28 February 2011

Mini-me nears completion!

Project Mini-me is nearing completion! And I have to say, for an improvised crochet doll, she's turning out quite awesome! I'll give you a little sneak peak.



That's all you're getting for now. I know, I'm such a tease! It is the part I'm most proud of, so there. I love my little glasses. Wish my own glasses were this awesome. Well, they are, kinda, but not this awesome.

Oh well. At least mine stay on my nose without being jammed into my skull with their pointy ends at a 90 degree angle.

She's almost done, though. Just have to sew her together. And maybe make a neck, although I kinda like her being a bit dumpy. But I'm afraid Mini-me will have to wait until at least next week for that, since this week will be all about cooking and baking and food-preparation and partying and.. Yep, my dad's birthday is coming up. This wednesday, in fact. And he's turning 60! So it's time for a celebration! Naturally, this means we will be in need of loads and loads of food, so me and my sis-in-law have taken up the HUUUUGE task of preparing snacks. I'm making cookies, bread sticks, guacamole, pico de gallo, savoury zucchini cookies with tzatziki dip, wraprollthingamajiggies with salmon and a quiche on top of which I'll make a '60!' with bacon and ham. That's right, bacon for his birthday. He's one lucky man.

Thesis-wise, I've met with my supervisor and we've decided to change the angle slightly, but it's given me a boost of confidence to have spoken with him and to know what to do now. I was so stuck, it was cry-worthy. One thing that surprised me was that I was still excited about my subject when we were talking, so in spite of it all, I'm still confident I picked the right subject! Go me!
I've got a deadline now, so I'm afraid I won't be posting too much (or at least until the week before, since my deadline is in the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week) but I'll try to pop in every now and then to verify that I'm still breathing. If I'm not back before April, please notify the authorities. Thanks!

25 February 2011

The Knitting and Crochet Blog week!


I'm joining the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week! I missed last year's Blog Week but saw plenty of blogposts made and I'm excited to join this year!

Want to join too? Join the Blog Hub group on Ravelry, all the details can be found there!

16 February 2011

I'm on a mission

How's that for random, huh? But it's true! I'm on a mission. A special mission. Above is a digital 'sketch'. Looks familiar? Yup.. Well, not 'yup' yet, since I still have to dye my hair bright (and I mean BRIGHT) red again, but it's supposed to be me!

But then, what is this mission?! Well, it's not to dye my hair red again. That's just a given, I only need to find time to do it. No, my mission is caused directly by one of the BF's coworkers. See, since I'm almost graduated from Uni and getting ready to dip my toes into the big pool that is freelance translation, I needed something like a website. When that was done, Mr. Creative Coworker (and I know you're reading this, so consider this the official christening of your new nickname :P) complained that it was too plain. Which, I'll admit, it was: it was white, gray, and the only colour came from the rather plain header. One brainstorm session later, and he got me hooked (pun totally intended) on the idea to make a crochet version of.. me!

It's more difficult that I thought, mainly because I have no idea what I want exactly. I am kind of liking the idea of having my two main facial features, my bright blue glasses and my bright red hair, to be my only facial features, but I'm also toying with the idea of adding a cute little felt mouth or something.

The idea was intriguing enough for me to dive into my nasty acrylics-stash and see if I had anything skin-coloured and bright red and bright blue to start on a head, but the first attempt was dramatic.


The 'head' was large enough to fit my fist, which is definitely too large to make a good mascot I can also use to photoshop with, adding the 'hair' is already giving me traumas and I'm not even past my fringe yet, and the scratchy, fluffy acrylic is HORRIBLE looking in person. Therefore, I'm abandoning this prototype and going to visit my LYS tomorrow for some yarn that doesn't look like it's 20 years old and ready to crumble at the lightest touch.

I'm on a mission. And it's far from over.

7 February 2011

A splash of colour



To brighten up the room!

I went shopping last weekend with my mother and came across the weekend market. Normally, I'm not the market-going type of gal, simply because I live inches away from a supermarket that has a big range of products, but for things like fresh flowers and nuts, I love going to a local market.


These babies were begging to be brought home with me. 30 for 5 bucks, that's not bad, isn't it? So I filled up two vases with a lovely collection of colourful tulips.

Another thing I brought home with me, along with several baggies of dried fruit and nuts (most of which was gone before the weekend was over), was a little bag of sesame seeds. I never would have thought it, but those buggers are hard to come by in my little town! Luckily, we found a stand that had a giant bucket of them and I brought home enough to fill half a jam jar with them. Why, you ask? Well, let me show you!

I..

Made...


Hamburger buns! Really big ones too! I made them from this recipe and let me tell you, they were delicious! Mine ended up darker than the ones in the recipe pictures and for a moment I was afraid that I messed up again and ended up with hard buns, but they were pillowy and soft and really tasty. We toasted them before building our burgers, which were store-bought jalapeƱo burgers (and really tasty too), and while I normally can eat two burgers for dinner, these big boys made me feel stuffed after just 1.5. We ended up with leftover buns which I had for breakfast. They taste equally good with jam.


I have also been crocheting a bit, and built myself a little crochet hideout last friday.

As you can see, I was surrounded by yarn, pillows, and project bags with the Hordelogo on it. Hells yes. But what was I working on? Well..

Big, giant granny squares. I made four big ones in total, which will be separated by little ones, and sewn to the other GIANT, BIG, HUGE granny square you can see in the picture above. I know, it will be random, and it's a hotchpotch of colours and yarns, but it will be one cozy, cheerful pillow when I'm done! Making granny squares is really relaxing, too, since it's just the same pattern over and over again. Which does not mean that I don't make mistakes, especially when I'm watching tv at the same time... You wouldn't believe the number of times I had to rip out half a colour because I managed to add a fourth dc to a cluster somewhere, or only did one chain between the two corner clusters...

I hope I will be able to finish it with the colours I have on hand, this is still leftover from my mother's bag. Or should I hope that I run out before the end? Any excuse to buy new yarn is a good excuse, right?

1 February 2011

I didn't take your eggs, I swear!

Oh my, what's that?!

Wha? There's another one!

Three?! And they all look so angry!

Stop glaring at me! I didn't take your eggs, I swear!

Run, Monkey! Save yourself from those Angry Birds!*



*Pattern is the red one only, I improvised the other two.