Friday 28 October 2011

Buying Craft Type Stuff - Oops

Oh no. I have been shopping recently. Me shopping is a bad idea, I want to buy all sorts of exciting things that I can't possibly use, seeing as I'm hardly even going to manage to use what I've got :P but I like a lot of variety in my crafting, so here's what I thought I needed this week in order of least exciting to most exciting (for me at least);

1. Eyes and bells

Lets get the slightly creepy looking one out the way first. After making the bag of tentacley  doom including a bunch of eyes I got from the market I decided I needed more eyes. And then there were bells nearby, so I bought some bells too. Now colourful eyes too, just in case I ever desperately need some.
Bought on Durham market, which has two excellent crafty stalls :)

2. Silver Chain Necklaces (colour, not material :P)

These are AWESOME. I got a packet of five silver chain necklaces, they feel nice and they are each over 60cm in length, which I am going to use to make cool crafty things. FOR £2.60! This will allow me to make cheap but quality necklaces, whereas so far I had planned to buy charity shop necklaces for maybe £1-2 and recycle them into something crafty, but this makes for a much cheaper product for customers :)
I got these from TinyDeal, which has so many awesome things for really cheap. Some of the things are clearly low quality, but I've bought quite a lot of very decent things from the site. My pocketwatch necklace just arrived, obviously at that price I don't really mind the materials feeling a little cheap since it looks so good.
If you're wondering what's with all the TinyDeal links, well... if people buy stuff through my referral links I will get points to spend on more things :P right now I'm very tempted to buy the giant flying RC fish...
Moving swiftly on;

3. Another ball of wool (the light gray one on the top)

As demonstrated by the massive boxes of wool in the picture I clearly didn't need more wool. But I sort of did, because I didn't have light gray yet. Also bought on Durham market after I got distracted buying eyes.
So now I am making a Companion Cube which is nearly finished!

Companion Cube :)

I know the hearts aren't that heart shaped any more, but I had to make up my own pattern because all heart patterns on the internet were HUGE. Well, compared to the size I wanted my hearts. These hearts are so small I will write my pattern here;

Tiny Hearts Crochet Pattern
Make slip ring
ch 3 from ring
tr in ring
ch 2
hdc in ring
ch2
tr in ring
ch 3
Join in ring with slip stitch

Cut end and pull through last stitch (not tight)
Pull the magic slip ring tight
Tighten the last stitch by pulling the tail to help shape it

That's all there is to it, if anyone wants to learn how to crochet hearts (even if you haven't crocheted before at all) they are really easy and quick and you don't even really have to understand what the random letters I used are, I'm willing to demonstrate if anyone new to crochet wants to try their hand at making one of the tiniest fastest patterns ever :)

4. Pretty fabric

I saw pretty fabrics and decided that obviously I needed some. I intend to use these as beautiful lining fabric in knit and crochet purses and other small bags. I really like the pretty pattern on these fabrics, and I want to make really pretty bright colour purses with butterflies and flowers on and other purses with monsters and tentacle creatures and that sort of thing on. Now I can line them with pretty fabrics too!

In less crafty related shopping I also recently ordered some dice off the internet to make sure my geek rating is high enough, for which I shall have to make myself a pretty dice bag. I am not sure if I want a bright pretty one or a dark pretty one, but either way I have a suitable lining fabric due to my probably inadvisable shopping habits. And then I will finally be able to RPG properly with my own dice :D
I was really pleased with how my last dice bag came out, knitted from someone else's pattern;

Dice Bag of Doom

This is a recent dice bag I made for someone else, something along the lines of a regular black pouch type bag, except it is being devoured by a many-eyed tentacle beast thing. Pattern found on the internet and slightly altered to better fit the type of wool I was using, since I have a mostly odd bits and unclassified wool so I usually need to alter patterns a bit. Here's the free pattern download of the Dice Bag of Doom on Ravelry from the original writer, who is awesome for making this.
I thought the design was really awesome, but seeing as someone I know has a bag of this pattern now, and also that I would prefer to make an original design, I will likely not use it for my own dice bag but instead try to design something hopefully similarly cool :) maybe a more simple and classic design, I just want something pretty.

Much crafting hopefully in the near future then!

Tuesday 25 October 2011

First Toothless Tuesday

Oh no I forgot again...
It's not quite 12! Quick! Post!
*super fast Toothless Tuesday post*

Toothless with Piggy, who snuggle in my bed all day while I have to go to lectures.
It's okay, they hug me when I get home :P

In other news I'm now well on my way to one complete order of the many I got yesterday, hoping it'll be done tomorrow :)

Monday 24 October 2011

I just got an order, then another, and then so many I exploded

I know I have been saying recently that I have just finished the last set of orders I have been working on (Dragonite, Einstein and Schroedinger are all with their owners now!) and how I usually get some new orders right after I finish one bunch, but today was ridiculous!

