Massively Effective Knitting!

Geek Alert!

The gentleman in the center in the picture above is a very good friend of mine. The two gentlemen on either side of him are his very good friends. All three are very big fans of the video game Mass Effect.

I’m not a big gamer myself; I would rather spend the time knitting! But when my friend asked if I could knit a hat for him with a logo from one of his favorite games, I was all too happy to take on the challenge! The characters “N7” and a little triangle, how hard could it be, right?

 Famous. Last. Words.

For those who don’t know, this is what the logo looks like. 

N7 is some sort of elite fighting force in the game. I’d give you a more detailed description if I knew anything about it. Since I don’t, if you’re really curious, I guess Google is going to be your best friend.

I sat down with some graph paper and tried to chart out the logo. It wasn’t too hard but I had a spot of bother with the 7. Making it proportional to the N and not spacing it too far away was a bit of a challenge. The slope of the triangle with the little…extra block on top was also cause for some consternation. However, I managed to get things charted well enough to at least give it a try.

The first hat was…well it was not the smash hit I had hoped it would be. For one thing, I used too wide a knit which was very unforgiving where I’d made mistakes it didn’t work well with the triangle. It’s passable, but it’s just not right. 

However, since it was a free hat, I oh so graciously told my friend to suck it up and wear it. He actually did wear it some this winter but I don’t blame him for wanting a better one, which I will make for him eventually! Anywho, he showed his hat to his friend who loved it. We chatted a bit about what would make the pattern work better (it’s so cute when non knitters sit there and try really hard to understand what I’m talking about). He decided to order two hats, one for himself and one for his brother with the new and improved logo once I figured it out.

Since I had the incentive of getting paid (I know money is evil and all but it is a good motivator! So is being able to do nifty things like buy more yarn!) I set right to work re-tooling the logo. It took some time but I shrunk it down, which really helped with the letter and number, and made it as a patch that I sewed onto a black beanie instead of knitting it into the beanie like before.

I was much happier with the second atempt, it gave me a much clearer logo. My customers were also very happy with their hats which led to these lovely photos modeling them! 

While you're here, you should check out the Etsy store! New things have been added and more new items will go up this week!

Thank You, Come Again!

Well, since the Etsy shop is now up and running, it seems like a good time to talk about what is currently listed! I am slowly but surely getting new things ready to list so keep an eye out for that but today we’re going to take a little walk down memory lane.

There have been a lot of changes in my knitting in the 3 or so years I’ve been doing it. It is only recently that I finally got good at knitting in the round. This means that everyone I made, I had to figure out how to knit flat. I scoured the internet for hats that could be knit on straight needles. I stumbled upon the directions for this design (Go look, I'll wait!)

But I wanted something more basic so I could add other adornments. It took a good deal of searching but I finally found a pattern that worked on straight needles and on circuluars! Woohoo!

So I figured out the pattern and made my first beanie and was sooooo very proud of myself! Then I decided it was boring and needed ears! The thing about knitting is that it actually breaks down to a few basic shapes you can make with the knit. The rest it about breaking things down into those shapes and figuring out how they fit together in order to make them out of knit. Animal ears, for the sake of knit purposes, are different variations on triangles or half circles. Making them look like ears has a lot to do with yarn choices and finishing. 

 

Anywho, animal ear hats are pretty popular these days but there’s another knit hat design I see a lot too, the Mohawk.  I see a lot of yarn Mohawks when I look around for interesting hat patterns and when I check out the local hat shops. I’ve even made one myself…lemme tell ya, building the Mohawk part of those hats is murder! Takes forever! But I set out to do something a little different. I took the spike pattern I had previously used for my dragon scarf. Shrank them down and stuck them on top of a hat. I like the more traditional Mohawk (can you use the word traditional with Mohawk?) hats but I like the spikey look of these better. It’s not exactly a Mohawk as I’d envisioned, looks more like a dragon or dinosaur hat which is A-ok with me!

