Katy's Otter & Clam Hat/Scarf Set (...and a few Otter surprises!)

 

Once again, I have been gone far too long. The amount of finished pieces ready to be blogged about has piled up, and where have I been? Well, mostly just busy. I finished (and WON) NaNoWriMo in November. You may recall my previous post, where I was slowly working my way towards a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I was triumphant, and it was a fantastic experience. Now, if only I had the time to edit that large chunk of text. December was spent making an outrageous attempt to balance finishing my own Christmas gifts and shopping with the insane amount of sales in my Etsy shop. It was rather unexpected, really. I listed the beard hat on a whim after making one for a woman in the NaNoWriMo group who wanted one for her son for Christmas. Instantly, the sales took off, and eventually after a week and a half, I had to cut off the listing. I sold so many that I couldn't keep up! Craziness! But a very welcome challenge that helped fund my own Christmas shopping. The listing is now back up and has a steadier flow of orders which I greatly enjoy.

In between all that, I was finally able to give my niece, Katy, her birthday presents. Her favorite animal is the otter, and she had wanted me to make her an otter for her gift. I decided to do a little more than that, and themed every gift around the cute critter. I set to work with my crochet hook and LOTS of brown yarn, and eventually the hat and scarf set was finished.

 

I love the way the hat turned out, even though it is a little bear-like and the nose is somewhat crooked. Everyone makes mistakes ;). The clam was what really took forever, since amigurumi has to be worked with such a tiny hook. A lot of hours and cramped hands went into that silly clam.

 

The clam is velcroed on bottom and can be switched from one felt-clawed paw to the other. The paws are actually pockets that she puts her hands in, as you can see in the picture at the very top.

 

 

This embroidered otter water bottle holder was purchased from heartmadeforyou on Etsy, who embroidered Kathryn's name on a premade bottle holder. It's so adorable, and Katy loved it!

 

 

Katy just turned seven, and she has already finished reading the first Harry Potter book, a fact which makes me a super proud auntie. She's seen all the movies as well, so I knew when I spotted this Harry Otter shirt, it would make for a great (and hilarious) gift. Problem was, there was only one shirt available, and it was much too small. Luckily, not long ago, I had to revamp a Spongebob shirt for my friend Sarah, and knew the corset ribbon style would be an easy fix for adjusting the size.

 

 

Gryffindor colors, for my little Hermione, of course. Eventually, I will have to get pictures of her wearing it, but overall she was thrilled with all her otter surprises.

 

NaNoWriMo & Crochet Fingerless Gloves

November is upon us, and I've decided to undertake one of the most daunting tasks I've ever agreed to - NaNoWriMo. This of course stands for National Novel Writing Month, in which you have the 30 days of November to write 50,000 words. Do you win anything? No, not really, other than the self gratification that you are now a novelist. Is it insane? Absolutely. 

Why am I doing it though? Well, it's my way of trying to break out of my crippling self doubt when it comes to creative writing. I went through college saying that I couldn't write creatively, I was merely a "technical writer". In truth, I just didn't want people to read anything I'd written creatively and laugh at me for it. The thought of someone pointing, laughing, and mocking my words was enough to stall the words from coming altogether. Before I graduated, one of my favorite professors outside of the English department told me that I was holding myself back in several areas, and that I needed to be more of a risk taker. He said I should write a piece of fiction, see if I could get the characters to talk to me, and go from there. I ignored him, doubting myself even more, but wishing I could find the confidence to start such a project.

Flash forward to the last week in October. A girl in the library wanted to tell me all about a Young Writer's Program (which I later discovered is the youth version of NaNoWriMo where young writers set their own word count goals). She was going on and on about how if she finished her word count by the end of November, the site would give her five free paperbacks of her completed novel (I also later found out this is true, but it goes through an affiliate site). This deal sparked my interest, and my coworker and I took to looking into the site (www.nanowrimo.org). Finding out there were over 300 people in my area participating (I now think the number is over 400), I decided to put do a display at the library about the program along with some well-known novels that were published as a result of it.

