Stitch out of Time

My geeky crochet and sometimes cross stitch creations featured here! My crafting time is short and I am slow, so updates will probably be infrequent. Most post will be progress updates or finished photos, with occasional patterns and giveaways. I'll also answer crochet questions and give tips - I'm no expert, but I'm happy to help when I can! My main crafting fandom right now is the Avengers, with A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones coming in second. There's no real fandom theme to this tumblr however - fandoms will come and go as inspiration strikes. I also do classics themed cross stitch, in Latin and Greek. Feed me questions! Feed me posts!

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Some more Cosette pictures!

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Moreover, Cosette was not very timid by nature. There flowed in her veins some of the blood of the bohemian and the adventuress who runs barefoot. It will be remembered that she was more of a lark than a dove. There was a foundation of wildness and bravery in her.

-Les Misérables, IV.5.2

Tiny Cosette is waiting on her bench for a certain young gentleman to come by!

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A further collection of Enjolrai.

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Enjolras was a charming young man, who was capable of being terrible. He was angelically handsome. He was a savage Antinous. One would have said, to see the pensive thoughtfulness of his glance, that he had already, in some previous state of existence, traversed the revolutionary apocalypse. He possessed the tradition of it as though he had been a witness. He was acquainted with all the minute details of the great affair. A pontifical and warlike nature, a singular thing in a youth. He was an officiating priest and a man of war; from the immediate point of view, a soldier of the democracy; above the contemporary movement, the priest of the ideal. His eyes were deep, his lids a little red, his lower lip was thick and easily became disdainful, his brow was lofty. A great deal of brow in a face is like a great deal of horizon in a view. Like certain young men at the beginning of this century and the end of the last, who became illustrious at an early age, he was endowed with excessive youth, and was as rosy as a young girl, although subject to hours of pallor.

- Les Miserables, 3.4.1

Enjolras commission for @oilan! Now with pensively thoughtful gaze and lofty brow.

(See a previous musical-inspired Enjolras here, here, and here)

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Your crochet Amis are absolutely gorgeous!!! Can I ask, how do you get the hair in so nicely? I'd like to broaden my abilities and move from crocheting animals to people, but the hair always scares me away....

Hi friend! The short answer is that I have a couple different techniques, depending on the hair style. Here’s a post where I discuss it a little and show a picture of a doll in progress.

Most of my dolls with long hair have this basic process:

Crochet wig cap in the same yarn color as the hair. The wig cap should be as wide as the head, and long enough that it covers from where you want to hairline to start in front to the back of the head.This wig cap keeps the flesh color of the head from showing through as you add on strands of hair.

Sew on wig cap (as seen in the picture above)

Decide on where the part line will go

Stitch hair along one side of the part line

Stitch hair along the other side of the part line

Stitch hair along any uncovered area at the back after the last two steps

Cut and style!

With short curly hair (e.g. Courfeyrac, Grantaire), I sew loops on all over the head (no wig cap) and then cut the loops. To make the yarn curly, I crochet something - anything! - with the yarn I want to use for hair, soak it in water, and let it dry for a day or two, and then unravel it. The yarn will retain some curl from having been crocheted! It’s time consuming to sew on all the loops, but I think it looks good.

Short flat hair (e.g. Marius, Combeferre) is embroidered right onto the head. Start at the back and bottom, and work your way up in short rows. Vertical stitches; horizontal rows. When you get near the top, start embroidering horizontally along a part line. This type of hair is my least favorite to do because it’s a huge pain and I’m bad at it and it takes me forever,

But there are other styles too! For instance, for Chat Noir, I sewed strands of yarn together along a part line and then sewed that onto his head for a different look. Legolas and Hamilton have hair tied inside the head and pulled out for a different looking hairline. Did you have something in mind? If you’re just looking for general inspiration, I always recommend checking out youtube to see if there are helpful videos tutorials.

If you’re working on a particular project or have something specific in mind, let me know and I can try to give advice or post close ups of my dolls!

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Plot twist! I made Jehan a cape.

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Do you sell your little crochet buddies? I would love to have a set of Les Amis De L'ABC!

Hi friend! I definitely don’t have a full set for sale, but I might be opening to selling individual dolls. Because they're pretty labor intensive, a commission would probably run you in the $60-$90 range, depending on complexity. I also periodically do giveaways, so you can keep an eye out for that!