In an awesome way :D seriously though my brain feels like mush, I got a message asking about making something, and after thinking quite hard managed to reply hopefully coherently on the matter. I then had to spend half an hour reading through another message about another possible order to try and decipher the English language which I had forgotten how to use, and just when I had grasped that another one arrived. I had to spend another half an hour getting my mind together about that one. Eventually manged to reply to all of them I think, if you sent me something and I haven't replied just message again asking if I managed to read it and remember how to type a reply :)

There are now five new entries on my Orders Table, where I put all orders and possible orders. Even if only a couple of them get confirmed and completed this is amazing, and I'm so excited :D I would have liked more time to knit really random just for my shop, but equally I like money. And being challenged to knit things I hadn't thought to knit :P

Today's random knit was Moomin, who is available
if you'd like to swap him for a £5 note. He's weighted in
his tummy with plastic beans like a beanie baby
so he's butt-heavy and doesn't fall over :)

Tomorrow I will likely be starting on an order. Maybe even tonight, since at least two of them are essentially guaranteed to be confirmed, and if not they're suitable for sale to anyone else so it can't hurt to get ahead :)
I'm maybe making another Moomin, Cthulu, a thing I can't remember, maybe a dice bag and a SUPER SECRET THING which I may release pictures of sometime after Christmas, that's just how secret it is :P (they're all written down it's okay that I already forgot)

On a related note I have been massively overwhelmed today with orders, and if you even have an inkling about possible knitted Christmas presents you'd be better to warn me about it before hand so I can organise myself and make sure nobody misses out. If you ask then want to cancel that's awesome, because you're making me schedule something that doesn't exist so I'll actually get some rest between knitting my fingers to the bone :P just contact me on facebook (fanpage or my actual page) or e-mail if you prefer (sfarfort@yahoo.co.uk)

Also exciting and completely unrelated CraftyMutt on facebook now has a proper web address;
YAY! :D

Now if five more people like the page I can access all the page owning stuff, but until you reach 30 they don't believe you're popular enough to need to see all the things :( but I'm getting there!

Friday 21 October 2011

Something Messy and Something New

Today I decide that the best way to make glasses would be to put glue on wool to make it stay in the right shape. Today I spent several hours discovering that there was still PVA on my fingers and peeling it off :P I didn't realise how difficult it would be to get glue from a messy inaccurate bottle onto a thin strand of wool, in the end I got it everywhere. Although now they are finished, and Schrödinger has his glasses!

Tiny wool glasses :D

We will get to Schrodinger and his cat in a minute though, for now I have an exciting new random thing... a dog brush!
Looks pretty dangerous with all those tiny metal spikey bits,
but somehow it's not like being stabbed by five hundred
needles when you touch it.

This dog brush isn't for CraftyMutt's fur though; I have been looking around for a while considering getting a slicker brush to do a very special exciting crafty thing. Something magical happens when you introduce it to a normal piece of knitted or crochet fabric - the brush, designed to make fur look pretty, makes fluff appear out of nowhere!
This means I can take any wool I own, knit something, and then make it fluffy after. Much easier than trying to knit with overly fuzzy and awkward wool, and really good for creating hair and fur on my critters :)

So, obviously, I wanted to test it out...

As you can see, the texture of the small piece is massively different
from the texture of the larger piece behind it.

The two pieces above started out exactly the same (apart from size obviously) but while the larger one I need as it is, the smaller one I knitted as a test to see just what would happen when I brushed it. Now they're completely different!

This brings me on to Schroedinger, who has rather fuzzy eccentric hair as is traditional with all those great scientists. He was the perfect excuse to go out and buy a slicker brush, which will now be used to make a host of tiny fuzzy cute things like foxes and bunnies and kittens.

Sneak peek of Schrödinger!
That hair is entirely the product of brushing at a flat knitted piece of wool - before that his hair looked like a brown splat on his head with the same texture as the jacket :P
A proper photo of him, including cat and box will be up sometime soonish, but for now here he is minus bow tie (I'm picking out the best ribbon colour now). He will be making his first public appearance tomorrow evening :)

New random things should come soon, seeing as that's the last of my orders done for now :D unless people make more orders, although I'd quite like a little break to knit random stuff too. The challenge of an order is great fun, but making something for no reason whatsoever is a lot of fun too :)

p.s. apologies for forgetting Toothless Tuesday the first time it was supposed to happen... I'll try and get in the habit soon!

