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