Other Places You Can Find Me

If you are looking for today's post, scroll down, this is just a real quicky.

I really should have done this at the beginning, but here we go, other places around the web that you can find me.

Octo-Kitty on Facebook Like the facebook page to get notified of every blog update, product updates, and see what cons/events/faires I will be at in the future.

Etsy  Buy the plushies and accessories you see featured on the blog

Pinterest I suck at using pinterest but I try and link to cool patterns and guides I find

And that's about it, I have a ravelry, but I never use it, maybe I'll get better at it in the future. and if you are in the area you can find me at any convention, craft/Renaissance  fair, or pirate event that will take me!

A Little Bit About Felting

Hello and welcome back lovely readers. I have been saying for a while that I would talk more about felting so I think it is about time. I would eventually like to make a beginners guide to help others learn this really neat craft, but I do not think I am quiet there yet. I am entirely self taught with one guide that basically just showed me what tools I would need so I am sure there are things I am missing. I do not make felted pieces on their own, instead preferring to accent crochet pieces with felted eyes and details. I love the look you can get from felting, it looks like the accents are actually a part of the piece not just glued or sewn on.

If you don't know what felting is, it is a way of binding loose roving/fibers together or to another fabric piece. You use a needle that has little barbs on it (this is not a craft for children!) to push a little bit of the fiber through your fabric or into other fiber (say into a big ball of fluff you are turning into a sphere), the barbs will catch on the fiber once it is pushed through and then onto your fabric on the way back binding them together. I am sure there are others that can explain this all much better. You will end up with a shaped piece of thin felt or a thick shape of pure felt giving you a much cleaner and seamless look than you would get using felt.

I do not buy my roving, it is always over priced and easy enough to make yourself. Many people suggest only using wool but I don't know why, I have had very good luck using acrylic. Some yarns work better for it than others and some yarns will not work at all (I have had no luck with red heart super saver varigated yarns.) I just use a fine wire pet brush and 4-12 (8 with a thick yarn) strands of yarn and brush it out working from the bottom. The yarn that collects into the brush is what you use. You can buy your fibers/roving at a craft store but they tend to charge as much as for a ball of yarn for a ball of roving the size of your fist or smaller.

As for tools, I am new to this so I am using the cheapest I can find. A Clover five-needle tool for big middle parts of a shape and a Clover one-three needle tool for smaller details. (the five needle can also do fewer but the smaller tool makes it easier with fewer needles) My local Joanns has stopped selling them but I have found them at Craft Warehouse. I felt into stuffed pieces so I don't worry about felting into anything just make sure your fingers aren't behind a thin piece as sometimes the needles go through and they hurt like a bitch! Just be careful in general, I got distracted once and went right into the back of my thumb, thankfully it hit the nail but it still hurt for a while. Again this is not a craft for children, and if you have little ones at home please keep these tools out of their reach.

That's about all the guidance I can give you for now. From there I just play around with it. My first piece was a helmet like shape for a plushie so it was a big piece to practice on with very basic shaping around the edge.

Head and eyes are felts, ears on yellow plushie felted. very annoyed this is the best pic i have of vaporeon

 I find rings to be the hardest, if you get the roving into a nice tight ring, you basically have yarn again and it will warp as soon as you start attaching it. My best friend there is just a pair of scissors and a tapestry needle. just pull up any edges that go outside your shape and cut them off and felt down the line to tidy it up.

I just wanted to finish out showing you some pictures of felted bits I have done. I'm still learning and I am sure they will look better in the future, but for now I am really loving this craft!

Feet and back piece felted

Eyes and Ears Felted

Eyes, Nose, Third Eye, and Ears felted

 

Cutie Marks Felted

So that's it for this time. Hope you enjoyed taking a look at felting, I am sure I will talk about it more in the future. Join me on Friday for my usual project update and next week we should have a new yarn review! Have a great week.

Projects Update 9/26

Hello my lovely readers, it is that time again. I get to show you all the pretties I have been working on this week. It has been another low sewing week but I have tried to get more done as I went along. Having pieces actually sewn on does make me feel a lot more accomplished. It's strange but in my head I tend to think of the sewing as being just as much effort as the piece I am crocheting, which is never the case.So I have felt like I got more done every day s week instead of a lot at once on Thursday night. So here is what I have been working on.

