Supplies: Wire

I frequently use wire in my patterns to help with stability, strength and poseability. It is important to me to be able to explain exactly how to assemble the soft sculptures in my patterns, so within my patterns there are often step by step written and photographic instructions for how to assemble your soft sculpture using wire. Figuring out the perfect wire to use has been an interesting journey that I am STILL ON.

As a fluke, I found that packages of paper-wrapped 18 gauge 18 inch faux floral wire works really well for what I want it to do. The crumpled paper wrapped around the wire offers a nice friction resistance against the yarn crochet work, so pieces that you crochet won’t shift as much once the wire is inside, because the wire isn’t just smooth. This particular wire that I recommend also happens to be fairly stiff for 18 gauge wire, and the paper-wrapped quality adds girth to the wire, so although 18 gauge is fairly small, the paper makes it much thicker.

The 18 gauge, 18 inch CLOTH wrapped wire is NOT created equally to the paper wrapped stuff. I’ve found that the cloth wrapped wire is far to malleable and won’t hold up the weight of a crocheted wing (for example) the same way that the paper wrapped wire does. Unfortunately, I also found out that there is no firmness descriptor on packages of wire meant for faux foliage. So it can definitely be a bit of a process to locate a perfect wire to use in your work. Keep in mind, you also DO NOT want the wire to rust.

I explain this because although I found the wire easy to locate in stores here in America (big box craft stores), for my overseas customers it was not so easy. Overseas customers have found wire more readily available at their local home improvement stores — Wire used for fencing or hangers works well, but you should always have a pliers on hand for trimming and shaping. You don’t want a wire that’s TOO stiff, because then you run the risk of not being able to shape it as exactly as you need.

So basically, go out there and find the goldilocks of wire. Good luck!

The Etsies!

I did something scary and exciting! I entered my Dragon pattern in the Etsies! The Etsy Design Awards!! This is the first competition that Etsy is hosting! I can’t wait to see what everyone puts out there for this! I can’t figure out whether I’m foolish for having a very real hope of being chosen as a finalist for this! Eee! Exciting!

#TheEtsies

Boo!

Made you look.

Supplies: What's the skinny on Polyfil?

Out of all the supplies you use to make amigurumi, polyfil is one of the super important ones that we care least about. It goes on the inside of the amigurumi and gives your work shape and body.

I strongly prefer generic polyfil - the kind of polyfil that feels more like cotton gives my sensory issues the heebie jeebies. So I prefer the stuff that feels like acrylic clouds. Also, I told my daughter they’re called “Clouds” and she will often ask to play with my “clouds”.

There are more options and tricks for stuffing your amigurumi. You know all those yarn tails you get after weaving in your ends? If you save them, you can use them to stuff your next amigurumi!

Also, when you make an all black amigurumi - like a black unicorn, and you’d like to stuff it, it can be a little odd looking to stuff it with white polyfil as the white will peek through all of the holes of the crochet work. If you don’t like the look of the white peeking through, there are ways around it! You can take a nylon stocking, and fill THAT with polyfil as you stuff it inside the amigurumi. The nylon stocking will contain and mask the bright white and you won’t notice inside your work. Your second option would be to pick up some very cheap black yarn and use that to stuff your work. You can find cheap black (or any color) yarn at thrift stores and in the clearance section of your local big box craft stores. Stuffing amigurumi with yarn means that your amigurumi will be much heavier than if you stuffed it with polyfil, but you will not see the inner stuffing through your crochet work AT ALL.

I hope this helped!!

Dragon Update!!

There is a BRAND NEW UPDATE available to the Dragon pattern! IF you purchased the pattern on Ravelry, it should automatically be available for you to download. If you purchased it on Etsy, I sent you a manual update to your email address. If you did not receive that email update, please message me on Etsy and I will make sure you get your updated copy!

Enjoy!

© 2019 Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™. All rights reserved. This pattern is FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. The pattern (or parts of it) may not be reproduced, distributed or resold, translated, published, altered, shared or posted (for sale or free) over the internet or offline. You can sell items made from this pattern, provided they are handmade by yourself in a limited number and you give credit to the designer. Please add the following lines to your item description and any item you are selling: “This item is handmade by (your name) from a design and pattern by Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™”.

Supplies: What's the Skinny on Safety Eyes?

There are a lot of supplies that go into the creation of a high quality soft-sculpture created with crochet. I use yarn, wire, crochet hooks, darning needles, polyfil, duct tape, safety eyes, glass gems and more!

Out of all of these things, one of the most important that has a substantial impact on the apparent quality of my work is definitely the eyes. As such, I have 3 full organizers full of eyeballs. No joke.

