Well… I’m not sure how things are turning out with the book. I’ve had a few people asking me about it. Surprisingly, you can see the amigurumi book on Amazon- and I think you can even order it, heh.
Right now, things are up in the air a bit! I wish I could say more 
Aw… another stop-action animation of a cute stuffed animal. This time, a bear.
ぼくはくま
Boku wa Kuma, Kuma (I am a bear)
Kuruma je nai (not a car!)
Honestly, I didn’t do any research about what a porcupine ACTUALLY looks like. i think i combined a hedgehog kinda face, an echidna body shape and long (but fluffy) quills.
I really miss my camera… it was stolen, but I was also stupid. My brother’s Kodak is fixed-focus, hence no closeups. Alas.
Alas. His body is made in a nice bit of alpaca I had leftover. I made the ears and the feet out of picots - which makes adding these tiny details alot easier. The quills are looped into every-other row of single crochet.
Meanwhile… my nephew was learning to crochet alongside me. I was so impressed with his patience, and his stick-to-it-tiveness. I’ve taught adults who gave up quicker. He is quite pleased with his little “bed”, which is for his city.
(The font above is Singer Mears)
I am *trying* to redesign my site… I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I thought for inspiration to check out some crafty stitching fonts- and I was surprised to find so many good ones being offered for free. I have bought fonts in the past, but since I’m just playing around, this is a good way to start.
‘Home sweet home’ - Cross-stich font at Web Font List
and ‘Stitch and B*tch’ at Acid Fonts
Embroidery Font by Kingthings- who does custom font design!
Oh my goodness. I love love love stop-action animation. And this little fella is adorable. Komaneko!
What a cute cat! and so creative and talented. The clips I watched show him working on his sewing machine, making an airplane out of a baguette and spoons for propellers, and hunting down a scary monster in the forest. You can sneek-peek behind the scenes and see the folks who made it. You tube has a clip from TV showing behind the scenes shots! It amazes me.
Komaneko’s DVD is available in July. You can watch clips - but I can’t link to them directly. On this page you can watch some clips of the Komaneko animations. Not sure on the regions and viewability. But, Amazon is selling the little Komaneko soft toys on their site.
My uncle hinted I should make some finger puppets. On his last trip, he went to Ecuador and saw many little kids selling finger puppets in the streets. He bought some, but they seem to have been lost in his recent move. He is now in a nursing home battling cancer. So I am looking into making some finger puppets to cheer him up. I wanted to see what those puppets looked like…
I found some companies online who sell the peruvian finger puppets. I was surprised there are so many fair-trade companies set up. With prices like 30 USD for a set of 10 finger pupppets and an embroidered bag… it would be better to buy a set of finger puppets than make them.
I noticed unusual creatures, like bluejays, peacocks, stingrays and starfish… It’s a nice change from the common humanoid-shaped stuffed animal toys like bears and rabbits. Kids could learn a little zoology while playing.
from A Greater Gift, fair trade toys- The set of 10 with embroidered bag is 30 USD.
Also see: Fair Go Trading, fair trade finger puppets and toys and Fair World Gallery
How about a puppet theatre that transforms a doorway into a stage? how cool! See other puppet theatres at Fair Go Trading
Here’s a handy little list… Craftophile’s romaji for searching Japanese crafts. This is useful if your computer can’t read Japanese characters. The author has chosen some words that are Japanese, but written in roman letters and also words that started out in English, were translated to Japanese and re-written in roman letters. (Romanized borrowed words). On a Japanese site, if you searched for “mascot” you will get a very different result than masukotto. This is helpful if you can’t copy and paste certain kana/kanji words.
Of course if your computer can read あみぐるみ you’ll get even more mileage than “amigurumi”. Google dug up 351,000 for amigurumi and 531,000 for あみぐるみ.
Another great resource is Make Write’s downloadable document for help on searching for Japanese craft terms.