Wednesday 12 October 2011

Finally Dragonite and New Toothless Tuesday

So Dragonite is finished and delievered, and I have eventually got round to getting his photo up for everyone to see :D

It's not the best photo I've taken, but gets him across :)
the business card is regular business card sized,
and Dragonite is about 8-9 inches tall

He doesn't look that fat in this photo, but he's really chubby in real life. I've actually nearly run out of Dragonite wool but if someone really likes him I can get hold of some similarly yellow wool and make more but I can't knit quick, and I don't really want to knit things this big so much because they take foreverrrrrr....
Quotes for different sizes on request, and bear in mind I'm doing a degree and knitting at the same time :P
That's also tiny nyan cat charm, who was won by the same person who had ordered Dragonite. I want to do another keyring/cham giveaway soon so everybody watch out! Or give me £1 and I'll make whatever hand drawn keyring picture you like :)

Also I intend to make Tuesdays into Toothless Tuesday! In that every Tuesday I will post a photo of Toothless doing something or sitting somewhere being Toothless, because quite a lot of people like him and I need an excuse to remember to post stuff :P here is one to make up for yesterday;

Photo of Toothless taken by Alex during the
summer holiday of Toothless wearing a hat
Toothless says "Rawr!"

Edit: for those particularly interested in Toothelss he was made from a pattern made by spirit-of-america on Deviantart, which you can also find linked in the description for the photos of her Toothless :) I made my own adaption of the claws and have worked it through once, so although I can't really make one for anybody I am happy to offer some help and tips and my alternate claw method (which is much simpler) should anyone want. He's a really big project but he's really awesome once finished :D
I may do a blog post with hints, tips and extra pattern bits one day if it seems appropriate.

Thursday 6 October 2011

Free Durham Delivery! Quote TREVSPOST01

Seeing as I am crrently in Durham, and I often walk around town and college sites, it does not make sense that I should go to the post office to post something to somewhere else in Durham :P So Durham students clearly deserve some kind of deal, something like... free delivery!

Obviously this is much better for both sides, I don't have to put stuff in envelopes and you don't get your new friend squished or damaged on their journey to you! Also I'll be around so if there's something not quite right I'm happy to do little fixes and make it right for free, so you're getting the best of everything :D

Free delivery is easy to offer on orders requested by e-mail or facebook, but for my Etsy shop where almost everything non-custom knit is on sale there is no way to explain to them that you live right by me and don't want your thing posted
For anybody who would like to buy something I've already listed on Etsy I have made a free delivery code; when prompted for a discount or delivery code, please enter TREVSPOST01 to remove that silly delivery charge.
(If you're unsure check the bottom of this post for the boring bits. See Shop link in top right for Etsy shop)

In a similar vein, if you do not have an Etsy account and do not want to make one contact me and I'll sort the purchase for you, but I'm really looking to get as much feedback as possible from lots of people to show I am a good seller so it's helpful if you can :)

People are also welcome to come see my Shelf Shop and physically check out what's on sale if you'd like to really see what you are getting before you buy. I'm located in Trevs, E block 3rd floor room 6 - although for the length of the assassins death match (up to a month) I may be a bit reluctant to let people come in my room before I've prodded them with a piece of paper. It's all part of the CraftyMutt experience. Anyone worried they'll get lost in Trevs and isn't an assassin can contact me before hand, and I'll track you down and make sure you find your way back out :)

In even more news there should be a photo of Dragonite up here within days, seeing as he'll be leaving me very soon (I hope) for his new home :) next order - Schrödinger and his Cat-in-a-box!

Schrödinger's Cat after a night in Klute, handily
provided by Google images (from wastetimepost.com)

I feel this blog needs more silly cats. I also feel my shop is woefully understocked, but I have been unable to knit anything new to put in it for a while now since I keep getting custom orders. Which is awesome, I love the great ideas people have and I love the challenge to pattern-design and knit something I didn't come up with. Any custom orders are extremely welcome through CraftyMutt's facebook page, now at facebook.com/craftymutt, or e-mail to sfarfort@yahoo.co.uk!

Boring Stuff About Free Delivery for Etsy
  • Only available in Term Time (ask if it's available outside term time, I may be around)
  • Only available to students (and residents should any turn up) of Durham City, within about 2-3 miles of Trevelyan College - I may have to cancel the order if I do not feel I can reach you and no offer is made to meet closer to Trevs.
  • Also applicable if you wish to pick something up from in Durham but live further out (e.g. Stockton campus or visiting Durham)
  • Provide any extra details of how you would like delivery in the "Note to seller" since I will not post to the address associated with the account, otherwise I shall start messaging you repeatedly until some way of giving you your purchase is sorted :)
  • No additional discount can be made on orders listed with free delivery to start with, but remember asking about making a custom order similar to something listed can usually get you the same thing at a better price as there are no site fees for orders handled outside Etsy.