Have a Heart!

You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to start blogging every day! OK Let’s start at every OTHER day. I know blogs are way more interesting when there is new content more frequently and that is my goal.
So for today’s post, I want to tell you about a class I’m teaching this weekend at The Knitting Nest in Austin. It should be pretty fun, really easy, and you will go home with probably several projects!

If you’re a mom, I KNOW you are busy. Working moms feel like they don’t have enough time at home and stay at home moms feel like they are being pulled in all directions all the time too! As women we are caretakers, maids, chefs, frugal shoppers (me! me!), school liaisons, and if we are lucky, we like to do fun things for ourselves.

This Saturday, indulge your crafty side and your mommy side. I’m teaching a crochet class to make teeny tiny crocheted hearts for Valentine’s Day. That’s not all. Stacy, the ultra-crafty mom and grandma, who also happens to run the Knitting Nest, will have cards and all the supplies you will need to make handmade Valentines so your kids will bring the most popular cards to the party! It will be really easy. Did I say easy? Even if you’ve never crocheted before, I promise, when I’m done with you, you will have a stack of little crocheted hearts to make Valentines with.

The little heart is attached to a jumbo paperclip and detaches from the card to use as a bookmark. Cute, right?? Inspired by a pin on Pinterest, these will be the coolest cards ever. All the kids will love ’em.

While this is an awesome class for the grownups (not just Mom, of course!), kids can get in on the action later in the day at a Friendship Bracelet class. I know when I was growing up in the late 80s and early 90s, Friendship Bracelets were HUGE. Every week there was some new design someone was making. We put one on and KEPT it on. Never took those things off, even in the shower. I remember pulling tights over my Friendship Anklets, feeling like such a good friend. 🙂

If you’re interested in either of these classes, please call the Knitting Nest at (512) 291-8866 to sign up. I’m also continuing my Thursday morning classes (every other week) with my next class on Thursday, February 16th at 10:00. We’re making amigurumi, of course!

>Custom Amigurumi: That’s What!

>So what did I do all Christmas season?  Certainly not blog, that’s apparent.  Yeah, sorry.  Sometimes I feel like if I don’t have something witty to say I better just keep my mouth blog shut.  But today was an extra glorious day, and I had to sit and relate a little at the end of it!

First, I’ll tell you what I just saw over at my favorite red-head’s awesomely cool website.  Of course I’m talking about Team Coco, and the super spectacular feature they had today about Coco Fan Art!  They picked eleven favorites (and have you seen the Flickr group?  That must have been HARD to choose!).  So anyways, to make a long story even longer, they chose my Conan blimp in their sweet lineup!  Here’s what they said:

Awesome Team Coco fans are not just into 2D works of art – they’re also into art you can hold in your hands! The lovely and talented Allison Hoffman crocheted this orange blimp… Much to Conan’s delight! (http://craftyiscool.blogspot.com/)

Can you see Aaron Bleyart and me have a mutual admiration for the word “awesome”?  I think he and Conan are both awesome too!  Conan art is awesome!  Fan art in general is pretty awesome too, don’t you think??  Somebody get me on a plane to LA!  Seriously!!
 
In other, ahem, awesome news, I made some really cool custom orders for Christmas this year!  I love when people give me their hot ideas.  It makes my job much easier!
 

I made this really fun pair of dolls modeled after Lalaloopsy dolls that were a hot toy this season.  The mother who ordered them wanted their girls to have a more “lovey” version that wouldn’t jab them in the eyeballs or leave scary indentations on their faces while they slept.  So of course, a crocheted version fit that bill!  They were both pretty big, used a ton of yarn, and they each had their own little crocheted clothes and pets!
 
   

I got another custom order for a lookalike doll, which I am loving doing!  This special someone plays a ukelele and is into mod-retro Mad Men-ish fashion, so he got yarn-transformed into this guy.

 

So why haven’t I done any Muppets??  Ughhhh I love the Muppets.  There’s lots I want to do, and I got kind of a kickstart when someone ordered Mew from The Christmas Toy.  He wanted a working puppet, and he got it!  He was a Christmas gift from a *very* loving grandson to his grandpa.  They have watched the movie together every year and he wanted to give him a sweet little Mew.  Isn’t that story even sweeter than the mouse?!  Now can someone PLEASE order a Janice doll?!?!!?

 

 

 

I am really excited to be getting published for the first time in a magazine!  Spool magazine is a new needlearts publication with not just crochet, but also knitting, felting, embroidery, cross-stitch, and needlepoint.  The editor asked me to come up with something so I made this set of nesting penguins.  The pattern is out now in the Winter 2011 issue.  Ask your local yarn store to get Spool!

 

Last of all, I’m going to be teaching another class this month here in Austin at the Knitting Nest.  I love teaching!  We’ll be doing a beginning amigurumi class and making Baby Monsters!  The class is on Saturday, January 22 at 10:30 am.  You must sign up ahead of time.  Call Stacy for the details and to get your name on the list!

