I think I have mentioned before that I am a huge fan of the television show Supernatural. Because of that, the fandom has a particular love for moose. One of the first amigurumi I learned to crochet was a moose to represent the fandom. However, the further along I’ve gotten in my crochet journey, the more that pattern isn’t always my favorite. So, one of my dear friends suggested I try a moose chibi (or a baby moose).
What an interesting concept…
The picture above is probably one of the most accurate representations of me that I have ever seen. I am a people-pleaser; always have been, probably always will be. I remember from an early age always being concerned if someone was upset with me, or wanting to do the best that I could to not disappoint people, especially those I cared about.
Over the years, those tendencies have caused me problems: I’ve agreed to things that I probably didn’t want to do just to make someone else happy. I spent a lot of years not showing my geeky/nerdy side because I didn’t want to be a disappointment to my parents. I’ve learned some from these quirks – but, even though I have made progress in some areas, this is a fundamental part of my being.
Who doesn’t love Winnie-the-Pooh? I mean, just look at him……
He’s adorable. And the fact that I’m roughly shaped like him makes me love him all the more.
Some of my earliest memories are of Winnie-the-Pooh. My room as a baby through age 6 was done entirely of Winnie-the-Pooh (at which time it switched to Strawberry Shortcake). And when I became a mother myself, I decorated my daughter’s room in a Pooh theme. Pooh and gang have always been some of my all time favorite characters.
When the film “Christopher Robin” came out this summer about the grown up companion to Pooh bear, it seemed like there was a resurgence in all things Hundred Acres Wood: My daughter dug out my old Eeyore toys, and suddenly the tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff was on just about everything again. Excited to try my hand at making my own Pooh and friends set, I bought some patterns from my favorite place on earth…Etsy. However, I got into other projects and my poor Pooh team had to wait.
Right before Labor Day, I received a custom order for a large Winnie the Pooh and a miniature version. Knowing that we were going away for the weekend, I thought this would be the perfect project to take along with me. My husband and daughter would be down at the pool (I don’t usually get into a swimsuit), so I would have plenty of time to work. I could knock this out in a long weekend. Oh sweet summer child……
Fast forward to 10 days, two skeins of yarn, five reworks, and many tears shed later and I finally was able to finish Pooh, who I believe is my largest Luvvie to date. So what were the issues? Why did I almost quit at least five times a day? A lot of it came down to the pattern…and some of it my own interpretations and insecurities.
As I just wrote about before I started work on Pooh, having a great pattern is key to crochet success. However, because I know what should be done but am not the greatest at taking my own advice, I was in the hole from the beginning. Well, not from the absolute beginning.
In the start, things were fairly straightforward: Make the ears (basic increasing and decreasing in the round – check); make the arms (more basic increasing and decreasing in the round – check, check); make the legs (more of the same….this is going to be easy-peasy – check, check, check).
And then all progress promptly ground to a screeching halt.
When it came to starting on the body, I actually was okay – again basic increasing in the round, but then it came time to attach the legs – unlike most amigurumi where the limbs are attached by sewing after the fact, this piece has everything joined by crochet. I’ve joined pieces by crochet before, so it isn’t that unfamiliar a technique, but the way she wanted the pieces attached was just bizarre. There were chain spaces and skipped stitches and going back to pick up skipped loops from previous rounds. The first time I attached the legs, the one I attached on the wrong side and the other was backwards – it was not my finest moment.
And though I crochet to help me with anxiety and depression, there are two other things that crochet doesn’t always help me with, and that is perfectionist tendencies and being quick to anger (especially with myself when I don’t understand something). And this was definitely something that I wasn’t understanding and that I wanted to be perfect because it is an iconic character.
There were many stages along the way that I ripped out large sections of my progress and started again…and again…and again.
Even as I got further along in the project, there were many times I was ready to scrap the whole thing and start over – or to email the customer and say this was just beyond my capabilities at this level of my crochet career. Surprisingly (for me), I didn’t do either. I just kept plugging along; until finally:
I had a Pooh (adjacent) bear. He’s not as tubby as he probably could have been (I was afraid to overstuff and have the filling peeking through the stitches), and his muzzle got a little pinched and wonky (again I got a little confused with the pattern and no redoing was going to help), but I can look at him and see a bear that resembles Pooh. Of course things got a little bit better after he got his sweater (the first ever sweater I’ve made, and it was for a bear):
All in all, he’s not bad. I can look at him and still see some of the imperfections, but I can also see Winnie the Pooh. I’ve learned a lot from using this pattern, and if and when I make Pooh again, I can use this to make him even better. Hopefully, I won’t have quite so many tears the next time around.
But he still made me smile in the end.
Hugs and cuddles,
Elisha
Growing up (long, long ago), I always loved to take pictures. A lot of that love was influenced by the fact that my older brother was a professional photographer and I was around pictures a good bit. As I got older, I think I convinced myself that I wasn’t artistic and I slowly moved away from a lot of creative outlets (other than writing, which was my job for a number of years).
