In Your Face, TorKnocker

Today my buddy Tork told me that I should take up needlepoint. As if I don't already have a craft that I can use to construct completely sweet things he can't even figure out. Yeah, needlepoint is cool, but I can only concentrate on so much at once.

Besides, crochet allows me to make awesome things.

Recently I created the Awesomest Thing I Ever Made. It has even unseated the previous Awesomest Thing I Ever Made, which you haven't seen since I never got around to taking pictures of it.

I got a couple of pictures of the new thing, though.

This, in case you can't tell, is a cat tunnel. I bought five 11 (or so) inch brass rings and crocheted around them to construct this thing for my cats to run though.

This wasn't my idea, by the way. I got it from pictures of one that somebody else posted. The "pattern" I used* recommended 9" rings, but my cats are fatasses and I didn't really see how they'd be comfortable in a tunnel that small. I think the size rings I got came out just about right.

*I looked at a pattern, but you don't really need one for this. If you have any experience with crochet you can do it. There are 14 rows between each ring, alternating half double crochet and double crochet. That's about as much pattern as you need, and that much structure isn't even necessary.

So I made this thing over the course of many weeks and finally set it out for the cats fully expecting them to ignore it forever.

Two of them did.

But sweet dumb Felix decided to make it his second home.


Sorry about the censor bar. My blog is cursed. Pets whose pictures I post tend to disappear forever. I like having Felix around, he appreciates my art, so I had to take steps.

I'm really happy with how this came out. It used up a lot of scrap yarn that I had lying around (much of this yarn was remainders of previous projects featured on this blog) and got to make a cool place for Felix to hide from my dog. It's really awesome and I'd recommend this project to any cat owner who crochets.

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I love to make 'em Shrink!

And now for a blog entry that has absolutely nothing to do with crochet! Instead we'll be talking about something else that is very near and dear to my heart. Shrinky Dinks.

I miss the hell out of Shrinky Dinks. Back in the 80's they were big and they were so much fun. A simple Google search will fill you with hope that it may be possible to find Shrinky Dinks now, should you dare to look. BS. They're gone and they're not coming back. (They're not coming to my town, anyway.) The world mourns.

Except that I was recently at a local pet expo and I saw these:


And the world rejoiced.

Yes, these are Shrinky Dink pet tags. Awesome. Open up the package, and this is what you get:


As you can see, they already colored in most of the tag for you, so it's not exactly like the old Shrinky Dink experience. With the old Shrinky Dinks you'd color the thing in yourself, and since you were probably a little kid like I was the coloring job may not have been fantastic. Nevertheless, through the magic of shrinkage the coloring would look really awesome when the whole process was said and done.

I wouldn't get that exact experience, but it would be something close. Instead I had to try and write information for my pets on the three tags. The dog tag was easiest, as it was also the biggest. I was able to squeeze my whole address on there. The cat tags were tiny and it was impossible to get any information other than the cat's names and my phone number on there.



While you're struggling to write tiny writing with a Sharpie pen, you're supposed to be preheating these cardboard squares. Something gross fell in the bottom of the oven recently so this Shrinky Dink experience was a smoky one.



The tags are ready to go in. I hope you're not incredibly offended that I blurred out my personal info. Stalker.

I tried to take pics of the tags in the process of shrinkage, but the door to the oven is just dirty enough that you can't see much. Oh well. Here they are coming out of the oven:



If any of your tags are curly, you're supposed to flatten them out with a spatula. So I did.

You can't see it because of my Paint Shop skills, but my writing totally shrunk up tiny. Still readable, though, except for Oscars where it was really hard to fit my phone number in there.



This was the hard part. Well, this and the writing of the address. You can just barely see it, but this is the part where I put a clear plastic sticker over the top, I guess to keep the address from scratching off. There's not a lot of room to work with, so I was scared I'd get it all crooked.

The sticker for Mindy's tag was too small to cover the whole address. Cheap bastards!


Here's the finished product, which will show up on your screen about the same size as they are in real life. Now I just need to get some pliers so I can affix the hardware.

This didn't quite fill my cravings for a real Shrinky Dink experience, but beggars can't be choosers. It was still fun.

Mindy, the dog, is turning 4 today, so happy birthday to her. Yay!

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A gift for the furballs

Today I bring you a pet blanket:

I initially made this for my dog, but for some reason or other it ended up on the couch under my cats instead. They seem to like it.

My main reason for making it wasn't any great desire to give my pets something to lie on. I had just bought a whole bunch of yarn for an afghan project and then decided almost instantly that I hated said yarn and would hate to crochet a whole afghan out of it. It was my desire to use up the yarn that inspired me to make this.

