Cyclops Kitten

Kitten
Originally uploaded by the loireag

Her name is Una.
One of the more recent projects. I've been wanting to make this for ages but have been waiting on ordering the eyes I needed. I finally got my act together and made an order from Eyes and More for a bunch of sizes in bulk. Aside from some small black eyes they are all clear so I can paint them to match the project they will be used for. So much more versatile and fun. It adds a tremendous amount of character to design the eyes to fit the creature. It's hard to tell from the pictures but the eye for the cat is two shades of red (one translucent and one more opaque) for a bit of texture with a layer of gold painted over the back you can just see the shine of the gold through some of the red. Definitely more fun than a plain red eye.

And just in case it matters to any one who reads this I was very happy with my order from Eyes and More. Quick, great prices and very good service. I'll definitely order from them again.

Squid

I really love cephalopods. They are such beautiful creatures. And Hansi Singh has some of the best patterns for them I've seen. Quite a while back I made a little squid out of sock yarn using one of her patterns and I've been wanting to make a larger version that incorporated several changes and enhancements since. I finally got one made. And it came out pretty nifty. If I do say so myself.

Aside from altering a few things about the shaping on the squid itself there are two big changes. The first is the eyes. Instead of knitting them I used 24mm hand painted safety eyes. They're just about an inch across (huge!) and I added some crocheted eyelids because I think it gives them a bit more character. The second addition was embroidering suckers on all of the tentacles. An enormously time consuming endeavor but well worth it.

Labyrinth

Ladies and gentlemen allow me to introduce the Goblin King.

Labyrinth was such a huge part of my childhood and it was tremendous fun to make Jareth. I've had the idea floating around the back of my mind for a while to make some Labyrinth stuff and having an excuse was all the encouragement I needed.


Usually it takes a lot of failed attempts to get things right but this one was smooth sailing through calm seas. Well maybe not all the time but still smoother than usual. I did keep notes as I worked (I'm trying really hard to do better at keeping track as I go along) but it was mostly for the parts where I had to make matching pairs. The documentation got a lot sparser on the rest of him. I'm thinking I'll make another eventually. I really liked how he came out and having him around was fun but it will probably be a while. I do want to make a pattern for him available eventually. But I'll have to go through and make another to flesh out the notes and figure out how to explain some of the more idiosyncratic methods I used to make him. Which I'm not looking forward to.

The rest of the photos are here

















This little guy (these little guys?) was the other item made for the swap

Technicolor Chameleon

This guy is from the Chameleon pattern by Hansi Singh of Hansigurumi. Made out of Noro Kureyon. Which looks pretty good but was a terrible pain to use. Slubby yarn with a tendency to pull apart knitted at a tight gauge is not fun. The pattern was impressive it's very cleverly put together. And not a terribly long project this took about a week of working on and off in the evenings. The next time I make one of these I think I will change the eyes a bit. And pay more attention to where I pick up stitches for the head. On this one I picked up the stitches too far back so the neck doesn't have quite as much definition as it should. Still cute though.