Special horns.

One thing that I had in my sketch book for a while was a unicorn.  I finally figured out how to make a spiral horn.

The first horn I made(unfortunately I have no picture of the horn) was a big mess.  At first I though I could just cut a strip of material sew it up and *sparkle sparkle* a horn. That did not happen, I guess I did not say magical words.  I then tried to use a needle and thread to try and fix it.  Still did not work.

Broke out the seam ripper and used some other magical words since I forgot to use a temporary stitch.  Trimmed places that I marked.

My desk had several different types of horns. Long and skinny, short and fat, green, white, black, etc... I searched my trimmings bin for large sized pieces and they became horns.  I took a break from the horn pattern.  I might take it out again soon and see if I can fine tune it a bit more.

It gets added onto my list of hand stitched items.  Which has started to grow very large.

Just the other day I caught up with some hand stitch work.  Finishing of hats and sock animals.  My pointer finger needs a rest from holding the needle.  I also broke my thread trimmer the other week.  I on the hunt for a replacement.  I hope I can find one that is like the one I was using.

More pictures...

Here is one of my newer dino hats. I decided to give it orange spikes.

My apologies for not having my dot com updated with my new designs. I hope to get my Picasa albums updated soon. I've been only adding new designs to my San's FB albums.

What is this?

I frequently get the question "What is this?" "Is this a (fill in the blank)?"

But I must say the best one this year is from this hat. What is this...

Well I heard a few guesses. A bug. An alien. I even got someone asking me if it was one of the teletubbies. Which made me think what are the colors of teletubbies. Red and purple were the only colors I got correct before I started naming random colors. Also I for some reason thought there were 5 tubbies. So I was guessing blue, orange, yellow, pink...

If you really want to know there is a red one with a circle, the purple is the one with the triangle. I think the purple one got the most publicity. A yellow one with what looks like a miniature bayonet shaped thing. I had convinced myself there was no yellow at one point, since the sun that has the baby face is yellow, why would they have a repeat color. The last one is green with a single spike, antenna looking thing.

In the picture above is a fold style android. Which was requested in a custom order. The one I have on display at my booth was a no fold style.

There were a few people that didn't not know what an andriod was.

Brown cow.

As I was thinking if I had my portfolio updated, I realized there were pictures that I have not placed in it and things I've not blogged about it yet. I'm not a writer, so I do not know what I was thinking when I decided that I would do a blog. I should have known I would slowly find it to be more of a chore than some where I would just freely write my thoughts or stories.

Since it is late, or shall I say early morning... I will stop my rambles.

I think the reason I did not blog/ post this was because of the sign. I was debating on blurring the words.

Thanks Mark for ordering a brown cow, and for taking an interesting picture. I should wear a chicken hat and hold a sign saying eat more cow.

*grin*

I can not help but smile when I make these sock animals. The colors of these socks just screamed to me sock animals!

I used scrap pieces of fleece to make their scarves.

I wanted to give them a bit of variety so I started to make bow ties.

I didn't just want to make monkeys so I attempt a cat. I gave it pointed ears a nose and whiskers.

Second try at a cat. The faces came out a little sad looking.

I was trying to make a bunny but I think it sort of came out as a very long ear dog.

Fur

I got a request for an Alot. This link was sent to me.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

After reading the blog about the Alot, I wanted to try to include a few features. In my mind I was already seeing something with a shaggy fur, I did not find the faux fur I was looking for, but found something that I could work with. I also wanted to incorporate a snaggletooth.

snaggletooth

Horns were another thing. I was on the fence with the eyes, but felt it was necessary since I wanted to include the snaggletooth and the imaginary line I was drawing was low on the Alot head.

horns and eyes

I made it long in length. This was so it could fold up and have a mouth that frowned.

The last detail was the mouth which was in a frown. The frown was created with a seam.

Things I would change on it... making the horns wider, the eyes further apart. And maybe a different fur. I'm still not sure giving the eyes a bit of poof was the right thing or not.

Monster red, Monster blue...

I decided to do some monsters this year. Eyes were just for my frog towels, but I decided to try some other things with eyes. This is how my Monster red came out.

With Monster blue I was trying out a different style of eye. It will be left to the imagination of the user of this towel to decide what it is. I think piranha when I see it. I also started to think... hmmm maybe walrus. I got told it looks like a snake. What does your imagination think?

Additions to Little frog products.

I decided to do a little towel hood. These are smaller than my original hooded towels. They have some of my original hooded towel designs as well as some newer looks. I started with monkeys and pandas when I made them.(More to be posted soon)

One thing that has been stuck in my head this year, like one of those songs that you cannot stop humming, has been sock monkeys. The tall human sized Sock Monkey and friends that can be seen in a car commercial make me smile. I actually had not been a fan of sock monkeys but some how they have grown on me. One day I just could not help it, I took an old pair of socks and just started cutting and stitching.

My cat does not find this white sock monkey to be his friend. Of course white sock monkey does karate chops/ kicks and flying attacks on him. Which leads to a wrestling match of cat v.s. sock monkey.

I found some socks that had interesting colors and patterns. More pictures of sock animals to be posted.

I'll be at Neal Blaisdell this weekend!

Frog.

This customize created towel has a larger hood and uses the Dino towel's green. Currently I will just do larger hoods by request.

It was another year of interesting craft fairs. I am partially glad I did not sign up for more shows/ fairs. I have not really started on Holiday shopping and plans. Half the month has flown by again with out my realizing.

Flower

I'm not sure why I used pink and white when I made the original Flower hat. Especially since there are several combinations that would work. I got a request for a black hat with a white flower.