After seeing the big Glaceon last week, the friend of mine who has been buying my pokemon wanted one the same size as his other ones so hopefully this one will be done for my husband to take to him on Thursday. Really it is just sewing and finishing the face pieces at this point.

Then I stared making these adorable little guys. A friend picked up one that looked like this a few years ago so I've been using that as inspiration. I've just been figuring out the patterns for the ears, tails etc. as I go along, but they are pretty simple, just little spheres, cones, etc. but it's a lot of fun and they make up pretty quickly. So far I have an Espeon, Umbreon, Flareon, and am starting on a Glaceon (so I can get pics of all three sizes in the same design before sending out the midsize one from the above pic) I'm still working on getting the heads on just right but I think they are really adorable. I am thinking of making ponies the same size when I finish the set.

I swear it's just the shadows making umbreon look like he wants to eat your soul

I'm back to making hats just to use up some yarn and so I can have a good variety for the holiday fairs I'll be working in November. I only have pics of the one but I have a blue and black one in the works...somewhere. I'll find it by next week. Then I'm making a yellow and black one. Still not sure whether I should put antenna on it and make it a bee hat or my usual ears. People really seem to like the bee hats but they are a pain to make.

As usual, I'm working on ponies, trying to finish having a set of the smaller ones on hand before getting back to the bulky yarn ones so I've got an almost finished pinkie pie, next I need to work on a Rainbow Dash. Right now I'm also working on finally finish my personal pony. I never make things for myself so she has been taking a long time to finish, I'm mostly just trying to get her finished to clear out space on my desk. She will be my little mascot to take with me and show that I will make people's own custom ponies.

Yes I know how weird the pony heads look before they get ears and hair!

And finally another update on Cadence, it is ridiculous that I have not finished yet. Just need to finish putting on the shoes and making the wings right now. So close but it will probably be another week anyway. I took a break from working on the wings to do a lot of the sewing and I am not looking forward to getting back to them. It's not that they are hard just annoying because they need something in each piece to support it, wire for the feathers and mesh or cardboard for the main piece. I'm not a general crafter so I don't enjoy doing that kind of thing. I'm just looking forward to having her finished and being able to start on the next one!

oh yeah and eyes, pony desperately needs eyes!

Well that's it for this week. I really appreciate the ammount of traffic I got for my first review! You are all wonderful. I have another one I am working on for a week from Monday. This Monday I will finally be talking a bit about felting, so please join me then!

The First Review- Red Heart: With Love

Hello and welcome to my first yarn review. Just a quick reminder that these are in no way sponsored I am just doing them for fun because I have a great love of yarn. With that out of the way, I decided to go with Red Hearts line "With Love" to start with. I have been working with this yarn a lot lately and have a lot of it sitting around in different dye lots.

I have generally tried to stay away from Red Heart yarns because of the stigma they have of being cheap, scratchy, and more suited to children's crafts than crochet or knitting. These factors go right out the window when it comes to their lines other than the so apply named "Super Saver" (don't worry, we will be getting to that soon.) I will get more into my personal opinion at the end, for now let us start by talking about the...

Texture:
As I alluded to above, this is a much nicer to work with yarn than it's inexpensive counterpart. It is light and fluffy without that silky or waxy feeling you get from yarns like Red Hearts confusingly named "Soft" line (for the longest time I could not figure out which yarn was which). As a crafter who primarily makes toys, I love the soft feel the yarn maintains even once crocheted tightly. But be aware the white is a bit stiffer and varigated tend to be softer. It is not as soft as a baby yarn but definitely as soft as you will get for the price
My one big problem with it comes from how light and soft it is, this yarn really likes to unwind and strip while sewing with it. When I can I will use a different yarn to connect pieces to avoid this problem.

 When it comes to texture I can absolutely advise this yarn for something soft and fluffy.

Yarn Weight:
Ah yarn weight, one of the least consistent things when it comes to different yarns. This yarn is graded as a 4 or worsted for size I-G hook or 8 (us) needles. However it is up to twice the size of other yarns in the same category. This yarn is about as big as you can get before getting into the 5 or bulky yarns (which is an even broader category). While this might be confusing to new crafters, an experienced one will know where different brands fall on the size scale and plan accordingly. At least you could if the yarns within this line were consistent. This is where this yarn really falls flat. Take a look at this picture.

