Knit Burton Bear Cowl

...and then some!

A girlfriend of mine wanted one of the adult sized Burton Bear cowl and a few others without ears - so I obliged! :)

I wanted to share the pics of the one with ears here with you! :D These hoodies are so much fun! :D

Knit Blueberry Bobble Scarf - Pattern Coming Soon!

The bobble scarf is purple... so it lends itself to.... self naming (?) 

I mean you look at it and you think blueberries... right?! I KNOW you do! It's okay.

 You're among friends and we're with you! ^-^ 

I present the blueberry bobble infinity scarf! Say that ten times fast! ;)

Yes, I'm quite pleased with the scarf. See?

Winter temps have shown their frigid face here in NOVA so the lady who requested the scarf asked that it  be made into an infinity scarf instead of 100 inches long and unconnected
(I was at 60 inches, well on my way! ;)).
 I'm glad she decided to have me join the ends, I think it will be warmer for her this way too!

 I love how it turned out... The folds give it awesome snuggly shape around the neck and face. Yay! 

And now for somethign completely different! A serious profile photo! XD

Oh and a posterized effect of the same one... I was having far too much fun with photo shop! ^-^

I'll be sharing the pattern for the scarf in the next month or so so stay tuned! :) 

Thank you for reading! xox Dawn

***1/21/14 UPDATE: Free Pattern available here!***

Chunky Bobble Knit Scarf

Here is the next project in the works - using Caron Simply Soft  color IRIS. This color is HARD to photograph! The purple is very vivid which makes it fun to work with but to try and capture on the camera at night? Not so much... I'd say Iris is probably a morning color ;)

I was off to a rough start tonight - the scarf needs to be 100 inches in length and it needs to be done soon. I'm holding two threads throughout because when I originally started with just one, I was making an inch an hour kind of progress... um, no bueno! After working smarter and not harder ;) I wanted to share the over all progress I made tonight after a few false starts. I think we are well on our way and I'm having fun! :) Which is important right? Why do it if you're not having fun, jes? :) 

I hope you like the picture - though not a true representation of the color (its beautiful I assure you! :)) I at least can show you the texture - and the BOBBLES - the delicious bobbles! They make me happy what can I say? :) I'll share again soon!

***UPDATE: Pattern is free - clicke here.***

Best, Dawn

Paul Bunyan & Babe the Blue Ox Couples Costume...

 I'm going to let this post speak for itself... mostly... 

A last minute touch was the addition of black ribbon bow...

The horns I glittered and sewed onto a black fabric headband.

Ta-dah! The outfit all put together!

Making sure I could still dance in the outfit... robot style!

Doh! Don't forget the Tail~!

Yay! Woo hoo! Tail! :D

*****

Here we are - Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox...

And here I am about to head out the door! 

As you might have guessed the outfit was a hit! The couples costume was a hit! And most people thought I'd bought the outfit - score! :) One person asked if my nose ring was real, but nope, it was a fake piercing :). 

*****

Paul Bunyan.. I mean the husband loved that my heels made a clip clop sound when I walked because an ox would make that sound too! I, had not planned that! ;) :) 

The cow bell, was not quiet... but Paul Bunyan liked knowing where I was. ^-^ 

What are you going to be for Halloween?

Babe the Blue Ox Costume... In the making

Pinterest has struck, yet again! For Halloween! :D Having been inspired by other pinners creativity, I recently tried to replicate a fun costume adding my own personal style and flair. Truth is, it was my husband who picked Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox costumes for us after looking at these photos. Often, he is my muse, he'll throw a project at me and I'll immediately make a comment about how its not possible, would take forever, etc ....then after I get over my fear of failure, I dive into the project, usually head first with little thought of just how long the project will take or any idea just how arduous the task might be. I adapt the Nike slogan and "just do it." I'm not 100% sure why, but I normally grumble a bit while working on these projects that he suggests and in the end, once I'm finished... I am SO glad I did them. Go husband. I ain't mad atcha... got nothin but love for ya ;). Ha :)

Originally my husband thought I was going to buy a blue dress to complete the look of Babe the Blue Ox. Instead, I decided I had to make my own, this was the only option in my mind. I mean, how else will the gauntlets and spats match the main portion? Hmmm? O.o

