More cephalopod goodness.

Hello!

After seeing the squid I made for my friend's baby, one of my mother's co-workers asked me to make a cuttlefish for her son. I was happy to, because cuttlefish are my favourite cephalopod. I saw some dwarf cuttlefish at the Seattle Aquarium when I was there, and have loved them ever since. One of them was swimming and accidentally bumped into one who wasn't paying attention. Both of them were spooked and it was the cutest thing in the universe.

This one's mine.

When B asked me to take photos of it for the blog, this was the first thing that came to mind. I'm not sure why. I ate some particularly horrifying curry seafood udon in Vancouver  BC once. It had, like, quartered baby octopuses and tiny whole clams and stuff in it; I was thoroughly put off of non-fish seafood for life. I know people like that sort of thing, but I kept thinking about the tiny, cute, smart baby octopuses. I guess it's different when they're just strips of meat. Boy, that got dark quick.

On the plus side, the cuttlefish got to have a cup of coffee with Columbus. THEIR MUGS MATCH THEM. I was more pleased about that then I should probably admit. Weird striped cat mug and sea creature mug. Hah! Also, my table looks tremendously orange in this, for some reason. I didn't even manipulate the photo that much. So strange.

<3K.

Free Pattern Friday: Twinkie Chan and "Plinky’s Favorite Cotton Candy Christmas Tree Ornament!"

Hey guys!

This was meant for yesterday, but I totally forgot in my whirlwind of procrastination and studying.

(It's exam week, but my next exam isn't until Monday, which means I'm still in "It's not that close" mode.)

So. A new addition to our blogs features! Free pattern Friday! For this feature, on Fridays K or I will be featuring on cute free crochet patterns we've found randomly (maybe not every Friday. But with today as an exception, only Fridays!)

I actually did one of these a couple of weeks ago, but immediately after I made the blog post, the person whose pattern I posted a link to deleted there blog! Ah! I was super disappointed, because I really liked her. And, while she kept some of her other online media, her blog was the one with all the super cute crochet patterns!

Alas, I guess this happens and we just have to mourn the loss and carry on.

So this week, I wanted to feature a pattern from someone I am *fairly sure* won't be leaving ANY TIME SOON!

TWINKIE CHAN!

In case you don't know who she is (Who doesn't, amirite?), she is a cutie designer from the land of San Francisco. She makes a lot of food themed stuff, which I can definitely get behind! She is amazing at crocheting, and totally inspired me to actually try selling my crocheted thangs. And while I'm no where near as popular as her (nor have I sold very much yet) I still have hope…. Thanks to her!

She recently posted a free pattern for tiny cotton candy Christmas ornaments (here).

They are so darn cute and fluffy!

I am so excited to make some of these when I am done with exams! They can go on my tiny tree with my popcorn garland that I ALSO MADE FROM A PATTERN OF HERS! I bought it from here Etsy store (here

), but I don't see it there right now. (I also made K the carrot scarf from her book for Christmas last year).

I might have to shrink them a little to get them to fit, but it will happen! Oh yes!

We will post photos of our tree soon. I want to make more ornaments for it first!

Have fun crocheting!

B

K's Mundane Monday Post

I'm hopping on board with this Mundane Monday post, with the other feature things still upcoming.

I guess the idea is to write about my day. Today I mostly relaxed, since this past week has been so crazy. There was a craft show at the University I used to attend, so, through some friends, I got a position to work as a staff member there. Monday and Tuesday were spent cleaning the areas where the show was happening and preparing for the artisans to arrive.  They arrived on Wednesday, and we spent much of the day moving all of their stuff in. The show ran from Thursday until Sunday, when we had to undo three days of work (Monday to Wednesday) in one.

Overall, it was really fun. Definitely lots of work, especially moving the artisans in and out. During the show the staff just sort of walk around and make sure everything's going fine, and watch the artisans' booths when they need to take a pee/coffee break or whatever. The artisans were mostly all nice, with a few people I liked less, but that's life. I made a few artisan friends, and got some free stuff from them as a reward for working hard and being great.

Free stuff acquired:
- handmade shave soap
- gourmet cucumber vinegar
- beeswax lip balm
- creamed honey
- a piece of turned wood

Something that happened today: mum sent me this photo of the squid I crocheted a while back. Apparently the kid I made it for likes it a bunch, and her mum likes it as well. That's a great thing to see. I like when my work is appreciated.

Uh, I guess that's it for now.

<3K.

Mundane Monday

Hi bloggy world,

This is a new feature we wanted to try out. Mundane Mondays! It probably won't happen every Monday, or even most Mondays, but it's there whenever we feel like talking about our silly little lives.

I haven't really had much time to crochet anything lately. I'm super busy with uni, and slacked off more than I should have at the beginning of the year (and am now feeling it!). I've actually been posting only summer things recently.

