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Another apple cozy-related bonus pic: I remembered that back in the day (maybe 10 years ago??), one of us had actually knitted an apple cozy along the lines of the typical pattern, so I dug it out of our big box of crusty old knitting projects. It’s a little misshapen, but it still holds apples!
Here are some bonus pictures of an apple cozy prototype! In order to make the apple cozy, I started with a magic ring and, crocheting in the round, made a flat circle about 2 inches across. Then I chained a bunch and began to crochet perpendicular to the original flat circle, attaching the end of each row to the flat circle, so I was basically making a cylinder (also, while doing a rib stitch). When I'd gone all the way around, I sewed up the seam halfway and then finished off the edge with a green border (a v-neck, for easier apple access).
The first time I did this, I made the flat circle too wide, so I turned it into a nice bowl instead. It's perfect for holding tiny pumpkins.
It's fall--apple season! And how better to celebrate than with one of those items that I'm pretty sure exists solely to provide an excuse to crochet something: an apple cozy!
Last winter when I was back at home, I decided to take it upon myself to crochet an apple cozy. I had been bringing apples to eat at work, and I didn't like them rattling around in my backpack all...naked. So obviously, the solution was a fruit sweater.
The Internet, I discovered, is rife with patterns for apple cozies. Take this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one. But while all scored high on adorableness, most suffered from the same flaw: they could only hold one size of apple! This seemed impractical, not to mention unfair--why should only the conventionally-sized apples have all the fun? What about the petite crabapples and plus-sized Hokutos? So I set out to make a more inclusive apple cozy.
Mostly, my solution consisted of finding a way to add ribbing, which keeps the cozy tight-fitting for smaller apples but allows it a bit more stretch to fit larger apples. Part of the goal was also to do away with a button closure, because buttons, no matter how cute they are, inevitably fall off. The busy, on-the-go modern apple doesn't have time for that!
So, for the past few months I’ve been working on what is probably the most practical thing I’ve ever crocheted, and what is definitely the largest flat thing I’ve ever crocheted. That’s right: I finally made a friggin’ blanket!
And it’s not just any blanket. The Smart Museum of Art at UChicago is putting on an exhibit called Welcome Blanket, created by craftivist Jayna Zweiman of the Pussyhat Project (here’s a link to the actual Smart Museum exhibit page, and to the project page). The idea is that people will knit/crochet/weave/quilt blankets and send them in to the Smart Museum, and after being displayed those blankets will be distributed to immigrants and refugees. The length of the yarn involved in creating those blankets will represent a sort of symbolic counter to the length of the proposed border wall--basically, lengths of inclusion versus lengths of exclusion.
So, the blanket I made is a Welcome Blanket! Having never made a blanket before, I relied mostly on this pattern from Susan B. at Handcrafting with Love, but jazzed it up with some granny-inspired borders. And I learned that crocheting even a small lap blanket takes about a million skeins of yarn, endless patience with repetitive stitches, and copious amounts of free time. But hey, I spent most of that time watching the Bachelorette, so it was probably worth it.
Also, the blanket is supposed to look like the ocean. Because symbolism.
It’s...it’s aliiive!
Hey! We still exist! And we still (very occasionally) crochet! So if you still follow this blog, get ready to see some updates that have been sitting in the backlog for a very long time!
I made a raccoon for Emily, who emailed us with this commission for her mom who loves raccoons! I hope she likes it.
The raccoon was crocheted based on the pattern of the fox we made about two years ago. The fox pattern, a Knot Factory original, starts out just like any crochet pattern: as a concrete description of how many stitches to make in what way ("work 2 sc in each st around," etc.). But by the end the pattern devolves into instructions like "Make one arm" and then "Stitch up to the next point where you want another arm, and make it." Someone got lazy back in 2011.
As a result, there was a lot of guesswork involved in the making of this raccoon. And a lot of do-overs. I think I redid every single part of this little guy's body, snout to tail, at least twice (the head I took apart about a total of 4 times!), because I wasn't quite satisfied with how it looked. Let it be known that here at the Knot Factory, we are committed to perfection--though maybe not in our patterns. (Seriously, this is why we don't sell our patterns.)
The delivery was a success! Look how happy Totoro is!
GWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRR
I made a Totoro for my friend Eva! It's not my pattern--it's Lucy Ravenscar's Ravelry pattern, which seems to be so popular that when you search simply "Totoro" in Google images, some images of her Totoros come up. And for crochet, that never happens.
But it wouldn't be a Knot Factory production if I didn't try to change the pattern to fit my own ends in the jankiest way possible. Here, I used her blue Totoro pattern, though my Totoro is gray (I was too cheap/lazy to make the bigger version). So the ears were pretty much guesswork. And I agonized over the eyes, because my Totoro looks a little wild-eyed. It's seen things, man.
The Knot Factory's official headquarters!
Now that we're working on new commissions, we needed to stock up on supplies. (It didn't help that we recently moved to a new city, and neglected to bring a single skein of yarn with us.) So one fine Saturday, we embarked on a grand tour of our local craft stores in search of yarn and stuffing. We hit up three stores: Artist and Craftsman Supply, Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics, and Tuesday Morning. Only Artist and Craftsman Supply had gray yarn (which we both needed), as well as anything else you might want if you were an artist or a craftsperson. But before we arrived there, we went to Tuesday Morning, which had a modest yarn section (with no gray yarn), and then went to Stonemountain and Daughter out of desperation. Stonemountain and Daughter had no yarn, but they did have polyfil stuffing (which we did need) and an abundance of adorable fabric patterns, which almost made us want to take up sewing (almost). Then we went back to our apartment and cried about how expensive everything was.
