Ms Pac-Man Halloween

Posted October 19, 2017

Filed under Crochet

At my office, we have a Halloween pot luck every year. I also have a coworker that I compete with for prizes. She is very talented and creative, and I always use her as the bar that I have to reach. Last Halloween I went with a Ms Pac-Man theme.

The idea came to me at work one day. While walking around the cubicle pods and the hallways it made me think of a Pac-Man board. So I started plotting out a Pac-Man board around the office in my mind.

I bought my Ms Pac-Man costume online, but I made many of the props. I started with creating poster board Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man and Ghosts to hang up around the office. For the cherries, I bought two extra large round balloons and green balloon sticks that I taped together. I also made some Pac-Man and ghost chocolate pops. For the Pac-Man board around the office I bought a roll of heavy black paper and rolled it around the office. I also used yellow poster board and construction paper to make the dots and power pellets.

I found this free Ms Pacman pattern to make a small crochet Ms Pacman. I also found this other free ghost pattern. One modification I made was to hot glue googly eyes on the ghosts instead of making the eyes out of felt. I also created my own crochet Pacman board. For my board I didn’t really plan it out I did a simple single crochet square. Then I sewed on the Pac-Man board pattern. For the dots and power pellets I bought some jewels and glued them on.

Crochet Ms Pac-Man Board

In the end, I won 1st Place for best costume! Afterwards I immediately started planning for this year’s Halloween pot luck.

Ghost Lamp and desk decorations

My Desk

Ms Pac-Man and Pac-Man Garland

Ms Pac-Man Board

Dots and Power Pellet

Pinky

The ghosts

Pretzel

Cherries

Blinky

Ms Pac-Man and the ghosts

Pac-Man and Ghost chocolate pops

Me as Ms Pac-Man

1st Place!

Star Wars Bounty Hunters

My husband is a Star Wars fan and loves the bounty hunters. I decided to start making some additional crochet characters for him, in the same style as Lucy Collins. I used her patterns to model my characters and changed up the color schemes.

I started with Bossk. I found pictures of him online and of his action figure. I used one of the regular sized characters from Star Wars crochet as my model, probably Han Solo. For his head ridges, I added picots along his head. I originally did his teeth in V shapes, but didn’t like them, so I replaced the teeth with just small stitches. I thought it made his teeth look more jagged and razor sharp. Overall I think he came out pretty good. Bossk was a Valentine’s Day gift for my husband.

Bossk’s Original Head with teeth

Bossk In Progress

Completed Bossk

Next up I tried Dengar. Again, I searched for pictures online to use to model him off of. For his head wrap, I started with a hood and made a hat. Then I made a long tail coming off the end of the hood, that I wrapped around his head. He’s pretty cute. He was a birthday present for my husband.

Dengar

My latest bounty hunter was IG-88. For IG-88, I used C3P0’s pattern as a template to work from. He has really thin arms and legs, so I tried to reduce his leg and arm width and extend them, since he is tall. I also extended his head to a point. When I finished he turned out to be almost twice as tall as Boba Fett. Oops. Oh well, I still like the way he turned out. He was a Christmas present for my husband.

IG-88

IG-88 Towers over Boba Fett

So I have three more to make for him: 4-LOM, Zuckuss, and Boba Fett. I already made Boba Fett from the Star Wars Crochet kit, but he’s mine. I’ll have to make a new one for my husband. I think I may try 4-LOM next. Need to figure out how I will make his bug eyes.

Edward’s Menagerie

Posted October 13, 2017

Filed under Crochet, Uncategorized

Once I started to get into amigurumi, I kept trying more patterns. I found Edward’s Menagerie book on Amazon. This book comes with over 40 patterns, with increasing difficult starting with easy patterns (Level 1 through Level 3). The book also provides various sizes for the patterns, so you can make small to large stuffed animals, depending on the yarn weight you use.

Edward's Menagerie

I’ve tried three of the patterns so far, Emma the Bunny, Bridget the Elephant, and Alexandre the Russian Blue Cat. I tend to like to try the recommended yarns provided in the pattern, so this time I purchased Toft yarn from Love Crochet online for two of the patterns.

One thing to note on both this book and the Star Wars Crochet kit, is that there is a difference with English crochet. The stitches and crochet hooks are named different. I’ve learned now to check to see if a new pattern is an American pattern or an English pattern.

Emma the Bunny

Alexandre the Russian Blue Cat

Bridget the Elephant

My Crochet Doll

Posted October 12, 2017

Filed under Crochet

Soon after finishing the Star Wars Crochet, I was eager to continue with amigurumi. I found this book of cute dolls on Amazon, called My Crochet Doll by Isabelle Kessdjian. I figured it would be adorable for my niece’s one year birthday.

My Crochet Doll

She used Bergere de France yarn, which is not something that can be found at the local craft store. So, I ended up just going to the local craft store and buying some yarn in similar colors. I have since ordered yarn from them and they sent me a yarn catalog with little yarn samples. Love it!

I think the one thing I learned on this doll, was that when adding doll hair, you need to do it sparse. When I first did her hair I had way too much yarn for hair. I had to go through and pull out half of it. Even then, I think her hair is a bit thick, but over all I am really proud f this doll. I think she’s the best thing I’ve ever made. I have purchased yarn to make one of the other dolls since then. But I haven’t gotten around to making yet. The next doll I make from this book will be the little Eskimo girl. These dolls are too cute!

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Star Wars Crochet

For years, the only crochet I ever really did was baby blankets. Every time someone had a baby, I would make an afghan. So, about two years ago I was standing in line at the craft store, buying yarn for another baby blanket and there it was, on the shelf with all the pattern books and magazines…Star Wars Crochet! I had to run out of line to grab it. I just knew that once I was done with my next baby blanket, I was going to make Yoda!

The kit comes with the materials to create the Yoda and a Storm Trooper. I started with Yoda, of course. And I made a lot of mistakes, also of course.

My Yoda mistakes:

I was crocheting in back of rows only. This is a sloppy habit I picked up when I was young. Now that I’m back to doing it regularly I’ve corrected this bad habit, but in Yoda it’s pretty noticeable.
I completely messed up the feet and forgot to do the bobble stitches.
I corrected my back of rows folly when I made Yoda’s robe, which made his robe look like it shrank in the wash.

Well, every mistake is a learning experience and I didn’t let my Yoda mistakes stop me. I continued on with the entire book.

Lucy Collins’ instructions are actually very easy to follow. I like the fact that she includes illustrations for the patterns. The set came with 12 patterns and I completed all 12. And one day I will go back and make a new Yoda, that has feet and a robe that fits. And I will also make a ton of Storm Troopers and Ewoks, so I can create battle scenes.

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