We Bare Squares

Story time!

Okay, so it was near the end of my first day at the Farmer’s Market, and I was chilling at my booth. At the time, I had two square bears for sale—a brown bear and a panda. So this little kid and his mom walked up to my booth and started looking at the bears. After a minute, his mom asked, more to him than me, “Where is Ice Bear?” in reference to We Bare Bears, a cartoon featuring a grizzly bear, a panda, and a polar bear. I, of course, immediately responded by saying that I simply hadn’t made him yet. To be honest, I made the square bears before I knew We Bare Bears existed, and didn’t make the connection between the show and my bears until they pointed it out. So naturally, I decided to make a square polar bear to complete the set.

 

Now might be a good time to mention that I’ve never actually seen any episodes of We Bare Bears…. I should probably go watch some of the show, so I know what I’m talking about. Be right back.

All screencaps from imdb.com

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……………………..What the heck did I just watch? That was strangely endearing…

Yeah, so anyway, I made Ice Bear. Here’s a picture:

Isn’t he cute?

If you want to make your own square bear, I used a pattern by Lion Brand Yarn, which you can find here. The bears are super easy to make, and if you’re new to amigurumi, it’s definitely a pattern I’d suggest checking out.

So…yeah. That’s about it. I leave you with this picture of all three square bears hanging out by the log in my backyard.

Matoki Part VII or How NOT to Write a Pattern

So it’s been, what, two months since I finished Keke? I should probably address this whole pattern nonsense. Yeah….

Okay, so, I know I’ve written a few patterns before, and generally the design process (the part where I figure out how to make the thing) is the hardest part, with the actual writing of the pattern being relatively easy. However, the matoki pattern has two things my previous patterns did not. The first is pattern pieces for the mask and several of the markings. The second is assembly instructions. Let’s address them one at a time.

The pattern pieces were relatively easy to make. I’ve been saving the paper versions of all the pieces, and it was a simple matter of scanning them into the computer and using Gimp (like Photoshop, but free and harder to use) to outline them. This was easy. And boring. So I put it off for a few weeks. But I got it done. Two weeks ago.

Writing assembly instructions, however, proved to be much harder. More specifically, I found it difficult to explain how to assemble any specific matoki without relying heavily on pictures. So I decided to add pictures. The only problem was that, while I was designing the matoki, I neglected to take pictures.

Yeah.

So, long story short, I decided to make a new set of matoki, explicitly for the purpose of taking pictures. I will be finishing one every week starting two weeks ago, and as soon as I finish each matoki, I will be posting their individual pattern to Ravelry. If you’ve been paying attention, you may have noticed that I just implied that two of the individual patterns are already on Ravelry. You would be correct. Here are links to the patterns for Shishi and Tats.

Thank you all for your patience, and for following me through this project. I’ll have one more post on this when all of the patterns are up.

Tiny Kitties

So I adore cats. I think they’re awesome and I want one. Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to adopt one right now….So I made one three.

They’re like chess pieces with tails!

I really like the sleek, minimalist design. It has just enough elements to make clear that they are cats, while still being small and quick enough to make that I can easily create a small army.

The octopus is a size reference.

Not only are these kitties adorable, I actually designed them myself! They were relatively easy and fun to design, although there were a few challenges. The tail especially gave me a lot of trouble. I originally tried to make it a thin tube, but that wound up looking really weird, and a little too fat for cats this tiny. Ultimately, I made the tails just one long row of single crochet, which had the added bonus of naturally curling around itself, giving the tail a little more character.

 

The other problem was in trying to get them to stand up. The proto-cat I made (no pictures, sorry) didn’t stand on it’s own very well, and I didn’t want them to be restricted to lying down or leaning on other, sturdier things. The obvious solution was to give them a flat base—which is how they got their cone-shaped bodies—but that wasn’t quite enough. To make it work, I had to stuff the bodies very loosely, so that the base would lay flat.

Anyway, here is a PDF of the pattern: Tiny Kitty. If you choose to make one yourself, send me a picture. I’d love to see it! For those that aren’t craft inclined but still want one, you can buy them here. Enjoy!

Summer, Matoki, and General Updates

So, as a full time computer science student, I normally wind up basically ignoring the business side of Entropy Creations in favor of making sure I don’t, you know, flunk out of college. However, finals are over, and I’m home for the summer with nothing else to do, so for the next few months, Entropy gets to be a full time job. Yay!

Naturally, this means I’ve been crocheting. A lot. And what have I been making? Well…octopi.

They’re seasonal!

And also, like, a veritable garden of hair flowers.

Pictured: a garden of hair flowers

Both of which are things I’ve already posted about. I’ve been making so many of these because, while I’m here, I’m going to be selling product at the Farmers and Crafts Market in Las Cruces, NM. And I kind of needed physical items to put on the table. And I already had a lot of everything else on my Etsy shop. (Quick reminder that I do, in fact, sell things on Etsy. Here’s a link to my shop.) Well, everything except the matoki. I’m not mass producing those. They take too long.

