Photo from Amy Skeers.
I was wasting time on the Knitted Toys forum on Ravelry the other day and stumbled on this amazing knitted Hellboy by Aimee Skeers. She not only knitted the big red fella, but she sewed him a coat and sculpted a gun and belt for him.
Awesome as he is, though, I still think cakeyvoice’s Hellboy is my favorite. He’s such a charmer!
Photo from Simply Knitting.
Photo from Cheap Ass Gamer.
I wouldn’t describe myself as a gamer, but I do get captivated by the more adorable games and characters. I was obsessed with Viva Pinata for quite a while (and am quite entertained to see it enjoying a small revival among some of my more hard-core FPS gamer friends), and then got into Overlord (I love the idea of having minions I can sweep across the countryside), PixelJunk Monsters, and PixelJunk Eden.
More recently, when I have free time, it’s been Little Big Planet, the best feature of which is that it stars a knitted hero, Sack Boy. The first thing that springs to mind when faced with an adorable knitted character is, of course, I want to knit one!
The first one I came across was knitted by Sylvia, the mother of one of Little Big Planet’s artists. Sadly it had no accompanying pattern.
I was THRILLED when someone sent me the link to this pattern PDF by Simply Knitting. It’s at the top of my queue, and as soon as I finish the projects on my needles, I’m going to get started on him.
The little crochet Amigurumi guys you see below Sack Boy are the knights from Castle Crashers, another game we’ve been playing a lot around here. My friend Randy found them on a Cheap Ass Gamer forum.
Photo from Jezzeblog.
These little guys really speak to my love of unusual knitted toys. After making a few toys of my own, I find that it’s really challenging to give a toy a face. You have to decide what the eyes look like, what the mouth looks like, and if there’s even a nose at all. I love that these dolls have no facial features at all except for their blank, staring eyes. Their faces really don’t have to work very hard — the ears say it all.
They were created by Jesse of Jezzeblog, who’s from Cape Town, South Africa and is working on a graphic novel.
Photo from Brooklyn Tweed.
I bought some Noro a few weeks ago to make a felted laptop sleeve with. After knitting a whole skein of it, I decided I really didn’t like the colors. Which is a huge shame, because most of their colorways are simply awesome.
I love how Jared alternates between two different colorways in skinny stripes. Kinda like Fricknits scarf from a few posts ago…I’m sensing a trend. I’m seriously going to have to do a scarf like that soon.
Just like his scarf, his site, his knitting, and his photography is just gorgeous. Check it out.
Photo from Knit Flix.
This is definitely one of those inspiring knits that you find when reading the blogs. It’s Knit Flix’s Juliet Pullover, knit in linen with silver beads and velvet ribbon. I’m not its only admirer, it won three ribbons in the Contra Costa County Fair. I love that it’s knit simply and beautifully embellished.
I can’t wait to start knitting garments again, once I’ve finished my current project…
Photo from Fricknits.
The great thing about knit blogs is the wealth of inspiration you get from other people’s knitting. The bad thing about knit blogs is that they make you want to knit EVERYthing.
Julie Frick, of Fricknits has been posting about this scarf that she just finished. The color combinations are just fantastic. She combined two verigated yarns in an unexpected way for beautiful results.
I never would have been drawn to the stitch pattern of this scarf, but I can’t stop thinking about the colors. The Chevron Scarf pattern is from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, and I’m really tempted to add it to my to-do list.
Julie’s blog is one that I enjoy — the writing and the photography are entertaining and interesting. And she calls her son Biscuit, which is my pet name for my dog. Love that.
(Photo from Fricknits.)
These are a few patterns that have piqued my interest while exploring my RSS feeds lately.
I can’t remember whose blog I first saw this on, but I did save a link to the pattern on redshirt knitting. It was a cute story, about how her husband had asked her to encode her name on the hat she knit him, but since she felt conflicted about it somehow, she secretly encoded his name in the stripes, instead. If I find the post again, I’ll link to it here. Regardless, I love the idea, and more than one of my geeky friends might get a binary hat encoded with his name as a gift this year.
A post on Anny Purls showed the Baby Shedir hat she knit for the baby she’s expecting. It’s just exquisite. The origial adult-sized pattern is on page 3 of this printable mini-edition that Knitty put out to support breast cancer awareness, and Anny used the adaptations for a baby size she found on Something from Nothing.
Another blogger I read regularly had just knit this headband designed to help women with long hair (or really anyone who doesn’t like wearing hats) to keep their heads and ears warm in the winter. Again, I’ve forgotten which blog I found it on, which is a shame, because her photo inspired me to knit one, whereas the photo on Knitty never would have. I’ll try to dig up the post.
While on Craftzine’s blog, I found another cute headband, this one from the Crabby Crafter, done in crochet.
Craftzine also yielded this lovely treasure just in time for Easter — the knitted peep, from Kat Knits.
And last but not least, and also found on Craftzine, are some cheery little crocheted bees, from Craft Tutorials that would please Guy’s sister, Honey.
And that wraps up my Sunday link extravaganza. Back to knitting!
Photo from BrendaJ.
Revisiting BrendaJ’s Flickr stream, where I’d found the Space Invaders Tote months back, I came across this little fella. I’ve been interested in making toys lately, and thought that Amigurumi would be a good way to get back to crocheting. She posted the pattern, so I may get to give him a try.
Photo from gooseflesh.
Here’s another one from Craft where knitting and crocheting are used to create free-form sculpture. I’d love to see it in person someday.
I’ve got a huge backlog of posts. I’m going to try to get everything I have stocked up posted in the next few days, so that my posts can be more realtime. I mean, you haven’t even seen Peaches! Or the two hats! What kind of slacker am I? I’ll be better, I promise.
Photo from yarnbar.
I LOVE it when the engineering boys at work chat knitting with me. T-Bone sent me a link to yarnbar.com, a site one of his friends has. She designs and knits these charming monsters, and then felts them. She doesn’t have a pattern for sale, unfortunately, or I’d have started a little army of monsters already.
Update: I’d forgotten that I’d saved her Flickr stream link, which features plenty of monster shots.
I’d also found this bunch of softies.
