You can't polish a turd!

Last night I got a request for two turds:

Believe it or not, this request came from my mother! She has a joke with two friends about not being able to polish a turd they have at work, so I got stuck making those. They're actually the hair roll from the Queen Amidala pattern I was working on last weekend. Since it was short notice, I just gave her the one I had already made, plus one I whipped up last night. I'll just make a new one for Her Majesty.

I'm going to be gone for the rest of tonight and most of tomorrow, so I might not have a post up. If not, have a great weekend!

Backstitchin'

I've just been working on this:

Things are happening, but they're happening slowly, so it looks pretty much the same. 

When I started this, I was concerned the needle I was using was too thick and that it would snap, so I switched to a thinner one. It worked really well, until this:

I guess it's back to the thicker one!

I Did Do Something....

I was looking around my room today, and I was thinking, "Wow. I didn't do anything yesterday!" And then I remembered this:

Yeah. I did something yesterday. I'm not really sure why I started this yesterday, but I think it may have had something to do with wanting to get the plastic canvas out of the drawer it was in. This literally took me all afternoon, and last night I realized I needed to backstitch in between the squares:

I'm starting to think this was a bad idea.

Queen Amidala of the Naboo

I had a decent amount of this fabric, which I found in the basement:

My original plan was to make this dress, but I had forgotten the details of the instructions, and I actually didn't have enough. So.... I improvised! First, I was going to make a skirt, but it was a lot shorter than I liked, so I added a ruffle, which I didn't really like, so I sewed the bottom shut, added a strap, and called it a bag:

Before I got to that point, I cut off two pieces, one of which I used to make this maxi dress for my cousin's doll:

It started out strapless, but I thought my aunt and uncle might not appreciate that, so I made it a halter:

It goes well with the strings on the back of her neck.....

Can you spell creepy?! Speaking of creepy, check out the inside of Queen Amidala's head!

I started her last night, and here's what I had this morning:

I had and issue with making the hair/skin division even, so after a few tries, I just decided to do a sort of duplicate stitch over the parts that weren't the color I wanted them to be.

 I used an empty cardboard box for the base, and colored it red so it wouldn't show as much:

This morning I got up at 5 for a trip to my state's capital, but because of some cruddy weather, it got canceled, and know I'm stuck at home all day. (I'm not bitter, I'm not bitter, I swear I'm not bitter!) Luckily, I was able to put the time to good use, and I worked on patching up her hair.

Look's pretty good, eh? It took me over an hour, during which I realized I could never be a hairdresser is real life:

I got so frustrated, I had to resort to drastic measures. Anyway, due to my lack of safety eyes, I can't go any farther on the head (hence the cut yarn) so I did all the other pieces instead:

I have to admit, I didn't think the collar would fit around her neck, but I made it work. However, I was not as happy with the sleeves:

I like the shape of the one on the right a lot more, but I figured it would take forever to make two that matched. I just stuck them on under the collar, and they look fine. I haven't decided if I want to do the whole pipe cleaner thing. I think it might look better if I crocheted a little border instead. Finally, I made her hair:

which happens to look a lot like dog poop. And not in a good way.... I lost count of my rows five or six times, so I just guesstimated for the length. Once I get the eyes, gold metallic thread, and possibly clay (I might  have something that'll work) I'll be able to finish Her Majesty, but for now, I have a date with the TTT:

Have an awesome day!

Nothing Much

I feel like I've already called a post that... Oh well. I have only done one row on the TTT:

So it basically looks the same. I should be able to get some done this weekend, so I'll hopefully have a better progress picture! See you Monday!

Sayonara!!

I have done this:

And now I have these:

Well. I don't have them have them, because I gave the blue ones away, I'm going to do so with the purple one tomorrow, and I gave the last one to my mom today. (She's giving it to her friend, remember?) I still can't decide what to call that one (at least, not quickly). I mean, it's black, white, red, and grey. Why couldn't it just pick one color and go with it like the rest of them?! (Can you tell I didn't pick out that yarn?)

