The Sea Turtle

Here we see my cat Moxie checking out this Sea Turtle and offering a convenient size reference. Though keep in mind, Moxie is a runt of the litter cat.

Stuffed Animals are a spectacularly fun challenge for me. This Sea Turtle was the biggest challenge of all because my deadline was 48 hours from my starting it. I slept a total of 5 hours in two nights. I found inspiration for his shell at Planet June's Blog. You'll notice that my turtle is quite different, from her finished product, however, which is why I say inspiration.

This turtle is one of my favorite things I've ever made, in league with Fluttershy and the Rainbow Mohawk hat. 

Special Notes: Do you see those eye ridges? Damn, that is some excellent shaping.

I beg of you not to order something 48 hours before a deadline, the lack-of-sleep hallucinations aren't good hallucinations. 

The Panda Hat

This Panda Hat was a sneaky Christmas gift for my ever-willing model, my brother. He really loves pandas, and has everything panda-related you could ever think of in his collection. But he did not have a panda hat! But I couldn't spoil the surprise of this gift, so I told him he was modeling this hat for a customer from school. It worked perfectly! He was so envious of this hat that he even went to my (well, our) mom and begged her to ask me to make him a panda hat for Christmas. He was so surprised on Christmas and so happy with the hat, the trickery was well worth it.

Special Feature: This hat could easily be made into any sort of animal, not just a panda or a bear. This could easily be a cat or dog or bunny or dragon, whatever you like. Also, did you see on the right picture that the earflaps have tiny little claws? I just thought it was too cute of an idea to pass up.

Flip-Top Mittens

Another favorite of mine, fingerless gloves with mitten hoods!

These are honestly some of my favorite items to make. I've done this pair and also a mismatched pair that it would seem I never took pictures of. Amy fail. Any color pattern for gloves or mittens can be easily adapted into a pair of these.

Dice Bags: Typical Bags and 3D Figures Made into Bags

The Typical Dice Bag

Dice bags! Boy can dice bags be fun. They're infinitely customizable! All you require to declare something a dice bag is a pouch area and some way to close it. 

 

This particular dice bag features a basilisk as defined by Pathfinder (as opposed to Harry Potter's basilisk which was really just a giant snake, just sayin'). Note that it has eight legs. Don't like basilisks? Man, this pouch could have any motif on it! It could be a snake or a heart or a troll or a trollface or your initials, it so doesn't matter! Any color, any texture, buttons, zippers, hidden compartments, dots instead of stripes, checkers of color, crazy stitches, crazy patterns--dice bags are one of the easiest items to completely personalize! They also make excellent gifts, as this bag was.

Special Feature: Did you notice how the basilisk's tail becomes the drawstring for the bag?! You have no idea how excited I was when I thought that up.
Amy's Hindsights: I made a mistake or two while making this bag, but they aren't obvious, so I'll never point them out! Today I'm even better with color motifing (wow, spell-check, that's really a word?) and so I know I can make items like this even better-looking than this bag already is!

Figures Made into Dice Bags

 This dashing young fellow is Harold the Otyugh. 

Not sure what an Otyugh is? Don't worry, neither was I until I started playing tabletop role-playing games. An Otyugh is a creature which forms mutually beneficial relationships with societies, happily eating all of their waste for as long as they provide it. Note how Harold is dutifully guarding these old pizza boxes. Well with their gigantic mouth-to-body ratio, an Otyugh seemed like the perfect candidate for a dice bag! That is, until I accidentally made him over a foot tall. Not so easy to carry to your weekly game session. Originally he was meant to be about six or eight inches tall, and that's the size I would make any other specialty dice bags. Unless, of course, you want a different size. I was having so much fun making him that until I put all the pieces together I didn't realize the horrible error in gauge I had made.

The moral of the story is to always check your gauge. Or not to enjoy your projects too much. Wait, that doesn't sound right...

Anyway, in considering a dice bag like the one listed above, consider also a dice bag in the form of your favorite creature! Be it the dreaded Terrasque or the cutest kitten.
Special Feature: Poseable arms with kung-fu action*!

*Figurines do not and probably never will feature kung-fu action. Poseable arms and legs are always an option, however.

Amy's Hindsight: Don't tell anyone, but because of the gauge failure, I totally ran out of one of his colors partway through. Luckily for everyone, the color combo that came from that made Harold look even cooler.

Idea Corner! Wouldn't something like Harold the Otyugh make a great backpack? If anything, he'd be a great stuffed toy, nothing says he has to have a zipper for a mouth.

Crochet Pony Fluttershy - MLP:FIM Pony

For those of you who aren't Bronies, this is Fluttershy. For those of you who are Bronies, I'll gladly wait until you're finished squeeing at the screen. (It's ok, I understand. Imagine the squees when she was reveal to her recip!)

