Crafts Projects

Crafts Projects
Christopher Thomas

Plushies

One of my hobbies is sewing. One of the things I like to do with this hobby is make stuffed animals ("plushies"). Some of these are made as gifts, while others are made as a lark, or as a prank, or because the design in question presented an interesting challenge. Some of the plushies I've made are described below.

Pip

"Pip", short for "Pipclideous Dominiscus", is a character in the webcomic "Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures". As described in his biography, he's a small yellow dragonish critter. He is the pet of the female lead in the comic, and a constant thorn in the side of the male lead. Hilarity ensues whenever they interact.

Pip was too cute _not_ to make a plushie of, so when vacation time rolled around, I did exactly that. Pictures are below.

(A thank-you goes out to my mother for taking pictures and for holding Pip while I took pictures.)

Knitting

One of my hobbies is knitting. I've learned how to knit and forgotten about four times in the distant past, and recently I've taken it up again (mostly during long subway trips). Projects to date are described below.

Doctor Who Scarf
Touques
Shawls

Doctor Who Scarf

I've been a fan of Doctor Who for some time. The Fourth Doctor, protagonist of the first episodes I'd watched, is well known for having a ridiculously long scarf. After finding a web site dedicated to the scarf, I decided that knitting the 12th season version would be a fun project (more readable pattern here).

Those of you who've knitted before are probably snickering now, as this scarf is 60 stitches wide by about 1200 rows. Estimated knitting time at my current rate is about 80 hours (I was a bit slower when I started). I worked on it off and on for 10-11 months. I estimate it would have taken at least 2 months solid of subway-time if I'd done it in one stretch.

I'm not making one of these again any time soon, but it was an interesting experience.

Here are pictures of the scarf. It was given to my PhD supervisor, Richard Hornsey, as he's British and in about the right age bracket to appreciate it ("old enough to know about it and young enough to wear it stylishly" is how I should put it if I want to graduate):


Scarf at Shireen's Home	Scarf at Shireen's Party	Me, With Scarf	Richard, With Scarf

Balls of yarn needed: 1 yellow, 2 tan, 1 brown, 1.5 grey, 1.5 red, 1.5 green, 1 purple. I used 100g balls of worsted-weight "Starlette" acrylic, and 5mm needles.

Touques

After the scarf project wound down, I started looking for smaller projects that would a) be finished in a reasonable timeframe and b) let me work with coloured patterns. Scarves are ok for timeframe, but the colour method I'm using (Fair Isle) is one-sided (a scarf would look good only if carefully arranged). On the other hand, a touque only shows one side of the knitting, is small, and is stylish enough here (Canada) that my knitting stands a chance of being worn.

The pattern I use for most touques is here.
The pattern I used for Marc's touque is here.

View the Touques Page





	Forthcoming.

		Forthcoming.	Forthcoming.
	Forthcoming.

Shawls

While at a particular knitting store, I noticed a very nice-looking shawl (display-pieces are quite common at these places, to sell both yarn and patterns). I bought the pattern, tweaked it a bit, and ended up with shawls earmarked for two people. These take a bit longer to make than hats (a minimum of two weeks of subway time, and maybe longer), but are interesting to make, and good practice for knitting lace.

The pattern I used for Shireen's shawl and Carole's shawl is here. It's a modified variant of a "lace wings" shawl pattern, by Alice Cooley, purchased at Lettuce Knit (which has lots of patterns and a weekly knitting club).

Shireen's Shawl

This was my prototype/test-shawl for projects using the "lace wings" shawl pattern. Discoveries from this were that I really don't like the type of yarn I'd bought, and that I needed a lot more yarn than I thought I would. The quantity change was because I was knitting with heavier-weight yarn, while the pattern probably wanted lace-weight. This version used about 200g of a varying-weight yarn that probably averaged out to worsted-weight, and came out as a very small shawl.


Finished and Displayed	Shireen, With Shawl	Shireen, With Shawl, Making Faces at Tito

Carole's Shawl

A second copy of the "lace wings" shawl was earmarked for Carole as a Christmas present. This was originally going to be scrapped when I found out it'd take a full month to make a shawl the size I'd intended, but Carole expressed interest in a shawl the size of the prototype, so I made a duplicate for Carole.

Carole, With Shawl

Origami

One of my hobbies is origami. I've been doing this for more years than I can remember; most of my life if you count paper airplanes and paper "fortune tellers" and "water bombs" from elementary school. I'm definitely an amateur at this, as I don't use the features of any given base to its fullest, I still don't quite get pleating, and while I can draw circle-river packings, I can't tell how to fold them. Projects to date are described below.

(Project list forthcoming.)

Last updated on 31 May 2009.