I have a bunch of stuff to do tonight, so I might not start the TTT, but I almost definitely will tomorrow.

The Force is with me....

I think I may have used some sort of magical force yesterday, because I did this:

And this:

All I have to do for the purple one is tack those ends down, which I'll probably do when I'm done with this. And yes, that is a tuba mouthpiece. I didn't feel like moving it. (It is only now occurring to me that if I had put the scarf on the other door handle it wouldn't have been in the picture.) For the other one, I have that little blob of yarn to do, then I'll be all done with that. And I think I'm going to take a nice, long break from ruffle scarves. While they are highly addictive, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. (By the way, I gave my friend the first two scarves today, and I ended up giving her both of them. I tried one on this morning and I wasn't a fan.)

Once I finish that business, I'll be free to start on my next project, which I've already done the prep work for:

OK, honesty time. I actually already started this, and I got half-way through the first row before I realized that I had started it one size too small. I ripped it out, highlighted the numbers I'm supposed to be using, then started the fourth ruffle scarf. Apparently they've become stupid-therapy for me. :)

I mentioned yesterday that I bought yarn to make Yoda:

See? Yoda yarn! Anyway, I was on Craftster on Sunday, and I found these awesome patterns for Star Wars mini amigurumi people/other things. I linked all fourteen patterns, but she has different deals for different numbers of patterns (that didn't make any sense). I'm going to get two: Yoda and the Ewok! Ewoks are my favorite. Seriously. I get more emotional over that one ewok dying than Qui-Gon, Padmé, and Obi-Wan combined. (Oh, right. Spoiler Alert!) I have everything I need now except the safety eyes (Michaels doesn't have them, but JoAnn apparently does) and the patterns. 

All the red lines in that paragraph are bothering me. Obviously, Blogger is not a Star Wars fan! :)

I've blabbered enough today. Go look at some yarn! See ya!

Prolific

That is such a fun word to say! It's relevant today because I got a ton done this weekend. Shall we take a look?

1. I finished the second ruffle scarf:

and here they are together:

I think this is from Friday night, but I'm not really sure. I'm home sick today (blech), so I'll give one of these away tomorrow.

2. After much thought (okay, I just did it on a whim) I frogged the Blossom Scarf, and am now the proud owner of these:

3. With that taken care of, I didn't have any short-term WIPs, so I decided to go through the time-out bag. First, I dug out the sequin skirt, and decided to just pull them all off. Here's what it looks like now:

Well, sort of. As you can see, my picture taking skills haven't improved any. That's now done and officially crossed off the list!

4. Next, I found the t-shirt quilt stuff and a pile of t-shirts. I spent about an hour cutting them up, until I had these:

The smaller bag has the actual pictures, and the bigger bag has all the scraps. When I took this picture (Friday night) I had just shoved all the scraps into it, but I went back on Saturday and spent another hourish cutting off the ribbing, seams, etc. until I just had a bunch of rectangles. I took a cool picture of that:

Well, I think it's cool!

5. I had this dress:

You can't see from this picture, but the top is coming off the waistband in the back. It's also rather unflattering, and I wouldn't have worn it if I had fixed it, so I finished the job:

and now I have a skirt that I might actually wear. If that waistband wasn't so big. I may need to fix that.

6. I went shopping yesterday! Here's what I got: 

You didn't believe me when I said I was going to get more, did you? The purple is for my favorite teacher's birthday (next Monday) and the other one is for one of my mom's friends. 

More yarn! This is for this, which is going to be awesome. I was originally going to use Ocean, but I couldn't find it in two stores, and I decided to do this color instead. With a solid color, I don't have to worry about pooling or flashing or anything like that.

This will be used to make this. I've never done anything like this before, but it doesn't look too hard (remind me of this a week from now, please).

