to say “handmade by VickyC.me” – you’ll have to keep reading to find out the name of my store!). Also, I’ve got 12 items in queue to make for different people, which is awesome! But means that I have less time to dedicate to Etsy.

But tonight, I decided to sit down with my new interfacing and try it out. I started by using graph paper to sketch a design and then tried to trace it on to the interfacing. Unsuccessful. I couldn’t see what I was doing.

What I really needed was a light-box. (A lightbox?! What is this, the late 90′s?)

My boyfriend has a work iPad, so I decided to borrow it and used a drawing app to type out the words that I wanted. Then I traced this from the iPad screen on to the interfacing. Genius! To my delight, this worked really well. But then it all started to go downhill!

I decided to indulge in a glass of wine after dinner. There’s nothing wrong with that on a Friday evening.. But when you’re about to pick up an embroidery needle, it can be a bad call! It can also make you SUPER forgetful.. As such, I didn’t take any pictures until I was done all of the sewing. It also gave me the  marvellous idea of using white embroidery thread – on white interfacing. Sigh.

So I decided to change my thread to black when I was halfway through. I think that the wine had started to wear off – which is also apparent in the quality of my stitching

Ok. Enough typing. Time for some pictures – and time to reveal my Etsy store name!

Well, perhaps if I hadn’t have used white thread, you could *actually* read it properly… What an awesome store name reveal… :/

So after I had finished sewing, I started snipping away at the interfacing. According to the tutorial that I was (supposed to be) following from Futuregirl.com, it is supposed to be the tear-away kind. I didn’t check this when I purchased it, because I forgot (No, not because of wine consumption!). So when I started snipping at the stabilizer, it wasn’t tearing…

But then I realized I wasn’t tearing hard enough.

And yes, my store will be called Hitching’s Stitchings (as my family name is Hitching). Isn’t rhyming a fabulous thing?!

I think that my stitches weren’t pulled tightly enough, which made them pull a bit when I was removing the interfacing. So I had to be extra careful.

I’m really happy with how this turned out. And it only took me an hour – including tracing and snipping and everything! Which isn’t bad. Ok, for a *full* label, I would have to blanket stitch it with a back piece – maybe with a lazy daisy on it (like my bunny rabbit magnet!!), which would take a bit more time.

Let me know what you think!

But unfortunately, I’ve had to cool it down on the crocheting… For about a year now, I’ve had a ganglion cyst on the top of my left wrist. It’s not very pretty and sometimes it’s really painful. So about 2 weeks ago, I started going to see a physiotherapist who has been doing ultrasound treatments on it. The good news is that it actually worked! But the bad news is that I have to stop crocheting so much, to give my wrist a break. Boo. She actually told me no crocheting for the next TWO WEEKS. Devastating! How am I going to get my Etsy store started if I can’t crochet stuff?! Sigh.

So how will I fill the gaping void in my life that comes from being crochet-less?

That’s easy.. Shopping!

Last Sunday I placed an order for a bunch of safety eyes. I got a couple of different sizes too see what I like. I was inspired by seeing The Amigurimi Girl’s design week posts, as she used these beautiful green eyes for her project. You can take a look at it: here. But I played it safe, and just went for black and brown ones to see how I like them. If all goes well, perhaps I will try some more unique eyes.

I’m so excited to get the eyes! I was told that they were sent on Tuesday! So hopefully I’ll have them by the middle of next week It’s like waiting for Christmas!

Then yesterday I purchased a Freshstitches.com original plushie. Stacey Trock from Freshstitches is having an Adoption Event (plus a biiiig sale!) for some of her crochet cuties. I absolutely adore the Seahorse plushie that she made, so I snagged one! It will be shipping on Monday, so hopefully I’ll have it in a week or two.

Is it redundant to *buy* a crochet plushie when I could make one?

No. I don’t think so. In fact, I think that supporting fellow crocheters and artists is really important. Designers like Stacey put so many hours into designing their patterns and then a bunch more hours into actually carefully making the items so that they look awesome. I remember seeing the seahorse a few months back and thought that it was the cutest thing ever and I’m so excited that I will get to hug it soon!