That is a strand of Violetta, Plum Jam and Peacock side by side. That is a ridiculous amount of difference between three yarns by the same company, in the same line, all supposed to be the same size. As long as you have large pieces side by side you will usually be fine as long as you aren't mixing in the varigateds (which is a pity because I love those colors together!) but if you are looking to do color-work definitely look somewhere else.

If you want consistency across different colors I cannot advise this yarn.

Color Consistency:
When it comes to different dye lots well this yarn does not have them. This works out in your favor because whenever you buy it your colors will look the same. I have bought a skein online from joanns and run out halfway through a project and had no problem finishing with a skein bought at Walmart months later. They have recently started putting out smaller skeins and the colors have not changed. I'm sure if you go too far back and have stored a yarn for a while you will run into problems, and you will always be safest buying all the yarn you will need for a project at once. But if you are like me and like starting projects in the middle of the night using what you have on hand, this yarn is great.

Color consistency is as good as you can hope for, no problems here.

Color Variety:
This is something very important to me. When making a piece based off of a TV show or video games, having the right color is important and the more shades a yarn has the more likely I am to be able to use it. So how does With Love shape up?

This is just what they have at Joann's website. On Red Hearts one site they have one more color, an appropriately named  Stones which seems to be new. This gives us a pretty good variety of your major colors. You're missing a basic primary blue and orange but the variety gives you enough to work with, about as much as you can expect. I would like to see more variegated option but as I do not use them much I cannot complain too much. 

Color variety does pretty well, but you are likely to need to supplement your project with another brand if you are getting too specific.

Felting:
If you don't felt, feel free to skip over. I don't usually use this yarn for felting as it is a touch more expensive but let's see how it shapes up. For felting I use a pet brush and just shred the yarn back to fiber. (because I am cheap and fiber on it's own is way over priced. And because attacking yarn with a cat brush is very therapeutic).
So I went to my desk and pulled up some scraps I have laying around in Hot Pink, Daffodil, and Iced Aqua. It brushes out ok, the fibers want to stay together and it's a bit streaky. I might do better if I carded it with another brush, but there are other yarns that brush out much cleaner so the time would not be worth it.

camera does not like taking pictures of fuzzy things!

As for felting...ugh. It's light and fluffy nature make it pretty bad. I had to use a lot of fiber for it to not push halfway through the project underneath. I gave up on trying to make any kind of shape after the blue because straight edges are hard to make when you try and get precise it pushes to far into the project again or you will have to use a ton of fiber and get a very stiff and tight project.

For felting, stick to stiffer yarns.

Price:
The big decider for a lot of us. I really want to use the softer yarns for my work, but is the price worth it? Well let us see how Red Heart: With Love checks out financially.
A mean average of online and retail prices (not including sales or shipping) comes out to around $4.88 for the larger skein which is 7 oz./198g and 370 yrds/338 meters.
which comes out to $0.69 an ounce or $0.013 per yard
These number will mean more once we have more to compare them to in the following months. But in comparison to the red heart super saver at around $3.00 a skein at only 6 yards less (which is weirdly arbitrary) There are definitely cheaper yarns out there. I will be referencing back to this review when I look at similar sizes in the future and hopefully you can make a better decision for your self then.
For now I find the price to be worth it, especially if I can find it on sale, but it is on the high end of my budget. If they continue switching to their smaller skeins and the prices does not scale I might be looking for an alternative.

So if you liked what I've had to say and want to give it a try, in my area at least, you can find it at:
Joanns and Walmart. Sadly Michaels, Craft Warehouse and even Fred Meyers do not carry it. As I prefer not to support Walmart Joanns or online are my preference.
Amazon has it for a decent price though it has to be added on to your order.
The Knitting Warehouse has it at a below average price though I am not familiar with them enough to fully endorse the site.
and of course you can buy it on Red Heart's website but it is overpriced
I'm sure you know of other great places to find it, please feel free to share in the comments.

I want to end off showing you some of the projects I have worked on with this yarn. I have been moving towards using it more and not been dissapointed. My only issue has been the shade difference between super savers aqua and With Love's iced aqua that meant I had to use the cheeper yarn on my glaceon plushie (the blue one).