Speaking of the matoki, they’re on Etsy! You can buy one now! Yay! Here’s a link to the listing.

I wasn’t originally going to sell physical matoki because, as you can see if you click the link, they’re kind of expensive to make. But, after a lot of people started giving me disappointed looks when I said they weren’t for sale, I finally relented and put them on Etsy. As for the pattern…I’m working on it, I swear. I just need a few more weeks.

So…yeah. That about does it.  Just a quick update to share what I’m doing, crochet-wise and reaffirm that I haven’t dropped off the face of the planet. Yay!

Mason Jar Pin Cushion

This seems like it should be pretty self explanatory….It’s a mason jar with a pin cushion on top. Here’s the pattern: Mason Jar Pin Cushion. I made it myself.

For the past few years, I’ve been using a pin cushion that came in a cheap sewing kit my mom gave me. Those pins that are pictured were also from that sewing kit. However, recently I’ve been having a few problems. Firstly, a few weeks ago I discovered that the head of one of my straight pins had snapped off, leaving the long metal poky bit stuck firmly inside the pin cushion. Which was bad. I had to pull it out with pliers. Clearly I needed a more secure way to store my pins.

The other problem was actually unrelated to my pins. For the past year or so, I’ve been struggling to find a way to store my darning needles that wouldn’t result in me losing them or in them stabbing me. Recently, I’ve had them loose in my sewing kit, which isn’t particularly conducive to either goal.

Since I’d been meaning to replace my pin cushion anyway, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and make one with a space underneath where I could put pins and needles. Which is why I hot glued it to the top of a mason jar.

This pattern is a lot simpler in design than most of what I make, but I don’t think it really needed to be anything fancy. It was a bit of a challenge putting it all together at the end, especially when I tried to attach the pin cushion to the lid. I also wound up adding a ribbon around the edge of the lid to make it look more polished/professional. In the end, I think it turned out pretty cute, like a little blue mushroom.

Matoki Part VI: Kekemato

Guys, guys, I did it! I finished Kekemato! I can’t wait to show him to you. Wait…where did he go? Keke?

Gah!

Darn it, Keke! Come out and sit properly so I can take pictures of you.

Thank you.

Yeah, so Kekemato is the last of the matoki, and he’s a ninja. He’s also bright pink, has really nice eyelashes, and always wears a black full body suit (pictured on the left) because he thinks he’s too pretty to be a warrior. Also, being pastel pink probably isn’t super conducive to being a ninja.

Tragically, I did not make Keke a full body suit because I’m not, you know, insane. I did, however, use actual zippers in his construction, and make a fully functional hood that—when you unzip the mask—reveals Keke’s pretty pink head. Because apparently I’m a masochist.

Naturally, creating what essentially amounted to an entire second head but this time hollow and able to perfectly encompass the first head came with its own set of problems. The biggest challenge I faced when designing Keke’s hood was what to do about his ears. I originally wanted to work some sort of crochet magic to make a special hood that had hollow ears and holes inside the mask for said ears. However, not only would that be horrible to try to engineer, it would mean I would have to wrestle Keke’s ears into the ear holes every single time I wanted to put his hood on. As such, I scrapped the idea as needlessly complicated.

Obligatory family picture is higher up this time. For reasons.

Instead, Keke’s mask is basically a second, slightly larger head, complete with it’s own ears, and it’s own pipe cleaners within those ears. When putting his mask on, I just need to fold Keke’s ears down and shove his head violently through the hole created by the zipper. This model is still hard, but at least it’s actually, you know, possible.

The other major problem I had was with the sheer amount of embroidery involved in his design. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not particularly good at sewing, and unlike with all the other matoki, I couldn’t just make a pattern to either trace or cut out of felt, so I had to eyeball everything. I wound up redoing a bunch of it, but overall I think it turned out really cool.

So that’s it. I’m done. I have finished making every single matoki. Yay! But, while Keke is the last of the matoki, in a weird way, he was also the first. See, I first got the idea to make one of these back in December 2015 as a Christmas present for my friend Dani. At the time, I knew that she was a big fan of B.A.P. (the k-pop group), and that the matoki were not only B.A.P.’s mascots, but also possibly the single most plushable thing in k-pop. So, I asked one of our mutual friends who Dani’s favorite member was, with the intention of making his associated matoki. She said her favorite was Daehyun. That’s this one, incidently:

Image courtesy of allkpop.com

Armed with this knowledge and a naive confidence that surely it couldn’t be that hard, I set about searching for a pattern and found, to my surprise, that there were no crochet patterns for matoki. So, armed with even more naive confidence, I set about to make my own. And was shocked to discover that it was, in fact, really hard. But I did it! Here’s a picture of the two Kekes together:

Ta-dah!

