Christmas FO: The Big Pencil

I always try to ask my younger brother what he would like me to make him for Christmas. He's really into tall socks right now, but there was no way that was going to happen before Christmas, so I asked him what else he would like. He really loved my Giant Roly Poly that I made a while back and asked me to make him a giant animal of some kind too. Easy enough, right? I just pulled out my copy of Hue and Huggable Mochimochi by Anna Hrachovec and consulted my stash of big yarn to see which pattern options I had to choose from. I don't tend to use bulky and super bulky weights often, but I have been known to buy up a bunch of yarn if it's super on sale (especially when I first learned to knit, but didn't yet know about types of yarn) and I had quite a few skeins of Lion Brand Hometown USA in different colors from Walmart clearances. I wanted to make him a Capybara at first, but then I noticed it used just regular bulky yarn and I only had super bulky on hand. Bummer! That left me a bit dejected since my only remaining options I felt I had the yarn for and could tackle in time were the tooth brush and the pencil. I thought the tooth brush might be seen as a sarcastic jab (he is a teenager, after all, so the command, "go brush your teeth" needs to be given on occasion), so I decided to go with the pencil. Meet Arthur :)

Arthur is actually the only pattern from the book that is also available for free on the Lion Brand website, so follow that link should you decide to make your own giant pencil. This ended up being a far quicker knit than I anticipated and I finished it in about 3 or 4 hours. Pretty crazy!

Can you believe I had all the right colors of the recommended yarn in my stash already?! I know! lol. The only yarn I didn't have was the pink for the eraser, so I just doubled up and knitted with 2 strands of Red Heart Super Saver in the Perfect Pink colorway and it worked ok. I find that doubled up thin yarn tends to stretch more than the thicker yarn does, so you can see the channels between the stitches a bit more in the pink area, but it's not that bad and I doubt any non-knitters would notice.

I love hoe nice and orderly the top of the pencil is :) You start on the eraser and work your way down, which I was happy about since my decreases never turn out as tight as my increases on amigurumi - I'm still trying to figure out why that is.

The metal band under the eraser is the Dallas Gray colorway, the yellow is Pittsburgh Yellow, the wood tip is Virginia Beach, and the top is Okaland Black. The Virginia Beach really is just the perfect color for wood, don't you think? I love how the colors turned out. There are 2 rows of color work where the yellow and brown meet, but it was ridiculously simple to do. It gives that zig zag edge you get when you sharpen a pencil, which was a nice touch I thought.

I had quite the time keeping the pencil straight looking while stuffing - and man, did this thing take a lot of stuffing! I'd stuff in a huge wad of batting only to have it obviously need more, so the different wads became a bit complicated to smooth out. We got there in the end though. Also thebook recommends 15 mm eyes, but I used a pair of 18 mm eyes because I liked the look of them better. This gives a closer together look than the 15 mms in the example, which I tend to think looks better. Just my opinion though. And it was my pencil, lol.

And the back view. You can see a bit of the color jogs between rows, but it's not bad. This really turned out as a nice pillow size. I used it to lean on while I laid on the couch after finishing it, and I was perfectly comfy :) It's also a great size for a lumbar pillow or a neck pillow, so lots of practical uses for this seemingly ridiculous knitted creation, lol.

Completing this guy also inspired me to do a little photo shoot for the Mochimochiland Annual Photo Contest before I gave him over to Briggs for Christmas (look for a post on that soon too!) and he;s pretty fun to play with. My family all had the idea that I should've put an actual pen in the tip so it would really write, lol. Maybe on the next version.

So that was Brigg's Christmas gift :) He seemed to like it, so that's another win I say. Soon to come - more Christmas gifts! lol

FO: Paulie the Poly

This is a project that I actually finished two weeks ago! I was hoping to have a funny photo shoot, but it just hasn't happened yet and I am so excited to show this off, so maybe you'll get funny photos in the future. For now, meet the biggest amigurumi I have ever made: Paulie the Polie.

He was made using the Roland pattern from Huge & Huggable Mochimochi by Anna Hrachovec. My sister bought me this book a few months ago and I hadn't made anything out of it until now. All of the patterns in the book are designed for super bulky sized yarn, so the projects come out enormous - much bigger than I was expecting, to be honest :) This guy is about the size of my nephew, lol.

I started making this after a particularly bad day - it was kind of comical in hind sight. I just needed a frivolous project to have fun making and not worry about it fitting anyone or being finished by a certain time. I also needed it to be made from yarn in my stash, which was the biggest deciding factor in making up this particular pattern. Back when I first started knitting, I went a bit crazy at a clearance yarn sale and bought a ridiculous amount of Lion Brand Hometown USA at $1.00 to $1.50 per skein. I've used a little here and there over the years, but most of it has just sat in a bin untouched. Thanks to this book, I know I will have use for it at last! This Roly-Poly used 1.65 skeins of the Charlotte Blue colorway and 2.20 skeins of Dallas Gray. That's almost 4 skeins of yarn in just one amimal! Craziness!

While I was making this up, I actually reached the point of thinking I would have to give him away simply because he was so incredibly large I would have no place to put him, lol. That shell took way too long to make, and I was getting a bit sick of it, lol. Once I had him put together though, I knew he was mine to keep. The night I finished him, I accidentally fell asleep on the couch using him as a hugging pillow - this has been his job ever since! He makes a perfect side pillow, even if it looks ridiculous to have him sitting in my bed, lol.

Just in case you don't believe me about the size of this guy, here is a terrible photo of him in action, lol. See - he's huge! When I was ready to stuff him, I was afraid I wouldn't have enough polyfill, but happily I did. This did take about half of my 32 oz bag though!

