A little quote, just a little quote

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself." - Neil Gaiman

Happy New Year to everyone and anyone!

Renewed Wardrobe Step 0.1

Hello!

For a while now, I've been having the idea that I want to make more of my own clothes. This means that I am looking for patterns that I would realistically wear, while at the same time trying to imagine a new style for myself. The point of making my own clothes would be to be able to wear exactly what I want to, because clothes stores don't always have what I like.

So far, I have made a skirt that I have worn several times. Keeping in mind that kind of style, I've started knitting what I affectionately call a Boyfriend Cardigan.

It's actually called a Division Cardigan. I originally found the pattern here, on a blog that I really like. 

I got the yarn for Christmas, it's Berroco Vintage DK yarn. I love it so much! It's so nice to knit, very soft and it gives very neat stitches. Also, it's machine washable, which is always a plus, and not ridiculously expensive. I highly recommend it.

I've been knitting a lot for the past few days, which is so nice, because frankly, winter break is not winter break without a good knitting project. Last night especially, I had my knitting, my cat, my fireplace and my tea; I was a very happy Blue Cat. 

I think I should mention that since I took these pictures on Christmas day, the sweater has grown a good 7 more inches. 

That was your next episode in what I got for Christmas! 

I've been posting nearly every day, wow... enjoy it while it lasts!

Mrs. Claus

Hello!

For Christmas, Mom Mrs. Claus made me a present.

 Meet my new computer case. Isn't it gorgeous?

After Mom made her beautiful iPad case I asked her to make me a computer case. Now, here it is!

I was the one who picked the fabric, but the rest is all Mom! It's lined and padded too, so that I won't accidentally destroy my laptop, which considering how desperately clumsy I am, is all too possible. I tried to take a picture of the lining, but it didn't turn out great. It's a coral red, like the flowers are.

So there you have it, one of the first crafty projects that I was given this holiday season! I love it, I can't wait to show it off.

Among other things (and being the first of several)

Hello!

Christmas has once again come and gone, as it tends to do, but the season isn't quite over until the 1st of the New Year, so in that spirit, I will be doing several posts showing what crafty things I received this year as well as the ones I gave.

The first in this series will be the bunny hat and fingerless gloves that I made for my friend Bella. I knit them in light gray acrylic yarn on size 4.5 and 5 circular needles.

So that's basically what the hat looks like when it's being worn (she wears it better than I do, to be honest). I made a basic hat with circular needles, with about 1.5 inches of ribbing at the bottom. Then, I knit the ears on straight needles, just your basic knit stitch. I made up a random pattern for the increases and decreases and voilà! A beautiful bunny hat!

As for the gloves, I completely made up a pattern, as you can probably tell because the cables aren't really symmetrical. In any case, they fit and she liked them, so that's really all I could ask for. 

So there you go, episode one of however many that will be explaining what I've been doing and hiding from you for these past weeks!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

Past Present

(See what I did with the title, it was a play on words, geddit? I'll just let myself out.)

Hello!

My gift giving has been happening very out of order, which means that I can show you another one that I made and gave before Christmas.

My friend Addie over at A Functionally Messy Blog goes to school with me and often says that she is bored in class. I decided to find a remedy to that problem and make her a kit of things to do. I made her a pencil case and bought colored pencils and eight colorful mini notebooks.

The pencil case was made with a pattern that my mom makes often as gifts and that I wanted to try. I made it out of organic cotton that I found at the local fabric shop with adorable little bunnies on it. 

The pencil case is lined with green polka dots. I love polka dots. And stripes. I usually wear at least one of the two every day. Anyway, yes, the inside is lined with very cute green polka dot cotton. 

The zipper was by far the hardest part, seeing as the rest is just rectangles and straight lines. I just don't like topstitching alongside zippers, because I can never get it straight. It was relatively okay this time, but still, not my favorite thing to do. 

Other than that, I added a bunch of colored pencils and notebooks, one of which I partially filled with quotes and song lyrics. I do quite like quotes, I find other people's words very inspiring.

So that was part two of I don't know how many of the presents that I made this season!

Happy Christmas Eve/Tuesday!

That time of year again...

Hello all!

