Crochet is Your Friend

Hola amigos. It's been a while, huh? I've been working super hard on the monsters, but not on anything else, like taking photos or doing anything useful with the monsters or stuff like that. After a lot of faffing about, I got a cardboard box and some paint and constructed a sort of mini studio thing to take photos in, because up til now they've generally been a bit hap-hazard and in random places, like in the street or on the window ledge or just on my bed if I was feeling particularly lazy. Anyway it's done finally, so here they are.

Here is Garth. Good knitwear and badges.






I have also taken photos of Garth with Big Garth, here is one.


Pretty accurate.

This is Carol.




She is the singer in Bad Taste Barbies and Pete's girlfriend. I really enjoyed this one, it's super colourful and I loves it. Also the frilly bits on her dress were good fun to crochet.

Here be young Emily. She is into big jumpers.




I am really having fun combining knitting and crocheting at the moment and I think it looks wicked as well. Dear friends, please wear awesome jumpers more so I can recreate them in miniature for your monsters, thank you, love from Helen.

What else... er oh yes, I made some smaller monsters:


Yay!

My idea now is to promote the personalised monsters as fun gifts and try to get people to buy them. I imagine they will cost £30-50 depending on how detailed things get, they do take a while but I LOVE making them. I am starting NOW, so let me know if you want one at ilikenicepies@hotmail.com. Send photos and any other requirements e.g. colours, etc. Okay that is enough self promotion. I gotta dash. Speak soon, don't be a stranger.

Monster-osity

Okaysies so I have been monstering it up the last few days. Monstering it up REAL GOOD. I've got loads of ideas and just don't have time to do everything at once so I may be a little incoherent. The knitted drawing is totally on the back burner, the poor poppet. I will be back to it soon, I'm sure. Just now the crochet is taking over my entire skull like a big woolly skull-rash. Which sounds hideous and I'm sure it is. You'll see in a mo.

So after I quit my job at the hospital in an impulsive rage, and spent a few hours gutting my room, I felt a lot calmer. I now have a NEW job which is much better and fewer hours so I will be less stressed, I hope. Anyway, I came up with a new thing. The new thing is called We Are Your Friends. I am making monster versions of my friends, and hopefully not offending too many of them with my crochet-tastrophes, or the project might yet be renamed We Are Definitely NOT Your Friends.

So the first one I made is sorta, kinda, a bit based on Ames:



Shooooooooooes.

Here is a photo of Ames for comparison.


Good huh.

Next: Nic.




I chose to use her bestest features for this one: grey face, conical body, sort of mental expression. Only joking Nic! You will see the awesomest thing about this in a minute.

Now Pete. He is the guitarist I was telling you about the other day.


The first thing you will notice is that the monster looks nothing like him. But wait! Pete has a tattoo which is based on a sort of cross between the Joker from Batman and the Coney Island Lager logo, which is this in case you didn't know (I didn't):


So I gave the monster that face and Pete's body, complete with Mr Broccoli t-shirt. Pete loves broccoli. Probably.

Here is his rockin' tattoo. Note: Pete doesn't have a heart tattoo. It's Artistic License, you guys.


So this is the best bit, right: I am going to try and get all the friends I make into monsters, to pose with the monsters for photos, which I will do nothing with. Me and Nic did hers this morning and CHECK IT OUT, she actually owned the EXACT same outfit that I randomly gave the monster. Hell yes! I feel good about this so far.


So if you fancy helping out with this, email me. My email address may or may not be on here somewhere, I forget, but if not it's helenmakes@gmail.com. Drop me a line and I will make you into a monster and there will be much rejoicing and that.

tidy yarn = tidy mind

I have been getting very flustered lately. I think it's because I have so much to do and I am SO disorganised. Until today, my yarn lived in a plastic box at the bottom of my bed. I organised it into different colour categories, ages ago when I started the knitted drawing, but it was getting ridiculous. They were just separated in plastic bags, the yarn was all tangled, I kept putting stuff back in the wrong bags in a hurry, there were balls all over the floor, in a variety of OTHER bags and under the bed and under my desk and IN my bed, sometimes, and I was getting fed up of clambering all over everything trying to find one flipping ball of wool.

Also, the fact that I live in this room as well as working in it meant that there were also other things everywhere too. I found a coat I had not seen for several months. I don't think I can lie about this. My name is Helen, and I am MESSY. Super messy. This has got to stop if I am ever going to get anything done properly.

No more! I have spent the morning tidying, cleaning and chucking stuff about. I am not blessed with the gift of space. I am also not blessed with a set of cupboard doors that shut properly, so I have banged my head quite a few times today.