I like to use classic black safety eyes a lot - I have a range of sizes from 6mm all the way up to 18mm. I like to make sure that my black safety eyes come with a white opaque washer. I’ve found that this particular color of washer is the exact type that fits most easily AND most securely over the ridged post of a black safety eye. These plastic washers are my favorite for extremely secure safety eyes, but don’t forget safety eyes are NOT recommended for toys intended for children under the age of 3.

If you want to get fancier with your safety eyes, as I often do, and you know that the item you’re making isn’t going to be played with by a very small child…. I STRONGLY recommend you check out Suncatcher Craft Eyes. Suncatcher craft eyes is a small woman-owned business. Every pair of eyes is hand painted. Her work is meticulous, high quality, and unique. I definitely recommend her Hologram, Double Glitter, and Galaxy lines. They are my favorite to use to give one extra dose of specialness to my work.

Griffin or Gryphon?

Whatever you call it, I wrote a new pattern for it!

You can find it here on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/694045116/griffin-crochet-amigurumi-pattern

Or here on Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/griffin-3

© 2019 Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™. All rights reserved. This pattern is FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. The pattern (or parts of it) may not be reproduced, distributed or resold, translated, published, altered, shared or posted (for sale or free) over the internet or offline. You can sell items made from this pattern, provided they are handmade by yourself in a limited number and you give credit to the designer. Please add the following lines to your item description and any item you are selling: “This item is handmade by (your name) from a design and pattern by Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™”.

Phoenixes Rise from the Yarn!

I’m proud to announce my new(ish) pattern!

You can find it here on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/listing/686928916/phoenix-firebird-crochet-amigurumi

Or here on Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/phoenix-20

© 2019 Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™. All rights reserved. This pattern is FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. The pattern (or parts of it) may not be reproduced, distributed or resold, translated, published, altered, shared or posted (for sale or free) over the internet or offline. You can sell items made from this pattern, provided they are handmade by yourself in a limited number and you give credit to the designer. Please add the following lines to your item description and any item you are selling: “This item is handmade by (your name) from a design and pattern by Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™”.

Snitches made from Stitches

This pattern is available by Crafty Intentions and FREE! Make your own shiny snitch to catch and keep!

You can find it here: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/golden-snitch-3

© 2019 Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™. All rights reserved. This pattern is FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. The pattern (or parts of it) may not be reproduced, distributed or resold, translated, published, altered, shared or posted (for sale or free) over the internet or offline. You can sell items made from this pattern, provided they are handmade by yourself in a limited number and you give credit to the designer. Please add the following lines to your item description and any item you are selling: “This item is handmade by (your name) from a design and pattern by Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™”.

Crafty And Nerdy: Cross Stitch Quotes and a Mini-Fail

For a while, I cross stitched a new nerdy quote and framed it as a gift for my brother every year for Christmas.  I worked hard on them.  At some point I realized that I could single-handedly be responsible for filling his walls with decor, and decided I should probably lay off.  But there were many years when that was my brother-craft. 

Unfortunately, at least in part, I did it wrong.  I recently learned that there's a way to prevent the ugly wrinkles that my projects were plagued with.  He recently moved away across the country and I can confirm that the knowledge that I could FIX those wrinkles but can not because he's living so far away is definitely burning my brain.

Pictures are less than ideal because OF THE WRINKLES and also because I didn't take any photos of them myself, and instead asked my brother to take nice pictures and I'm not sure he knows how to do that.

And I also did a set of three quotes from Firefly!

So the way you fix the back is to back the cross stitch with some cardboard, and then stretch sew it into place!

You can find a good tutorial for that here: https://peacockandfig.com/2016/01/how-to-frame-cross-stitch-embroidery/

Eyeball Monster Pattern!

Crafty Intentions has an Eyeball Monster Pattern that features SO MANY different options for Large, small, tentacles, warts, smooth, wings, arms, feet etc, that you’ll never run out of figuring out new ways to make new original monsters! These are easy to whip up, use small amounts of yarn, and are just so fun to put ANYWHERE or give to ANYONE!

You can find it here: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/eyeball-monsters-2
Or Here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/651716893/eyeball-monster-amigurumi-crochet

© 2019 Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™. All rights reserved. This pattern is FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. The pattern (or parts of it) may not be reproduced, distributed or resold, translated, published, altered, shared or posted (for sale or free) over the internet or offline. You can sell items made from this pattern, provided they are handmade by yourself in a limited number and you give credit to the designer. Please add the following lines to your item description and any item you are selling: “This item is handmade by (your name) from a design and pattern by Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™”.

Yarn Shop Feature: The Speckled Sheep

The Speckled Sheep is one of my local yarn shops, and is one of my favorites. They offer a wide selection of yarn, roving, and locally made crafts. They just re-located to a beautiful Farmhouse location in Lancaster County, and it’s just a lovely experience. It is a family owned shop and they are talented and experienced with knitting and crochet work. In fact, this is one of those gold star shops that doesn’t look down on Crocheting at all!

