Amigurumi Bug

I believe I've caught the amigurumi bug. Not that I hadn't before but I think I've caught it worse now. For the past couple days I have been crocheting like madness. I am here today to bring you an image of the snake for my dad and the poison dart frog that I made.

This here snake should be longer but I refused to subject my fingers to
65 rows of only 6 stitchs each. I think he turned
out cuter without those extra rounds.
Now I know he's not quite the colour of a real poison dart frog
but I don't really have a large selection here. As well
I like that he is only one colour it makes him blend with his watery
surroundings in nature. Or maybe just my blue Munny.

Now this isn't the only thing I have been up to in the amigurumi world. When I first got into these cute crocheted creations I only had books and I was seeing all these great guys on google search so I went on a quest to find more free patterns. Which by the way if you look you will find tons. I found some for Mario, Luigi, the power star, a mario mushroom, and egg, Bats, octupi, You name it you can probably find it for free. Now the hard part about pattern hunting is the free ones are not always good but if you search hard enough you'll find those real gems that people have so graciously posted for free. However on my search I also came across some pretty awesome looking dudes that either didn't have a pattern or you had to buy the pattern at some ridiculous price, when I came across these little guys I would save the picture for future reference so that maybe when I got good at the crocheting and it came as second nature I could make a creation similar to the images I found, sort of us them like inspiration. These images are similar to keepers that photographers use.
Now I'll go into a little segway. Keepers in the land of photography are images that you save for future reference or for inspiration. They may pertain to the photoshoot you are going to do a week from now or an idea you eventually want to do. These "Keepers" could be anything from magazine articles, ads, other photographs, etc.
Anyway so I call these images of other crocheted goodies my keepers, to serve as inspiration that maybe one day I will be as good as that (a lot of those ones are the ones that are very intricate guys that are maybe an inch high), and also because I think to my self on some of them hey I could do that. Well there was this one really cool guy I found one day on my search who could wink it's eyelids, make it's nose it's tongue and had beads for arms. Well I thought these guys were totally amazing. However I haven't been able to find the person since that day but I am trying to make a guy similar to them. His head is a little smaller, and I can't put his arms on till I find beads that will work but I think I'm doing a pretty good job. When he's finished (hopefully by next week) I'll post an image of the new member to my crocheted world.
I have also made patterns one for a bat, that I haven't tried yet and also a snowman that I saw an image of and thought would be really cute for my mom.
Well I better get back who knows what might pop into my head next.
I'll leave you with another image of summer.-Photo Alley

Safety Cone and Ninja Dude

So last night was a very sleepless night. I usually try to get to bed around 10pm just to keep my schedule some what normal. But last night I think I was up till 2 or 3 in the morning because my brain would not shut off. have you ever had these days where you decide it is time you get some sleep and all you can do when you go to lye down is think of the things you have to do tomorrow, the things you need to do before the end of 3 weeks, what about what pictures you want to post on the web, new ideas for pictures that you want to take, ideas for your portfolio. Well this was my mind last night I think I got about 5 new pictures I want to take and about 8 new themes that I want to do eventually, actually hopefully this year but depending on the work I get it might not happen as soon as that. So instead of sleeping I went through my pictures and decided which would ones I like enough to add to the net, there is exactly 4 post it notes full of about 4 columns each of the picture numbers and location. It's going to be fun converting them to web size.
But that isn't the point I also downloaded Safety Cone and Ninja, as well as made a very pint sized version of safety cone for you all to witness.

This is of course dude, ninja dude and safety cone.And this is the smaller version of safety cone. I put my finger there so you could get an idea of his size. He definitely was not as frustrating as I thought he would be but still annoying. As well if I ever do it again I either need slightly bigger thread or a smaller crochet hook. This small guy was made with a 2mm hook and the thread you use to make those cool bracelets. If you ever want to try I suggest something like him or something similar that isn't too much work because the more difficult it gets the more frustrated you'll be. I've only ever done one other in this small style and he didn't turn out the way I planned as well I ran out of the colour I was using and had to switch part way to another colour. Let's just say I don't like him right now and will probably make the larger version of him. (He is a spider, the large version will be fuzzy).

As well last night I wanted to make my dad something as well. Like I said I had made my mom a safety cone but I didn't want to make my dad a safety cone cause undoubtedly they would get them mixed up so I thought to myself what out of the patterns that I have accumulated over the past year or so would he like. And I came across a snake pattern. Perfect, that is till I started to make him. The head went fine but the body is around 65 rounds in total. Therefore I shortened him and he looks all cute now maybe only 5 or 6 inches. I'll post a picture of him later when I download my camera again.