Anyway, it is done now. I took one of the cupboard doors off so I could use the shelf space for my yarn, like so:


Warm colours at the top, cool colours in the middle, black white and greys at the bottom. And some loose bits of felt. I told you I didn't have much space. I wish I had taken some 'before' photos, so you could see the - actually no, I don't think anyone needs to see the level of squalor I am happy to reside in. Instead let's look at the yarn again.

Warm... mmmm.


Cool... aaahhh.


Right, back to it. Oh! Before I forget, I went to see the Bad Taste Barbies on Wednesday. They are pretty fun. I used to work with Pete who plays the guitar so now I just follow them around. Also, I had been drawing things for him to get tattooed on himself so I had to go and collect my payment in the form of pintage. Anyway, they would make awesome crochet monsters. Check THIS:


Oooh, the possibilities. I loves me some flamboyant nonsense!

Right, bye.

Cashy Cashew

Me again. I have something else to show you.


Eeep!



Squeeeeep!


Squeeeeeeeeee.... yes, it's Cashy Cashew! You guys!

She is based on a woman who was standing in front of me at the cash machine. Hence the name. You have probably gathered by now that naming these objects is not my strong point. Octy... okay. Cashy? Shite. I might change it, but for now this is what you're getting. Tangler was probably the most ingenious name I ever thought of, apart from Jenny Prawns, but I didn't even think of that. Okay, anyway. Cashy!

The woman I saw had rather extraordinary hair, that's why I liked her enough to, like, crochet a model of her. I hope she never sees this. I LIKED it, mysterious cash lady! It was normal hair in front and then six or seven dreads at the back. I was mesmerised. Here it is more.



Also, check out these kicks!


They are pretty amazing. I TOLD you I was going to do more trainers and am I ever! I invented a way to make them which looks quite good. Well, I probably didn't invent it, but no one told me it, so SHUT UP.

Also, check out the sexy walk!


Er, baby got back, and stuff! I am going to take better photos of everything, hopefully without my hand in shot, but I was too excited just now and it's going dark and I couldn't be bothered to set up a proper thingy, so whatever. I will do proper ones when I try to sell my shit. You want it to look nice then. Right now it's just PHOTO! RESIZE! BLOG! All right, calm down.

I don't know if the cash machine lady had a carrot on her t shirt, but Cashy does. It matches her sweet trainers.



That's it for just now. Oh, here is a taster of the next monster:


Yikes!

Meet Octy and Tangler

Hey guys! How's tricks? That's great, yeah. I've had the most productive weekend possibly ever. I have put the knitted drawing on hold for now in favour of CROCHET, yes. I am back on the crochet monsters in a big way. See, I decided to make some stuff to sell at crafty fairs and possibly even (gasp!) Etsy or something. It is necessary. So!

Here are some of the monsters/robots I made last year. I loved doing it and those little guys made people smile, which made me smile. I like to smile! I have not been smiling too much of late. Clearly something had to be done.

And here are the first new monsters: Octy and Tangler!






This is Octy. He is sort of an octopus, I guess. He gets pretty cold down there in the depths of the sea, so he has a smart cardigan and a woolly hat to keep him warm. The hat has hearts on it which I forgot to take a photo of.




And my favourite: Tangler! He is based on that awesome angler fish I drew. I gave him legs and arms though, because fins and a tail are a bit useless round Chorlton. The best bit though, are his pink Converse:


I absolutely LOVED making the shoes, they turned out marvellously too if I may say so myself, and I think I may. More trainers on the crochet monsters from now on, please.

I am halfway through a third monster which I will post soon. The ideas are coming thick and fast, I am very excited. I am on the lookout for craft fairs to sell at in Manchester, so please let me know if you hear of any! That's it for now dudes, byeee.

the trouble with work

is that it is rubbish and takes up too much time. I am struggling with trying to make things whilst having to get up at 6:30 every morning and spend all day sat in a hospital trying to sort people's problems out. Last week was hellish and I decided to leave every day. I need the money though. It's a dilemma I have with every single temp job I ever have. I think I will stay for a few weeks at least and see how it goes, and then quit when I'm on the verge of tearing my face off. That's something that happens with every temp job, too.

So whilst waiting for people to come and have a go at me for something I could do nothing about, I decided to at least use my time constructively by getting some good doodlin' done.


It's an angler fish. The only thing is I forgot to draw his angler rod-light thingy. I was watching Blue Planet the day before drawing this one, I think.


Yeah.


I like his t-shirt. The rest of it is a bit shit.


This guy's cool. I am consciously drawing things that I think I would like to crochet. This is okay, but I would prefer to do silly drawings for no reason, and then try to crochet them. I can't make my brain work like that though.

I did have another one which I really liked. It was a slug thing in a spaceship looking at a really tall guy wearing a t-shirt with 'Corfu' on it, but I can't find it.

Anyway must make like a banana and split, it will be roast dinner time soon so I gots to get out of here. Happy egg day everyone!