An excellent birthday

B is the best husband ever. I love blind boxes and subscription boxes and rng boxes. He doesn't feel the same pull. He understands why I like them, but doesn't share the love of surprise. So for my birthday he ordered random things from Asian Food Grocer and made an "rng" box for me. It was such a fun surprise.

The swag:


The kids desperately want me to open everything but I've managed to stall them thus far.

Derpy Professor Genki

This was supposed to be my birthday gift to myself. I hate it. I did a horrible job. Ugh. So B is taking it to work and I hope to never see it again. Stupid bulbous eyes. Stupid me for not being able to wing the details with a basic pattern. Grr.

This morning.


This afternoon (when I realized that I'd called it "done" and had forgotten the tail).


This evening. Complete with tail. Still looks terrible.


Used this pattern. It's a perfectly good pattern. I'm just not intelligent or creative enough to be able to tweak it for what I wanted. I added a wire skeleton in the head/body/legs. Worthless. Ugh ugh ugh. Tomorrow I'm working on a replacement self-made birthday gift. I will have a Professor Genki that doesn't make me want to cry.

On the up side, a great friend of mine sent me a gift in the mail. Unable to wait, as usual, I already opened it. It's a lovely fairy garden kit. The boys and I will be putting it all together on my actual birthday. We're all looking forward to it! (I still need to email her to thank her. I've spent the evening banging my head against this crochet project and finishing a video game. My priorities are... special.)

Sans is done

And surprise! I'm unhappy with the face! Self-adhesive felt 1) does not stick to yarn well 2) is weirdly dimensional 3) just wasn't the best option ever.

At any rate, it's done. It will be gifted with the offer of an attempt at a needle felted face if this one every falls off. *slump*



Now, in theory, I can move on to a project for me (the Beast has requested that I make him a dalek, though...). I did buy yarn to make a Professor Genki/Super Murder Cat. Yes. Now... to find the energy. (though it might also help if I stopped playing so much Risen 2.)

Faceless Sans

Progress. I just need to get over my anxiety and do the face.

Front:


Back:


Character from the game:


He should have a hoodie. But I failed so many times in trying to make one that sat right and was the proper size. So I gave up and just approximated the appearance. I'm also ignoring the shoes/slippers (there's a debate over what he's wearing). Whee!

Linking up with Ginny's Yarn Along again.

Update 2:56pm

I can't get the face right. I have less than four square inches of dark (almost black) felt. So I have to get this right before I make any real cuts. But.. no matter what I do it looks wrong. Help! Any suggestions? (here is a Google images search of what he's supposed to look like)



Update 3:23pm
Yeah. So panic = epiphany. Took a sprite I liked, enlarged the face to fit the actual size of the doll, traced.. yeah. I'm an idiot some times. Still not sure how I'm going to get this too look right in felt. But.. I'm better off than I was when I started at least.

Sans in progress

This is what I've been working on.



He's supposed to be Sans from the game Undertale. I saw this project and was hit by how perfect this would be for my niece. I'm having a wretched time with his clothes, though. Stupid clothes. Grr.

Big Daddy is done!

Done. It's not perfect. Okay, it's far from perfect. But. It's. Done.

Big Daddy

Starting almost four days ago I've worked on this from around 10am until 8pm every day. Yes, I eat, school my children, check Neko Atsume a gazillion times, etc. But mostly, I've been working on this guy.



I will give you that this likely doesn't look much different than my final update yesterday. But lots of nitpicky slip stitching and edging and things have been done. I'm not good at that. At all. But I'm pushing through. Sometimes literally.

Anyway. This is where my brain is these days. Well, it's also stuck in a pixel world of cat collecting.. because.. it's not like I have too many real cats already, right...?

3:33pm update



Fine! I'll sew the drill on!

Yarn Along? or just a mess?

Working on this. Reading the Fables comics on my swanky new phone.. that you can't see... because I was using it to take the picture.



So. Many. Pieces.

I can't tell you how nervous it makes me putting this together. I already messed up to the point where I can't use the wire skeleton I'd planned. Here's hoping this turns out okay. The pattern creator has been an amazing help. She puts up with all my questions and has great suggestions.

Adding this to the Yarn Along thing because.. hey, why not?

3:39pm update

Still a mess. But look - wire! I fit the wire into his legs, at least!
(and who knew you could needle felt "eco friendly" fiberfill? not I!)



Also! Tea! Mmmm.

5:22pm update

All I see are the flaws. Wugh.

Leia the Second

I ended up unable to think about anything other than improving the Slave Leia that I made for B. Yeah. So... I managed to get the wire frame into this one, figured out the "proper" way to do the base hair (three-quarters of the way through), tried something different with the gold accent bits.

But.. the hair is lopsided. That's all I can see. Lopsided hair.

I can look past the nose that still seems too big and the ears that never look right. All I see is the lopsided hair (which I framed in such a way as to not be terribly obvious in these photos - that's how much it's bothering me).







Monday should bring with it a package from KnitPicks. A gift for a friend can be started as well as the Super Murder Cat that has been plaguing my brain for weeks.

Last and first craft of the year.

Last finished thingy of 2015. 10th Doctor Whooves. Whee. No, no cutie mark yet because I'm lazy and dislike cutting felt. It's huge, though. HUGE.





First finished thingy of 2016. Slave Leia. It should have turned out better. But I failed. If there is ever a next time.. maybe bulky yarn, larger hook, and a wire frame. But there probably won't be a next time as I can't imagine B needing more than one Slave Leia doll for his office shelves (that are likely overcrowded with all the other crap I've made for him).







That is all.