Oooh, Foxy Lady!

My daughter will be going away next weekend for her first Brownies camp!  She is very excited, but also a bit nervous.  She told me that she was worried that she would miss me too much to be gone for two nights.  I looked over the list of things they are to pack and one of the items was a small pillow. She has always been fond of a particular fabric I have in my fabric box that is a purple fleece with foxes on it.  So I thought it might help to have a Made By Mama pillow covered in a fabric she loves.

The list also says that they can bring a stuffed animal if they choose.  I had bought this fox pattern from Forever Stitchin (who has other awesome patterns you should check out), and I already had a yarn that is just perfect for a fox on hand, so I got to hookin'!

Since they are camping, I thought she might like her fox to have a "sleeping bag" of her own.  So I put one together from the fabric that I made her pillow with, and now she has a little camping care package that should hopefully help ease her worries of being away from home!

A Portfolio of Sorts & Ordering Information

Last week my cousin asked me if I had a place where he could go to see examples of my hooking masterpieces.  When people had asked me about this before, I always sent them a link to my Ravelry projects page.  I didn't realize, however, that if you don't have a Ravelry account yourself, you can only see one of my projects.  So, this post will serve to house some pictures of work that I have created myself, as well as let you know how to order from me while my Etsy store is under construction.  Every picture here is something that I personally have hand-crafted.

I've been planning to open an Etsy store, and it is still in the works.  Let me tell you why it hasn't happened yet.  It really boils down to one thing: pictures.  I haven't always taken pictures of every order I have done.  Most of the pictures I have are taken on my cell phone, and are unprofessional.  I'm not sure if it is a requirement per Etsy's Terms of Service that your shop have pictures of only items you have made yourself (though if it isn't I think it ought to be), and I don't want to use someone else's pictures in my shop.  I can hook up 98% of things that I have seen pictures of.  Of the 2% that I say that I can't, I'm pretty sure I COULD do them, but there are techniques I haven't tried yet, and so would feel uncomfortable advertising them for sale.  Listing on Etsy costs money whether you sell the item or not, so I don't want to put up a whole bunch of unprofessional photos to sell things.  I have a friend who is a professional photographer, and we're talking about making a deal to get some professional photos of my items made.  However, this also means I now have to hook up a bunch of things just to have photos of them taken, and then make listings, hoping that I am making the things that people actually want to buy.  That is currently in the works! 

In the meantime, I will continue taking custom orders.  Now is the perfect time to order, as I have just finished the last of my orders, and there is still time to get your item in plenty of time for Christmas/ Hanukkah / Solstice / Whatever  giving!  Here is how you can do that:

1. Contact me!  Facebook messenger is probably the best and easiest way to get in touch with me, or you can email me at Thebuttonbuffalo@gmail.com.  

2.  Let me know what you want.  You can do this several ways.  If you have seen a picture of something you'd like, send it to me. If you know you want something specific (say you want a hedgehog, but you haven't seen a picture of one you want, you  just know you want one), send me a message that says something along the lines of, "I want a ______."  Sometimes people don't know exactly what they want, but they have a particular person or theme in mind. For example, you want something to give to your friend who loves Doctor Who and The Avengers, but you just don't know WHAT exactly you'd want to have made. Or perhaps it is as simple as you would like to give your mother a handmade scarf, but you don't know what kind of scarf you want.  You can send me that information as well.  I can send you all sorts of ideas and pictures to help you find the perfect handmade creation.  We can discuss style, color, size, materials, etc to make your order exactly what you want!  

3. Once we both know what it is that you want, we will discuss the cost and shipping, and length of time It will take me to hook up your creation.  After we are done with that, I will then go to my Etsy store and create a personalized listing for your item (or if you prefer to not use Etsy, you can pay me directly though Paypal).  Once you've paid for your item, I will hop, skip, and jump my way to the craft store(s), get the materials for your item(s) and get to hooking!

