I apologize for disappearing for nearly a month. I get distracted sometimes. ok… quite often! I guess I’m due for a photo post to show what all I’ve been up to! But for now, I just wanted to make a quick update to show off something I made yesterday. Three tiny cacti:

Whata ya think? I’m curious, which shape do you like the best? I kinda prefer the tall one in the center. I’m thinking about making more in the future. They’re fun to make. And small enough that my short attention span allows me to finish them! I thought about making a pattern for them but don’t really see a point. There are already so many crocheted cacti patterns available.

If you’d like to adopt one, they’re all for sale in the Gleeful Things shop on Etsy.

I was waiting until after Mother’s Day to post what I made for my mom and grandma! Also, this is what I did with the pots that I painted for the crackle painting tutorial. Has anyone tried that yet?

I thought that by making myself a cactus, it would purge the idea from my head and I’d be able to move onto other things. But I had fun making them so I had to make more! Plus, my mom wanted to steal the one that I made for myself. She kept hinting that it would look great on her desk at work.

What do you think? Do the crackled pots go well with them?

After celebrating Mother’s Day, I went down to San Diego where I became a member (annual pass holder) at the Zoo and the Wild Animal Park. yay!! This means that you can expect lots of animal pictures in the future! :)

I should have another tutorial up soon.

I’ve been interested in yarn bombing (a.k.a. urban knitting or guerilla knitting or knit graffiti) for a while now. I swear I posted about this almost a year ago when I first discovered it. I finally got around to putting up a few of my own bombs today!

This is the first one I made. Quite a while ago actually…

Then I discovered that this would be the perfect opportunity to test new stitches and techniques. I’m pretty new to knitting so I used this as a chance to practice.

I practiced stripes.

And I made Space Invaders while practicing color changes. I really need to continue practicing that! :/

Just a quick post to show off this dude that I made not too long ago. I’ve been wanting to make more plushies recently. I love making amigurumi but always get frustrated with how long it takes to make anything that is a decent size. This results in a lot of unfinished projects for me. I made this guy in a few hours. He’s about 10 inches tall. He’s all hand sewn because for some reason, I see using the sewing machine as more of a hassle than hand sewing. Despite how much quicker it would be. I can’t really figure out my thinking there. Maybe it has something to do with being able to hand sew in the coziness of my bed.

This picture was taken with an iPhone app called Hipstmatic. It’s my new favorite app. I’ll post more about it later because I have lots of pictures from it to show off and it deserves a post of it’s own.

I’ve been meaning to make some tutorial videos for a while now. I finally have two up! The first one is for the puff stitch. I get the most questions about the puff stitch so I figured that it was a good place to start with making tutorials!

The second one is on how to start an amigurumi. I figure this might be helpful for anyone who is new to amigurumi.

I hope that you find these useful! If you have any requests for other tutorials, please let me know! I’d love to know what people want to see next. And this is my first attempt at video tutorials so let me know how I did! :) Also, I apologize for the buzzing sound. My camera always does that and I don’t really know how to fix it.

I’ve been experimenting with a way to add some sparkle to my amigurumis. This is the first thing I made. A sparkley mushie!

It’s much more obvious in person but sort of hard to see in pictures. Here’s a closeup:

Whatcha think? :)

You won’t believe this! I’ve finally starting knitting! lol! I was against it for the longest time because I was so busy crocheting. But I recently decided that I really want to make tree sweaters and they have to be knit! So, yesterday I picked up Stitch n Bitch. But I couldn’t figure it out using the book. Luckily, my mom knits and was able to show me! :D

I also picked up Stitch n Bitch: The Happy Hooker. I can’t wait to make a fat bottom bag and some fuzzy bunny slippers! hehe! :)

Several months ago, I submitted some pictures of my amigurumis to be in a book. I completely forgot about this until yesterday when I saw someone on Flickr post pictures of the book. I’ve yet to see it in person, but I’m told that my stuff can be found on page 120 of this book: Amigurumi Animals by Annie Obaachan. I can’t wait to see it! :D

This is what I’ve been working on for the past couple days! When I started this, I intended for it to be something completely different. But half way through the project I decided that I liked it too much to use it for what I originally had in mind. I had the idea of framing something crocheted forever ago but never actually made anything to frame. I thought this was perfect for framing!

I know it’s kinda crooked in the middle. It got stretched wierd and I didn’t realize it until the frame was closed up. I’ll fix it someday.. hehe

It’s made with Lion Brand Micro Spun yarn (so soft!). The crocheted part is 11×14 inches. It’s hanging in my hallway right now. I’m really happy with it (minus the crookedness). I want to make more framed stuffs now :)

Another little something I made recently! My mom wanted a cozy for her Weight Watchers calculator. She loves pandas so I threw this together for her.

♥ Julie