The more I looked into the program, the more I wanted to try my hand at it, but I knew my drive to complete it would give out if I didn't have the right kind of motivation. I took to the forums the site provided to link with others in my region, sadly finding out our area did not have a Municipal Liason, the person who would ordinarily organize write-ins and other NaNo related events for those nearby. I finally decided that I shouldn't let this stop me from trying, and started organizing weekly write-ins for the month of November at my library. Our first meeting was last week, and it was exciting to see more people than originally expected. We had an exceptionally fun evening full of cake, coffee, and word war prizes (including rubik's cubes, fun sunglasses, and giant glittery pencils).  

So here I am, currently just over 15,000 words in and trudging along on my way to 50,000. I must say, it's much easier than I ever expected, and I'm very thankful to the personal cheerleaders in my life who have kept me going by always asking about my progress. Fingers crossed that I make it through!

Now, you know I couldn't post without including an actual project. While typing long hours into the night, I've found that my room tends to be the coldest in the house. Too lazy to create a pattern on my own, I took to the web in search of some cute crochet fingerless gloves. These are the result of the pattern I found:

My apologies for the terrible phone photo! Late nights and laziness made me fail to grab the good camera.

Well, technically they are the second result. The first pair I made I ran out of yarn part of the way into the second glove, and when I went to get another skein, found it was sold out. Alas, I like this color and texture much more than the original pair. 

The pattern came from Getting Hooked, and is fairly easy to follow thanks to the additional pictures. You should spend some time looking around her blog, as it is a great resource for crafty projects. 

I will be posting more of my own projects soon-ish, as I'm currently getting my NaNo word count back up to par. This post may be less craft-centered than usual, but at least it's putting me one post closer (96 currently) to the 100th blog post - which you should stay tuned for! A big giveaway is in the works, so keep checking back!

A Last Minute Alice in Wonderland Costume

“Do you think I've gone round the bend?"
"I'm afraid so. You're mad, bonkers, completely off your head. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

The other day my mother volunteered me to attend an early Halloween costume party with her being held by a Red Hat group. I've been pretty down in the dumps lately since I found out that our local trick or treat falls on a night I have to work late. I love dressing up to pass out candy, and this year Mister and I planned on picking up a pig costume for the pug and all dressing as the three little pigs. I suppose we'll have to save that idea for next year. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I love any excuse to dress up, so I started throwing together a costume for the Red Hat party.

 

 

 

Obviously, that chick is NOT me. It is, however, the exact dress I decided was perfect for an Alice costume. I had purchased it months ago from Sammydress.com, and you can see it on their site HERE. However, the whole ordering process with their company was highly unpleasant, and I do not recommend it at all (took months to receive package, did not get all that I paid for, and proportions are NOT what they are pictured to be). Luckily, this dress was one of the only items that fit decently other than the sleeves being tight. Unfortunately, I didn't get a full length picture of the costume, but I did pair this dress with white tights and black, strappy,  librarian-ish shoes.

 

 

This necklace was another Alice element that I loved. Probably when I was around 12-13 years old, I went to a Renaissance Fair and came home with this handmade necklace that has a bottle of what I think was supposed to be a vanilla scented oil wrapped in turquoise with a sceptor and butterfly charm. I haven't worn it in probably ten years, but I dug it out of the jewelry box and fashioned my very own "Drink Me" tag to the bottle.

 

Lastly, I crocheted this cute headband with an oversized bow reminiscent of Alice's. It really tied the outfit together and was so comfy! Would you like your own? I have it listed in my etsy shop. You can find it by clicking here.

This reminds me of when I made Otis's Doggy-Sized Mad Hatter Crochet Hat earlier this year. He's gotten so much bigger since then, I wonder if it still fits! Maybe we'll find another excuse to dress up in Alice costumes soon, and Otis can be Hatter.

Have you got your Halloween costumes ready? What are you planning to be this year? I'd love to hear from you!