Iced Aqua, Peacock, and Super Saver Aqua

Plum Jam

Bubblegum, Daffodile, Hot Pink, and Violeta

Hot Pink and Black

So I hope you liked the first review. Please let me know in the comments what you think about the yarn, this review, a yarn you would like to see reviewed in the future, or anything else you want to say and join me next time for Project Update Thursday or on Monday for something less self indulgent.

New Segment Starting

I said I was going to talk about techniques this week, but I'm thinking that is not a great idea. I would just end up linking to other peoples better guides again and well, I did that last week. Instead I want to try something new. I have been playing around with a lot of different yarns over the last couple of years and I have a lot to say about them. I'm always trying to find the best standard so why not share that with all of you! So this week I wan to start a semi-regular segment, yarn reviews.

Here is how this is going to work. I will pick a different yarn every week, trying to focus on different companys and different lines they produce. I will mostly be doing acrylic and cotton because that is what I work in and have the most interest in. I will be judging yarns on the following catagories:
Yarn Weight: how does it measure up against other yarns said to be the same size
Texture: pretty obvious, is it soft, scratchy, smooth etc.
Price: is the quality worth the price
Consistency: are different dye lots and colors consistent in weight and thickness
Variety: how much color variety does the yarn come in and if it comes striped how do the striped come out.
Overall how nice it is to work with
Felting: how it works to bush out and be used for felting
and give you a nice list of where you can find it (this will sadly be regional as I only know about stores that are in my area)

Yarns I will not be looking at, unless I get really bored
any type of Sashay and other "yarns" that are just quick make up projects
Fun fur, yarn with sequins or beads etc.
Independent hand spun/dyed yarns unless the creator personally asks me to
Non-synthetic fibers (I am sensitive to some natural fibers and don't want to risk it)
Yarns smaller than sock weight

If you have any yarns you would like to see me review let me know and I would be happy to give them a look (finances permitting). The first review will be up tomorrow in a very special Tuesday post. Let me know today what yarn you would like to see me start with! (either in a comment or if you find my blog through a facebook post you can comment there) So here are the yarns I can do for tomorrow.

Red Heart: Super Saver
Red Heart: With Love
Knit Picks: Brava Worsted
Bernat: Softee Chunky
Lion Brand: Hometown USA

So let me know and I will see you tomorrow!

Projects Update 9/19

I feel like I have gotten so little done lately. I don't have another event until November so I'm focusing on some bigger pieces that just don't give the same satisfaction as a bunch of little ones. On the other hand I am learning so much from these more complicated projects, I'm sure the little ones will go much quicker in the future.

I'm also taking a short day today so I can celebrate my one year anniversary with my wonderful husband so not a lot to say today, let's get straight to the pretty pictures.

I was finally able to get my Vaporeon I had been working on to the friend of mine last night and he was so excited he want and grabbed the Unbreon I made him earlier this summer out of his car. (for those who don't follow pokemon and haven't seen my earlier posts about them, I am so sorry!) The Umbreon was one of the first I made with this pattern and before I started felting. Needless to say I brought him home to do some fixes out of sheer embaresment, and I am not working on a smaller matching Glaceon (pictures of the big one at the end) for him.

Just the head finished so far and you can see the deference between the glued and new felted pieces on the black Umbreon.


Then I'm still working with the big yarns. Finished up the Rainbow Dash and added a Fluttershy. I really love how the wings come out in the bigger yarns. The tails and main are a real pain with the bigger patterns. Due to costs and most chunky yarns unraveling themselves I am still using smaller yarns which makes it take twice as long. But I do like the look, except Rainbow's tail which just looks too busy. Something to work on in the future.

With the bigger bodies I'm starting to try my hand at felting their cutie marks and I am absolutely loving the results. I never got them looking anywhere near as good with the cut out felt and glue on method. They also g surprisingly fast once I know what I'm doing. Probably the slowest part is brushing out the yarn for felting. (I promise I will talk more about felting in the future. I just feel like I am too new at it right now.)

And of course more on my big project. Princess Cadence is coming along. I just have to finish the wings and fins another pattern for a crown (I absolutely love the pattern but the crown pattern is the one thing I dislike) The sewing is not as bad as I had feared but is still taking forevr and something I don't think  I will ever enjoy.