I found black faux fur at Michael's, along with some opaque glitter for the horns. I knew I had leftover air dry clay from my last decoden project, so I had what I needed for hte head piece. My sister and I went to Party City where she found a cow bell (score!) and I managed to locate some fake piercing jewelry, after all, all oxen have a ring in their nose! ;). We found a fake axe for the mister at Party City too! Yay! Later that same outing, lucky me scored some sateen fabric at Joann Fabrics, full of vivid blue hues and black! Once we got home, I pulled out a dress form I'd been given years ago, along with the sewing machine, ironing board, pins, thread, etc. I was pretty clueless as to how I would put this dress together, knowing I had to start SOMEwhere I googled "pencil dress", "fitted dress" eventually stumbling onto Jezebel's DIY for a custom fitted dress blog post. I didn't have muslin, so I improvised with a large sturdy plastic bag. Though it worked, I don't recommend it, halfway through putting the pinned sack on, I realized I could suffocate and should probably be supervised while putting it on. Ha! ;)

Long, long story short... through lots of pinning, adjusting, thinking, trial and error, more thinking, staying up too late, gnashing of teeth, repinning, sewing, seam ripping, sewing again, brainstorming and googling.. my dress... FITS. (Where is my triumphant music?! Insert some here ;)) Yup... but because I still need to do some blind stitching and add hooks and eyes to the top of the zipper parts on the dress body I will at least share with you the gauntlets, spats, tail, glittered horns ^-^ and  my cowbell.. eh-hem... Babe's cowbell ;).

I hope to take a few photos of the get up once everything is on and I'm with my mister Paul Bunyan  - I am looking forward to the costume party, it's this Saturday!!!! Admittedly, I spent a ridiculous amount of hours on this outfit and the blue fabric has really stole my heart... grays, silver, blues and blacks... how I love to look at you! :)  LOL I hope you enjoy these few teaser photos too! ;) 

***UPDATE: See finished costume HERE!***

^-^

What's better than a Jayne Hat?

Why TWO Jayne Hats of course! :) 

They are done! After much measuring and gauging and lamenting over how many rows should be done, etc. here they are! :) 

The one to the left is for a co-workers husband and the one on the right is for my husband :). 

You're never too old to play dress up - that's what I say ;). 

Initially I used the pattern from fibre and spice but because I didn't use the same thickness of yarn I was left to my own devices later discovering Keiyla's Blog which dissects all the attributes of the Jayne hat, which was super helpful when it came time to make the ear flaps. 

For all you nerdy knitters I recommend both sites and patterns... 

A thank you to my late grandmother and my mom for the neonish orange yarn that makes up the main part of the hat. These hats would not have been complete without it!

Decoden Cupcake Fascinator with a Cherry on Top!

I recently discovered clay... the air dry clay... the kind you don't have to knead the bajeesus out of before trying to throw on a wheel and then keep your hands hella steady to work up a vase.. I've done that.. in high school It's been some years now :). I miss getting my hand dirty then making something pretty out of mud. I do. But then my yarn get jealous, and there's a lot of yarn in my house.. so its best to not make it jealous... right? ;)

Not sure how long I will play with clay.. this play date was inspired by my ever creative and spontaneous coworker... :) yes, the one with a love for flamingos:). She's a bridesmaid in her brothers wedding coming up and not to be outdone by the black bridesmaids dresses she wanted to add some flair of her own. It's Laura, she's one of a kind and well, she likes to dress the part :). God love her for it! lol :D She shared with me a picture of a cupcake fascinator complete with a strawberry on top that she really wanted and thought I might be able to make. With all the craziness of work lately and the projects I have lining up (did I mention I have a queue? :s) I didn't see how it would be possible, and made a sheepish... "I don't know much about that craft genre" comment... it was true, I don't. I didn't. Did I have time for it? Maybe... evidently yes.. because here I am, making time to share the post and the creation/items with you. Honestly I think this is just what my creative juices needed. Was a break from yarn. There I said it! ^-^ And no, no I don't feel guilty. DO I think I'll wake up with a yarn noose around my neck from the jealous strings? No.. no I don't! Muha. MuahahahahhahaaaHA! :D