The two circulars are for the Teal Tween Top (henceforth known as TTT) and the DPNs are for Voodoo Wristwarmers. I already have yarn for these (I hope).

I also picked up another charm and beading needles. Not really sure what was going through my head, but those do not do what I thought they did.

This is for Yoda, which will be explained tomorrow, as this post is way too long already.

Strangely Depressing

For today's picture of ruffly goodness, I have posed both scarves together:

It's something different, don't blame me!

Anyway, I have been on a Star Wars kick lately. I don't really understand it, but I have been obsessively watching the movies..... Which is good for the scarves, but bad for other parts of my life. (Although I did do some cleaning today during the battle on Geonosis.) One thing I have noticed is that these movies can be quite depressing. It's not totally obvious at first, but then you start realizing there's a whole lot of death and abandonment and betrayal and it's all very sad. Not that that's going to stop me from watching them, or anything. Don't get crazy, now!

In regards to the parentheses in the previous paragraph (lot's of p's there) I went through my binder o' stuff. In this binder, I have my patterns that I've printed out, so I like to go through them every once in a while. I found some patterns that I'm interested in starting, including one or two big things (blankets, shawls, etc.). That made me start thinking about my WIPs, and I realized I don't actually have that many. The most annoying one is the Blossom Scarf, which I'm entertaining thoughts of not finishing. I'm starting to think it's kind of ugly.

Ignoring my craziness, have a great weekend!!!

One Down

I finished the first ruffly scarf last night:

And the inaccuracy of the coloring of that picture is truly impressive. Really. I didn't think it could go that far. Anyway, I've started the second one:

I honestly have nothing to do for the next four days, so I should be done with this pretty quickly. These are starting to get sort of addictive.... I'm actually considering getting more..... I may need help!

I Wasn't Bored

I actually wasn't that bored last night, therefore, I did no work on the Blossom Scarf. In fact, I haven't so much as looked at it in almost a week. It's a love-hate relationship.

I have, however, done some stuff with my ruffly scarf:

I moved the location again, to disguise that it looks exactly like it did yesterday. And Monday. Anyway, this one is a love-mild irritation relationship (the irritation being inspired by the tricky yarn), but I really do love it. I'm actually okay with the thought of starting another as soon as this one's through, and you will not hear me say that very often!

If I'm Really Bored

Minimal progress on the ruffly scarf today:

For interest, I took this shot where the scarf is temporarily living: in a pile on top of that evil hat and some random fabric. In a basket. I may work on this tonight.

No progress on the Blossom Scarf, but that may also change soon. Maybe. If I'm bored tonight.

Je finis!!!!!

(Just a random aside: Never say, "Je suis finis." Apparently that means, "I'm dead.")

Anyway, here's what I'm finished with:

(Sorry for the cruddy pic, but I had a hard time making light go on all of it.)

My super-secret sewing project! It's a sort-of quilt. But not really. Here's a little bit of the detail stuff, again with an awesome picture:

Here's what I did: I wrote up all the squares, printed all the squares, got some help ironing on the squares (I have an issue with irons), sewed around all the squares, sewed the front and back together, shoved some batting in it (that took a while), failed to realize that the batting is fusible, sewed in between all the rows and columns, and wrote my name on the back in silver Sharpie. (We're classy folk around here, I'm not going to lie.) Oh, and then I took some ugly pictures and wrote a really long run-on sentence about it!

I did some other things too:

My friend requested a ruffle scarf in "blue, black, or whitish." That wasn't a ton to go on, but I also got this one:

So I'll see which one she likes better, and keep the other one. It's a win-win! The only thing is, at first, this yarn was a pain in the butt to work with. Apparently you have to work with the top two strands, but it doesn't always line up nicely, so sometimes it's a wee bit crooked. But I actually really like it, and the scarf does look pretty cool! 

This week is crazy and a little stressful, but I've now successfully completed 3 big things! (One on Saturday, the quiltish thing, and one this morning.) One thing's for sure: I can't wait until Friday!