Here's an extreme closeup:



Don't mind the occasional hair that's visible in the pic. I didn't clean the blanket before snapping the pics. This is actually the clean side.

I used no pattern to make this. I just made a chain until I liked the length, and then crocheted on it until I liked the width. I wasn't sure which stitch I wanted to use, so I used all three. I just did a row of single crochet, a row of half double crochet, and a row of double crochet and then repeated. I like the effect.

Because I was making this thing in an effort to use up yarn I hated I decided to crochet with two strands of yarn in order to maximize the yarn usage. It worked pretty well and I ended up with a nice, thick, cushy blanket, in spite of the scratchiness of the original yarn.



The edging is some reddish fun fur that I had lying around that actually amazingly matches the yarn. I like it. Though the yarn the actual blanket is made from is washable, the edging is not. Guess how I found this out?

Yep. When I did finally get around to washing the blanket the edging felted together. I really don't care. It still looks ok (though much different), and even if it didn't it's just a blanket for my cats to shed on anyway. No harm done.

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Ok! I know! I'm a slacker!

It's been a while since I posted. I know that. There's a good reason, actually. Only a week after I posted that picture of Pickles on the blog he flew away.

I wasn't there when it happened, and how it happened is something I won't go into right now. But suffice it to say that I felt a bit awkward about coming back in here after I'd just finished talking about the bird. Thinking about it made me feel sad and still does.

But anyway, that's depressing and I don't want to depress you. This blog is supposed to be about crochet, not lost pets. I'm working on a new post which I will put up soon. It will actually be about stuff I've crocheted.

So more cheerful, I'm hoping.

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Let's get down to business!

Wow. This must be what, my third "starting" post in a row in this blog so far? I'm doing this for reals this time, though.


I thought I'd start by showing you some of my early work. Behold, my very first swatch, which I still have because I'm an overly sentimental sop and I don't throw things away like I should:



I like to think it looks a little bit like a crochet map of California. Of course, it's supposed to be perfectly rectangular, but you can't have everything.

You can see how at the top (technically the bottom, but I don't display it that way) I made my foundation chain way too tight and then the whole thing bunched up when I started doing the actual crocheting in the following rows. I don't remember what it was like to make this thing, but I must have had to fight like hell to get my hook through the loops of that chain.



This is my parakeet, Pickles (aka The Buzzard, aka You Green Little Snot, aka You Noisy Bastard, aka Crapfactory, aka Little Terrorist, aka @!!!**!), cheekily refusing to pose with my swatch. When I don't want him near my crochet I can't get him out of it.

He makes it very difficult to get any work done because he likes to be with me, but he also likes to try to eat anything I happen to have in my hands, be it a crochet hook, a pen, or a (computer) mouse.

My very first "real" project was a blanket. Personally, I do not recommend making a blanket your first real crochet project. It's so big! It's probably better to go with something smaller, but still rectangular, like a scarf. That's what most people start with. But no. I did a blanket.

Not even a blanket made up of a bunch of little squares sewn together either. A great big blanket all in one pattern.

I started with a test swatch to make sure I had the stitch down:



Here's the actual blanket, all freaking 100 rows of it:


This thing took over two years to make. I couldn't tell you exactly how long. Part of it is that a blanket of that size is unpleasant to work on during the Summer, especially around here where it gets into the hundred-teens and we don't use our air conditioner much because of the power bills.

Factor in that I had to put it up when we got a puppy until she was old enough to know better than to try to eat the thing while I was working on it, and then do the same when we got kittens, and that adds on a big chunk of time.

Also, I have a terrible tendency to absolutely hate any craft project by the time I get to the end of it. Usually I end up giving it up. Crafts that are dead to me now because of this tendency of mine include (but are not limited to) sewing, embroidery, and latch hook. I just take so long to finish that I either hate it or lose interest before I get done. I have no idea how my interest in crochet managed to survive the thing that killed so many other crafts for me, but it did.

Now that it's all done, we keep it draped over the top of the couch when it's not in use. This is a good place for the cats to lie on it and dig at it with their claws. A nice way to treat your first project that you spent over two years on, no?

I'll close with a close up so you can see the stitches:


Not hugely complicated for a beginner. This stitch might make a nice scarf. It's all double crochet, which is nice. 2 dc, skip 2, 5 dc in 1 stitch, skip 2, repeat.

I did all the work on this blanket through the back loop, mainly because I was too inexperienced to know I was supposed to be going through both until I was pretty much committed to what I had been doing. I think the effect was nice, though.

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