 

 

 

I'm BACK!...with a new job and a new lovely hat!

(Even Otis has missed you all! - How does he look in his pugjamas?)


Hello, friends! I know I took an impromptu blogging break, but I'm back and have quite a bit to get caught up on. So much has happened while I've been gone! The Sarah from the How to Make your Best Friend Cry at her Bridal Shower post got married, and it was a gorgeous and fun-filled ceremony with lots of love and laughter. The other Sarah who was awaiting her baby girl, Lena (You may recall some of my crochet gifts from the shower from THIS post), finally gave birth to the most gorgeous baby ever! Lastly, the other other Sara, whom I made the sheep baby bib for when she discovered she was expecting, found out that she will be giving birth to a baby girl - Annabella Lynn. I've got quite a few fun projects in the works for her baby shower, but unfortunately won't be posting them until after she's seen them for the first time. So hold tight on that!
So where have I been lately? I've been busy, that's for sure. Aside from getting to be a part of all those wonderful events with my friends, I've had a few exciting things going on myself. First, I finally had the surgery I've waited years for. I've never had a sense of smell in my life due to all the issues with my septum and sinuses. Luckily, after the surgery, that changed. It's very dull, but I actually can smell things now! (I MUST inform you that oranges are indeed AMAZING) It also means that (hopefully) I won't get sick nearly as much. So, YAY!

The other good news is that I finally have  my dream job! Well, kinda. It's part time for now, but it's a foot in the door! After being told a couple of years ago that going to grad school for Library Science would be a waste of time and money since I'd never get a job in a library, I'm happy to say that I've proved that WRONG. I work in the library, and it's everything I hoped it would be. Also, I'm on the fast track to heading back to school for that Library Science Master's. It feels like everything is starting to come together.
It's so comforting to be surrounded by books. It makes me absolutely giddy to find hidden treasures while shelving or to be able to put a hold on books at other libraries that I've been searching for and simply have them show up on my desk a few days later. I've also been blessed to be put in charge of a book and movie program for children and also the Teen Book Club, which is exciting because I want my career focus to be on encouraging teens to read. Just this week, I also found out that I'll be in charge of starting a crochet class by the end of the month. That makes me horribly nervous since I tried to teach Sarah to crochet once, and she told me I "sucked at positive reinforcement". I'm hoping I'll be able to get over my nerves and teach the class as best I can. I'm also secretly hoping they let me name the class "The Happy Hookers". Fingers crossed!



(Missing from the stack = Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, which are both currently somewhere in my bed)
My bedside book stack is also growing due to the new job, as you can see, with everything from fiction to nonfiction, kids books, and crochet books. The crochet book was actually set on my desk by one of the other librarians who thought I'd be interested in some of the cute patterns it contained. I certainly was. I loved the beanie hat on the cover of So Pretty! Crochet so much, I decided to make a similar one for myself and also replaced the bow from the original with a ribbon threaded through the shells.



Sometimes, I think I'm addicted to making hats and hair things. They are just too cute! Want one for yourself? You can find this hat in my Etsy shop.
One of the things I'm enjoying most about my job with the library is getting to create fun displays, such as this one for Banned Books Week. It actually surprised me how few people actually knew about Banned Books Week or how many popular books had been challenged or banned. Almost every patron walking by wanted to stop and investigate. The looks were priceless when they discovered what books were behind such controversial labels. Want more information on this celebration? Check out the ALA's site by clicking here.



The reasons books can be challenged still amaze me. The most ironic banned book has to be Farenheit 451, a personal favorite. It's in the wrapping at the top left side in the following picture. The most amusing reason I found for a book's banning had to be Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl. A group seemed to think it shouldn't be read due to being "a real downer". Yes, you read that correctly...a real downer. If that doesn't have you interested in Banned Books Week, I don't know what will. If you didn't pick up a banned book during Banned Books Week, still feel free to celebrate a little late. I've been celebrating with Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. :)