patterns Archives - Page 15 of 16

Grumpasaurus trogdoriensis

My sister is suffering continued ankle problems from a misstep on Easter Sunday, and it’s making her grumpy. Just the excuse I needed to create a crochet Grumpasaurus.

He is made of mildly scratchy acrylic, because Grumpasauruses are not cuddly. I was inspired by Kat’s knit Grumpasaurus, but mine looks very little like hers and is probably overcomplicated. I sewed the limbs on before closing up the bottom, but after stuffing the shape changed a bit and his legs are not even close to symmetrically placed.

Should you want to take a Grumpasaurus home with you, here is the pattern. See the crochet reference page for abbreviations and pattern conventions. For this I used invisible decrease.

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Flowers and cupcakes

May’s Amigurumi Army mission was flowers. Actually, the week from Apr 28 to May 4 in Iron Craft was also flowers, but I did not complete anything in time. I had a sad half-done daylily on my end table for half the month.

Finally I decided to go for it, finished the daylily, and made a flower that I intended to be a carnation but which may have ended up more like a small rose.

Patterns! Note that both flowers involve stopping or turning in the middle of a row. Abbreviations are explained here.

Rose or Carnation:
In any plausible color. (which with dyed carnations is pretty much any color)
– ch 37
– sc in second ch from hk, (ch 2, sc) five times, sc 30, ch 2, turn
– hdc 18, sc 12, ch 3, turn
– sc, (ch 3, sc) eleven times, sc, (ch 4, hdc) seventeen times
– ch 1, sc down side edge, FO.
– Roll up starting with narrow end.

Daylily:
make 5 in orange, yellow, or desired color.
– ch 10, sl st in second ch from hk, sc, hdc, sc 5, sl st
– ch 1; on opp side of starting ch: sl st, sc 3, sl st
– FO. Sew together overlapping each petal on the previous. To match real daylilies, the first petal should be completely on the top and the last one completely on the bottom.

After sewing the flowers together I wrapped the loose floss ends around pipe cleaners and wound them with florist’s tape.

Meanwhile, I joined another monthly crochet challenge group on Ravelry, and their May theme was food. I had previously made a lemon and an apple, but my food crochet was pretty limited. I couldn’t think of what to do, until I realized I’d never made a cupcake, which seems to be the canonical crochet foodstuff. I freehanded one over the course of two days. Afterward I discovered I couldn’t find any pins with plastic ball ends (nor the tomato pincushion I think they were in…) to be sprinkles. I did, however, know where my leaf-ended pins were, so I made another rose to top the cupcake. The one I made sure to sew so the bottom was a flat disc, not too tight, and then fluffed out the petals a bit more.

Bonus Post: Iron Craft Challenge #23

I finally had time to do the Iron Craft challenge again, which this week was called You Are Here: make something with a map or make something that looks like or is inspired by a map.

In my stash were two world maps sent by the charity Doctors Without Borders, and a piece of scrapbook paper I’m pretty sure I didn’t buy that was a piece of a road map, but I couldn’t think of what to do with them. While doing something else at the sewing machine I looked over at the scrapbook paper and thought about stitching the lines onto fabric, but that with all the red roads it risked looking like a bloodshot eye. Then I thought topographical maps would translate really well to embroidery, but tried in vain to find a good topographical map relevant to my life (I am from the flat lands, and also there are a great many websites that promise free topographical maps and provide nothing of the sort). Somewhere along the line the idea of a topographical map of something non-topographical popped into my mind, and after a little more research and work I present to you Landscape of Love:

If I did it right, it is a topographical map of a larger-than-life pair of lips (and surroundings). The fabric is cotton calico and the floss is DMC satin, which is a terrible thing to work with – even if you spend time pumicing your fingertips and filing your nails between each session, it catches on the needle itself. I haven’t decided what to do with it yet, though it would make a good boudoir pillow. Although actually, I’m not so impressed by my stitching. I am very proud of the pattern, though, and in case you like it too, I actually made the effort to put it in sharable form, suitable for size changes.