Monstuh roundup

This week is a week of Roundups. I have been so useless at posting this year, so I'm doing everything at once, just think of it as spring cleaning, purging all the dregs out of my photo albums before I start the new year with some wizard new ideas.

Here are some monsters I made ages ago, for Sara. I think it was a wedding present, and the couple are called Anita and Peter, if I'm remembering right!

Complicated stripy top/zebra print scarf combo. She is drinking a glass of wine that I clumsily made out of felt.

I think Peter was supposed to look like a vampire monkey, hence the teeth and ears. Check out the beaded bubbles in the pint, I am so inventive!!! Maybe they're droplets of condensation since they're on the outside of the glass.

Lookee here, it's Sarah and Bondy's wedding monsters.

Sarah is an old fine art buddy of mine from back in the Hudd. I was excited to be part of her happy day in a most minor way.

He's got a star tattoo. I am so OBSERVANT!!! :)

Okay this is Kate and Matt, I made them for Ana. I think these might have been a wedding present too.

Apparently they both like to wear onesies, so the monsters are in onesies too. Here I decided to attempt crocheting the pint instead. Why my monsters drink so much, I'll never know. 

Kate is from Florida and a fan of the Gators (American football! exotic). This is what their logo looks like.

This is my effort.

Similar!

Okay NEXT. I didn't do anything for months and have just had a flurry of activity before Christmas. First up this is Ann.

She was cute and fun to make. All sparkly shoes and nice colours. Check out her butterfly jumper.

Next up I made the whole family of Danielle, who runs Rubbish Revamped in Chorlton and makes loads of crafty bits out of recycled materials. This is Danielle and her husband Bruce, a runner and Leeds United fan.

Here is a photo Danielle sent me of her and Bruce with their Monc-sters

Their two sons Sam and Joe both support Man City so I gave them City shirts with their names on the back. Sam loves cooking and Joe is into his Blackberry.

Added a plastic blackberry bead to make the Blackberry more Blackberryish, but wondered afterwards if it might actually be a bunch of grapes? Never mind.

And this is one of their cats. I made two, but didn't take proper photos because I'm an idiot.

This is turning into such a mammoth post, I had no idea I had so many. Anyhoo last ones for now - this is Trudie and her dog Marty. 

These ones were ace fun, I just love doing people with red hair. Do you like my new backdrop, it is an old A-Z of Birmingham.

Phew, well that'll do for now, I'm tired and monstered out. Hope you liked them. I got them all done to deadline! I'm SO PRODUCTIVE etc.

Well goodbye and happy new year again

bye, I love you xxx

Purl-ple rain

I hope you enjoy my pun, but I should tell you at this point that it's inaccurate because monsters are crocheted and there's no purling in crochet. Sorry! I couldn't think of a better Prince/crochet pun, apart from maybe 'U Got the Hook' which is rubbish. If you can think of one tell me and I'll gladly share it. I thought of another knitting one: Diamonds and Purls. There are a lot of purl puns.

Oh yeah! I crocheted a Prince monster.

This was a fun project. I just love it. He's so spangly. After some deliberation, I decided to go with the signature Purple Rain outfit, because it's just so iconic and wonderful. I really wish my monsters had hips and crotches at this point, so I could have given him the high waisted slinky trousers with a million fly buttons, but  never mind. He just has legs fused to the bottom of his big domey torso like the rest of them. Anyway I think I did a pretty good job of this, it looks wicked.

A story for you. I was wondering what to do about the studs/sequins/whatever they are stuck to Prince's right shoulder in the film, and had a brief wander around Fred Aldous on my dinner, but nothing seemed suitable. I was glumly rooting through my supplies, and whoa! I found a pair of fancy dangly earrings from back when I was a fancy dangly earring-type of lady.

Perfect, right? I couldn't believe my blimmin' luck! So here he is with his snazzy shoulder.

Beaut! 

I'm going to start doing a somewhat arbitrary celebrity range and stick them in my Folksy shop, so keep your eye on it. There are already some somewhat arbitrary celebrities in there, but I am going to do more. MORE.