Ok. I’ll step off my soapbox now..

ooh, I almost forgot! I also picked up some interfacing. Futuregirl.com did a tutorial on how to embroider on to felt, I decided that I had to try this! So I picked up a scrap piece of interfacing from the fabric store. I want to make labels in preparation for my Etsy store.. Remember my attempt at making my own felt embroidered labels?

Ick. I mean, for freehand embroidery, it’s not terrible.. But I don’t want “not terrible”. So I will have a go at using the interfacing – hopefully it will look wonderful

Can’t wait to get all my crafty goodies! I’ll share pictures once they have arrived – and once I’ve made one of these wonderful labels.

You have to check out Stacey Trock’s Freshstitches Design Week Wrap Up post where she shows off her finished Design Week project (SPOILER ALERT: It’s AWESOME!) She also has links to all of the other designers blogs so that you can see their projects.

After finishing my project, I sat down to start making another sock monkey, and my goodness, going from a 10mm hook back to a 4mm hook was SO weird. My hands were like “we…don’t…know…how…to…do…this…with…this…minuscule…hook!!!!”.

I realized that in my rush to get my Design Week Day 6 post posted, I didn’t talk about how I finished my cowl wrap.

Firstly, the finished dimensions are

Length: 41″

Wide end: 28″

Narrow end: 19″

The buttons placement was a little awkward. As I mentioned before, having a dressmaker’s form would have been PERFECT.. but I had to make do with myself and the bathroom mirror!

I had 4 of these toggle buttons. I only used 3.. So I was thinking maybe I could add another one somewhere or change the spacing, just so they all get used.

Here are two pictures of the cowl wrap, one not buttoned and the other with it buttoned up..

But, as you can see, there’s not much room for an extra button… but we’ll see.. maybe I’ll just add another one on – like a design element

I’m glad that I decided to  make something different – ok it’s only a rectangle, but… it’s an awesome rectangle.. with buttons, and increases

Ok, enough typing. It’s time for some pictures, don’t you think?

I love it. So this is one way of buttoning it, with quite a wide neck opening.

This is another way of buttoning it. The wrap is buttoned more tightly around my chest and on more of an angle, with less of a collar on the cowl.

I think I prefer it buttoned this way. But the beauty of using double crochet stitches for this design means that I can use ANY gap between stitches as a button hole – which is awesome.

I wish I had a form to use for these pictures. It would have made my life much easier.. My boyfriend was far too impatient to wait around for me to fiddle with the buttons and making sure that the cowl was perfectly cowly so that he could take more pictures. *grumble*!

This week has been tremendously fun. I’ve met a lot of lovely and talented people and have picked up many many new crochet techniques I cannot wait for next year’s Knit and Crochet Design Week, as Stacey has expressed her desire to make this event an annual thing.

If you missed any of my Design Week progress, you can find all of my posts: Here

Be sure to check out Stacey’s blog at freshstitches.com to read her final post of Design Week about turning a design into a workable pattern. You can also find links to the other designers to see how their designs are coming along.

I actually had a moment of sheer panic where I decided that I hated the double crochet stitch that I had used throughout and that I should undo it and start over. Thankfully, I did not go ahead with that gem of a plan! Instead, I took what I’d done so far and wrapped it around my shoulders and it’s looking very promising! I’m so glad that I decided to increase the starting width from 15″ to 20″, because it is extremely cowly! My boyfriend actually said “It’s going to be so wonderful”. Yes, yes it is! (No pictures of that yet though! You’ll have to wait!)

I just finished row 38, which brings the length of my cowl wrap up to exactly 30″. My bust + arms measurement from Day 1 was 40″, so I still have a little ways to go – maybe 18″ or so more.

When I got to row 30, I started to increase the width, as per my sketch. However, instead of just increasing on one side, I decided to increase on both sides – to create more cowl! I was on the fence as to where to start increasing. I didn’t want to do it in the middle, as it might give the middle of the cowl wrap a weird bumpy effect, and I didn’t want the increase to be at the beginning or end of the row, in case it started to curl in on itself and make the edge go all crazy. So, I decided to do my increasing on the second and penultimate stitch of every other row.

