Frankenstein's Monster afghan

I saw a stencil of this and I felt I absolutely HAD to make him into and afghan. (Click on the picture for an enlarged view).






I was going to save it to show for Halloween but by that time I'll probably have a million other projects to reveal so I thought I'd do it now while it's all still fresh in my mind.

I was going to show a daily progress on it but by the third day I stopped taking photos. But I have the first couple for you to see.






He started out as a pile of yarn with a size J cabled hook. (See it there in the middle?)






I began loading up the cable with the first and second rows of stitches and so it began. (I wound up not using that blue colored yarn. I was going to do his shirt in that. But then I decided to used an avocado colored yarn from Bernat instead.)






This was what I had finished by the end of the first day. I decided to start at the top of his head, since it was all one color, (the background spring green color). If I had started at the bottom, the beginning chain would have had a lot of color changes in it and that is always tricky for starting out.






Here was the end of day two. After this, there was a lot more yarns to add for his facial features and I didn't want to get all the yarns tangled up just trying to take pictures so I stopped.






So then here he is all done. I sewed on one of my labels too. After I finished the graph, I used a black yarn with a yarn needle and added pupils. It's not very noticable. I just thought he needed something extra to help define where his eyes were. He's got so many lines and scars around his face I wanted to make sure it looked right.






Here's a view from the side.






And finally, here's a back of the afghan picture.

I chose to do his face in white since it was originally a black and white movie and also I wanted all the lines on his face to really stand out. I don't know why he's usually depicted as having green skin anyway. I never read the book. Is that how he was described in it? Well, anyway, I chose the dark sage green for all the contrasting outlines, (hair, clothes, etc.), except for that touch of avocado in his shirt. This plus the spring green background still gives you the 'Frankenstein signature green' without having to compromise the face.

I think any lover of nostalgic horror movies would really appreciate this afghan.

Hope you enjoyed it too!

Mrs. Norris Afghan

(Click on the picture for an enlarged photo).

Yes, it's Mrs. Norris, Filch's cat from the Harry Potter books. (Or at least an image I thought personified her, anyway.)
I found the image at a stencil site so if anyone knows who created the image in the first place, (or even who the cat really is), just speak up and I'll make a note of it!






Here's two close-ups. I also sewed on my name label too.

The afghan measures 32"w x 56"L. It is done in tunisian afghan stitch with a cabled size H hook.






The yarn is a light fuscia in Red Heart, light raspberry in Red Heart, and Dark Purple in Caron one Pounder.
I thought the pinks/purples would fit in nicely with Dolores Umbridges" hideous clothes, cat plates, and decor. Plus it looks very mysterious. Like a cat ought to be!

In the books, Mrs Norris is described as having "lamp-like yellow eyes."
So,the eyes are a combination of a baby fingering yarn called Red Heart BABY Econo, in Pale yellow which has a "silverish" thread running through it too PLUS I used that glow-in-the-dark yarn Nightlights, (which I had to buy on e-bay) that I used to make the Voldemort doll with.

I tried to take a photo of the afghan in the dark closet so you could see the eyes glow, (see that last photo above), but, of course, the flash went off. (I couldn't take photos of the Voldy doll glowing for you either, remember?)






This is the back. Oooo, zombie kitty!

According to Wikipedia, "Filch's cat's name, "Mrs Norris", is borrowed from Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park. In that book, Mrs Norris is a nosy, interfering character who makes life difficult for the heroine, Fanny Price."

Yellow Sub/Pepperland Peace/Beatles/Apple Afghan

I had no idea how to title this afghan. LOL!
I wanted to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
Yes, 40 years!!! It was released on June 1, 1967.
And there was NO WAY I was going to be able to do that album cover with a million people on it, LOL!!






(Click on the pictures for enlargement of the photos). The sun was so bright today I had a hard time looking through the camera lens to see how much of the afghan I had in the photo. Sorry about that.






Sooooo, I decided to do the Yellow Submarine, (which, if you've seen the movie), involves the Beatles traveling to Pepperland to rescue Sergeant Pepper's Band who all seem to be trapped in a very large bubble created by the evil Blue Meanies. (Oh, it's a long story). LOL!!