The thing with custom orders is, if I want to see a particular item in its completed form or if there it is something that requires making a new pattern or recalculating dimensions, I seem to forget for a moment that I have prioritized list of Things-to-do that I try to follow. The white flower on the black hat is quite striking.

Reindeer...

I'll be at Aliiolani this coming Saturday(12/5) in the cafeteria again.

I've sketched this over and over again. Pondering the color combination... the antler shape... etc... There are different shaped little antlers scattered in my work space. I had antlers pinned onto the mannequin head so that I could see how they would stand up.

The time in between the end of the year craft fairs that I attend leaves me little time to create and make new creations. But I really wanted to have these available this year.

Moo, moo, moo...

I finally took the time to make a black and white cow. I decided to use the stumpy horns. To make it different from the brown and white cow, I made one ear white and one ear black. Both ears have a inner ear color of black. The horns are an off white color.

I was at Aiea Elementary School this past Saturday. The day started off on the cooler side but soon became hot. There was a slight drizzling rain that made the day humid.

The next craft fair I will be at is in Kaimuki. There is a craft fair at the NBC this weekend, hopefully I will have time to go as a shopper.

Ivory cat.

I made the cat in an off white color that I will call ivory.

What is it?

I just realized I did not post my pink(melon colored) towel here. I created to be a pink/ melon colored cat. People have guessed it to be other animals. The bunny is another one that people tend to say it looks like a dog. Which is one of the reason I am hesitant when people ask me what it is. I feel it is the imagination of the individual to see what they want in the things I make. This is one of the reasons I stay more on the abstract side and not add details like eyes.

Because of the inquiries I decided to stop procrastinating on making a dog towel. I was trying to figure out the type of ears and how to make the coloration different than the other towels. Kent suggested making the ears one color and the rest of the towel another. I happen to like floppy ear dogs, so I gave it beagle like ears. I'm thinking of making one in all dark brown to be more like a dachshund.

Pock

Aliiolani this past Saturday was interesting. The weather was not as cold as I would like. It rained a bit but all that did was make it a little more humid. The cafeteria is on the cooler side and my table was close to the doors where occasionally there was a nice breeze.

I have two hats that I have not had the time to post about...

Mouse

A mouse in gray. The mouse was sitting in pieces as I was still debating on making it light brown or gray. Then there was the shape and size of the ears. I went big with the ears with a slight fold to give it some dimension.

Chicken

I had the same issues with the chicken, color of white or brown. And the shape and size of the comb. I went with white and a small red comb.

Monkey

This last picture is of the monkey hat. I've been using the picture of a small size monkey which does not fit on the mannequin, this will be the updated picture. I've also decide to change the look of the ears. It will no longer be dark in back and light in front. The ears will be all light colored on both sides.

*I almost forgot to explain my title. I grew up with chickens. And I have always thought they said pock pock. I know people will usually say cluck cluck or bwak bwak. If you have the chance listen to a chicken, and see what you think. *grin* *pock pock*

A horse of course...

Horse(front view)

I was looking through my hat photos and came across this. This horse was created after much pondering on which colors to use. I made it with brown, black and tan. It has been a while since I have seen a horse up close, so hopefully I have captured the shape of the ears correctly.

Horse (side view)

I went with a light color mane because I wanted it to stand out. This is the first one I made, and I am still not sure if I want to decrease the strands in the mane or not. It has been packed away for a while now. I think it is time to take it out and rethink the design, or maybe just create more like it in different sizes.

Bear... hood.

I just realized that I posted a picture of the bear hooded towel, but did not write a blog about it. I only made two of these bears. Using the same color as the monkeys I decided to try something different.

I am still debating on making more of these. There are four ears that I was going to use that are sitting on the side because I decided I wanted a different shape and color combination. These big ears remind me of a mouse. I guess it could be a big brown mouse. I will just leave it up to the viewers imagination...

Custom dragon.

Sketch of spikes

I have had requests for dragons before. People seem to just ended up with Dino hats. So when I was presented with a finalized order for a dragon... I just could not resist the challenge and spent the last few days finishing it. I managed to cram in pattern making, cutting and sewing. Luckily during the order process I was already working on the patterns.

Custom Dragon(side view)

And although it is not completely finished I took the final pictures of it. The final hand stitching is of the lining. That will happen tonight or tomorrow morning.

This hat has a lot going on. It has custom spikes that have detailing stitches to create a web look. Two rows of spikes that form a V pattern. And teeth on the earflaps. Even though I thought it would be too much on the hat, I went with what was requested. In the end I really like how it looks.

Custom Dragon(back view)

I'm so happy how it turned out that I really wanted to blog it today!

Dino request

Teeth... I am debating on making this a regular item. I still remember when creating the original Dino hat I was conflicted of what to put on it. I recall going with a simple spike design. Recently I had a request for teeth to be added.

Custom Dino with teeth

I really like how it came out. I wanted the teeth to be a little more chunky, but I wanted to get it done by a deadline and did not feel I had time to redo the teeth. The teeth did get replaced once and I was happy with how it looked on the second time attached. I do not mark any angles for the teeth so each tooth has a different shape. I start with a large rectangle of material and run it through the machine moving it based on what I feel will be the right angle. The earflaps were done a little longer by request.

More sharks...

When I got the request for a great white hat, I envisioned a hat similar to the ear flap ones I make. But the creation(July 30, 2009 post) turned to be a cap with a visor. I recently got another inquiry of a shark hat. So I once again pulled out my sketches and what I had been working on and started to finish an idea that was set aside.

It is not what I had envisioned. Still when I look at it I feel that i see a shark.

I think I got the blog bug. Or maybe I just need a break from other things. I do have a back log of things I would like to write about. I just rather not place it all in a long blog.