Yeah…the pattern has evolved a lot over the years. Keke-prime’s mask also goes on his head:

Ta-dah!

Aren’t they cute?

So, this is the last matoki post, right? I’m done now. Right?

Well, there’s actually going to be one more. See, since I made Keke prime, I wanted to release the pattern on the internet so other people could use it. However, even though the matoki are done, the pattern still needs to be tested (for typos and errors in the instructions) and polished. So there will be one more matoki post when the pattern is ready to be released to the world. See you then!

Bye!

Deadpool

Oh, curse word. Today’s a blog post day, isn’t it. Um…what do I have that I can complete in like two hours? Uh…Deadpool?

Deadpool!

Yeah…Deadpool’s been sitting in a mostly finished state since, like, January. All I really had to do today was make his accessories and embroider his eyes. It took, like an hour and a half. No idea why I didn’t finish him earlier. But, hey, it worked out in the end.

Deadpool was made using a pattern I found on Ravelry (obligatory link). I found the pattern a little hard to follow at times, and there are almost no assembly instructions, but the end product is pretty adorable. And he has katanas. I love katanas.

…Yeah, that’s all I really have to say about Deadpool. I’m honestly a little swamped with schoolwork right now, as the end of the semester’s almost here, but I do have a few larger projects in the works that I can’t wait to share with you all. With any luck, I’ll have at least one of them done for my next post.

Flower Barrette

I made a thing! It’s for sale! You can find it here! What is this thing, you ask? Why, it’s a barrette with a crochet flower on it. And it’s adorable!

Ok, so I made more than one, in multiple colors, and adorable might not be the best word to describe this, but I think it’s pretty. I made these using a pattern for a headband that I found on the website for Red Heart Yarn. (Obligatory pattern link).  I like this pattern because, unlike with most flower patterns, you don’t have to sew it together at the end.

I originally came across this pattern when one of my friends who was just learning to crochet wanted to make a headband with a flower on it, and wanted me to teach them how to do it. I walked her through making the flower, and at the end, wound up with one of my own. That flower sat around for about four months before I got the bright idea to sew a barrette to the back of it.

Overall, this pattern is cute and fairly easy to make. Additionally, it makes up in under an hour, so it’s a great quick craft, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to embellish something.

Cthulhu French Press Cozy

In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming…of coffee. Sweet, delicious coffee. I might have a problem.

So, this project came about for a couple of reasons. The first, is that, as I was browsing Ravelry one day about a month ago, I happened upon a multitude of patterns for french press cozies. Owning a french press myself, as they are quite compact and therefore ideal for a dormitory-living college student such as myself, I  was intrigued by the idea of a french press cozy, but rather dissatisfied with the patterns that were lain out before me. As such, I decided to invent a design of my own.

Additionally, I possess a great admiration (although slight lack of knowledge) of the works of one H.P. Lovecraft, and the vast, unfathomable universe he imagined. Naturally, I decided to wed the two ideas, and, naturally, drafted a pattern depicting a simplified image of the mighty Cthulhu.

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Ok, enough with the purple prose.

There were a couple of challenges that came along with this. For one thing, my french press isn’t all that big, so I wound up using a tiny, 1.8 mm hook just so I could fit the design in. The other problem is more inherent to colorwork in general—if I carried the yarn I wasn’t using behind the one I was, it would inevitably show through, muddying up the design. To fixed this, I decided to abandon the idea of carrying my yarn behind my stitches when I was working on the back, instead simply dropping it and picking it back up when I needed the color again. This did make the back of the piece a little messy, so I lined it with felt to cover it up.

Additionally, I used a series of bobbins with the green. One on each side of the border, and one for each Cthulhu. The Crochet Crowd has a great tutorial on this technique, that I’d highly suggest checking out. It’s nestled in the middle of a giant comprehensive tutorial on how to crochet a graphghan, but they start talking about bobbins at about the 11:30 mark. Here’s a link to the website, the tutorial video is near the bottom.

Here’s a link to the pattern: Cthulhu-french-press-cozy. It is completely free. If you do make something with it, please share a picture, I’d love to see. Until next time. Cthulhu f’htagn!

Um….

So….it’s been two weeks since I last posted…and my schedule says I have to post every other Tuesday…and, um, one of my goals this year is to never miss a post………..

So this is what I’ve been doing this week:

Note the complete lack of yarn

Yeah, so it’s midterms, and I have been so covered in homework and papers and studying that I just didn’t have much time to crochet these last two weeks. I do have an exciting project in the works—at least, I’m excited about it—I just haven’t really had any time to finish it.

So…yeah. Today’s just kind of a filler day. On the plus side, spring break’s coming up, so I’ll have time to work on things then. I’ll have an actual nifty crochet thing next week, I promise. Until then, I’m gonna get back to studying….