Youtube helped me out a lot on this project. I found many varieties of this "recipe" for making clay into decoden. Some mix the clay with water, others mix with glue and still others mixed the clay with lotion. I started with water and then got creative and grabbed a lotion I had called sweet pea. My coworker is in a play where she was cast as a My Little Pony. do you remember those lil toys? I remember they all had a picture on their butts of a rainbow, or cupcake, or shamrock, heart, etc. and the ponies themselves smelled like whatever symbol they had branded into their butts. I figured it would stand to reason that sweet pea lotion smell would add to the cupcake fun, no? The first time around I added much too much lotion and the clay was too wet to mold. The second time around I grabbed from the wet clay and incorporated it with the dryer clay to pace myself. Luckily that did the trick!  I think they turned out pretty okay! I like that they look a lil cartoony :). .. and I'm thankful I was able to come up with a cherry alternative that wasn't super heavy either! :D

What do you think? What fruit would you have done? Do you decoden?

And... yes... they were dry in time for her birthday! :D

...and for showtime! :D

Working on Fake Cherries now... for decoden later ;)

It's true! SEE :D

While I hope to update this post in the future with a youtube how to video, I might be getting ahead of myself. ;) There are so many projects in queue and if I didn't already tell you I was recently promoted at work - yay me - but with the promotion comes training my replacement, fumbling through the new stuff and making that learning curve my you-know-what ;). Progress is being made everyday, but my schedule is a bit sporadic and lets suffice to say there's a lot to do. I've stayed late a few nights already in an effort to get ahead of things, but I've ironically been working on historical stuff. In the times when I get overwhelmed, and feel like I'm not moving I press on with Dori's reminder from Finding Nemo... to 

 ♪♫ Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming ♫♪ 

Pass, fail or otherwise, sometimes just putting one foot in front of the other is what is needed. 

In any case, I had time enough to work on a project tonight that involves faux cherries... I'll reveal this project in it's entirety once it's complete but I was so tickled pink having come up with this idea I *had* to share at least a photo.. I mean come on! ;) Knowing I needed fruit... fake fruit... tiny fake fruit. I was stuck on the idea of a strawberry until I saw the slim pickings that Michaels had for fake ones. Moving on I spotted a bag of pink glitter balls - and envisioned they just might work for pseudo cherries. It was the next best thing I'd seen to fake plastic fruit so I decided to bring those puppies home. 

That was Friday...

On my way home from work today a light bulb went on ;)... 

I had green piping that was equally sparkly... 

and so... I give you... 

Cherries 

^-^ 

Stay tuned for the finished project in the next week. Lord willing I'll be diving headfirst into the rest of the project this weekend ^-^.  Are you excited? I know I am! ;) 

Happy Creating everyone!

♥

I'll be back with an update soon!

Crocheted Yoda Hat for a lil boys 1st Birthday Party!

A friend of mine requested I make a yoda hat for a boy she nannies - for his 1st birthday!

I got to tap into my cotton yarn stash to make this lil number :) A hank an a half later you have a yoda hat! :D

It was a treasure hunt finding a site that would give me an idea for children's hat measurements. I stumbled up on a blog called Alli Crafts and thought it had a really good layout and lots of helpful information - so of course I share the blog/link with you here. Though I didn't use her pattern the dimenstion for the diameter and the guide for the earflap stitches were helpful.

The ears.. well the ears were tricky for me. Which was kind of annoying because I was initally going off of Tangled Threads and Random Thoughts yoda hat post which you'll notice has a mere 3 lines to follow. Easy right? ;) One would think! I know I was busy chatting with my husabnd or sister and watching tv, but once I finally focused on the directions long enough to work up an ear and found it to be too short for the yoda look I wanted. I did a bunch of measuring, of photos of yoda's head, of my hat and realized something...Did you know that each of yoda's ears are about 75% as long as his head is wide? Pretty ridiculous. But he is a wise one - so the way I figure it - he learned to use his ears ;) listening more than he spoke. What do you think? :)

Armed with the knowledge of my own guage and then how long each ear would be I started with a chain of 26 and worked the ears like Tangles Threads and Random Thoughts instructed. Later folding the ears to my liking and attached them to the hat! :) Do you like it? I hope its a hit at the birthday party! :D

When I am Sad Girl and Her Pal in Amigurumi

 A recent doll making request by a friend of mine had me viewing this short film by Aglaia Mortcheva called "When I am Sad"

Now that you've seen the film and the little girl you might appreciate my offering for a doll version of her. The request was that the doll be about 12 inches tall and that the rabbit friend accompany her :) ...