Anyway that's like, all the time we have for now, so here's Prince doing some dance movements. Goodbye. xxx

Man monster and cat monster

Hey friends. I have not updated my blog in so long that Blogger has changed its interface and now I don't understand how to use anything. Gulp! Well here goes, if it all publishes upside down or whatever, you will know why.

 So I have been really busy in the last few months and that, and I've made tons of stuff, but I have either not taken photos of it or been sworn to secrecy. So I now have TWO monsters to show you. You lahcky people! Number one: this is Maddern. He turned thirty in February and I made him a monster to commemorate this wondrous time-passing. He makes a wicked monster because he is so very knitted anyway (he wears a lot of cardigans) and fuzzy-faced that I felt half my work was done for me, by NATURE.

 Here he is.

I had a hard time thinking of something to put on his t shirt, because 1) he wears a lot of cool graphicky t shirts anyway 2) he loves a zillion things and I couldn't decide which would be best. For a while I was trying to construct a tiny felt Green Lantern, because Maddern really hates Ryan Reynolds and I thought it might be fun, but the microscopic scale proved too difficult for me on this occasion (normally I am WELL all over the tiny work, honest mum!) so I went with the easy cover-all BANDS. Maddern sure likes a lot of bands.

So finally yesterday we managed to do a photo shoot of sorts, just before it started tipping down.

Inside.

Outside. We had fun doing this. Just after we finished up, Maddern's neighbour came over to ask if we were doing a 'sun dance'. We said yes.

Okay so second up, this is not the first knitosity made in the image of someone's pet, but I think it might be the first monster I actually made of somebody of a non-human persuasion.

Hello Fudge!

Fudge is Sarah's cat. He's the biggest, roundest cat I have ever seen, and he is beautiful. He's a bit temperamental though and doesn't like me much, he tends to bite me more than anything else, but maybe I just smell funny. 

Ages ago I made lots and lots of maneki neko(s?) in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep and randomly developed an obsession with them. I thought Fudge would make a special one, because he's so round and handsome. Fudge has a special relationship with a big blanket, and so I thought it would make a good talisman for him. He just loves that blanket!

I did a photo shoot with Fudgy yesterday as well, and he was unusually friendly, possibly because I was putting food in his bowl. Just look at that face. He's a dreamboat.

I tried to take more pictures but he either had his head firmly jammed in the food bowl, or he was wandering around the place entirely refusing to co-operate. Cats eh! Well, I like this photo, the look on his face is pretty good. 

So that's just a mere taster of what I have been doing for the past seventy months, how do you like it? I am starting a new job soon which may render me too busy to update again for ages, but I will try my damn hardest.

love you, xxx

Sammy and Other Beauties

Hello! HAPPY NEW YEAR you guys! It's been a very VERY long time since I last posted anything, but you know what, I've been as busy as a bee. It breaks my heart that I can't always post things that I'm dead excited about straight away, but if people have ordered things as presents, which they often do, it's better that I don't give the game away. Even though no one probably is likely to look at my little blog anyway. But just to be sure.

So I have a little round up of bits. I will try and be a bit less scatty about things this year, and post regularly, and all that business. I think I did all right last year. But if I'm as busy for the rest of 2012 as I have been this January, phewf! I will be delighted.

Anyway. First up, do you remember the graceful beauty of Sammy? He is my friend Catherine's dog, he lives in a youth hostel, he is a lucky boy. He enjoys dancing and lying in the middle of the floor and going to the pub. After I knitted his royal portrait, Catherine tried to coerce Sammy into posing with it, like a true aristocrat.



So handsome.

Here you can see Sammy a bit better but the knitted drawing is slightly out of view.



Looking good there Sammy. I can't wait to see this now that it's been framed, I don't think I have ever had a piece of work framed before. A milestone!

Right, some monsters next. I hardly did any monsters before Christmas, but the ones I did make I was very proud of.

This one turned out wicked but I can't tell you who it is or anything about it because I'm paranoid so I'm keeping it on the DL... ssshhhh.