I have of course branched out quite a lot since those early designs but they are where I got my start with nifty, fun hats and I think they’re cute. I’ve made a couple for myself and wear them often and there are a few out there bought by others and given as gifts by me! So check out the store, they are on sale at $15, I normally charge $20 for a new ear of spike hat! That’s five whole dollars off people! The deals around here are just craaaazy!

Etsy...Finally!!! Etsy.com/shop/SweetVonPea

Ok, so I've been away from my blog for a while. Yes, dear readers, I realize this is a common theme for me. If it makes you feel any better, when I'm being a bad blogger, I'm being a good knitter!

In any event, I am back, for now anyway, and hopefully fairly regularly as I have lots of projects to share and such! For today though, I am happy to announce that after a bit over a year of selling behind the scenes, I have finally actually listed stuff in my Etsy store! Yay! One person wave in honor of me!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SweetVonPea

So there you have it, my Etsy shop is finally live! For now I am working on photographing and listing all the things I currently have in stock, soon I will list the already fairly popular made to order items like the Yoda, Leia, and Hello Kitty hats (stay tuned for a blog about Hello Kitty hats!). Also, hopefully coming in the next week or so will be listings for fun Easter themed hats and bunny ears!

For the time being, I am still taking requests for just about anything you can think of so don't be afraid to drop me a line and ask if I can figure out how to make something. The answer is usually yes! In the meantime, check out the shop, new things are going up every couple days!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SweetVonPea

The Business Card…Oy Vey!

I am incredibly indecisive. Actually, that’s not true. (see what I did there?)

I am incredibly indecisive about certain things. Chief among those things is templates of any kind. Every time I have ever tried to put together a simple website, choose a color pallet, start up this blog, or make a business card, I have ended up frozen with indecision.

I find one I like…then I find another one I like. Then I find 1 or 2 more I like. So I start fiddling with them, I play with the customizing options and generally end up over working them so I don’t like them anymore. 

Eventually, I narrow it down to 2 or 3 and actually manage to tweak those so I like them.

Then I can’t decide which one I want.

So I put it to a vote. I ask my mom, then I ask a friend, then I put it on facebook and ask all my friends. Usually by this point I have a front runner and least favorite and the majority seems to always like my least favorite and hate my front runner.

So I get frustrated and put it up on a fast moving message board and put it to a vote there. (Yes, I’m a glutton for punishment. Sometimes the mass polling goes my way and sometimes it doesn’t but usually by them I am so annoyed with myself and the whole process that I have to just walk away for a few days.

Then I come back and remember why I was annoyed.

So why am I telling you all this?

Because, good readers, I have just ordered my first business card! And it only took me 3 weeks to decide on a design!  So here it is in all it’s glory:

I suppose I could show you the runners up, but if I do, you have to be nice and not tell me I’m lame and chose the wrong one…k? I knew you guys would be nice!

So these were a close second and third:

So after I narrowed it down to these three, I couldn't decide so I went back to Vistaprint.com (they made this process quite nice and easy aside from giving me too many options) and started looking through designs again hoping to find something that spoke to me. 

What I ended up with this time is a jumble of confusion. 

I thought for a while I wanted to go a little more simple and formatted this one: 

Then I decided that one was lame and maybe I didn't like the colors I'd been looking at and what I really needed was something totally different from the colors I'd been looking at so I had a brief love affair with this one:

Then I thought...I want some edge and formatted this one and loved it and really really wanted it...but it's not really what I'm going for:

I actually still really like the skulls and I kinda hope someday I find a use for it. But for now I'm happy with my choice and excited about being able to hand out business cards when people ask where they can find me!

So, you may have noticed that there is an Etsy address on all these cards. So the cats out of the bag. I'm currently only using Etsy to set up special listings for special request sales or people who aren't comfortable sending me payments directly through paypal. But soon, there will be an Etsy shop with some pre-made and some made to order.