Well it's that time of year again... The time where I spend all my free hours working on projects that I can't show you, because they are meant to be surprises for friends and family. As a general rule, said people read this blog, so we're going to keep it all hush-hush until the 25th.

Let it be known though, that I have a lot of cool stuff to show you!

There is one present, however, that I can show you, because I gave it to my friend yesterday (because I won't be seeing her again until after the holidays, not because I randomly decided that I was going to give her her gift 11 days early.)

She is a huge fan of the Percy Jackson book series, more specifically of Percy Jackson himself. She told me all she wanted for Christmas was Percy. So, I took her word as my command and...

Voila! Percy Jackson! 

I followed the description of him from the book: green eyes, black hair (maybe not that long, but oh well)... He also wears an orange t-shirt. I decided to make it a sweater because who wears a t-shit when it's below freezing and snowing outside?

The letters on the sweater are CHB, which stand for Camp Half-Blood which is the main setting of the Percy Jackson series. It's a camp for demigods. Don't judge me because of the B. I spent a good 20 minutes trying to get it right and this was as good as it was going to get.

So I made this doll out of stretchy cotton jersey again, which is a fabric that I have a love-hate relationship with. The result is really nice, but the sewing is horrible. So this time, I cut out the same pattern twice, once out of the cotton, and once out of white fleece. I sewed the two together, which eventually meant that I was basically handling the fleece instead of the cotton. It was a good idea, one that I still have to fine-tune, but I think I might be onto something. 

As for the pattern itself, I based it off of the one I used here and tweaked it a bit to make it smaller. 

For the sweater, I basically knit four squares (two for the body and two for the sleeves) and sewed them as best as I could. I'll eventually learn how to make a sweater with just circular needles, because I hate sewing sweaters, no matter how small they are.

So there you go, the first Christmas present that I can show you guys!

I've discovered that I have a really bad method when it comes to making presents. I started off by knitting half a hair of gloves. Then I sewed something that I still haven't finished. Then I sewed this guy (in two days, I'm really proud of myself). Then I sewed something else. Then I knit the other half of the pair of gloves... You get the idea. It's not good.

To all those who, like me, have one more week before winter break, stay strong! We will make it! There's only one week, which is really only five days by school standards! 

See you all soon! 

Alba

Hello!

I made a doll a while ago.

Her name is Alba and she's really difficult to photograph.

She is entirely my design, as you can probably tell by the lopsided arms but we don't talk about that. She is made out of the same weird stretchy fabric that I made this guy out of. It's so hard to sew and a pain to stuff and I still use it because, I mean, come on, it looks really cool.

Her hair is made out of fake white fur (and is the primary reason why she is hard to take a picture of) which gives her a cool punk look, but as she is wearing a cute collared flowery blouse you know that she is more of a fairy than a punk (maybe she's a punk fairy?). Anyway, I was going to give her wings, and then I was going to give her elf ears and then I didn't because she looked fine the way she was and I didn't want to mess her up by adding too many other things.

So there you have it! Two days of my Thanksgiving break! It was worth it, I think she's very cute. 

Hopefully, I will have more time to make stuff as the winter break is fast approaching, but probably not, because the universal high school teacher agreement is "Oh three weeks? Let's cram in as many things as we possibly can!" It doesn't leave very much time for creative endeavors such as this, as you can imagine. 

Have a lovely week (well, end of week at this point) and all that!

Happy Birthday Blog!

Hello!

It has now officially been one year since the creation of this little piece of the Internet.

Since then, much has happened (including setting up an Etsy shop, because what harm can a little more self-promotion do? clicky here to see it)

So here we are, a year later. And here's to many more to come!

Thank you,

Blue Cat

I'm going back to Hogwarts!

Hello!

I will admit that the title is a lie. I am not going back to Hogwarts, as I have unfortunately not yet received my acceptance letter. However, among the ranks of people at my school, I have found many who are in the same predicament. As it turns out, one of my Hogwarts-less friends' birthday is next week and I decided that I would make her a Ravenclaw scarf.

I started knitting this on Monday.

That's not very much time to make a scarf, but I am determined to do it!