My very response to my friends request was:

"When I am sad, I crochet, when I am happy I crochet - when I am bored I crochet. 

When I am creative I think of making dolls and patterns and can't sleep. 

So this is a perfect request ^-^."

In order to make them to scale I pulled a few stills from the film and then proceeded to  sketch her and her doll pal.

Ta-dah!

From here I set to work - shopping my yarn stash for the colors I would need. I came up short on the yarn for her skin and had to order some... which was okay.. because I also had a different friend request a set of flamingo hats for a newly wed couple :) So I worked on that...

Awe.....

Eventually the yarn arrived and I started working on the head first... 

it took 7 plus tries to get the shaping just right.

 Since the characters were cartoonish and flat I kept a "raggedy anne" shape in mind...

 so.. a flat doll :) ...kind of :)  

Yes... Yes I went on to make a dress for her too! 

About now... are you asking yourself if I wrote the pattern as I went? Are you? 

....

Well I DID... AND I took pics as well!

 I'm in the process of editing the pattern, adding a few helpful photos as I go. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the project! Thanks for reading! :) 

7.22.13 UPDATE: FREE Zombie Bunny Pattern can be found here.

Seasons Change...

I think its safe to say that summer is officially here! :)
We've had more than two sunny days in a row that were above 70 degrees! This is a good sign :). 

Speaking of seasons change...

Over the next few months you will see some changes taking place in my lil etsy shop what you will see is fewer items being renewed. Lostsentiments is not closing but scaling back on items that don't recieve many views or sales. Some items will be reduced in price to help clear out inventory as well! :) I will be posting the reductions on Lostsentiments facebook page here so feel free to tag along and follow there! :)
I always love seeing new faces! ^-^ (um-hmm, yes ;))

What will remain a constant are the patterns and items made after I've worked up a pattern so you will see a few new items cycle in from time to time. 

Custom orders are primarily received from friends and family which it great! However, trying to balance those, work, social life, the shop stuffs, house stuff, etc. has been trying at times.
And since I want to continue to fill a few requests from time to time and keep my creative juices keep a flowing, it's time for a change :).
I will continue posting on the blog and sharing with you lovely followers whatever I might be working on or getting into next or just day dreaming about. ;)
I'm looking forward to the change and hope you are too! :) 

Speaking of day dreaming... 

Vintage Winter by Jude McConkey

I stumbled upon this photo today when I saw it in my favorites! ^-^  lol Apparently I'd seen it before ;)
... seeing it today I fell in love all over again... and thought it fitting to add to this post. 

There is so much beauty in each season if we just look for it :) Times a changing! :)

 But oh how sweet the memories! :) 

Thank you for reading lovelies! ...and for following along wherever we may go! :) xox ~Dawn

I Have Nerdy Friends!

...and I love them, I love them ALL. They inspire me and help get me out of my mode of just making pretty things ^-^. I like pretty things okay?! ☺

Insert Jayne's knit hat from the Firefly series. Ta-dah! This is my next up and coming request from a friend for her mister, who much like my mister has a ginormous head. ☺ I love my mister with a larger than normal cranium and if all goes well, may have to make him one too. Cause he's my favorite and we like Firefly. I think that's reason enough lol

The hat will look quite similar to what is pictured when its' all said and knitted ;) (granted it cut off the pom pom portion but that's okay - I know it's there ;)) and here's a fun demotivational pic for your entertainment :) until next time ;)



Photo by Captain Tightpants

Flamingo Hat Progress

My coworker has struck again ! :) Her flamingo passion has crossed streams with the my creativity and here is the progress so far!

Crown of the hat with unassuming yarn victims standing by ;)

I worked up the hat today complete with ear flaps. I still have a bit of detailing to do but I wanted to share what I have so far. ^-^ I love how the pattern has been going so far - I have a good feeling I'll be sharing more hat pattern progresses (not a word ;)) with you in the near future - the whole time working this one up I  had visions of flowers, bows and scalloped edgings dancing through my head! Oh my! ;) As you can tell by the lighting I worked on this throughout the day. Oye Vey :) ;)

Base of the hat done! :)

Not sure when I'll be 100% done but I'll share the finished result when I'm done! Thank you for reading! What are you working on this weekend? I hope you're enjoying the spring! :)

We have Earflaps people! :D

***UPDATE*** 6/10/13 the Flamingo Hat PATTERN is available! :D