Finally I want to show you possibly my favorite thing I have ever made. I'm not generally a huge pokemon fan, I have mostly been making them because they are cute and popular and sell well. Of all of them I have always liked the Eevees and their evolutions because they look like cute colorful little foxes. I was not aware of how many there were until I made the first one and people convinced me to make the whole set. I think I am now in love, if not with the character than at least with this plushie. I used a couple of different patterns and ended up just making my own for the face pieces (feel free to ask if you want the patterns, I have them written down) and between the felted eyes and the antennae I may never be able to sell this one.

The shadows make the felting a bit hard to see (light in my bedroom/office is terrible) so hopefully I will get better pictures later.
Late is now, better pic of face without shadows.

Thank you as always for taking a look. Have a great weekend and I will see you next time!

Great Crochet Resources

I wanted to talk today about some of the more technical aspects of crochet. I have not being doing this very long (only about a year and a half and seriously since Christmas) and I could not have gotten to where I am without some of the amazing resources I have found.

I am mostly self taught so I have learned a lot just by finding a pattern I like and giving it a try. When I find something I am unfamiliar with I look it up and pick up a new skill. This has usually worked out pretty well for me, but there are definitely some basics I have missed because a lot of patterns just assume you know basic things like eye placement on plushies and how to attach one piece to another most effectively

When looking for basics I really like
Crochet 911
Meledora's Creations
Or just try google
I also have a great little booklet (that of course I cannot find right now) that I picked at joann's that just has all the basic stitches with brief descriptions and pictures that was incredibly helpful for me starting out.

For the more advanced I really love
Planet June
I recently picked up one of her books, The Idiots Guide to Amigurumi that I really wish I had back when I started. I learned so much about basic shapes, stuffing etc. That I had just missed before. (this post is in no way sponsored, I just really think her book is a great resource)
Or I ask questions and follow a lot of links in the wonderful crochet groups I am a part of on facebook
Crochet for the Masses 
Crochet
Oregon Crochet (for those in my area, it's a much smaller one but nice for meeting the local crafters)

That's all I have for now. Please feel free to share your favorite resources, I know I love to learn new things and better my craft. Next week I want to talk to you about some of the techniques I cannot live without or just find really neat. And there will be the usual Works in Progress post on Friday.

Thanks for reading and I hope you can put one of these resources to good use!

Projects Post 9/12

So sorry about no post last week. The friend I work events with came home on Monday from Seadogs and asked me if I wanted to work another event on Thursday. I am crazy enough to say yes to something like that so I spent the week working my fingers off to get all my half finished projects done to go to the event.

So due to that I haven't had a lot of time to work on new projects. I had a  couple of commisions over the weekend that I sadly did not get pictures of. Another vendor had me make up a cthulhu pony in black and purple with curly hair that was really cute and put cat ears on a cthulhu.

Other than that, I came home to a Joann's order of bulky weight yarns. I think I mentioned before that that I've been on a giant plushie kick. So I finished my three giant octopus mascots. I'm thinking of making a mash-up of all three, a poke-ball with kitty ears and a top hat. These guys are using Bernat's Softee Chunky. I do like that it's a larger yarn that doesn't try to fray constantly.

Still working on Princess Cadence, her hair has been taking forever but I'm still having a lot of fun with her. The pattern is really fantastic and I have been learning so much working on it. As expensive as they are, Nerdy Knitter patterns are really worth every penny. Now if only there wasn't so much sewing to do.

Also in giant yarn I'm making a rainbow dash. The chunky yarn makes up so quickly and I still think they look pretty cute. Using Lion Brand's Hometown USA for these guys and it is unbelievably soft and nice to work with, but it does want to fray a lot. I have to keep my ends tied all the timeor it becomes four strands of light worsted yarn.

Working on more pokemon, I'm giving the big ones a chance again and trying to finish a set of the smaller ones, see if one does better or I should just keep making both. still haven't finished jolteon, not sure why it's just sewing and making accessories at this point.

I finished Groot, now that he is finished I realize the work wasn't that bad, I just need to get more appropriate yarn in the future. Everyone wants me to make him able to dance, but I think that's above the technical level I want to deal with right now.

That's about it for now, I hope to be back on schedule next week as we don't have another event until November. Hope you are all having a wonderful National Crochet Day. Go celebrate and make yourself something pretty.