It's a bit overwhelming being this busy!

And I'm currently very frustrated. I'm trying to print out notes to study for a midterm tomorrow, and my printer has decided to be totally confusing and disorderly! Bad printer! I'm so frustrated I want to cry, but alas. I shall just read my notes on my laptop and be sad! 

That's all I really want to say about me. 

I don't really have anything to say for Kevin. He's living his happy little uncommitted life right now, between finishing his undergrad and doing his masters.

Here's a picture of Luna's fuzzy tummy. It's a bit blurry, but it just makes her look fuzzier..... Right?

Maybe if I look at this long enough, I'll suddenly be happier.

Or maybe I should just sleep it off. It's near bedtime anyways!

Look forward to more new blog features, like Free Pattern Fridays, and... something else on Wednesdays that I can't remember the quirky name we came up with for it.

<3B

The Halloween Post

Greetings, fellow humans!

Halloween has come and gone, tragically. I absolutely love Halloween, and have gone out door-to-door for every single year that I've been able. Sure, there were a few years in there where I was "too old," but now I have an excuse! A damn good excuse. Trick Or Eat is a program where people who sign up go door to door on Halloween to collect food for the food bank. The team I was a part of this year had about twenty people, despite the cold and rain pitched usward by that rascally hurricane, Sandy. I wore this kappa kigurumi, and B wore this angry tiger kigurumi, which we ordered from Fab.com sometime last summer. They were very warm and comfortable, which was nice because it was rather cold.

We also carved jack-o-lanterns, made Halloween garland, and baked Halloween sugar cookies!

Below are my Finn and Jake pumpkins. The Jake one rolled off the table and broke when I was carving it, so I held it together with toothpicks. He kind of looks like Pinhead. I was pleased with them overall, though a bit disappointed that I let the Jake one break.

The cute toothy pumpkins were B's idea (B here; I definitely stole this idea from Pinterest). She got small pumpkins from a friend, bought those crappy plastic vampire fangs, and put them in the pumpkin. I think they look awesome. They've got a lot of personality, and  were surprisingly easy to do. They turned out a lot better than my Finn and Jake pumpkins, sadly.

The winky one is one of my favourites.

This is my other favourite. It's saying hello.

I made this crying one. I even carved out little tears under the eyes. Originally the eyes were really uneven in their height, so I just made them bigger. Problem solved.

The bat garland was made from bats cut from craft foam, with black string threaded through it. This project was definitely B's baby, but I think it's really nice. Very minimalistic, festive, and easy to do. Overall, everything I look for in holiday decorations.

Here are the cookies I made! They're my mum's recipe. The white and pink icing turned out a bit runny, but the purple and green icing worked out really well. It gets hard when it sits for a bit, so it's good for this sort of thing. You can see the edge of the cookie and it's all very arty.

Today is also my birthday! B's very busy with school today, so we're going to celebrate when she has more time. I think we're going to make French onion soup. It's going to be delicious. I'm really excited. She gave me my gifts today, though, and they are perfect.

A small elephant-shaped cutting board, a cute bear face bowl, and seeds!

Not just any seeds, friends. Seeds of the Assam bhut jolokia and Congo Black habanero. The bhut jolokia is one of the hottest peppers on the planet, native to the Assam region of Indian. The seeds I have are the wildtype seeds, I believe. I'm looking forward to growing them in the spring! Chili peppers have the reputation of being hard to grow. I guess we'll see.

<3K.

Finished Snail!

Hi everyone!

This snail's been finished for a while, but I haven't put it up yet.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I know that snails' eyes are on their eye stalks, but I thought that would look kind of horrifying if I tried to do that here. I went with a less-accurate but cuter eyes-on-face approach that I think worked well.

EXCITING NEWS! B and I have decided to start posting things other than updates on the things we're making. I have an especially hard time thinking of things to post, and have, in the past, relied on my crafting as the primary reason for my posts. However, I don't think that's super interesting to many people. So, as an effort to mix it up a little and maybe reach an audience, we're going to start doing other things.

Look for not-exclusively-related-to-our-crochet-adventures posts in the future.

<3 K.

Mr. Bear

Oh, why hello there, little bear. I like your coveralls!

I made little Mr. Bear a while ago, but never got around to posting about him… (made him around the same time as Ocha the rabbit and Mr. Pepp, actually)

He's embarrassed about his little legs, so he hides them under his coveralls! Poor Mr. Bear!

Mr. Bear loves his little red buttons. (Just don't tell him they aren't real buttons!)

Oh no! He's naked!

I also gave my green tea bunny a name. Ocha! (It's a bit obvious, huh?)

Ocha is a sweet little bunny. Her favourite drink is green tea, and she loves drinking it with sweets on the side. She isn't interested in much more than sitting back and relaxing.

Mr. Bear and Ocha will be hitting our shop soon.

Until next time,

<3 B