Once again, it's Pi Day, and again Team Paranormal Investigations and I have done our best to celebrate! Below is a selection of photos, but for the full album, see my Facebook page. So, who is with me next year? It is a free pattern!

Remember my dragon that I made from scratch? I made another one, in different colours.

I've almost perfected the pattern, but it's not quite up to publishing standards yet.

Another free pattern, these guys are fairly quick to whip up, you just need to add a bottom. I prefer to use a popcorn stitch instead of a bobble stitch, and front and back post stitches instead of FLO and BLO, but it works as written. The one on the left is done to the pattern, on the right is my modified version. Remember that this is UK terminology, so when it says DC, it means SC.

In case you don't remember these brilliant guys from Sesame Street -



It's a free pattern so have at it!

I was on a bit of a Totoro kick, because really, who doesn't love Totoro, who has seen it? Both are free patterns, but the Totoro is a Rav download while the Soot Sprites are an online link.
I put a magnet in the back of my Soot Sprite so it can live on my fridge :D

Remember when I blogged about the happy pills I'd been making? Well that particular lot got sent off to Canada to be abandoned for random strangers to find - if you've come here after finding one, welcome!
I'm thoroughly addicted to making them, and it's just as well, because I can barely keep up with the orders for them too!
Here is another five I made to sell at in.cube.8r in Melbourne:
and here is three I posted off to New South Wales as a special order.
Right now my desk is filled with half made pill shells in varying colours, so I'm sure there'll be more soon too!

Based on the sucess and love I've gotten for my original Jareth amiThingy, I thought I'd have a go at designing a smaller chibi styled one. I thought he turned out rather well don't you think?

Hot off the hook - in fact, I only finished it yesterday morning, but I'm so proud of this piece I had to rush it to the front of the blog queue. It's Astro Boy! I used to watch it all the time when I was a kid, although I was so young I only remember the one episode - the one where he got his "sister". The ending was so traumatic for my three or four year old self I remember it decades later.

Sewing his hair spikes on, on the train, I brought smiles and fond memories to other children of the 80s, now mothers carting their own children around for the school holidays, sparking many conversations of how our cartoons in the 80s were so much better than the rubbish the kids get today.

The pattern isn't free, but the level of detail and the results really speak for themselves. You can buy it on Ravelry or via the CRAFTYisCOOL website.

I am addicted to making these adorable little happy pills. They are a free pattern from EssHaych and they are so quick to whip up. It's the perfect little pick-me-up get well soon gift for a sick friend.

Ok, so it has nothing to do with today's project, except in name, but it's what springs to mind every time I think of Zero. And it makes a nice change from "This is Halloween", because I had that in my head the whole time I was crocheting this.


Yes, it is Zero the ghost dog from Nightmare Before Christmas, and he is a free pattern. Only took a few days too :D

Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.

Free pattern

Something a little different today. I made this batbunny for a swap, and also for a "tips and tricks" challenge in Nerd Wars, and I thought I should share it with you all here too.

I wanted to share my favourite trick for crocheting amigurumi. It’s probably something most experienced crocheters do automatically, but when I started hooking two years ago, I never saw anything ever written about it, so I share with you now. This is simply staggering where you put your increases in the round, in order to get more spherical circle shapes, and not hexagonal shapes.

When crocheting a circle, you start with a base number of stitches. This is the number of stitches you make in your magic circle, or chain 2 - however you start. This is also (usually) the number of “sets” that you will do on your increase and decrease rounds. In the above picture, I’ve outlined one set with yellow yarn. The black stitches are single SCs and the increases are done in white.

Basically, what you do is alternate where you put your increase, so they don’t sit all on top of each other. I like to move the increase on an even row, so that I can keep my spacing consistent. Take the picture above. In the outermost round, you can see I have 2 black stitches, an increase, and then two more black stitches in my set. That would be written as ‘4sc, inc around’. The row before it is ‘3sc, inc around’, which is exactly as I’ve hooked it. I don’t know if I’m explaining it very well, it’s simple once it sinks in, but I feel like I’m making it more complicated than it is.