All very covert. I like him though! Looka them pointy toes!

This next one was a commission for Ruth, for her cousin in the USA. I enjoyed making her but as usual I have failed to take a very good quality photo. Oh well.





Both of those photos missing a foot off, nice one Helen. You get the general idea. She's lovely and purple/blue/yellow, a colour combo I can get on board with. She's sitting on the back of my sofa here in the absence of a proper set-up. It's REAL velour.

Finally I did a couple of craft fairs in December, which I have already waffled about slightly. I like to knit at craft fairs and generally end up with a load of hats and stuff. This year I came out of my craft fair experience with these beauties:





And gloves:







I have chucked all these lovely things in my Folksy shop if you know anyone in the market for a lurid technicolour bit of knitwear, except the Russian doll mittens which Emily snaffled off me the other day. Just a little plugette there.

So that's what I've been making the last month or so, hope you liked it. I have other things too but this is getting quite boringly long now, plus it's taking me ages to root through every blimmin' folder on my computer looking for photos that I have hidden somewhere in error. So I will leave it here for now. Bye bye, bye bye, bye bye. xx

Some monsters what I forgot about

Oh hi there. I was just idly looking through some of my photo folders, marvelling at how disorganised they are, and I realised that I had NOT showed you some VITAL ITEMS. This is very important! I had better show you RIGHT NOW and CAPITALISE some words while I am AT it!

Erm

Well first up, this is Cara and Siobhan.



Cara wanted monsters to celebrate their 5th anniversary: the perfect present. They are very cute aren't they! I love making monsters with red hair, for some reason. I think it's because I can make it mega bright and that's my MO. Anyway, Cara advises me that they love them and that is that.

Hooray!

Okay, secondses: this is my sister Caroline.



Caroline is VERY beautiful and fancy. She enjoys being bedecked in jewels and lace and looks spiffing at all times. We are not very similar. Check out this real ruby that I got especially.



Swit swoo Caroline.

This next one is Gruff Rhys. I forgot I made this and actually don't know where it is.



I went to see Gruff Rhys ages ago and he DJed afterwards at Islington Mill where I would have had ample opportunity to freak out and not talk to him, but the last time I saw him there was no such opportunity. I guess I will stick it on Folksy, it's a pretty cool monster. The big mouths are such an integral part of the monster style, that when I make one without it looks really bonkers to me. I wanted to concentrate on his jumper, you see. The swirly pattern is supposed to resemble the patterns on Gruff's guitar.

Ohhh-kay. What else. Digging in old photo folders is fun!

Oh my gosh. This is a dreadful photo, but I will show you anyway. It's Roger, you guys!



Roger wanted a monster for his nephew, a Roger monster, so the baby could play with the monster and then meet Roger and be all like, WHHAAAAT. That's why all the eyes and glasses and everything are made out of felt. It's my attempt to make the monster baby-proof. I can't believe I never took a proper photo of this, he's got wicked DMs which are missing off this crap one. Roger, if you read this and you have any better photos, please email them to me? He did show me one photo of the baby laughing his head off at the monster which was MINT.



Okay, last one for now. This is Jim. He made my website, which if you haven't seen, you should totally go and look at in a minute. If you don't care about the monsters, you should go for the web design. Although, if you don't care about monsters, what are you doing here you daft toilet.

Anyway, Jim's girlfriend Alice requested this one to go with hers (red-haired, wicked bright) and apparently his favourite shirt is this checked orange one. Do you know how hard it is to knit a gingham pattern on a monster 4 inches high? I think I did an all right job of it but I gave up by the time I got to the collar.

Oh Jim made Alice's website too, it is here. She's like this completely amazing recyclist and craft workshopifier.

Well that'll do. I'm doing a couple of craft fairs in the South Manc area soon, come along. The next one is the Chorlton Arts Festival one, in St Clements Church, Manchester Road, Chorlton. 26th November, 11-4 I think. Tell your mates! It's gonna be CRAZY. I love you xx