As it is almost the holiday season (at Hogwarts and elsewhere), I thought I could share the not-so-secret-secret of how to make these scarves because they make awfully good presents for the magically gifted (and those who just want a striped scarf). For those of you who are like me and absolutely love the Harry Potter world, you will notice that this is a first year scarf, with large blocks of color.

So, here it is, the Hogwarts scarf pattern that I made up.

Stuff you need:

• dark blue yarn (a lot of it) 

• silver or light grey yarn (again, a lot of it, you're making a scarf)

• knitting needles (I'm using 6.5 mm, but use what is recommended for the yarn you're using)

How to do it:

1. Cast on 23 stitches in the dark blue.

2. Knit 26 rows of the blue yarn.

3. Switch to grey yarn by snipping the blue yarn (leave a 4 inch tail) and tying the grey yarn to it, then knit as usual.

4. Knit 26 rows of the grey yarn.

5. Switch back to the blue yarn in the same manner as step 3.

6. Repeat as many times as it take to get a long scarf. 

7. End in a blue stripe.

8. Knit 26 rows of the blue.

9. Cast off.

10. Weave in all the little dangly pieces of yarn.

11. Fly to Hogwarts in a magic car.

To make a Gryffindor scarf, use dark red and gold, for Hufflepuff, use yellow and black, and for Slytherin, use dark green and silver (or light grey). 

Happy knitting! Fair warning, these scarves do take a very long time to knit. The solution that I have found to that is to knit while watching your favorite movies and/or television programs. My TV show of choice has been Doctor Who, which is really not surprising at all. As for movies, I would suggest Hugo, Marley and Me, and the Avengers, as those are the movies that I have been wanting to watch lately.

Good day and all that!

The Grand News

Hello!

So as you very well know, I haven't been on very much as of late and that is for several reasons, one being school, the other being theatre and the third being that I had some big news that I wanted to share with all of you. It ended up taking longer to set up than I had thought, but now I can finally tell you!

I have been wanting to set up an Etsy shop for a very long time and now, I have at last accomplished that goal!

For those of you who don't know, Etsy.com is an online international community of people who sell handmade things. There is jewelry, furniture, journals, art... Everything you can imagine someone making is there for you to buy. It's pretty wonderful.

And now, I'm there too!

At the moment, all that I have listed are Benedict Otterbatches (made to order, so if you want one for Christmas, I would suggest ordering now), a bunny, and a polar bear. More will be made this weekend and in the coming days, but now you know!

You can see my shop by clicking on the Etsy button to the right, or by clicking here!

Happy November - what day is it? - 16th... Happy November 16th!

So I made a skirt

Hello!

Sorry for the horridly long wait between posts, I have been extraordinarily busy... for the most part.

I did make something, I just haven't had time to take proper pictures of it with my camera. In the meantime, here is a phone picture, courtesy of my mom.

I'll talk more about it later, as soon as I can take proper pictures, but I made it this weekend in between horse back riding and homework. It was a fun project, I actually didn't screw up that much. I only broke the needle on the sewing machine. Again. Why is this a recurring thing? I didn't even know you could break the needle in the sewing machine! 

Anyway, it was my first time making an item of clothing that are not pajama pants (or that one skirt that I have never worn) so I was quite proud. I had to do a bit of guessing as to the size and ended up shortening it up a lot. 

I'm not entirely sure how to wear it, seeing as it is now 0 degrees Celsius when I leave my house in the morning. I think I'll be sticking to sweaters and jeans for the moment.

I will attempt to shorten my hiatuses between posts in the future...

Have a lovely beginning of November; I'll see you all very soon with a longer post and better pictures!

-Blue Cat

A big thank you!

Hello!

So, I just hit 2000 views on this blog!

That may not seem like a lot to the bigger bloggers out there, but I haven't even had this blog for a year, so this is incredible to me.

Thank you to everyone who has visited my little corner of the Internet!

As a sign of my gratitude, here is a picture of my cat.

I imagine she thinks she's helpful. Poor dear, she't not very bright.

Happy friday!

Some earrings for some friends

Hello!

So I put my new light box to the test today, and it once again wielded wonderful results. 

I love my light box.

I'm going to a friend's house quite soon (within the next hour) and I wanted to make her and my other friends some earrings because why not? Also I missed their birthdays. 

