Food Yarn And Friends – Snapshots

It’s been one of those crazy fun weeks!

Anything that starts with mocktails and two entrees instead of a main is going to be fun!


Indeed this is the face that I make when I’m presented with that much food 😀

I was given this adorable terrarium. Two little doggies!

Of course given my track record of keeping things alive… the outside ones have already died a bit. Ugh >_>

Lucky for me, Lottie whines when she needs to be fed!

Chrissy and Charles came to visit!!


We bought matching scarves from H&M, I think Chrissy should be wearing my hat, it would match her outfit so much better in this photo!

I ate a lot of frozen yoghurt this month *_*

Tuttifrutti has new cups and for some reason mountains vomit rainbows onto other mountains’ heads? I don’t know.


And finally there’s finally a really good sushi train near our place, YUMYUMYUMYUM.

I have been eating too much from Emporium. Well I’ve been eating out in general way too much. In colder months I get so lazy and unmotivated to do anything.

Anything other than knitting that is!

I’m pretty sure that mountains of sugar like this are totally healthy.

I’ve never seen a kitty with these kinds of markings before. I wanted to give him a tummy rub!

 

James loves cooking in Winter which is good for me haha. He makes awesome fancy ragout!

How’s your week been?

 

Bee And PuppyCat Crochet Coffee Cup Cozy Tutorial

I know how many of you guys have been waiting for this one haha! Look at me doing this in a timely way for a change! Today let’s make a Puppycat coffee cup cozy ^_^

Now you can download the full pattern by clicking here.

I love Bee and Puppycat so much, if you’ve not watched the first 10 minute episode you should definitely check it out here. I can’t wait for the whole series!

Ok enough gushing, let’s get started ^_^ You are going to end up with a cozy that looks something like this:

You will need:

  • 4mm crochet hook.
  • White, pink, yellow, brown and black yarn. I’m using an 8ply DK weight and holding it doubled for extra thickness. My yarns were from different brands and slightly different thicknesses.
  • Scissors
  • Yarn needle

We will make the pink bottom collar section first and will only be working with just 1 strand of yarn for this section which will help give it the right shape for the coffee cup later.

For this part we will work from the top down.

Chain as many as you need to wrap around your mug. I was using a large mug so I chained 54 total.

Join the chain into a circle and make sure it’s not twisted around.

Chain 2 and then sc (single crochet) around the entire ring.

Once you reach the end of the round, join with a slip stitch and slip stitch 3 more. SC into the next stitch. DC (double crochet) around the row until you have 4 stitches left. SC into the next stitch and then slip stitch to the end of the row and tie off.

This will form Puppycat’s rounded Peter Pan-ish style collar.

Next let’s make the yellow bell. For the bell, use two pieces of yarn at the same time.

Make a magic ring with 6 stitches. Chain 1.

2 SC into each stitch for 1 round. 2 SC into the next stitch.

Chain 1 and turn work.

Alternate SC and 2SC until you reach the other side. Stop when it looks like this:

Slip stitch across the top of the bell, tie off and stitch it to the front of the collar.

I suggest weaving the ends in as you go using a yarn needle because it’s super tedious to do later!

Next we’ll make the main part of the coffee cozy.

Beginning at the back of the piece of work and working with 2 strands of yarn at once, tie on.

SC around the entire circle.

When you get to the back again, continue up and up until it’s as tall as you want the cozy to be. I needed 11 rows for a large cup. When you get it as tall as you need, continue to the back above where you joined on, slip stitch into the next stitch and tie off.

Next the ears, use pink and just 1 strand of yarn. In terms of placement, I did mine 4 stitches away from the edge of the bell.

Tie the pink yarn on and SC 3 stitches. Turn work, chain 1 and SC the next row.

Turn work, chain 1, SC into first stitch, skip the next one and SC into the last one.

Turn work, chain 1, skip the first stitch and SC into the next. Tie off yarn.

Repeat for the other ear!

Now we need to go around the edges of the ears in the brown. Again using 1 piece of yarn.

Tie on and slip stitch 1 stitch away from the edge of the pink ear. SC into the same stitch. SC up the side of the pink ear, when you reach the top do 3 SC into the same stitch to turn the corner.

 

SC down the other side and into the first white stitch. Slip stitch into that same white stitch, tie off.

Repeat with the other ear.

Next we need to make 2 grumpy eyebrows out of the brown.

Again these are with 1 piece of yarn. They are basically just little oval shapes.

Chain 6, SC down one side of the chain. When you get to the end, SC 3 times in the same stitch to turn the corner. SC down the other side. When you reach the end of the row, slip stitch into the previous round and tie off.

Repeat for a second eyebrow.

Now stitch the eyebrows onto the face and use some black yarn to embroider the eyes, nose, mouth and bell.

I used 2 strands of black yarn held together. The eyes are just 2 stitches into the same hole so they form a rounder shape.

The nose and mouth were each 1 stitch. The bell was a basic “Y” shape.

Once you weave all of the ends in you’ve officially got yourself a new friend to adventure with!

Now fill up on coffee and report to Fishbowl space for temp work!

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial, let me know if you have any questions and have fun 😀

Shading – Let’s Paint! Watercolour Walk Through

Time for another beginners watercolour tutorial! Today we’re going to tackle something really important: shading!

So before we work on techniques, let’s learn about the basic timeline of a painting. Every artist has a different way of doing things but this is mine.
1. Sketch out a picture.
2. Ink the picture using a fine black pen.
3. Do a basic wash with light colours. A wash is what it’s called when you do one very thin coat with a base colour to work on.
4.  Add shadows using a darker tone.
5. Once it’s dry, add highlights using a white gel pen.
Done!
So really what I’m saying is that basic shading consists of a base colour, shadow and highlight. Blend those colours together and you’re set. Just make sure that you keep in mind where the light source in your drawing is and shade according to that.
There are different ways to achieve shading as well. Below you can see a rose which has been shaded using different techniques.
Block shading is a technique where there is no blending of the shading at all, the colours are just painted on and left. This gives a cartoonish effect.
Blended shading is what the name suggests, where the shading is blended together.
It’s much easier to blend colours together smoothly when they are wet on wet paper. Have a look at at the picture below, there is a splotch of blue and of red and then water between them.
Using a clean brush with a little water on it brush the two colours together and swirl them to mix.
It is much easier to blend seamlessly on wet paper than it is with dry.
A combination of block and blended shading works really well on areas such as hair.
To achieve that, use a blended shading technique while it’s wet and then add block shading when it’s dry.
You can really play with things like colour once you get comfortable with shading.
For example here is a regular line drawing…
And here is a shaded version…
Practice is the most important part of this. It takes a while but when you’ve done enough drawings you can get a feel for things. It sounds really cliche but it’s very true! The more you practice drawing things the more it becomes muscle memory. Look at the world around you and look at where the light hits things, shading and colouring is a skill which is completely separate from drawing to learn so don’t be discouraged and practice both of them separately and together!
I hope you found this helpful and I can’t wait to see what you guys paint!

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