Stuffed Christmas Tree Tabletop Size For MIL

We bought a star and painted it and I sewed tinsel into it. I went three strands of sewing with knotted invisible sewing and was like bro I can't take it anymore and realized I didn't have to sew strand by strand. I could just cut the tinsel from the top in strips that were one piece and sew that into the tree.

Star was painted by husband. Two coats of some kind of gold. He was very specific about the color. There were two sizes of star and he said the smaller one would be right and I said this bigger one would be right, but it came in packs with both sizes anyway so it didn't matter. I used a wedding name card holder leftover to crochet the crown of the tree around, and then have something to glue the double sides of the stars to at the top of the tree. Pretty genius use of leftover wedding table place card holders and this is my second or third time using them. Definitely don't regret that purchase at all.

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I ended up making way more chevron strips than originally I thought I would because it made it look so real tree like to have the irregular branches even though it would take longer.

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I didn't take any early pictures that I could find so it's strips of chevron with a built in bobble stitch. Made them seamless and it was surprisingly hard to figure out where the colors wouldn't overlap too much. I aimed for no more than three dots of the same color visible on all sides and it was pretty tricky since I could only do maybe 8 bobbles at a time and they were irregular branches, not a regularly segmented circular wrap.

Grumblebeeson and GrumbleGrandson and Queen Chubbee

This is not the finished picture, it is so dang cute I wanted it to be the thumbnail LOL

The antennae! Held by happy husband. You can just see his mustache lol.

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I mad a little pollen/whatever flag on the last two legs inspired by the hair on actual white-tailed bumblebee legs. It would look way too clunky to do on all three pairs, and I actually made the front pair a little skinnier to add a bit of delicate design. I also found out too late that I may have placed the first pair too much towards the butt and just barely crowded the second and third pair into the stomach.

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 Aww yiss. The effects of properly aligned legs.

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And look at that little grey and white boo-tay.

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And now the antennae!

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 First pair of legs! Doesn't he look like a fond little angry idiot.

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Then the wings! I crocheted two colors in one magic circle, then folded/triangle folded for one wing. 

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I tried hard to pay attention to the tapering black/grey/white of the tail. It didn't work out exactly how I thought but I think how slim the grey is actually kin of makes it work better. I used short rows to go back and forth and create the ball-curve. I remember when I first was trying to use short rows I was like damn this is frustrating but now they are so vital to making 3-D or stuffed animal type projects.

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And then after medium deliberation on how exactly to get it to look grumpy, I did the grumble mouth! 

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The grumblebee's basic body!

I'm not actually when I started this. This first picture I took was....Feb 11th?

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And the grumblegrandson!

I sacrificed artistic integrity of the limbs and usual pipe cleaners for stub-stub legs as it's for toddlers and I didn't want an unfortunate thing to happen.

It was hard to decide what color to do the eyebrows and mouth since the face is not all one color.

The lesson I've learned is that if you decrease each row you will get a flat circle and not a sphere. I just hate stopping a rhythm.

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Grumblebee needs a wife 

Wings!

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We decided to do pink instead of black/yellow just to be funny but now she really doesn't look like a bee....looks like a fat strawberry peppero or something

Stupid little fond thing

Make a bee family

Cooking

 

Grey and Pink Argyle Blanket

I cannot bring myself to make a single panel more. It's just so big. Maybe cannibalize it into pillowcases or something some day.

At last....argyle

July 10 2020

Alternate panel

Nov 2019

Argyle panel. 

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Design! Design! Design!

Tip: Make blueprints of your own 

I use a bunch of different things. Microsoft paint, grid paper, blank paper, word document, formulas. It may not seem like it when knitting flat, but you are still making a complex, 3-D shape.

Here is the argyle worksheet I made for myself

 

Tea Cozy For Friend

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Split for spout

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The fair isle wasn't too terrible but only because the work was so small. I could stretch out each row as I went.

Different Knee Warmer

The tension was really terrible around the bee.

I decided to be brave and do all around fair isle but it did not do well. Very mixed tension.

The bee was also really terrible LOL. 

I also didn't expect the yarn to be such a glaring color. My mistake.

With them both on. I knew they wouldn't match but they REALLY don't match LOL

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Tip: Beee wary of scale distortion!

To design the bee I messed around with some graphing paper on Amazon we got.  It was really good and bad.  It was really difficult to use because the graph on the paper doesn't match up with the gauge on the live work. So the graph LOOKS very very skewed compared to the work. Kind of annoying to wrap your brain around. Not hard. Just annoying.

Bee's Knees Warmer for Husband

Very satisfied with how it turned out. 

It slipped down pretty bad so those pleats are I sewed little pleats together so it wouldn't fall down so bad. 

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Very cute.

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Made my own bee motif using microsoft office. Kind of messed around with excel and word and it just was difficult. 

I couldn't really figure out how to do the face so I ended up just doing like a shark's smile. 

I did it again for the honeycomb but I did not do them at the same time/same top/down length so that I would only work with one pattern at a time. Not brave enough for extended fair isle.

Duck Decoy

Apr 27-May 6

Mixed crochet and knit 

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Finished the one piece wings and put them on the duck hot dog! 

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Intarsia wings was a pain but I didn't want doubleknit fair isle. It would be too thick and not mold/bend to body. 

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Looks pretty accurate already. Poly fill in background. Used wedding name card holder to support neck with careful stuffing.  

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Saw on reddit once that a ducks bill looks like a golden retriever. Correct. 

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Design research. Looked at a lot of duck butts. Debated putting in extra black curls but (heh) I would need to change weight and bla bla not worth it.

Tip: Measure, measure, measure! Draw, draw, draw!

 Sometimes sketching, not so much pattern drawing, really helps visualize what flat shape you're trying to accomplish.

Turtle For Grandma

Finished work!

He actually has the shoulders arms of a sea turtle and the shell of a little pond turtle. I didn't think anyone would really notice but someone did right away! 

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Cute little tail. It's so crooked and husband said turtle is just in the middle of waving its tail.

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Started with magic ring crochet. Then just kept building and did limbs, head, and flat tail.

"That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime" Plushies

I made a mommy but haven't done the eyes. It looks like an onion or pumpkin tho bc I didn't have enough yarn to round the top.

Tip: There are all different types of eyes!

The little line eyes are great in a pinch without safety eyes! Also cuter than safety eyes depending. The little flexing blood vessel also was done with that.