That type of earring takes about ten minutes to make at the very, very most and if you're watching videos online at the same time, like I was. 

There are the silvery-swirly-gold ones, the moon ones and the Gryffindor ones, because my friend is a huge Harry Potter nerd (as am I) and as she must wear a uniform to school, I figured she would still be able to show her house pride by wearing her colors like this!

Blue Cat, out!

A very loud idea at the back of my mind

Hello!

I've had this idea at the back of my mind, well not really at the back, more like screaming whenever I took pictures, but I've been wanting to do this for a while.

I wanted to build a light box.

So I built a light box.

Using this link here I knew how I wanted to make it. I scavenged the materials from here and there (seriously, the cardboard box was the hardest to find) and today I finally had everything I needed, including time.

Here's the best part: my dad just got a lot of used professional lights and I get to use them! So that's my lighting (I would have used some of the brighter lamps we have if I hadn't had the pro ones) and now, all that remained was to make it.

I kid you not, my entire day has been building up to this. I had a chemistry test to study for (which I did for a very long time) and math exercises (which didn't take as long as I thought) and once those were done, I could start! I even used an Exacto knife for the second time ever, which was a little worrying because I like all my fingers where they are.

But enough chit chat and suspense-building: look!

I took a few pictures of my little bear and then my brother came in and I took pictures of his Legos for him. I'm still playing around with the zoom and the background, but that's details. 

Just like all the cardboard that is covering my bedroom floor right now.

Details.

My room is a mess.

But what you should really take away from this post is that it is currently pitch-black outside my window and I still managed to take decent pictures! This is my revenge on horrible winter light.

Have a wonderful day/night/whatever!

My pride and joy

Hello!

Okay, so to make up for my utter lack of doing anything creative-sewing-related in the last few weeks (that's not entirely true, I have been doing creative things, just not sewing and/or knitting ones. I've been costuming!) I made something really, really cool.

Something that you may not know about me is that I love giving gifts to people, which is why I like birthdays and Christmas. The other day was my friend's birthday and I wanted to give her something really, really brilliant.

I started drawing, planning, thinking. It actually only took about five minutes to design the whole thing. The problem was, I had nearly none of the materials I needed, so yesterday, mom and I raided the fabric-craft store and finally, I could start.

I drew a pretty picture last weekend, and now, it has come to life. I think that people should sketch their ideas simply because once they're finished, it's amazing to see how one idea became a drawing became a tangible... thing.

I have no idea what his name is, but let me explain the story behind the design. My friend is a huge fan of many of the same things as I am. So, I decided to make a doll that would be filled with references. 

The blue scarf is from Sherlock BBC. 

The shoes and trench coat are from the Tenth doctor in Doctor Who, and the purple shirt and black pants are from the Ninth Doctor.

The fluffy black hair is loosely based on some of the YouTubers that we both watch, but also because many characters in all of the series have black hair for some reason.

Now, as for the materials. The shirt and face are made from knit jersey fabric. Here are the pros and cons. 

Pros: Looks really cool, and the one I used for the face was the only fabric that was the right color.

Cons: Terrible to sew, doesn't stuff well (it gets all lumpy) and most especially, something that you can't really see here, it rips. I was putting in the eyes which ended up with two rips in the fabric. I sort of fixed it, but if I ever try this again, I will find another way of putting in the eyes.

I made the coat from felt, the scarf from a scrap of fleece and the pants and shirt from cotton. The hair, however, is one of the coolest parts of the doll. It's made from fake fur, which was a brilliant idea of mine (I'm kidding, although it was my idea). The fake fur was a stab in the dark because I had absolutely no idea how I was going to pull it off. Eventually, I made a sort of hat in the shape of a fringe and a full head of hair for the back and sewed it on as best as I could. Fake fur is one of the worst thing to sew as soon as it exceeds a quarter of an inch in length. 

So there you go! My insane weekend project! I made this while watching Doctor Who. I may or may not have watched half an entire season. Best Sunday ever! I'm giving this to my friend tomorrow, I really hope she likes it, because I am ridiculously proud of it.

Have a great week and I will attempt (that is not a guarantee) to post more often.