Nic.Crafty

      Those who know me are used to the fact that when I get into something, I become completely absorbed. My current obsession is the book series A Song of Ice and Fire  by George R. R. Martin . In this series, Martin yarns a tale about those who would sit upon the iron throne of Westeros; a large kingdom reminiscent of Medieval Eurasia.      Though the books are technically in the fantasy genre, the stories are not about magic. They are more about the character's struggles and the politics of love, war and power. There are mythical creatures in these books, but they are not the center of the story. They are there to add to something that is already intriguing and enthralling on its own.               Those who have not read the books may already be familiar with some of the characters. The HBO series Game of Thrones  is based on the series and the first season is the first ...

I am finally done with the 1 Up Pillow! After seeing this blanket on a different blog, I decided that I wanted to try my own Nintendo project. Now my pillow is not nearly as epic as the blanket, but I am still very proud of it. Making this pillow is a lot easier than it looks. The entire pillow is done using a single crochet stitch and following a graph of the picture. Older Nintendo games translate really well to graph paper, because the graphics were made with very few pixels. Single crochet stitches are very square and sit right on top of each other so each pixel is a stitch.  Here is the graph that I made for this pillow: It is 33 rows tall with 31 stitches in each row. Using a 5.5mm hook with worsted weight acrylic yarn, my pillow came out to be 22X15 inches.  Gauge isn't really important to this project, as long as you use a hook size that goes well with the yarn you are using. If you would like to make a pillow tha...

I recently went to a yarn dyeing class at the  Lion Brand Yarn Studio  in New York City. If you have never been there before, I strongly suggest you check it out. They have all sorts of events (many of which are free) as well as computers to print out patterns, and a beautiful yarn selection. Before the class we all had to pick out several skeins of yarn of an animal fiber. Though you can dye any kind of fabric, the class was geared towards wool. I chose two skeins of pure wool, and one of their organic wool. To dye the yarn, we soaked the yarn first in a solution of warm water and citric acid for 20 to 30 minutes. After using  Jacquard Acid Dyes  in squirt bottles to dye the yarn, we sealed each skein in a plastic bag and cooked it in a slow cooker. Out of my three skeins of yarn, I think the purple one is my favorite. The middle skein is the organic wool, and the other two are pure wool.

The Zombie Duo is complete! What other characters would you like to see turned into Zombies? I think next might have to be a Bride Zombie. Cop Zombie UPDATE (Nov, 2011): I am still trying to work out the details in the cop zombie pattern. Here is cop zombie 2.0. It looks less like Chief Wiggum, but still not perfect. Once It's perfected, I'll be sure to post the pattern online. This will probably be during January or summer, as school is pretty demanding of all of my time right now.  Business Casual Zombie Cop Zombie 2.0

When the semester finished I decided to get started on several projects that I had been thinking about all through finals. The first WIP is a pillow inspired by a Mario blanket that I found on the blog  Gege Crochet .  I love this blanket! My pillow isn’t nearly as epic as this blanket, but it’s a start. First of all, The blanket uses Tunisian crochet, and I am using tapestry crochet. Tapestry crochet is much simpler. It uses a single crochet stitch and you carry the colors that you are not using along the back. I am about halfway done with it, however I underestimated the amount of blue yarn I would need. As a result, this project is on hold. Once I pick up some more blue yarn, I will finish it and post some completed pictures. Also, I plan on learning Tunisian crochet so that I can attempt something as amazing as the Mario blanket. Here is a preview of the pillow: The other Project that I am working on is a  Zombie Duo for a friend from my undergrad. I am com...

I recently crocheted two zombies for two different kitties. The first was a mouse zombie. The head is just a cone shape that I did by alternating rows of single crochet with increasing rows. I then decreased for a few rounds and increased again to give the appearance of a neck. Towards the bottom, I changed to red to make the zombie mouse look like it had been torn in half. It’s ears and right eye are just small circles and the left eye is actually the horn from the  giraffe pattern . Inside the mouse is fiberfill and a coffee filter filled with organic catnip. The next zombie I made was a for my brother’s cat, and this was inspired by a short story I had read about zuvembies (female zombies). The head and torso are one continuous piece and the limbs are attached. While making the torso, I switched to red and alternated between red and yellow to make it seem like it was bleeding from the missing arm. For the most part, the  red yarn is carried on the inside of the torso so th...

My friend Tomie saw the mouse that I had made from this  youtube video and immediately requested a giraffe. I decided it was time to attempt something more complicated and tried this  giraffe  pattern. The horns are a bit tricky. Other than that, this project really easy and a lot of fun to do!