*heather gets up and shakes bits of yarn off her lap, makes a big yawn and stretches*
wow i haven’t blogged in a while! it was a nice break from being online. i think i was blogging a little too much, and i must have run out of things to say. well… it was refreshing getting away.
but now i want to dust off this old blog and get her back up again. just needs a lick of paint and a little oil- but she’ll be good as new soon.
Originally uploaded by feather.
Just back from a vacation with my wonderful boyfriend. Quite pleased about having been away and looked forward to getting home. As opposed to the feelings before I left when I was clawing the walls.
I feel that good fresh-start feeling. And now resolve to write paper letters more, and send more gifts to family and friends. I need a real schedule, like Monday is corresspondence day; Tuesday is post-box day, etc. Recently, I missed one really important anniversary, and numerous birthdays. I feel like I’ve been being so self-centered and self-absorbed. Must snap out of it. So a new era of gift giving is upon me.
I haven’t collaged in ages… but the recent proposal of doing a paper swap has given me carte blanche to buy some great japanese papers. lovely screen printed ones… really nice. even the cheap-o ones are lovely up close. the pigments look rich.
Looking at the composition of this one, i think i could have done a sketch first… but i literally whacked it together so quickly.
Keeping a craft blog is not easy. I just published a post over at Whipup.net that I had been composing for a little while for tips on starting a craft blog. One of the comments so far mentions how you should talk about yourself and your life on your blog… and I think this is an interesting point… I think there is a certain amount of utopian-vision in a craft blog, and an idealized domestic fantasy. Is it all bad?
In a ‘bad mood’ moment, Scratch Craft boldly said she was jealous of the ‘big craft blogs’.
“I have just decided that I hate, no loathe, crafty girly blogs. I’m starting to question what was it about those blogs that made me want to start my own. I get so jealous of the big craft blog girls, they make amazing things and maintain the site. And of course you read their profile and it’s some stay at home mom, which just makes me wonder where do they get the time?”
I know what she means about the SAH (stay at home) craft blogs. I’ve lived in a house with four children, and I know what turmoil that is, so you have to wonder how they can do it all? I suppose in other ways I’m jealous too. I would love to be raising a family, and decorating a house and generally nesting… but that is not the direction I pointed myself in so many years ago.
I work full-time, study japanese, live in Japan (so try to do required touristing), live with my boyfriend, try and cook and bake at home, make the place homey, socialize as often as i can, and try to veg as much as I can, and I write on a couple blogs…. so it’s hard to balance it all. I crochet in all the little cracks and spaces in between but I’m not as prolific as I would like to be.
And on top of that posting online takes alot of time. Before I make a post on a topic, I look online to see what others might have said, so I can link to them. All this ‘research’ takes alot of time.
And on top of that, I’ve probably been too impersonal and dry, and created some utopian vision of creativity and making things. It’s all too much to bear.
Through Michelle of Green Kitchen I saw this article Touch the Spindle wrote about the way craft blogs show a kind of smoothed over image of life.
“I notice, as I read through several (million) blogs out there, a dearth of, well… reality. Is it the nature of craft bloggers (especially the “popular” ones, you know who they are) to just kind of skip over the sticky bits of life? I wonder about what is really going on sometimes…maybe we blog to create a world we most desire, or as an escape, or (in my case) as a way to re - invent ourselves as we would prefer others to see us. Is everyone really so skinny, happy, satisfied, creative and fulfilled? In any case, there’s a lot missing about messy relationships, addictions, resentments and other darkness. I think the silence is deafening.”
I thought that was very true. The craft world is more product-focused. I guess for me, I see this blog as a showcase and focus for my crafting specifically, so I don’t have alot of other personal info on it as well. I can see now that I don’t want to be projecting any image of a perfect life in anyway.
But I don’t know if I feel that comfortable sharing personal intricacies. I don’t want to share trials and tribulations of my family and friends (since it’s not my business to share). I am a person here though, and I do try and share my process here… I just don’t know what the boundaries should be.
If anyone has read my blog and thought I was projecting some kind of domestic fantasy, I promise I didn’t mean to.