Knot Factory 2.0: All Grown Up
Hey guys! So it's been a while since we've really been in the amigurumi game, and a lot of things have happened in the meantime. We graduated college, got jobs, and moved to a completely new city! Heady adult stuff. And now that we're not busy losing sleep over final papers, we have time to spend on other worthy activities, like crocheting glorified spheres.
We've also, as you may have noticed, revamped the Knot Factory website! Now there's a main page, which features glossy photos of what we consider our best work, and linked to that is this here blog, where we post about our crochet escapades. We've also decided that we're only taking commissions for now, instead of crocheting things and hoping someone buys them. We're already working on a few commissions, which is exciting.
Anyway, y'all should explore the new site. We spent a few late nights wrestling with new themes for the website/blog, and we're pretty proud of it!
I'm back at home under the same conditions that led me to start crocheting in the first place: a tilt of the Earth's axis toward the sun and rank unemployment. It was only a matter of time until new projects began to materialize.
This time I decided to try to make a doily, since I've only ever crocheted one flat thing before. But I quickly discovered that I had no idea what a "crochet space" is, and the gauge of my yarn was way off (Gauge? Ain't nobody got time for that!). After two hours of frustrated yarn-pulling, I scrapped the idea and decided to go for something easier instead: granny squares! The granny square is apparently a common first project for beginning crocheters, but I'd never made one before, probably because I learned how to crochet from the internet, not my grandma. Also, it was way harder than I expected, probably because I still didn't know what a crochet space is. The first one I made is the one that looks kind of like a graham cracker. I made the second, slightly more aesthetically appealing one just to prove that I could make a granny square that doesn't look like a graham cracker.
What is this? you ask. An uninspired foray into freeform crochet? A fanciful volcano with roots coming out? A kitschy artistic rendition of a burst pimple? Some kinda weird psychedelic flower thingy?
Close, but no cigar. This was my version of Item 139 on this year's Scav list:
"Make a quirky new sweater for an octopus. Don't forget to leave an extra hole for its dreams and ideas!"
I made this way back in May, and seeing as I'm going back to school tomorrow, I figured I should finally post this before I forget. 223 days until Scav 2014!
Yesterday, it snowed for the first time this season! I thought it'd be appropriate to make another snowflake, instead of addressing my heaping piles of homework. Thankfully, the snowflake I made this time is nowhere near as large or as terrifyingly raw as the monstrosity I made on New Year's. I used butcher's twine because I'm too cheap to buy yarn, but hey, I think it lends the snowflake a pleasantly rustic texture. Again, the pattern comes from this website, and the flake is the one entitled "Cold Storage II."
A New Year's Snowflake Adventure
This New Year's Eve we had a shindig at our house, which never happens. All the adults were singing karaoke, which meant I couldn't read quietly or bop away to "Like a Virgin" or whatever the heck else I normally do during winter break, so I thought, hey, I haven't crocheted in a while--let's make a snowflake!
First, some background. My crochet training has been rather unorthodox. Mostly I picked up the basics from the internet, and then set myself loose: deciding what I wanted to make and then tying yarn into knots with my hook until it looked kind of like what I had in mind. I've never even made a granny square, which is apparently like not knowing how to ride a bike. (No comment on whether I can do that, either.)
Usually my normal tactic is to crochet something round, slap some plastic eyes on it, and stuff it 'til it looks cute. But not so here! This time I didn't have any stuffing or adorable beady eyes to hide behind--it would just be me, my trusty hook, and my amazing crochet prowess.
Unlike this pattern. (not by me: source)
I searched through some snowflake patterns on the internet and stumbled on a website with some amazingly intricate snowflake patterns. I was inspired. I was going to make something that wasn't my normal quasi-cute wannabe-geeky amigurumi. Instead, I'd make something beautiful and delicate, despite the fact that all I had to crochet with was some puffy white yarn.
The pattern I eventually settled on was the Douglas snowflake. Seven rounds, I thought. This shouldn't be too bad. But I was bewildered when the pattern directed me to "1 dc in next ch 3 sp," and asked me to create a mythical triple crochet stitch. And what the heck was a picot? By round 4, I was angry and confused. By round 6, I was jaded. Several times I contemplated giving up in despair, but each time I was filled with a steely resolve. I was not going to be bested by a snowflake.
And so my snowflake grew, and grew, and grew, until finally:
My snowflake is HUGE. It's bigger than a pancake--over a foot wide at its widest point--and if it ever fell out of the sky, it would elicit screams of horror. It serves no practical function and doesn't have much in the aesthetic department, either. But I feel a certain kinship with my large, monstrous pan-flake. I, too, serve no practical function. I, too, don't have much in the aesthetic department. And I, too, am over a foot wide at my widest point.
Master Chief would like to wish you all a Happy New Year! This little beefcake was a commission from someone at school. I don't know anything about Halo, so my knowledge of Master Chief is culled purely from Wikipedia and pictures on the Internet. This was my attempt to chibi-fy a muscular, seven-foot armored fighting machine. Look at those bulky little arms.
(You may have noticed a striking similarity between this picture and the David Tennant picture. This is apparently the only spot in my house with any good lighting.)