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His name was Jehan, owing to that petty momentary freak which mingled with the powerful and profound movement whence sprang the very essential study of the Middle Ages. Jean Prouvaire was in love; he cultivated a pot of flowers, played on the flute, made verses, loved the people, pitied woman, wept over the child, confounded God and the future in the same confidence, and blamed the Revolution for having caused the fall of a royal head, that of André Chénier. His voice was ordinarily delicate, but suddenly grew manly. He was learned even to erudition, and almost an Orientalist. Above all, he was good; and, a very simple thing to those who know how nearly goodness borders on grandeur, in the matter of poetry, he preferred the immense.  - Les Miserables, 3.4.1

It’s been ages since my last Ami! October felt like the right time to make a little Jehan.

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I haven’t cross stitched much lately, but I got bored and did @dontaskgrantaire‘s icon.

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Howdy! Amazingly, i came up with the idea to crochet the Hamilton cast, but it looks like you beat me to Alex at least haha. I was wondering if you had some tips on how to get that jacket done because I am at a true loss, I'd appreciate the tips

Hi there!

My basic coat pattern looks like this:

It’s a rectangle with holes at the top for where the sleeves will go. I like to make it vertically with short rows for the sleeves, but I know other people who prefer to make similar items in horizontal rows bottom to top.

Once you’ve got your basic rectangle, crochet around the edges, including chains or fscs across the tops of the arm holes. I like to do decreases around the top as well to shorten the collar a bit. When you go up and down the sides, do fpdcs to get a folded lapel look:

I then crochet the sleeves into the base of the armholes, but if you prefer you can make the sleeves as separate tubes and sew them on. Tada! That’s how I made my Hamilton coat.

Hope this helps!

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Quick Mulan for a friend!

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Chat Noir commission complete!

This one was a bit tricky because I've never watched his show and his hair gave me grief. I had to make a lot of compromises, but hopefully he came out cute and recognizable anyway!

(Yes, he has a tail.)

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[Combeferre] loved the word citizen, but he preferred the word man. He would gladly have said: Hombre, like the Spanish. He read everything, went to the theatres, attended the courses of public lecturers, learned the polarization of light from Arago, grew enthusiastic over a lesson in which Geoffroy Sainte-Hilaire explained the double function of the external carotid artery, and the internal, the one which makes the face, and the one which makes the brain; he kept up with what was going on, followed science step by step, compared Saint-Simon with Fourier, deciphered hieroglyphics, broke the pebble which he found and reasoned on geology, drew from memory a silkworm moth, pointed out the faulty French in the Dictionary of the Academy, studied Puységur and Deleuze, affirmed nothing, not even miracles; denied nothing, not even ghosts; turned over the files of the Moniteur, reflected. He declared that the future lies in the hand of the schoolmaster, and busied himself with educational questions.

Enjolras - Grantaire - Bossuet - Courfeyrac - Marius

Combeferre commission for @stupidromanticus!

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More Combeferres!

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I was hoping to make a Hamilton amigurumi and I was just wondering if you could tell me how you did the hair on yours.

Oh boy, it was a PAIN. I’ll try to explain, but it might be a little tricky.

First of all, since LMM’s hair is quite fine, I used a soft sock weight yarn. I suppose a thinner weight would be even better, but require more patience. I do heads so that the increases are at the bottom (neck) and the decreases are at the top, where I can hide them with hair or hats (because decreases look terrible).

Before doing the last few decrease rows of his head, I put in safety eyes and embroidered the mouth. At the same time, I made small bundled strands of sock yarn (multiple strands at once for volume, and tied them into a knot in the middle to keep them together. Then I pulled each end through holes in his forehead, just a little above the eyes. The inside knot stayed inside the head, hidden. I repeated this a bunch of times until he had a nice fall of hair in front of his face and a little around his face in front and above the ears. This is going to be the top layer of his hair! When I was satisfied, I stuffed the head and finished crocheting it shut.

For the second layer, I did a standard middle part where I sewed hair onto the top of his head in two rows along a center line, and in back to cover and gaps. Then I pulled the first layer back and tied it in place with ribbon to sit on top and make it look like his hair was swept back. Then I trimmed all the hair until it looked like I wanted.

If I found any gaps in the top layer, I snuck a little extra hair in on the second layer to thread through his forehead. The top layer hides these cheats.

Hope that helps! There are probably easier hairstyles, but this one worked for me. Let me know how it goes!

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Alexander Hamilton My name is Alexander Hamilton And there’s a million things I haven’t done Just you wait..

I think it’s time to stop tinkering with tiny Alex and declare him done!

[blahblahunicorns]

IS THERE A PATTERN FOR THIS????

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I’m afraid not - I’m terrible about writing down what I do. But if you or anyone else decides to make a tiny Ham and wants tips based on my experience, feel free to send me a question!

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I couldn’t stop thinking about @subsequentibis‘s tiny!Ham AU while I was working on this guy.