10/10 Would go there again any time!

Yarn Shop Feature: Stars Hollow Yarns

On a road trip, I was able to visit Stars Hollow Yarns in Washington, CT! I somehow managed to convince the owner to open their doors before the official grand opening of the shop, and I am SO SO glad. It is a beautiful 2 story shop with wooden floors and wood beams, good lighting and the shop owner, Lisa Clark, is a gem. It specializes in both high quality fiber, and Gilmore Girl memorabilia including pins, prints, and more referencing the show. As a long time fan of Gilmore Girls, I really enjoyed that the setting of the town and shop are SO Gilmore Girls-esque, and the experience was lovely. I found so many treasures from yarn companies I haven’t seen very often - including Dragonfly Fiber, Alexandra’s crafts, and Mrs. Crosby Loves to Play.

It was a pricey trip, but well worth it. 10/10 would visit again.

Monster Pattern Revamped and More!

It has come to my attention that my formatting could be improved upon! I am committed to writing the clearest patterns possible. So in the coming year I will be re-formatting every single pattern I’ve already published, but I started with the Choose Your Own Adventure Monster pattern.

You can find it here: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/choose-your-own-adventure-monster
Or here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/606495674/monster-crochet-amigurumi-pattern?ref=shop_home_active_5&crt=1

© 2019 Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™. All rights reserved. This pattern is FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. The pattern (or parts of it) may not be reproduced, distributed or resold, translated, published, altered, shared or posted (for sale or free) over the internet or offline. You can sell items made from this pattern, provided they are handmade by yourself in a limited number and you give credit to the designer. Please add the following lines to your item description and any item you are selling: “This item is handmade by (your name) from a design and pattern by Megan Lapp, Crafty Intentions™”.

Hand Health

A hooker’s hands are susceptible to any number of repetitive motion injuries, and I strongly recommend that you take care of yourself as you create your masterpieces. It is important to take breaks! Treat yourself to a more ergonomic hook that you can make yourself with polymer clay and metal hooks, or buy from Etsy, or even buy from Furls - which have a number of beautiful hooks. My personal favorite store bought hook is a Clover Soft Touch hook - they help me to be able to crochet for hours without pain!

Additionally there are exercises you can do to help prevent these injuries all together. Here’s an excellent video providing instruction on how to safely do some appropriate exercises specifically for knitters or crocheters.

https://furlscrochet.com/pages/crochet-hand-exercises

Community Support for Crafty Intentions Patterns

If you are working on Crafty Intentions Patterns and would like to share your works in progress, finished objects, or questions you may have along the way, then please come join us on facebook in the group called Crafty Intentions Amigurumi & Crochet community. There are over a thousand members, and you can get answers directly from me there, as well as feedback and input from many talented fellow crocheters!!

Malabrigo Yarn

I’m Thrilled to share that Malabrigo Yarn shared a Crafty Intentions pattern as made by Handmade by Lauren Lewis! It’s a fantastic rendition of the Unicorn pattern as a realistic Horse.

You can find the post here: https://www.facebook.com/malabrigoyarn/posts/2007391549307397

You can find the pattern here: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/unicorn-23
or Here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/586740419/unicorn-crochet-amigurumi-pattern-by

Crafty and Thrifty: Embroidery on Thrifted Needlepoint Landscapes

I was out at yard sales and found three fantastic landscape needle points.  They were SCREAMING for embroidered quotes.  So I bought them immediately and whispered sweet nothings to them all the way home and then promptly forgot about them for months, maybe even years.

I did eventually work on them. They were clearly vintage.  I pried them open, and fought my way through weathered cardboard and glue, and was finally able to embroider on top of the needle point some very touching quotes.  Two of these were house-warming gifts for my brother.

And then this one was IMMEDIATELY hung directly above our front door:

Finding these vintage needle points was a big awesome score.  I loved re-using these pieces in this way.  I bet that if you found something similar there are so many more awesome things you'd be able to do with them!!

King Cole Yarns

It’s exciting to share that Crafty Intentions patterns, as created by Handmade by Lauren Lewis, have been shared twice by the Yarn Maker King Cole Yarns! Check it out here:

https://www.facebook.com/KingColeLtd/posts/2068760159838874

https://www.facebook.com/KingColeLtd/posts/1915587518489473

https://www.facebook.com/KingColeLtd/posts/1887252701322955

Crafty And Addictive: Miniature Cross Stitch

If you've ever want to try cross stitching, but you don't want to commit to a large project... Go Tiny!  There are a million adorable teensy tiny frames out there.  Go find one and fill it with something creative.

Or...

But careful...

It is addictive.