While I am building my collection of professional photos, please feel free to look at some of my finished items here.  I can tell you that I have never had any complaints from anyone who has ordered from me, but should you have a problem with any item I make, I'm more than happy to work with you to resolve whatever the issue may be.

 

 

 

          

  

 

 

Behold, The Potterpus!

Lets skip right past the part where I apologize for going so long without blogging, and then tell you that I'm sincerely going to attempt to blog at least once a week.  Instead, how about we dive right into what has fallen off my hook today!?

 Well, hello there!  Look who it is!  You may think that you have come across this handsome fellow before, but I assure you, you have not!  I wanted to make something based on Harry Potter, but not just a straight up Harry Potter doll.  I've been doing a fair amount of dolls lately (in fact, I have two WIPs that are dolls right now), and I just felt like I wanted to do something.... different.  As I was watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 over the weekend, the idea suddenly exploded in my mind.  And thus, it was born!

Behold! The Great Potterpus!  Look at how cute he is, waving "hello" to you!  I put a small amount of wire into his legs to make him somewhat poseable. I had originally planned to give him a mouth, but the more I looked at him, the more I loved him just the way he was.  In the end, I decided to leave him how he is for now.  I still may add a mouth later.  What do you think? The glasses are made of wire, and then wrapped in black yarn.  We wont discuss how many hours it took me to get them looking that way (okay, three).

I didn't write down the pattern while I was creating this, but I am considering making a somewhat similar creature in the not-so-distant future, so perhaps I will try to write it down when I do that one. He was made with worsted weight yarn and a size E hook.
 My son was very excited about the Potterpus and wanted to know what a Potterpus eats.  So I told him that, of course, a Potterpus eats tacos and bacon!

Something Fishy!

Hello again! 
I'm just popping in quickly to share a little project I have been working on this week.  I have been making these little "fishbowls" for my kids to give to their teachers at the Teacher Appreciation Lunch at their school this week.

 It was a little hard to get a good picture of this because of the glass, but they turned out pretty cute.  I found the graphic for the lid on Pintrest, and just sized it down and printed it on paper and glued it to the lid.  the fish I made using Red Heart Unforgettable in Stained Glass using a size C hook.  I didn't follow a pattern for them, I just freehanded them, but I could probably write out a pattern for them- they are pretty easy.  The eyes I had ordered awhile back from COLINCHJ on Etsy, and they are 6mm.  The "marbles" in the bottom of the jar are just clear colored pony beads that I picked up at the dollar store.  I'm hoping the teachers will like them.  One jar down, three to go!

Dragon My Feet

Hello there!  I had meant to update much sooner, but life has just had me busy, busy, busy!  It is late, and I am pretty tired, so this probably won't be too long of an entry.  But I did want to share a couple of things I have finished up recently.   The first one is a dragon I made for my daughter's eighth birthday.  She loves dragons and wanted to have a dragon themed birthday party, so I thought this was a fitting present. 

I made this little lady with King Cole Flash in the color Apricot.  My daughter decided to name her "April," since that is when her birthday is.  I love, love, love this yarn, and I'm looking forward to finding something else to use it for.  The solid colored pieces are Stylecraft DK in Spice and Plum.  They blended together wonderfully.  It was a LOT of little stitches, and my fingers were pretty achy after all was said and done.  At the end of the day, she loves her dragon, and I love seeing her so happy with it! The pictures are a little yellow, but I've since replaced my phone, so hopefully here on out my pictures will look much better.

My kids' school has a carnival every year and there are always raffle baskets with a theme given away as prizes.  I wanted to donate something handmade, but I was kind of short on time.  My son's class had a theme of "Spa Night," so I made a little package up that had two facial cloths, a back scrubber, and two candles in cosies.  I felt bad that I didn't have time to make something super stunning, but they turned out pretty good and are hopefully being enjoyed.  My picture only shows one candle, but I made another in purple. 