As simply as I can say it, when doing an even amount of SCs before an increase, split the number in half and do the increase in the middle of that bunch of SCs. When you have an odd number to do before (or after, depending on the preference of your pattern author) an increase, do them as written.

It becomes second nature after a while, and really adds a level of professionalism to your work. I do it everytime I’m increasing now, for hats too, although if there is fancy shaping being done with increases, like a twisty neck of an ami or wiggly hips etc, you may need to leave things as written, or the shaping won’t work. Still, this is good for hats and balls ;)

I hope that helps someone out there. I'm really not sure how simple this is to understand from the point of view of someone who doesn't already know this you see. If I'm as clear as mud, and you want clarification, or if by some miracle you understood this and you want to let me know how much I've helped, I encourage you to post a comment on this post on the Facebook page. Of course you can always comment directly here, but Blogger tends to eat comments and hide them for ages without notifying me, and I check FB a lot more often than I do my Blogger dashboard. Just saying - either way I'd love to hear your feedback!

Just a little custom job I made for the winner of a charity auction being run for the World's Greatest Shave. I really love this dragon pattern, because each turns out so individually and full of personality, but seriously, 16 pieces? Truly a labour of love, every single time. (This one had 18, because of the rose). I guess that's why I don't do customs of this pattern very often, and what makes them so special.

Here is the ten inch tall adipose stuffie I made for my sister's birthday last year

and here is a one inch high adipose I made for my niece, just because.

The large one is from a pattern I found on Ravelry, and the small one is from my own pattern. I had to upsize the large one, because I wanted it very large, so I used a 5mm hook and 4 strands of yarn. It killed my hands, but it was worth it.

My niece is really into Japanese culture, so for her birthday I made her this little kokeshi doll. She'd been asking for one for months, so I figured it was high time I got around to it. The pattern is free to download from Ravelry. The colours aren't very accurate in the above pic, Teal isn't easy to capture indoors, at night, but this next one of the back is closer to lifelike.

Fear not, humble reader! I come to the rescue with a peashooter!

Well, actually, the pattern comes from Mel's Crochet Happiness, and is available free on Ravelry.

I made the stem by crocheting a tube to go around a doubled over pipe cleaner, and I fudged together some larger leaves for the base of the plant. I bought a cheap fake plant from the dollar store, that came in a cute little ceramic pot, threw out the plant and poked my peashooter into the foam.

If by some chance you haven't yet heard of the fabulous Plants Vs Zombies by PopCap, likely you've had no idea what I've been talking about. But it's free online, and available for iPhone and Android, so there's no reason not to rectify that, really. It's fun, the game mechanics are laughably simple and it's so darn addicting it's like Angry Birds all over again - but with more strategy, and less math and angle figuring.

I know I owe you a 'Color Me Katie'-esque street art post from last month, and I will give you a catch up I promise. This month, I thought I'd do some yarn bombing for Pi Day. My team for this tournament in Nerd Wars is PI (Paranormal Investigations) and we thought we'd make PI/pie our unity project this round. It all came together in a perfect storm. The pattern is another free one, and fairly quick to whip up as well.

On to the PIc spam! :D

For more/bigger photos, see the album on my Facebook page

I have a friend who works for the National Institute of Challenging Homophobia Education. He likes to refer to anyone working for gay rights as ninjas. And what better suprise present for the leader of the gay ninjas, than a rainbow ninja ami?

This made it to Pinterest, on someone's WTF board, with a caption wondering where he hides. I couldn't help myself, I had to respond with "at Mardi Gras, where else?" but I doubt the pinner will ever track back far enough to figure out I made it.

Meet Mini Nurse. She was made for a friend of mine that complained his new desk job needed desk toys, or something to that effect. I thought she'd be a great "yay! New job!" present, except that I took a year to get around to making her. My friend loved her though, and so did his mother, incidentally also a nurse. In fact, his mother loved his so much she commissioned her own:

Her son said the crazy hair is spot on.

Or... a bunch of grey yarn and a 3.5mm hook.

I used my own dragon pattern as a base, but with less curving and no wings of course. Harry is two short pieces of crocheted i-cord sewn together with a small triangle flapping out behind him for his coat.