embroidery floss crochet Archives - Page 7 of 7

Bonus Post: Iron Craft Challenge #17

I wanted to make Lion’s “Two Peas in a Pod” amigurumi (registration required to see pattern) as soon as I saw it, but when does someone who’s not planning a wedding or bridal shower have a reason to make an explicitly wedding-themed project? Well, as it turns out, when Iron Craft takes the British royal wedding as its inspiration and sets weddings as the theme of the week. Until I remembered this pattern I wasn’t going to participate, since I have a number of wedding gifts to make but they are either already in progress or items I can’t complete in a week.

I added some silver to the mix, in the form of a hatband and trim on the bridal veil. Crocheting with metallic floss gets a big thumbs down – the strands would either prefer to have nothing to do with each other, or they catch on each other. However, I am very happy with how it came out! (except perhaps for Mr. Pea’s mouth.)

Stumpy got his one-day license for this.

Smile for the camera!

You always need a silly picture.

I made them grinning and winking because I wanted joy. Long ago I cut a 50th anniversary announcement out of the paper – they had used a wedding picture for the announcement, and happiness shines out of it.

I cut it out as a reminder that unless I feel the way they look, I shouldn’t walk down the aisle. Also, they’re just darn cute.

Excellent ideas

Before I even began crocheting, I trolled Etsy for amigurumi patterns. My sister loves Peeps, so I was delighted to find Chiwaluv’s neon chickens pattern. Her chicks have exactly the right blobbiness to be Peeps.

Kate’s current Peeps, all official plushies, are named Peep, Megapeep, Gigapeep, and Terapeep, and she mentioned she was hoping for a Picopeep. I thought I could make her at least a Micropeep out of embroidery floss. Then I realized crocheting sewing thread with a 10 hook (1.3 mm) would be terrific for a Picopeep. I have a couple dozen tiny spools of thread, bought for no good reason in a large bag at the dollar store, and their odd colors included a few plausible Peep hues.

With my bionic vision and retractable tweezer fingers, I completed Picopeep in a mere five hours, a trivial 500% increase over the length of construction of Micropeep. Let’s see the results:

Roses say “I love you.” Sewing-thread crochet peeps say “I love you more than eyesight.”

It is a little-known fact that Peeps’ native terrain is rugged, and in fact they are semi-arboreal.

In seriousness, one difficulty is that, like floss, thread is inelastic. This makes, in particular, the first stitch of the second round very tight. It is also difficult to see the stitches – strong light makes a world of difference! The thread twisted up as I went, though I might have been able to fix that by unrolling it from the spool in advance. I found I would make unintentional increases because the new stitch takes so little room on the previous round’s stitch that it was hard to tell last-used from first-unused. I am curious to know whether a larger hook would be easier; I think the hook I use for embroidery floss is proportionally larger.

To note: Peeps are a registered trademark of Just Born, Inc.

Embroidery floss crochet

I began crocheting in November of 2010, during a bout of insomnia, and made piles of hearts and goldfish. However, reading about crochet done with plarn (“yarn” made from plastic bags), old cassette and video tape, and strips of t-shirts made me think yarn was boring. Ribbon was promising, but I had no projects I wanted to make with it. Futuregirl wrote about crocheting with ordinary sewing thread, and I began roaming around my sewing room. Ultimately, I picked up my box of off-brand embroidery floss and the largest of my steel hooks (1/2.75mm).

I began ambitiously with Roman Sock’s pocket elephant. Legs of three obviously different diameters and Neanderthal brow ridges caused by upside-down safety eye backings give him character. Since then I have rarely been without an embroidery floss work in progress. Recently I got all my little guys together for a family photo. Click for a larger version; patterns linked below.

Top to bottom, left to right:
mighty & ferocious dragon, penguin ornament (feet freehanded by me), tiny whale, pocket elephant, Lion Brand fortune cookie (pink; registration required), Alicia Kachmar fortune cookie (beige), fishhead (freehanded by me), mini turtle, Falwyn’s little fox.

I had to increase the size of the turtle body to match the shell, though I had no such mismatch in yarn. Contradictorily, my fox is a fat little sausage. Stitch proportion tests will be made and reported on.