 

I’ve had an amazing 2010!  I hope you all have too, and if not, well, 2011 is right around the corner! Don’t feel bad if you don’t have any serious plans for the 31st!  Think of me at midnight.  I’ll be playing Dance Central on Kinect, drinking some Cook’s Brut, dipping into a chocolate fountain with a strawberry.  I WILL master Bell Biv Devoe’s “Poison”.  I will.  Or maybe I’ll just crochet. Whatevs.

>Branching Out

>

When you crochet amigurumi, the yarn you’re usually working with is either acrylic, wool, a blend, sometimes cotton (which I usually hate working with), and almost always a solid color.  So when you go in a yarn store, choices are pretty limited as far as choosing awesome yarns in unique colorways.  Ya gotta make something else sometimes, just so you can buy some super-fantastic yarn!

Enter the Noro Plaid Scarf by Jessica Suzanne.  She made the scarf with Noro sock yarn, but I bought this Noro Kureyon at The Knitting Nest here in Austin (where I also teach!) with a birthday gift card and I had to make something worthy of its beautiful changing color.  (enough links for you?)  I reduced the beginning chain to 23 or 24 (check back with me after I make another one because I can’t remember how many chains I started with! :)) and so there were eleven holes in the mesh of the base scarf.  It was fun to weave in all the chains at the end and see the color develop.  I think I’m going to set up a fall class for this scarf because it was really easy, pretty quick, and the end product would be a beautiful gift!

OK, enough about scarves, because I got a few custom orders that I’m super-duper excited about!  Hopefully, patterns will come soon after I finish them, in time for some Christmas crafting, so until then, here’s what’s coming:  Wonder Woman, Chuckles the Clown, and Jambi!

>Because I am so CLASSY….

>Haha.  Get it, classy?  I’m going to be teaching CLASSES!  Yeah, yeah.  Har har. 

So I get my Moo cards, and I think, I need to give these things out!  They’re adorable!  They have my information on one side, and pictures of some of my creations on the other.  I love them.  Anyway, I get the little box and decide to head over the yarn store down the street (literally), The Knitting Nest.  They are having a class with Franklin Habit, a popular blogger, knitter, writer, comic-drawer (word?), and its Worldwide Knit in Public Day.  The owner was around and I asked her if she’d like my patterns to sell, she said she had seen my Conan and she’d love it.  Long story short, I dropped off a binder-full of patterns to display (just order them on etsy like everyone else! ;)) and a Pee-Wee, a DJ Lance Rock, Michael Jackson (I’ll get to that in a minute), and a Conan!  I also brought along a rainbow of baby monsters, 10 to be exact, that I’m going to show you, blog reader, how to make! (IF you take my Basic Amigurumi class July 8th from 10:30-12:30 OR July 17th 2-4 at The Knitting Nest, in Austin.)

I’m also going to teach a class on a more “advanced” project, which my little boy, 4 (that’s his age, not his name), dubbed “Lovey”.  They’re doing a Monster-making contest for July, hence the monstrous projects.

If these projects don’t look challenging enough and you want to go a step further, there’s the “Make Your Own Monster” (or whatever else you want to make) Workshop, July 25th from 2-5.  When I make all my amigurumi, I start with a sketch, draw all over that sketch with nonsensical (to others) numbers and drawings and chickenscratch, and come up with a pattern.  Then I start crocheting, making adustments as I go.  I’m going to teach you how to do this too, starting with a simple sketch.

The Knitting Nest has every flavor of Cascade 220 wool yarn imaginable.  It’s a little breathtaking when you walk in and see the spectrum of color on the wall.  I’m about ready to toss all the acrylic that is crowding my bins and trade it all in for nicer yarn, but I have to take baby steps.  It really feels different to work with better yarn.   

So if you’re in Austin, I’d love to have you in one of my classes!  If you’re not in Austin, it is a nice place to visit and I’ll see you there anyway!  I’m excited to start and hope you can learn a lot. 

What I was also going to show you was my “yet-to-have-a-written-pattern-for” Michael Jackson!  I wanted to make a Michael for a while and had so many different looks to choose from.  I had to go with this Beat It look, just for that jacket.  And yes, sticklers-for-accuracy, he didn’t actually wear that bedazzled glove in that video, but how could I make Michael and not crochet a tiny sparkly glove?  I shall write that pattern, even if it kills me, which the jacket may nearly do, because there’s so many little details.  But besides the jacket, how about that jeri curl yarn?  Amazing, huh?  Wait for the pattern, dear crocheters.  All in good time. 

So now you’re done reading this extra-long blog post and now you are going to call the Knitting Nest, drop by to see all my work, or email Stacy to sign up, right?