Showing posts with label for sale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label for sale. Show all posts

Friday, April 22, 2011

Meet the Roly Poly King and the Arctic Fox! (Finished Object Friday, 4/22/2011)

It's not actually clear to me how I got a lot done this week, but somehow, I did!

First, I finally got around to releasing two of my patterns (both previously seen on past FO Friday's):
Rockin' Rocket Ship

Available from Etsy and Ravelry. (You can read more about him in my blog here.)

Manny Man-o-War, Portuguese Man of War Amigurumi, Manager of the Oceans

Available from Etsy and Ravelry. (Or you can read more about him here)

Then, there are this weeks FO!

Romney Handspun
Thought I'd start with the least interesting. :) I finished that spinning I've been working on for ages, wrapped around the hanger that I pretend is a knitty noddy, and boiled it last night. Now I just have to wait for it to dry.

I'm very happy with it. It turned out MUCH more even than my first two attempts (though that doesn't show much in the above, because of course the outer layer is what I spun FIRST before I got in to the rhythm of things). Now I can finally start playing with the lb. of fiber I bought online, and in two weeks it's Maryland Sheep and Wool...so I can get something that's, ya know, dyed. :)

The Roly Poly King
Last week for WIP Wednesday, I posted a strange purple ami at a bizarre angle and said I couldn't explain in case any Nerd Wars folks were reading my blog. Well, we on Team Ranger had a plan: On Wednesday, we staged a pitched battle between Green Drazi and Purple Drazi. It was epic, and I feel certain that the Purple would have won, had not our Fearless Leader stepped in and shown us all the error of our ways. Of course, the main feature of this battle was the finished objects we had each created in our appropriate colors. All of these had to align with a challenge whose theme was the number pi. Hence, I ended up with this:

This is the Roly Poly King. He's inspired by a character in Babylon 5, but the whole thing isn't worth getting in to. He's also almost entirely composed of spheres, circles and semi-circles. But I think in the end that I'm most proud of the crown.

I've had these Mill Hill beads sitting around for a decade, and I finally used some of them! Yes, I hand beaded that silly thing! :)

It was also fun to make his grumpy face. :)

Arctic Fox Amigurumi
On Wednesday, I challenged ya'll to guess what my strangely-shaped amigurumi was. I got some awesome guesses - pill bug, female bits, other internal organs, seal, manatee... - and I was surprised not to get what I considered to be the two most obvious guesses (bunny rabbit, kangaroo) - but it wouldn't have mattered, since it was none of these things! Right after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, I joined an auction on LJ as a provider - in exchange for a donation to a charity of the buyer's choice, I would design them whatever amigurumi they wanted, with size and complexity based on how much they donated. (A restriction I ended up throwing out the window because it's ultimately more useful to me to design a "normal" sized one of my dolls than to do a small one just because). My buyer ended up donating $15, and she requested an arctic fox! She wasn't too picky; her only real restriction is that she didn't want it to be generic with big floppy limbs. The example she showed me all had something unusual about them, so I set my mind to the question: how would I pose a fox? And here's the result:


My inspiration was this picture:

(except in adult fox colors)

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out:

...though I'll own, in the second draft I'll be slightly redesigning the tail(s) and making the head about three rounds smaller. :)



So! That's me for this week. A lot, I know. :)

Hey everyone, now that you've read my post, why not check out the other going's on at FO Friday on Tamis Amis and Crochet Blog and Fiber Arts Friday at Wisdom Begins in Wonder!

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Re-Introducing Sammy the Squirrel!

Last summer, I completed a squirrel pattern as a commission for a friend. I've now finished a second version, and it's been thoroughly pattern tested and updated, and it's that wonderful time again: a re-release!

Meet Sammy the Squirrel!


Sammy is a real tough guy, the biggest and strongest squirrel in the park, and a lot of the other animals think he’s a bully. But that’s only ‘cause they haven’t gotten to know him! Sammy only got to be strong so that he could protect all his brothers and sisters from all of the predators, especially the big, mean dogs who spend all day chasing the squirrels. All the dogs are afraid of Sammy, though. He might be smaller than (most) of those cruel dogs, but he’s so fast and brave that he leads them around in circles until they’re totally exhausted, and then he taunts them until they promise not to bother his fellow squirrels ever again. In the squirrel community, Sammy is a hero!

The new version of Sammy is available for $2.50 from Etsy and from Ravelry.

In other news, I've finished the first version of the Manager for the Oceans on Thursday, and should be finished with a second version today or tomorrow - with hopes for a third version (because I had to modify from the first a fair amount) by Monday or Tuesday! Expect to meet this mystery man...er...ocean-goer soon!