There will be an announcement and probably some sort of grand opening sale when that happens, I will keep you informed!

Ok, who missed me?

So, I know it’s been a while (bad blogger, no cookie!) but I have been busy knitting. Normally that means I have lots of stuff to blog about but lately I’ve been busy knitting more or less the same two things.  Princess Leia and Yoda hats! These puppies are selling like hotcakes…hotcakes that take a week to make. Lately I've been making them in all sorts of sizes and I've even made several people who aren't born yet! I sure hope I start getting some pictures from customers soon!

Anywho, I’m beyond grateful for the business but it’s meant I haven’t had a lot of time to knit other things. I have a few things in the works right now and I have made some interesting things in between so stay tuned for something new very soon!

I’d like to pretend that I can stick to a tri or bi or even once weekly blog post schedule but, lets face it, I can’t. However, dear reader, I shall try to be more dependable moving forward. Come on baby, I know we can make this work!

There's One (or more) In Every Family.

Hello out there in blog land, I know I've been away for a while but I'm hoping to get back to at least semi-regular posting!

This is my cousin…unfortunately. Without going into too much detail, she and I don’t get along. Recently I found myself in the position of needing to remove her somewhat erratic and destructive force from my life. *sigh* These things happen. I believe very strongly in family but I also believe very strongly that blood is not thicker than self preservation and sanity.

Anywho, I didn’t post a picture of my cousin because I wanted to talk about unpleasantness. Rather, I wanted to talk about the nifty hats I slaved over before cutting her out of my life. I had thought to roll these out over more than one post but I figure I may as well get the cousin related blogging out of the way and move on with my life.

As you can see in the first photo, my cousin is sporting some knitwear. She requested three hats of me (and expected to pay next to nothing…really kicking myself for giving her such a good price now) A baby Yoda hat for her infant son, a Green Lantern hat for her betrothed, and a Hat with attached scarf for herself. (Pictured above)

She requested that her hat be made of super soft yarn so I complied despite the extra cost of the super soft yarn (again, kicking myself for the rockin’ discount I gave her.) In order to cut my costs a little I knit the hat and scarf double strand, one strand being softer yarn and one strand being regular acrylic. Still soft and cozy but a little cheaper to produce. (Lol, there’s my trade secret for the day!) I knit the hat and both scarf-flaps separately then seamed and attached. Nothing too complicated but I was pleased with how it came out and so was she!

Next was the Baby Yoda hat, pictured here on my cousin’s little boy. He is rather cute, a pity I will no longer be able to use him as a hat model. Nothing ground breaking here, you’ve seen my Yoda Hats before, but I wanted to show it off on a living model!

Last but not least is the Green Lantern hat. There was a time when there were many Green Lantern fans in my life so I set out to knit a Green Lantern symbol. I posted that on a favorite geek message board of mine which led to what was actually my very first order for knitwear: a special request for a Green Lantern Hat and scarf. My cousin’s someday to be husband saw pictures of that set and had to have a hat for his very own.

So I knit him up a hat and here is his customer action shot…It’s a little beyond me why he couldn’t like…I dunno…put on a real shirt for the photo which was part of the trade for the discount I gave them. Que sera, he truly enjoys his hat and it shows in the pic (see his happy face?) and that does warm my heart. Few things make me happier than seeing people truly enjoy something I’ve made for them.

 Since I’m getting all things related to that chick formerly known as my cousin out of the way, I figured I’d also show the first two baby hats I gifted my cousin with upon the birth of her son. The first being one being a fuzzy kitty ear hat and the second being a boobie!

The boobie hat is actually a story all it’s own, so I will leave it at that for now!

Anywho, Have a good day readers, and appreciate your family, be they blood relations or the family you build for yourself with good friends!

Did I 'Ear You Right"

So in the last post I mentioned getting paid to knit. This post is also about some of the things I’ve gotten paid to knit recently! Ina weird way, this is also very much about getting ears shaped correctly.