Ok, are you (and everyone you called into the room) done squealing with joy? Good. Here's some more pictures.

 

 Now you should be advised that ponies (and Fluttershys in particular) take quite a while to complete. Just getting her mane right was at least two weeks of work. However, she was my first pony, I was blazing a trail, so now hopefully all future ponies will be much less stressful. (Fluttershy? Stressful? How out of character.) Heck, even if the next ponies (I fully intend to make every pony and Discord someday) are stressful, I have Fluttershy around to hug. What could possibly be better than that? So feel free to order a pony, knowing it literally comes with love in every stitch.

Special Feature: It's a freaking pony, what more could you want? Now that I have a typical pony down, you can get any pony! Feel free to ask for O.C. ponies, too! I'll definitely need a picture, though. Also, be warned that ponies with different bodies--like Celestia or the Changelings or baby ponies--will require additional time for me to figure out.

Amy's Hindsights: It's never nice to pick on Fluttershy, but I think I want to change the hind legs; to me they just kind of abruptly stop and don't show the hip line on the character design. Also, this was my first time working with felt like this, so my felt work can only get better!

Acknowledgements: I did not come up with the basic pattern for this design. I found this pattern online on a blog called Hooked on Anime. I have changed a few things, the most obvious being my approach to the eyes and hair, but also in more subtle areas like the neck and hind legs. So in a way, this is my pattern, but it's so rude to take someone else's pattern, change it a bit, and call it your own. There are other ponies besides Fluttershy, including some OC(ish) ponies with accessories! 

Mohawk Hats

Mohawk hats are just what they sound like, hats with mohawks. They can be made in all sorts of different styles. My favorite was one that was made in my school colors. It almost looked like this but the mohawk was larger and the quality was simply better. Anyway, just google mohawk hats and you'll see all sorts of styles and examples. Here's what I've made myself.

 

 This hat was requested by a friend who loves both mohawk hats and rainbows! My friend specially asked for a "toned-down rainbow." What a challenge! After much thought and experimentation, I created this design!

This is one of my favorite creations along with my Fluttershy pony, the Panda Hat, and the Sea Turtle. I love making these!

As with any item I make, this one is fully customizable. Perhaps you'd like to see some purple up in the mohawk. Braid length is always easily changed. Perhaps you don't want a certain color of the rainbow included, maybe you hate yellow. My first question is going to be "Are you the Green Lantern and can I have your autograph?" but then I'll tell you that that's easy as pie.  

That isn't my friend in the picture, in case you were wondering, that is my brother, my ever-willing model, back when he was sporting that odd pencily-mustache.

 Special Feature: Mohawk hats certainly don't have to be rainbow. They don't have to be complicated at all to be awesome! Here's one I made for another customer using only black and two shades of gray. This hat also features mattress stitch edging.
You may recognize this guy from pictures of the Greek Hat. This is my secondary model when I'm away from home, my boyfriend Levi.
(Don't all my models just look ecstatic  I'm going to have to make them smile or stop using models...)

Amy's Hindsights: Damn, I love these hats. I don't think I'd change anything, they came out so well! Well, ok, if I had to critique them, I'd say the Rainbow Hat's mohawk could have been more even, it's being distorted when worn, so I could take that into account. And the other hat shown has a mohawk that would be a little too long for my preference, but the customer loved the slightly messy style.

The Greek Hat

This hat was made for a member of Phi Mu Alpha, one of the many Greek organizations on campus. 

In this design, a patch featuring Phi Mu Alpha's letters has been sewn onto a standard toque (a toque is the style of hat with earflaps, braids, and either a pompon or tassel on top, this toque features a tassel) which has been striped in their colors. This hat is extremely customizable, not only by colors or the symbols on the hat, but by the size of the patch, length and size of the braids or a lack thereof, and the inclusion of either a tassel or pompon, or neither atop the hat.  

Special Feature: The extra symbol on the back of the hat! That's a special symbol of the Phi Mu Alpha fraternity. Your hat could easily include your special symbol!
Amy's Hindsights: I now see that the patch is far too large. If I could get the patch off of that hat to fix it, I would, but it is attached really well, that thing is never coming loose.

The Collegiate Hat

This was a Christmas gift for my Dad. I go to Southern Illinois University, and my dad is really proud of that, so I came up with this design. The school's letters are on the front, our Saluki paw print symbol is on both sides, and, well, that little dot in the back isn't the most creative thing, I was experimenting with new ways to do the back seam of the hat. This hat could easily be made in your school's (or business') colors, with your logos on it. 

Special Feature: See how the accent colors show through the main white background of the hat? Cool, right?!
Amy's Hindsight: Looking back on this hat I see exactly where I would fix some things, like there is some pulling at the back of the hat with that funny dot (which I would probably leave out). Also, I would knit this hat top-down, for a smoother appearance on the logo.