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When Yarn Turns Against You – A Timothy Doll Update
Not all yarns are good…
Perhaps it’s just an issue with certain dye lot numbers, or perhaps just certain colors are the problem, but I have a little story to tell you about what happened when I used the Lily Sugar ‘n Cream brand of cotton yarn in the color black.
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Even More Videos on Ink & Stitches YouTube!
Four New Videos Now Live on my Ink & Stitches YouTube Channel!
I finished up editing and posting the last four videos I had filmed to my YouTube Channel. They are ready to help you learn new techniques and stitches that can be used when making your own amigurumi patterns, or if you are working through ones you found online that include these techniques: picot stitch, changing colors in the round (with jogging vs. jogless), crocheting in front loops only (FLO), and crocheting in back loops only (BLO).
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New Ink & Stitches How to Crochet Amigurumi Videos!
I’ve been hard at work since finishing up the illustrations for the Corgi book series (book #1). Since illustrating had taken up all of my free time for the past few months, I thought it time to get back to my Ink & Stitches YouTube Channel and get some new videos up for the amigurumi crochet enthusiasts out there!
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Making Amigurumi Patterns (Part Two)
How to Crochet Amigurumi from the Ground Up
I’ve been creating my own amigurumi patterns for almost seven years now, ever since I realized that amigurumi are made by knowing how to make shapes. Using decreases and increases to your advantage there is almost nothing that can’t be converted into a crocheted character. Deciding when special embroidery stitching would add some nice flare, finishes off each piece making it look professional and as true to life as possible.
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Making Mistakes – Crocheting Amigurumi
One of the excellent blog post ideas I received during my giveaway for April’s A to Z Challenge, was a question as to whether or not seasoned crocheters still make mistakes like we did when we were beginners. The answer to this is, yes… or at least, I do anyway. I can’t speak for all crocheters, but especially when I am creating new patterns, I make mistakes often.
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New Video: How to Assemble the Happy Sunflower Amigurumi
It’s been a couple of months since I’ve posted, so I thought I’d jump back in and share a new video I just put up on my Ink & Stitches YouTube Channel on: How to Assemble the Happy Sunflower Amigurumi.
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Happy Father’s Day from Ink & Stitches!
Today is the day we celebrate all of those amazing dads out there. Happy Father’s Day to each and every one of you!
We spent the afternoon over at my parent’s house at which point I finally got to give my dad his finished underwater illustration (see the progress from start to finish video here) that was over a year in the making (I really need to stop getting side-tracked). Let’s just say, he loved it!
He raised his arm into the air, acting like the fiddler crabs I had in the drawing, doing arm raises with their one big claw.
He pointed out the clown fish hiding in the corner. My mom said, “Hey, where’s Dory?” to which he explained that we didn’t want it to look like a Finding Dory picture, but assured her that I could put one of those in the next one I made for him. I promised I would make one more that would go with this one and the sea nymph illustration I had made my mom for a past Mother’s Day.
We talked about the third drawing I would make to complete the set. We thought to include perhaps an octopus (a tribute to my Ink & Stitches logo of course), a lionfish (my dad’s favorite fish), a Dory fish (Blue Tang for my mom), and a scuba diver since he used to scuba dive with my mom way back when. I have my work cut out for me!
My husband had a blast today. I let him sleep in til nearly noon, he got a nice gift card to Amazon, a lego set (Yes my husband still likes building lego sets. It was Star Wars, come on!), and our son was an angel for the better part of the day. Don’t get me started on how he was for Mother’s Day. Let’s just say, I’m glad he was in better spirits for my husband today. We went on a walk the three of us, and then went out to a nice dinner with my parents. All-in-all it was an amazing Father’s Day!
How did you spend the day with the dads in your life? I hope whatever you did, you had a blast and the dads had the best time of all!
If you haven’t gotten a chance to enter, my GIVEAWAY is still going on until the end of June! Enter in to win an amigurumi Floppy Cat (see Rafflecopter below), handmade by me.
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What I am Working On : Decrease and Invisible Decrease Videos
I thought it high time to post a couple more How to Crochet Amigurumi videos on my
Ink & Stitches YouTube Channel
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What I am Working On : Dad’s Illustration and Happy Sunflower
Updated: 5/27/2016 – Scroll to the end of this post for the update!
This week, I have been gearing up for my first giveaway: a crocheted Happy Sunflower (see this post to be entered to win)! Since the giveaway goes from now until 3/14/16, I am working on getting the sunflower made up and ready to ship. To the right is a progress pic thus far. As you can see, I’ve made the stem, back of the head and almost one whole leaf! I know it doesn’t look like much, but just you wait until next week’s progress pic!
The other thing I’ve been starting to work on again, is an illustration I drew for my dad for Father’s Day last year. Life got in the way, and I never ended up coloring the picture. So, seeing as Father’s Day 2016 is coming up in a few months, I thought it high time I get out my Prismacolor pencils and get to work!
So far, I’ve colored in some of the seaweed. Not a whole lot of progress, but if you knew how I work to get the colors as vibrant and solid as they are (so the paper doesn’t show through), you would understand! Don’t worry, there will be another post to come, outlining my process for using Prismacolor pencils.
If you have any questions about what I’m working on this week, I’d be happy to answer them. Just leave a comment in the section for comments below!
Update: 3/6/16
Okay, let’s talk about this past week. I got to spend some more time working on my dad’s illustration for Father’s Day. It’s still slow-going, but I’m very pleased with how it’s turning out:
I got to listen to some of my favorite book series by Deborah Harkness (find her @DebHarkness or visit her website), The All Souls Trilogy. I’m currently listening to Book 2: Shadow of Night, while I work on coloring:
Aside from that and working on 26 blog posts for the April A to Z Challenge, I’m continuing to make progress on my giveaway prize (see my March Giveaway Post to win the Happy Sunflower: entries accepted through 3/14/16). As you can see, almost all of the pieces are made, aside from a few more petals. Then it’s time to assemble!
Good luck if you decide to enter to win the Happy Sunflower! Don’t forget, questions and comments are always welcome! See you next week for more of my segment: What I am Working On.