And on another note one of the many things going through my head was portfolio themes. If I remember correctly we need to have a theme for our portfolio this year and of course me being me I can't decide on one idea. I have come up with tons upon tons but my problem is I want to do them all. As well I believe our portfolio this year is suppose to represent what kind of work we would like to do in our professional field, well this poses another problem. I am almost positive the portfolios must require people in them and yes I do enjoy some people photography and would love to do it but my main joy is nature photography and flowers. So if anyone has suggestions I'm open to ideas. Of course maybe I'll just pick out of my thousands of themes I've come up with and do one of them instead.

I'll leave you with another image of summer because it looks like it's going to rain today.

-Photo Alley

Summer's ending

Hello all,
So summer is coming to a close and I hope that in the few weeks I have left I will be able to complete some of my unfinished projects. I did want to let you all know that I started my rose quilt and have completed my rose. Pictures will follow. I would however like to just say that holy bajeebuz I am definitely not a fan of paper piecing and hope that I can get away with never having to do it again.

As well I made another crocheted "Dude" who is black with glowing orange eyes. Or atleast I like to say they are glowing because against his black furryness they appear to just... for lack of a better word glow. I call him Ninja dude and right now he is sitting with Dude on my desk staring down at me.

Another thing I crocheted was 2 yes say it with me 2 safety cones. I saw a free design for one on my flickr account and thought those are so cute and I loved the story of the person's blog so I thought alright here I go making a safety cone. Well then my mom decided she liked him and therefore I gave it to her and made myself another one called obviously safety cone. Pictures of these two will arrive shortly I hope I just have to get around to downloading the pictures.

I will leave you know with a picture of summer and let's all just hope that the weather stays nice but not to hot and not to cool.

-Photo Alley

Quilts

So it's finally here. If you hadn't noticed I had been procrastinating for awhile but I have finally stopped procrastinating and taken a catalog of all the quilts I have made to date and am going to share them with you now.
So here they are:

This one was my first ever "real" quilt that I made. I had made a small rag quilt previous to this one but on this one I did all the cutting, sewing and quilting myself. I even put on the binding myself which I might add I completely hate. Some say they find it relaxing, I say it's just plain annoying, I'm definitely not a hand sewer but you have to learn it first to find out if you dislike.
As well this one is 3 different star blocks and my arrangement of them.
This here is "Serenity's Path". This one is my first designed quilt. I was sick one day with a fever and was napping, or I should say was trying to nap but I couldn't sleep because this kept coming into my head. Therefore the only course of action was to grab a sketch book and start drawing and writing my ideas down. This was the end product. I did the sewing of the top and one flower, my mom did the rest. Like I said I hate hand sewing. And lastly a woman known for her long arm quilting in the guild quilted it for me.
"Cypress Lake"
This is another quilt I designed. I was out one day with my mom looking at fabric when we came across the panel in the center. I went from there. I'm one of those people who usually buys a fabric first and makes the quilt after.
"Coffee Lounge"
Yet another quilt I designed. Like I said I usually see a fabric first and make a quilt from there. And when I see that fabric it usually doesn't go with a pattern I already have. On this fabric I saw the dark chocolate swirls and instantly thought of rich, dark coffee and chocolate. I also already had fabric with coffee beans, some coffee related words and, unrelated but in the quilt, wine corks. Therefore I started designing and went through my mother's stash to get the rest of the colours. This is what I made. It is not finished but rather just the top. And on this one my mom refused to do the applique, she said "If you want it on the quilt you'll have to do it yourself". Of course the steam was an essential part of the quilt therefore against my will I appliqued them on. I grumbled the whole time.