It's Been A Long Time

Hello!
I know it has been an awfully long time since last I updated.  I do apologize for my absence.  The end of last year was a very busy time for me craft wise.  I had so many projects that needed to be completed on time, and it was a crunch to get them all done.  Here are but a few examples of things I was hooking like mad to complete!

Shortly after the first of the year, I had some personal issues of a catastrophic level happen.  I can't discuss the details here, but life as I knew it before has been turned upside down. So I've been struggling to right myself since then.  I went almost 3 weeks without hooking anything at all, and then when I did try to do anything, I'd end up having to rip rows and rows out because I just couldn't focus well enough.  I've been trying to ease back into my crafting, and only doing it when I feel like it, for however long, and on whatever project it is that I feel up to working on at the time.  This is why you haven't been seeing posts from me, nor seen my Etsy store open in January as I had planned.  So hopefully there will be more posts coming soon!  I'm about mid-way through a project and hopefully will be able to share it in about a week's time- but I'm not going to hold myself to that.  It might be a week, it might be a month.  Crochet is somewhat therapeutic for me right now, but I have to do it on my own terms.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to start taking orders again soon, and get back to some more regular blogging.

So Many Hats, So Few Blog Entries!

I've been horribly slack about updating the blog lately.  Things have been very busy here.  The kids are finally back to school and are settling in to their new classes and making new friends.  I love this time of year!  October is my favourite month.  I find that the natural beauty here in Vancouver certainly leaves no lack of inspiration.

So what have I been up to the last few weeks in Yarnland?  Mostly hats, hats, and more hats!  I had a few friends who wanted Groot hats made for them, so I had to try to remember how I made the first one.  I tried keeping some notes on it over the next few I made, but they are nowhere near what would pass for a publishable pattern.  I've had some more minion hats requested.  In fact, the next four items to fall off my hook will all be minion-related.  Two of them I'm designing myself, so that always take a lot longer for me than just following a pattern.  I also had a request for a Unikitty (from The Lego Movie) hat.  I couldn't find a pattern for one, so, again I just made the hat up as I went along. I'm pretty happy with the end result (though if I ever made another, I would assemble it in a different order than I did this time).  I'm looking forward to seeing this little Unikitty in her costume on Halloween!


Speaking of Halloween, it has to be my favourite holiday!  I've been quite busy making things for other people lately, but I did take a little time out to make something to decorate our house for the holiday!  The good folks over at The Crochet Crowd are having another one of their fabulous challenges.  This particular challenge involved making a yarn wreath in a Halloween theme.  They really left a lot of room for creativity in this challenge.  I chose to use a pool noodle for my wreath form, and wrap it in yarn.  In retrospect, I could have crocheted a cover for the noodle faster than wrapping the noodle! To keep in the spirit of the challenge, I decided to try something that has always kind of scared me, and tried crocheting with ruffle yarn. I can't even begin to tell you how silly I felt for avoiding this stuff for so long- it is ridiculously easy to do!  So I used it for the trim of my wreath, found some silvery fabric in my scrap box, and went to work.  It is now hanging on the wall in our hallway, since we can't close the screen door if we hang it on the front door. 

 I managed to finish up a little something for myself this morning.  I had been working on this on short car trips. I'm very, very happy with this scarf!  My Road Trip Scarf, while it did turn out very pretty, is just not my style.  I can't pull off the triangular scarf as well as a lot of people seem to.  I made this scarf with Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable in the colorway Stained Glass.  I love these colours and I would wear them in any season.  It is a very simple shell stitch that is staggered.  However, it is a pleasant stitch to look at (instead of just a plain old double crochet), but not so busy that it detracts from the colour.  I wore it out and about today and had several comments on it, which always makes me feel good.  The closer up pictures shows the stitching better, as well as the colours.  My flash didn't go off in the first picture, apparently.

Until next time,
Happy Hooking!

Darrah