Crafting Projects

I have far too much yarn stored up in my room.  It's starting to overflow the bucket I have for it.  I stress crochet and I've been more than a little stressed lately, what with figuring out living situations and one of my friends moving home and just general frustrations at work.  Oh, and I broke my little toe not too long ago.

All that stress got channeled into more projects.  Since I'm a nerd through and through, my crafting became distinctively Pokemon themed.  And this time, I didn't have patterns to work off of.  They are completely my own design.

Bellossom

The broken toe turned into a fairly elaborate project.  The pain and limited mobility got channeled into this grass Pokemon, with little individual leaves needing to be made, arranged, secured, and somewhat glued.  Flowers were important.  And I needed five different colored yarns and another three different colored felts to complete it.

It helped that I was procrastinating something else.  I had another project I was working on and I misplaced my crochet hook for it (I'm always losing the small one).  Limited mobility means I couldn't search for it very well, which meant that project I was working on was effectively stalled.  Thus, let's start a new project!

I think it turned out well, no?

Poliwag

Current project is a water Pokemon.  This one doesn't need quite so much yarn, but I needed to use up my navy one.  To be honest, this didn't even make a dent in my navy yarn, so I'm gonna have to come up with another project for it.  Also I totally put the belly swirl on backwards but HEY who's gonna care?  Not like there was a pattern for this little guy anyway......

This has gotta be the fastest project I've ever done.  Gluing, sewing, and crocheting the little things, Poliwag took roughly three days to finish.  If I started him on a Saturday instead of a Sunday (in which I should really go to bed at a decent time so I can get up for work on Monday), then he probably would've been done same-day.

Let's see you make something that fast

Since there's still plenty of stress to go around, it's on to the next project!  I'm thinking a cat, but I've got blacks, reds, yellows, greens, and blues leftover from other projects, so who knows what it'll be.

Cultivating Green Thumbs

Ever since I was little, there have been plants everywhere.

Quite literally everywhere.  My mom LOVES gardening.  The backyard is peppered with flower beds, vegetable gardens, fancy grassy plants that the neighbor's cat likes to eat, and lilac bushes.  The back porch frequently has hanging planters overflowing with flowers.  The front porch has standing planters neatly filled with flowers or little shrubs.  Around the front porch and wrapping around the side of the house are actual shrubs and shrubs that really look like cartoon Christmas trees.

Close enough, right?

As if that's not enough plants, all you have to do is walk inside the house to fins even more plants.  My dad oversees all the plants in my house.  He's got little trees that twine around themselves, leafy things that bask in the sun all day, and I'm pretty sure he's even taken over the cactus that someone gave my mom once.  His plants shuffle around between his office and our front room (which is really a little sunroom) to take advantage of light and heat and space.


And as if THAT's not enough plants, please walk in our front room sometime.  There is a bookcase there that, with the exception of the top shelf (where my brother and I keep our PlayStation games), is entirely full of plant books.  Books on sunny plants.  Books on shady plants.  Books on shrubby plants.  Books on how to identify plants and where they grow and if they will grow back year after year.

Like I said.  Plants everywhere.


I was never a plant person.  My mom tried to make a gardener outta me, showing me her roses and veggies and teaching me how to grow them.  I'm pretty sure it went in one ear and out the other.  I had no interest in plants when I was little.  To me, flowers were pretty and food-producing plants were good for snacks after throwing a softball around with my dad to practice my aim.


Fast forward many years, and we come to present day where on Friday my office building gave every employee a little succulent for Earth Day.  In fact I got two little plants, since they still had leftovers littering the table in the lobby after the event ended.  And I sent a needlessly frantic set of emails and texts to my dad going HOW DO I KEEP THESE THINGS ALIVE HELP!!!!!

You see, my family has very defined plant areas.  My mom has a fantastic green thumb outside.  However, we joke that the moment she brings a plant in the house it dies.  She's not so green indoors.  Likewise, my dad has a pretty green thumb indoors but he never tries to care for a garden outside.


Now I have two.  Meet Ekki and Harley.

Two little succulents now sitting on a window that faces north by northwest that gets only a teeny tiny amount of direct sunlight each day.  And I have no idea whether I take after my dad with indoor plants, or whether I inherited my mother's touch of death inside.

.......help?

**UPDATE**

Ekki and Harley now live on my windowsill at home.  North-facing windows are the best I got, living in an apartment, and Ekki is much displeased with me over that.  His green leaves are tinged with pink and turning paler by the day.  Super pretty, but he is NOT happy about that lack of sunlight.  And it doesn't help that it's been rainy and overcast for 3 weeks in a row.

Harley could care less.  Literally.  Forget to water her?  Cool, that's fine - let's add a new shoot.  Water her?  Great, let's add a new shoot.  No sun?  Let's add another two shoots.  Sun comes out?  She basks in the sun and adds four new shoots.  She literally couldn't care less, she's gonna grow anyway.