So, recently I was tasked with making a Yoda baby hat and a child’s Pikachu hat. I love a new knitting challenge so I did some research to make sure I could put something together and then set about designing these.

For those who don’t know, Pikachu, is a Pokemon. Pokemon is short for Pocket Monster (or so they tell me). If you don’t have children and have never been a child or somehow otherwise managed to miss the entire boat on the Pokemon phenomenon, Pokemon was a children’s TV show of Japanese origin. Pikachu is a specific Pokemon character. As I recall, he is an electric mouse. In general I will only use my own images on here but I figure this is one of those times when a visual aid would be a good thing. So this is a Pokemon and I own no rights what so ever to this image. 

Ok, got it? Good.

So now that you know what a Pikachu looks like, you can see my brilliant work crafting a hat for a child who is a big Pikachu fan! This hat was purchased by a mommy friend for her very cute and sweet and well behaved 5 year old!

I knew basically what Pikachu looked like but I was not well versed so I did a bunch of research. By research mean, I googled the heck out of that little guy. I also looked around at the sort of Pikachu hats others had made. I rarely end up using an actual pattern for anything and I of course won’t sell anything made with someone else’s pattern. But I do like to reference and see what others have come up with, I figure that’s fairly common.

There were several out there but I found many of them were all yellow except for the black tips on the ears and it seemed boring. It’s not like a huge design element but I threw in the black brim to break up the yellow a bit ‘cause that’s how I roll. Speaking of how I roll, the brim can be rolled up so It looks more like a beanie!

The ears were interesting, I debated how best to make them look like what I saw in the pictures. I saw all manner of other knit Pikachu ears but often they were flat or too droopy. But a little stuffing and mine seem to sit just as intended. Apparently Pikachu uses his ears to express emotion. It was also beyond cute to see the 5 year old recipient of this hat shaking his head around to get his ears to bounce!

How freakin' cute is that?!

Now on to Yoda.

I figure Star Wars in general and Yoda specifically is prolific enough for me to not need to provide too much explanation or pictures stolen from the interwebs. If you don’t know who Yoda is…well go watch Star Wars, like all of them! Do it now, I’ll wait.

Didja do it? I’ll take your silence as an affirmative.

So the Yoda hat requested was for an infant. Infants can be tricky. See, some kids come out with tiny tiny heads and some come out with really, like freakishly large heads. And eventually, they all grow. So I like to err on the side of caution and go bigger for infant sized hats. If you go too small, the kid may never get to wear the hat. If it’s too big to start with, it’s likely it will fit eventually.

So I did some research. There are two really important components in both these character hats and those were the colors and the ear shapes and details. Pikachu was easy because he’s generally accepted as a bright yellow color with black. Yoda, on the other hand is green. Not just any green, but a sorta mossy, minty green. He’s minty moss green. Actually, the color on the yarn was something like frosted mint. Either way, Yoda is a light green color.

In researching images of Yoda and other designs people had used for their Yoda hats, I noticed a disturbing trend: none of these people knew what color Yoda is! Shocking, I know, but take heart gentle readers! For I have carefully constructed a Yoda hat in about as close to his coloring as one could get.

The other tricky thing about Yoda was the shape of his ears. They aren’t just some form of triangle like a lot of puppet/animal/creature type ears are. They’re all curly and pointy. I looked at what others had done and most of them had weird floppy ears that weren’t the right shape. I was determined to keep this from happening.

Ok, one more stolen image to illustrate the absurd curly/pointiness.

It turned out to be laughably simple to get the right shape (not that I’m going to share trade secrets :-P) and I managed it on my first try. It’s entirely possibly I may never top the awesomeness of the Yoda hat and honestly, I’m pretty zen about that. If you have to peak young, you may as well peak with the greatest of all the Jedi masters right?

So, somewhere between Princess Liea, Pikachu, and Yoda, I seem to have found somewhat a niche in what I lovingly call: Nerd Knitting!