If you’re making a “huh?!” face, here’s the continuation of the pattern from yesterday’s post.. maybe it’ll be more clear

Row 1: 42 foundation single crochet (fsc)

Row 2: 1 double crochet (dc) in the 2nd fsc from hook (this counts as the 1st dc) and 39 dc in the remaining stitches of the row [40]

Row 3 – row 30: chain 2 and turn, 40 dc in each dc of the row [40]

; Start increasing row length from here onwards;

Row 31: chain 2 and turn, 1 dc in 1st dc, 2 dc increase in 2nd dc, 1 dc in the next 36 dc, 2 dc increase in 39th dc, 1 dc in 40th dc. [42]

Row 32: chain 2 and turn, 42 dc in each dc of the row [42]

Row 33: chain 2 and turn, 1 dc in 1st dc, 2 dc increase in 2nd dc, 1 dc in the next 38 dc, 2 dc increase in 39th dc, 1 dc in 40th dc. [44]

Row 34: chain 2 and turn, 42 dc in each dc of the row [44]

etc.

Ugh, such an awful picture. But, you can see the increase on the right side at the top and bottom. I will take more pictures tomorrow with some natural light – and not with the cowl on the couch.

I hope I can get it all finished up tomorrow. If not it will be Sunday that it’s done

Be sure to check out Stacey Trock’s blog to read her Design Week Day 5 post and to visit the blogs of the other participants to see how they’re getting on with their Design Week projects.

And you can also check out the rest of my design week posts: Here

So far, my pattern has been the following:

Row 1: 42 foundation single crochet (fsc)

Row 2: 1 double crochet (dc) in the 2nd fsc from hook (this counts as the chain 2 turning chain) and 39 dc in the remaining stitches of the row

Row 3 onwards: chain 2 and turn, 40 dc in each dc of the row

I’ve not had much practice with pattern writing. I attempted it once as a chart and got SO confused! It was not a happy experience..! So hopefully what I’ve written up so far makes sense

The past few days have been a lot of fun. Seeing everyone’s progress has been really inspiring. Since I don’t have much for show-and-tell today, I want to share some of the things that I have learnt from all of this blog hopping

1. Crochet in the back of the stitches when making amigurumi. Apparently, this method makes your work less holey, so that the stuffing doesn’t show through! I will definitely have to try this for my future amigurumi projects, as it makes me crazy when you can see the stuffing showing through the stitch holes.

2. Safety eyes are awesome. Some of the Design Week participants are making plushy amigurumis for their projects. I have never used safety eyes, as I have an irrational fear of them not actually being safe. But they are just so cute! I found a few suppliers for them today and I’ll be picking some up soon. They will make making the faces so much easier! At the moment I’m doing a chain 2, and then *slowly* embroidering it on to the face. It takes forever! Also, I have said “this monkey is cock-eyed” more times that I care to admit. This has to stop!

3. Must stop buying “cheap” wool. There’s nothing wrong with saving a dollar – a penny saved is a penny earned, right? Right. But I’m looking at everyone’s wool and it just looks so soft and lovely. I liked using the worsted weight acrylic for the toys, as it made them more sturdy. BUT I think that for my cowl wrap, I should have actually gone out and got some “decent” wool. When I first started crocheting, I rationalized it by saying that I won’t fork out money on wool as I might not stick with it.. But over a year later, there is no excuse! No excuse at all! I saw they have a special on 100% cotton yarn (should be soft and cozy, right!?) at the store, so I might go pick some up. I gotta try some other types and live a little – maybe I’ll even get some of that funky eyelash wool!

More pictures tomorrow. I promise.

Oh, and while I have your attention, you HAVE to check out Stacey Trock’s Design Week Day 4 post. She shows her progress and it is FABULOUS! Also be sure to check out some of the other participants work – you’ll find a ton of links on her page.

And you can also check out the rest of my design week posts: Here