Here are the comfort quilts I have done so far. Comfort Quilts is something the guild my mom belongs to... and probably other guilds do...does for sick people in the hospital, or fire victims and the like. As well they also do Quilts of Valor and those go to the families of fallen soldiers. I haven't done one of those yet but I have tons of fabric and I plan on make atleast one before the summer is through. If only I'd stop procrastinating.
Comfort Quilts"

This one is not from a book but it wasn't that hard either. I saw a bunch of bright colours in my fabric bins and thought stain glass window. Unfortunately I ran out of black and seeing as the fabrics were donated I said to myself not a big deal there has to be another dark colour in here for the border and there was. Overall I am quite happy with this quilt, it just makes you wanna smile.This one again is not from a pattern but someone had left behind about 15 5x5 squares from a quilt they had started but didn't finish, and since there wasn't enough squares to make another border for the above stated quilt and frankly I wsan't going to try and make more I thought this would be a cool idea and just cut out a bunch of squares. I think by far this is the one I have gotten most compliments on out of the comfort quilts. And after saying I would never make another one again my best friend said she liked it and I heard my self say in response "I'll make you one, but you'll have to come to pick out the colour". As my Momma always says "never say never".
This here is my first ever comfort quilt. Up to this point (and no the quilts on here are clearly not in the order I made them) I had only been layering the quilts when I would go to help, but one day they wanted everyone to take a quilt so we made a bundle up of 5 colours and the challenge was not to bring any scraps back. Nobody wanted this bundle so I said I would take it. I actually really like the pattern but I hated putting it together. The pattern, which is from one of the many quilting magazines that we own, has you cut things out bigger than the final piece and also it was just a very tedious quilt to make. But overall I like it.

After I made my oriental quilt the girls from the guild really wanted me to make one for comfort quilts. So this is what I ended up designing. I would definitely say this is my favourite part:
I had some of the crane fabric left over from the large block I had cut and this is all my mind kept going back to when I was think about what to do with it.As well I would like to tell you this is not what I originally had planned for the oriental quilt but I just didn't have the heart to cut some of the fabric to make my design work. So instead I made it a series of panels and I think it turned out well.
This is one of the tops I did in in the last few days. It was actually really easy because the centre is actually a panel. Therefore all I did was put borders on it.So this quilt is another one of the comfort quilts I really like. But I can't take all the credit. Remember those 15 blocks I told you about well that centre square is the quilt that it came from. When I saw it I didn't understand why someone would abandon it but it was ok. I decided to use it like a panel and put 4 borders on it.

That is the last of my quilts to date. I do have 2 more already cut out just waiting to be sewn and what not. As well I have a giant list of about 15 other quilts I saw inside some of the quick sew magazines by McCall that I would eventually like to do, either for myself with other colours or for comfort quilts. And also like I said I want to make atleast one quilt of valor before the summer is through and my time is taken away. Lastly I also, if I can ever get started, am making myself another quilt that I designed called "Beast's Rose". Hopefully I'll start it in the next few days and can show it to you here.

Have a wonderful day and keep crafting.
-Photo Alley

Amigurumi

Well hello everyone it's been about a month. I know I've gotten lazy but this heat is getting to me. Right excuses, however I am sure everyone is feeling this heat lately. It's been in the 30's plus another 10 degrees because of the humidity. It's torture, pure and utter torture. I'm not a fan of hot heat and there fore I stay in side as much as possible. I tried going to the beach on one of these horrible 40 degree days, it was not relaxing, in the water was too cold and out of the water was too hot. I think we lasted a few hours running back and forth between our towels and knee deep water. But enough about that back to crafts.
I haven't been watching much theatre lately. I was hoping to see a black lights show in my hometown but when I found out about it in the paper there was only a day left and I was heading out of town that day. I was very disappointed. I had seen the show a few years ago shortly after they started performing it and loved it but I'll just have to hope it is back next year. This play is done in black light with puppets and all the actors are people with disabilities. The show is both wonderful for children and adults. Like I said I thoroughly enjoyed it the first time I saw it and I'm hoping to see it again.
Maybe some time this month I'll be able to go out and see some theatre.
As well I thought that today you might want to see some of the amigurumi patterns you can either find in books or on the net. I have searched both internet and bought a few books to make the ones I've made. As well I've created a few myself. Enjoy.

This guy I created myself from an image I found from this woman who's book I bought. She had tons of patterns in the book but there was a guy like this on her blog about how to back comb, but of course there was no pattern for him, so with my minimal information on how to crochet I created this guy. And I love him. One day I'll make tons more in multiple colors.

So here you see the fuzzy pink guy again and the one on his left is a koala bear from the book of that woman I was tell you about. Her blog is Roxy Craft. As well I found the blue bunny online as a free pattern. I also absolutely loved creating him.
Now these Three are from the book by Roxy Craft and this is where my obsession started. My sister had a baby girl a year ago and being in school I had to save my pennies so I thought to myself what is a cost efficient way to get her a present. And that's when it hit me while I was in the school store. The amigurumi book. I thought perfect, I can make her something again. For her first toy from me I had created plush baby blocks so this time I thought why not stuffed animals. I did originally have an idea to create a whole farm group of animals and maybe some zoo ones too but after making the pig, I thought uh no. Now maybe I will when she is older.

