The Crab

At work our team mascot is a crab. (Its a long story). So I set out to find a pattern for a crab that I could use to make an actual mascot. Up until I made this little guy we just has clip art and doodles on team correspondence.

I found the pattern on Etsy, and I love this pattern. Really, I love all the patterns that this company is selling. I plan to buy more when I go back to crocheting animals again (right now I am doing a few gifts).

If you look at the picture on the pattern vs. my finished product the eyes are a lot smaller. I don't know if the eyes I used (the black plastic part) are smaller than the example picture, or if the whole thing is just bigger. I can't measure it to compare because it is at work, and its home is now in a department I no longer work in. Go figure, right? Anyway, I still love this little guy. We named him Crobbie the Crab.

I also learned that its a lot better to use thicker thread for the detail (the mouth). So that's the only thing I would change about this. Well, that and figure out how to make the claws look a bit more uniform on both sides.

He is about 6 inches tall if I remember correctly and the body is kind of disc shaped.

The First Project

I have a Stumble Upon toolbar on my browser. I LOVE it. I have spent many wasted hours stumbling around the Internet for random things. Or choosing a particular subject and stumbling on just those. I had put into my interests the subjects of knitting/crocheting as well as cats, weird pictures, humor, etc etc. And then one day I stumbled on a craft website where people will post the patterns they make for different things. And I was in love with a pattern I saw. It was for an octopus. And it was just too adorable. I found out that there was even a name for making crocheted/knitted animals: amigurumi. I spent quite some time looking different patterns up.

Eventually I printed out the octopus pattern and started to plan. I had to dig out my crochet hooks and the box of green and white yarn that was previously mentioned.

My first try for making the octopus did not turn out quite right. The body was HUGE. I am sure mostly because I was using very chunky yarn, and I think I was also using the hook that was suggested on the band of the yarn, the stitches are pretty loose. That was my lesson in gauge. So I adjusted things, since it was a simple pattern I just downsized it so it made the body about 6 inches tall (the original is probably closer to 10 inches!) I also probably did not stuff the original enough. It was very squishy. Too squishy.

Once I figured out what I was doing, and I was almost done I had to figure out what to do about the eyes. I couldn't find those cute eyes that all the websites and books showed in a local craft shop (Michael's or Hobby Lobby). So I ordered them online. In the meantime I got bored with waiting and just stitched them on. And I ended up with this picture. He looks a little devious, doesn't he? Oh well. I love him. I ended up giving him to a friend. After that I started working on a pattern I saw in a magazine for an orangutan. I went from something simple to a complicated pattern. I like to jump into the deep end of things some times.... while making the monkey I also made several other items. I will show you those next...

Back in the day...

Several years ago (2003-04 to be exact) when I was in college and dating Matt I wanted to learn to crochet better. But I didn't know where to start. Matt asked me to make him a scarf for those chilly winter morning motorcycle rides. We were living in Arizona at the time, but when you rocketing down the highway at 70 miles and hour and its 5am on a January morning, its still cold! So I set out on figuring out how to make a scarf. Not that hard, really. But when all I have managed to make was very tight stitches and a square that wasn't really a square (I kept losing stitches, so it was more triangular). Plus, I really wanted this to be perfect for him.

Matt's only request was for the scarf to be really long and thick and lime green. His motorcycle was lime green, as was his helmet and riding jacket.

An except from a journal entry from January 04:

...Matt asked about the scarf I am going to crochet him. I told him to hold his horses. I need the yarn first! It has to be mailed to me before I can start, silly. :) I was also looking at the pattern book that Kate brought over. She is making an afghan to sell on eBay. so she has this pattern book. They all look so hard! Except the one that was all squares/rectangles of different sizes. I could do that one. I am sure I could do all of them, its just a matter of sitting down and TRYING. Maybe I can go to a craft store to get a pattern book instead of just making the stupid squares. I have one pattern book. But its a sampler. So its just about 100 and something squares that all have a different pattern. And half of the patterns are freaking hard! Or it could just be me not liking how it looks after two rows... lol...

I ordered the yarn from a website, smileysyarn.com I think. The yarn skeins were very small, only 1.75oz each, they were Bernat Softees. Since I was not working off a pattern I had no idea how much I would need (never mind that I probably could have just looked at patterns online to get an idea). And the yarn was on sale, so I bought a huge amount of yarn. I am not even sure how much it was exactly now. I think I got 20 skeins of each color (white and lime green). Which was WAY too much. I decided on a simple "pattern" of double crochets, not sure how many stitches per row though. It was 7 rows of each color. And I made it 14 stripes long, i think. It was a long and thick scarf. And Matt loved it. I wish I would have gotten a picture of it. Oh well. It was the first crochet project I had ever finished I was very proud of myself.

Where do I start?

I have been crocheting for several years. I first learned when I was about 12 years old. I was in Girl Scouts and we had the craft of the week (or was it month? I don't remember...) set up as crocheting. I don't remember if there was supposed to be a follow up. But it sure didn't seem like it. The first square I attempted to do on my own turned into a triangle because I wasn't doing the chain stitch. But that's how I learn. I know that now, back then I was extremely frustrated and refused to work on it for a long time.

Some time later my grandma had to give up crocheting because her hands hurt too much to do it anymore. So I inherited her stash of yarn. It came in the form of a huge black trash bag packed with yarn. Of course not knowing how to really do anything I took the opportunity to wind all of the skeins into balls. And wound them all too tight, so a few years later I had to throw them away because the yarn was stretched. Or that's what I tell myself now, I don't remember the real reason for throwing them out. Maybe that was the reason. Maybe my mom threw them out because I wasn't doing anything with them and it was cluttering my room. Maybe it was because we were moving and we didn't have room for a huge bag of yarn in our new small apartment.

At one point, when I was about 15 or so, I tried to make a sampler afghan, but once I got past the simple squares (single crochet, half double, double, treble, double treble) I couldn't do the harder stitches. I think I didn't have the patience to figure it out. And that yarn ended up in the trash or otherwise donated.

Years after that I saw yet another afghan that I wanted to do. I remember it was made up of lots of small squares... Or I wanted to make it with the small squares instead of having to figure out the color changing. I hadn't gotten to that part of my crochet knowledge. I never did get far with that either. The next time I moved I gave away all the yarn to a lady who crocheted blankets and hats for cancer patients or something. At least that yarn went on to a good place.

I had about a year of not doing any crochet, I had moved on to cross stitch. But then I was Stumbling online and saw this website (can't remember what it is now) that has a crocheted animal. And there were lots of patterns for crocheted animals! I instantly fell in love and had to go out and buy several books and yarn, and I dug out my crochet hooks. And I have been crocheting ever since.

So that's my history. Next time I will post one of my first crocheted animals.