I really like how the body is constructed - the head and butt are just domed circles, but the tummy area is all done in garter stitch - this helps him stay bendable so he can roll up. Also you create yarn over holes as you work which is where each of the legs go. Believe me when I tell you - don't question the yarn overs! I just couldn't figure out what they were for (and I didn't read far enough into the pattern to find out, duh!), so when it came time to put them on the head I questioned their placement and ended up putting them in his chin. Yeah. I had to sew those holes closed and then try to ram his antennae through the bars between stitches, which was no easy feat, trust me. It worked out ok on his head, but I can't imagine having to figure out each of his legs the same way, so I was glad I obeyed the pattern.

The pattern calls for 25 mm safety eyes, which I definitely did not have in my stash. 25 mm is just shy of 1 inch in diameter, and I've never seen eyes that large at Joann's or Hobby Lobby before. Rather than order some online (and postpone my project until they arrived), I decided to make some out of felt. I used my Sizzix Paddle Punches and the balloon punch is almost 1" wide, so I just cut off the little balloon tip and called it a circle :) I embroidered French knots just to give him more life, and then I whip stitched around the eyes to secure them to the head. I think it came out really cute, and now he is baby safe :) Just look at that face!

All in all, I am thrilled with my roly-poly buddy. I had no name for him until he was completely finished, and I was just calling him "The Poly" and "My Poly" while I carried him around in one arm like a large baby, lol. In the end I thought that Paulie was a good name for him. He now sleeps with me every night - talk about an unforeseen practical make! Even though I made him at a crazy time when I should have been making gifts for others, he was just the bit of fun I needed to keep me sane. Yay for enormous Roly Polys!

WIP Wednesday: Big = Slow, Plus An Accidental Ornament

This holiday week has really put a damper on my knitting time! I still managed to get some done, but things are just not going as quickly as I normally would expect. I think part of it is that I'm not so great with the big yarn I'm using right now...

My Roland is still progressing, but man oh man does it take forever to make anything with such big yarn! Seriously I feel like each stitch is made in slow motion just from the time and effort it takes to wrap it around and pull it through each time. I'm on the decreases for the shell, so I am in the home stretch at least. My quick project has turned out not to be quite so quick, so I may have to set this big guy aside until I finish more gifts :( Just for the record, that gray "shell" piece already has used almost 2 entire skeins of Lion Brand Hometown USA! That's nuts! Judging by the weight of this piece alone, I can tell you right now this things is going to be really heavy. I hope I have enough poly-fill!

On Monday night, I decided to be responsible and work on part of a gift. I cast on this toddler sized mitten as part of my sister's present (which it now turns out may cause her to question my sanity, but what can you do?) She already saw this piece yesterday , by the way, so I'm safe in posting it here. I made this little toddler sized mitten using the Frozen Mittens pattern (which is a free pattern from Bernat). I made the smallest size because it said it was for 2 to 3 year olds - just the one mitten only took me 2 hours (during which I watched one of my favorite movies), then I decided I would have Luke try them on before I made the second one ... just to make sure. It's a good thing I did! I could barely squeeze his little hand into this thing, lol. I did manage to get it on him (and he thought it was pretty awesome, because he started to laugh and rub my leg with his mitten covered hand), but it was definitely not big enough. Apparently my nephew is big for his age in ALL ways. Duly noted. I need to make his bigger for my project, but this left me with one tiny completed mitten. Guess what my Christmas ornament for this year is going to be? lol It's the perfect ornament size - I just need to add a hanger and I think I'm going to embroider the year on it. I think it actually works out great - what better way to commemorate the year I had no money than with a handmade ornament, lol.

As a side note, this was really a neat pattern. The mittens are knit flat and then seamed, but the way you knit it causes a natural curve inward (it's hard to explain, but it's not just a flat shape). I would definitely recommend the pattern if you wanted to make any kid mittens :)

And as usual, I've made a tiny bit of progress on my Emelie cardigan. I'm almost finished with the left front now! lol This poor project has taken so long.

I'm to the point where you bind off for the neckline on the left front. I think I will skip in the directions and do my button bands before the sleeves just so I can make sure I have enough yarn - I've ended up making more modifications than I originally thought, including making it longer, so I would be devastated to end up with uneven sleeves. Hopefully it works out!

So, that's all I can show you that I've been working on lately. Seriously, I can't wait til after Christmas just to show all the other things I've made, lol. Do you have any secret projects in the works?

WIP Wednesday: Rollin, Rollin, Rollin ...

Well, it's been one of those weeks where you have lots going on and you just can't get your blogging done, lol. I had a bad day for the record books on Monday (I felt like a character in a children's book - it was that ridiculous), so I decided a knitted animal project was in order. Is it a gift for anyone? Nope. I just needed something cute and frivolous to occupy my mind. So I finally cast on Roland :)

My sister bought me Huge and Huggable Mochimochi by Anna Hrachovec a few months ago. The book is filled with her usual fun and quirky creatures, but this time they are designed with super bulky sized yarn. I've had a bunch of skeins of Lion Brand Hometown USA in my stash for years from a rather epic Walmart clearance sale (they were $1 to $1.50 per skein!), and it just so happened I had almost the exact color ways to make my own Rollie poly :) I've actually done very little work with such big yarn before - never in knitting. It's been a bit if a challenge, but it's simple once you get it going (starting up was definitely the hardest part). Over this week I've finished the body and now I'm onto the shell. It's definitely huge! I think he will be a fun pillow to have around when he's done.

So that's all I can show from this weeks work. I'm still plugging away at gifts, but it's nice to switch it up for morale's sake once in a while, lol. Ever had to do that before?