As I was at school to relax and calm down during stressful times I would crochet so I found a jelly fish online and when I made him I liked him but I thought he would have been smaller (He's the green one). As well I thought that his legs should have been farther in his body like a real jelly fish. Therefore I created the blue on in the back ground. His legs are attached within his body.
I then thought why not make some nintendo guys. I started searching the net for mario brother free patterns and ninja turtles as well as any other video game related character. This was my attempt at a ninja turtle with the wrong colours. He as well is a lot bigger then I thought, I'm still working on making a smaller version of him in the right colours.
Lastly I wanted a cell phone case and I wanted to represent my love of the original nintendo gamer. Therefore I started on this with some help from my knitting book. Yes knitting not crochetting. Anyways this is the first attempt and one day I will refine it so that it actually says nintendo and things like start and stop.

Have a wonderful day.
-Photo Alley

Baguettes

Hello all I finally have uploaded the pictures from when I made the baguette.
So The preparation started and I had to get all my ingredients out. Boy is there a lot of ingredients for this one but when done right it tastes so good.
As well it is always fun to try new recipes. And as well out of all the baguettes I have made so far, this one holds it's shape well. I would however like to mention when cooking this specific baguette you can have problems. On this one we don't have a food processor so we mixed by hand which is tough, as well each batch we made came out differently. And lastly depending on the batch we made it was slightly too salty so, for the last ones that we made we reduced the salt by half.

Overall though I tried another baguette recipe from a book I just bought, I told you all about it last time I posted, called "You Won't Believe It's Gluten Free" by Roben Ryberg. I tried their Rice based baguette this time because I have been craving bread. And I made muffin sized ones and hamburger sized buns as well. I must say these ones turned out very well, they kind of taste like a mix between pancakes and scones in the words of my brother. But definitely good. However I would say don't use these ones for hamburger buns. I tried last night and the taste just did not suit that of the hamburger flavour, it was a little too sweet. I will however be experimenting with more from that book to see what other things I like.
On another note because I do recommend this recipe, it also has time going for it. I must say there is around 10 ingredients and it takes about 10 minutes to prepare if you are mixing by hand, much faster if you are using an electric beater. And the cooking times is 30 minutes. For me that is pretty sweet. The only thing I have against this bread is that is does not rise that much and the reason is it has no yeast in it. One of these days I will try the yeast breads in the book and let you know how they go.

As for my quilting, I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of all of them but I will shortly I just have to find some time. I have however started work on another comfort quilt and my own quilt that I have duly called "Beast's Rose". In honor of it's theme to "Beauty and the Beast". So hopefully in the next couple days I can get you some pictures of them up and running.
For now though I will leave you with a picture of a flower to help you keep in mind that it is summer despite the rain.

Long time to write

Hello all,
It's been awhile since my last post and I have been busy. I started a new design for a new quilt, I finished my recent comfort quilt and will be designing the next soon. Pictures will come soon when I have enough people around so that they can be held for the picture.

As well, even though it has pretty much been raining 24/7 for the past week, or so, I have been able to take a few pictures and when I finally make my way to downloading them to my computer I will post a few up. Like I said rain makes perfect droplets to take images of. As well I am planning a new photoshoot with some friends for next week and hopefully we will get a sunny day to do it on.

And lastly I have been cooking some gluten free recipes. I must say trying the baguette again from the allergy free cook book was difficult and it didn't turn out as nicely as the first time however my dad really liked them. I also have some pictures of my attempts, therefore again when I upload them to the computer I will add them. But I recently bout a new gluten free cook book called something along the lines of 500 recipes you wouldn't know are gluten free. I tried the potato based dinner rolls and a corn based baguette and I will have to say they were good but they didn't taste the way that the writer said they would. Personally to me both kind of tasted like pretzels and well to be frank also kind of had the same look but in a different shape. Oh well they were very easy to make about 10minutes to prepare and then 20minutes in the oven, so if you want a quick receipe that is the way to go. And the last thing I have tried recently to cook was the pizza crust blend from the Bulk Barn and I would just like to say it tasted very doughy and the crust was very thin. but if you like thin crust pizza well this just might be for you.

Happy Days.
-Photo Alley