I wish I had noticed that the apple part needed to be smoothed down so you could read it more clearly. It really does lie nice and flat and is quite legible.





It's an animated movie and quite stunning visually with awesome colors. I wanted to use those colors in the afghan. I tried to create the look of Pepperland. I also put a green apple on it which the evil Applebonkers would drop down on people. (Also, of course, the Beatle's record lable too). I wanted the movie's main message of love and peace to be the focus of the afghan. The sun is up in the sky. The submarine is in the Sea of Green. Oh, it's just all so groovy, isn't it? LOL!!!!

I used Sinfonia yarn by Omega. It's 100% cotton and extremely thin yarn, (almost like thread). So this afghan is actually quite heavy but very soft. The yellow is the only yarn that is not Sinfonia. It is a thick-to-thin threalike yarn called Nancy which someone sent me in a swap. It says it's made in Switzerland. So, wherever there's yellow, you see the textured look.

I used an H size cabled hook which worked great. And three graphs!!! One for the submarine, one for the peace sign, and one for the apple with the Beatles word on it. So I had to space them out so I didn't have to work two graphs at one time because I think I would have been ready for the loony bin if I had. LOL!!






Here's the back. I couldn't even get that centered in the photo properly. LOL!!

I hope you like this one. I really do. It has a psychedellic poster look to it. I wonder what it would look like under a black light. Probably only the white things would really pop out at you, (or at least look purple-ish), like the peace symbol.
I don't know about you, but I'm tired of fighting Blue Meanies!

Frank Sinatra Mini-ghan

This portrait ghan of Ol' Blue Eyes is loosly based on this photo of him...







(Click on the pictures for enlargement).

It's small and only measures 28 inches by 27 inches. I have the front shot there in the middle and the last picture is of the back.
It's done with a size H hook.
Red Heart yarn in black and Caron yarn in white.
A nice lap sized afghan,
Or if you wanted to accent the back of a comfy chair or couch.
Or just hang it on the wall.

Wherever he winds up, he'll always be Chairman of the Board.

America's Dairyland Recycled Bottle Vase

How have you-all been?
My weekend was filled with my son's high school graduation and I'm sorry I haven't been able to post anything until now. (Finished projects are reallly backing up and I might have to try and get more snaps taken of them throughout the week to catch up)!

Anyway,
Moooooooove yourself to click on these pictures of my recycled Starbucks glass Frappiccino bottle which is now a vase.






They start out looking like this. However, I found mine in the garage empty. (Apparently my son bought one, drank it, and left the bottle in there hoping it would magically find it's way into the garbage).

Well, I fell in love with it. The bottle is shaped like a small old-fashioned milk jug and it's glass. How could I part with it???

I peeled the lable off and it became even more beautiful. I ran it through the dishwasher to clean it totally.

Now to decide how I wanted it to look. What colors to use?
Well, the milk bottle/cow theme was the obvious choice.

I decided to go with a Wisconsin theme so I could make it and send it off to my sis, (a proud Cheese-Head who is still recovering from various ailments that have baffled the scientific community at large.) (Or at least the scientific community throughout America's Dairyland). (Does Wisconsin have a scientific community?) LOL!!!!






So, color choice had to be the Green Bay Packers. Green and yellow. (Remember to click on the pictures to make them larger).

I began at the bottom, crocheted a circle, reached the circumfrence of the bottle and then continued to go around and around the bottle changing colors until I reached the top. (I had to decrease some stitches as it becomes more narrow.)

The "cap" is made from a Wisconsin state quarter which has a cow, cheese, and corn on it. I "framed" the quarter with a soup can pop top lid tab thingy. It's totally crocheted in there and isn't going anywhere. I tried to make it look like a flower with the quarter as it's center. I added beads to the edge.






It's not really a functioning cap or anything. It's just decorative. I don't know what happpened to the real cap that was on it to begin with.
Anyway, I chained the yarn to form a tie, added a toggle bead to loop it through and added more beads to the end of that.


What do you-all think? Pretty cheesy, huh? LOL!!!!