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Fine Art Prints Follow-Up: WHCC

After I finished the survey and posted the results, the next step of the Fine Art Prints for my photography was to find a good place to print. Friends gave a few recommendations, but in the end there were two clear leaders: mpix.com and whcc. I went through the options that both presented, and in the end I decided to go with WHCC, mostly because they were more heavily recommended by the photographers who answered, whereas mpix was favored by the artists. I have no idea if this was a worthwhile way of choosing, but oh well.

WHCC has an interesting way of getting you to the stage of actually working with them, and my work with them got delayed because my initial confirmation e-mail got sorted in to spam, but once I realized that, things proceeded apace. The first step with them took me by surprise, but is in fact totally awesome: submit 5 images which I would get free 8 x 10 samples of. I thought about it for a few minutes, and picked 5 that I thought would give me some idea what the range of prints would look like:


Lotus Leaf, because of the intense green saturation.


Sunlight on a stump, because of the depth of the image and the contrast between the brights and the darks.


Bee on a Sunflower, because of the yellow saturation.


Columbine, because of the depth of the image and the foreground/background contrasts.


Big Ben and Parliament, to see how a night image would turn out.

The end result turned out pretty excellent all the way around. Don't get me wrong, some have their problems: Big Ben shows the graininess inevitable from an ISO 800 image; the bee on the sunflower looks a little out of focus at the larger size; the Columbine flower looks oddly shadowed in a way I'm not in love with; and I've never liked how the sunlight on the stump picture looks printed, it's one of those cases where I'm taking my direction from everyone else telling me they like it. However, the prints overall look lovely and the quality of the prints is very high.

Now, if this is all I had to say, I'd not have bothered to post. However, I wanted to share a bit more about what I got from WHCC as part of this process, and how awesome it is. :)

The coolest piece of my welcoming package is a little packet of prints. There are two different images offered in 7 different printing options, which enable me to see how the same images looks on all of their different papers and finishes. This includes the regular lustre paper (which is what my 8 x 10s were printed on); lustre paper with lustre coating; lustre paper with Embassy texture; lustre paper with Pebble texture; lustre paper with Linen texture; glossy paper; and metallic paper. This is singularly awesome to get to see, because all I knew about metallic paper before (for example) was that it cost more, but on my computer screen what this price difference meant for how my prints would look wasn't at all clear to me. Now that I've seen it and can put it next to the other finishes, though, I can understand what the strengths and weaknesses of each printing option are. Which is totally awesome. The metallic is absolutely gorgeous, by the way, though I probably won't use it because I don't know if it'll add all that much to the kinds of images I've got on offer (but I'll think about it).

Next, there are cards with a range of a few images all on one, which describe the different options for printing documents (ie, brochures, etc.) and which media I can get in each paper and printing type. The paper types include: standard semi-gloss; standard semi-gloss with UV coating; art linen (which I love); art watercolor; art recycled; pearl; pearl with UV coating; satin with UV coating; satin with lustre coating; and standard 100# text. With these, you can get any of a number of products, including: press printed albums; press printed books; accordion mini books; press printed cards; business cards; bookmarks; rep cards and posters. I could attempt to describe all these different papers, but in truth, the kit is the key: it's awesome and incredibly useful to be able to hold, touch, bend, and otherwise compare these different papers. Can you tell I'm kind of in love with all this?

Finally, they sent me an awesome getting started guide. It's an excellent product for such a company to make, because it excellently highlights the printing end of their business. The guide starts with pitching how they are on my side and want to work with me and build a relationship - and I have to say, everything that they've done so far makes me really feel that that is true, and it's an excellent feeling. The book contains some good hints for getting going and some useful resources to do important things related to getting photography prints done - and as I'm still an amateur masquerading as a professional, some is stuff I don't know and very helpful for that. :)

All in all, I'm pretty happy to be working with them, and very excited about the different things in this kit and the extent to which they help me better understand my options. I'm glad I went with WHCC. :)

I will be listing one 8 x 10 a day for sale on Etsy, starting today with this listing for the Big Ben and Parliament Photograph. I'll post about the rest each day on FB and Twitter - if you're interested, and you're not already with me on those social media options, it's @unforth on twitter and Curiously Crafted Creations on FB. :)

Saturday, January 8, 2011

New Pattern, Old Pattern!

Just a quick post to let everyone know, I've officially released the Santana Squid pattern, and I've also re-released Julie Jellyfish!


Santana Squid is a squid who loves to pitch; you can read more about him in this post and this post. He comes in two versions, the one shown above, and one in which he's wearing a baseball uniform! Both patterns are included in the same PDF.

He's available for sale for $2 from Ravelry and Etsy.


Julie Jellyfish just wants to have fun and swim the oceans of the world! She also can be made two ways - one with short tentacles, and the one shown above, with long tentacles. Both patterns are included in the same PDF.

Julie is available for sale for $2 from Ravelry and Etsy

It's worth mentioning, too, that I currently have finished versions of all of these dolls available for people who don't want to make them - none are listed, but if you're interested, get in touch! :)

Have a great weekend, every one!