When I started essentialEme (my failed essential oil Etsy endeavor), one of the reasons I always attributed its failure was that everything looked too homemade. Everything looked like I was making it out of my kitchen (which I was). The labels that I made were very basic looking, there was no real packaging effort, it was done the best I could, but with minimal effort. I think that was one of the reasons I resisted selling my Luvvies to begin with – let alone on Etsy.
When I finally decided to make my passion a business effort, I did think long and hard about how to present my product, and I knew that this would be something that would need to be highly visual.
So, this time around I didn’t leap into the frying pan…I took a look at what I wanted. What packaging did I want? What did I want my business cards to look like? And I think overall this time around I have been much more prepared. Instagram also has been a major help because I’m able to take sillier pictures and have a great forum to share. The problem is, I still don’t like how my pictures look: They are amateurish (and yes, I guess that is to be expected because I am an amateur), but sometimes I don’t feel they convey the true sense of the object.
My house is a weird house…the lighting is not good, and of course it looks one step away from hoarders because of all the junk we have, and the fact that we are practically never in the house – always running here or there. Because of the clutter, limited space, and poor lighting, it is difficult to find good places to take pictures.
When I look at some of the pictures on Etsy, I don’t know if it is the photos have been taken with a professional or higher grade camera, or if it just a good backdrop and good lighting. Do I have a professional grade camera? Yes. Do I want to drag it out every time I want to photograph my Luvvies? Absolutely not, mainly because it usually is midnight by the time I finish and I don’t want to be dragging out my camera and uploading pictures when I can just do it from my phone.
In the photo above, I was trying to go for something cute. I wanted to show what the interior and exterior packaging looked like for shipments, but again light was not in my favor.
Since the main source of light is in the living, right next to where I work, which is why most of my pictures are taken on the couch…I’m sure everyone can identify the chocolate brown of my sofa by now (lol).
Sometimes I’ll branch out and take pictures in other areas; but then everyone gets to see the mess that is the rest of my house – I love how you can see all my vitamins in the background.
Actually taking the pictures outside of my house has yielded some of the nicest images: The problem of course being (1) most of the time it is late at night when I want to take and post pictures; and (2) I have to be careful of weather conditions…I don’t want any of the Luvvies to get wet.
I’m still looking for ways to get the most out of my pictures so that everyone can truly experience the Luvvie cuteness. I guess as I keep saying with my stitching, I have to keep trying to find the best formula and keep practicing. Until then, the pictures will continue to look very homey and not quite right; but, I do hope that you enjoy them.
Hugs and cuddles,
Elisha
Many may not know this about me, but although I am a serious couch potato, I am a huge sports fan (I played some baseball in my youth, but never pursued it in later school). One of the reasons I chose not to pursue sports – aside from the fact my nose was always stuck in a book and I don’t like the outdoors – is because I am one of the most accident prone people you will ever meet. If there is something to trip over, I am going to trip over it….if nothing is there for me to trip over, then I will find a way to trip over my own feet. Putting myself directly in the position to increase my chance of injury, not really that bright, so I’ll stick to being a spectator.
This is why it is both with utter amazement and complete resignation that I find myself with a crochet related injury. Now, before you ask it is not on my primary/dominant hand – that is still fine and able to make nice stitches. The issue is with my non-dominant hand, the one that holds the yarn.
Sometime Saturday night/Sunday morning, as I started to work on one of my outstanding projects, I noticed that my index finger on my non-dominant hand was really hurting me. It hurt to bend, it hurt to flex, and it was radiating pain the whole way up my arm. Trying to cut things off at the pass, I thought I’ll use a heating pad.
I should say, my father was an athletic trainer for a number of years and I know some first aid. I know enough first aid to know that for inflammation you really don’t want to use heat first, you want to use ice, but I was uncomfortable and I did not have ice in my house, so heat it was.
The whole day my hand just was killing me. Alternating from stabbing pains to burning irritation. That afternoon when I started working on my project, I couldn’t find a comfortable position to hold my hand. And even though it wasn’t the hand I used to make the stitches, it was the hand/finger I used to wrap my excess yarn around to keep tension in my project.
If I would have thought about it, I would have videoed the contortions I tried. From using different fingers to wrap the yarn around, to using my toes to thread the tension through, I tried just about everything, but the only way I was making stitches I was happy with was by holding the yarn the way I always did. However, this just caused more pain – and swelling.
Because Amazon is my friend, I decided to order a brace for my hand.
I thought maybe if I could stabilize my finger a little bit that I would be able to more comfortably use my finger to keep the tension on my yarn. So far, that hasn’t exactly worked to plan. The way the brace is situated it keeps grabbing the yarn and fraying it, which makes me mad. So, back to the drawing board – I have just ordered a compression, fingerless glove that should be here soon that I can try out and see if this helps.
I mean, I expected to have to worry about carpal tunnel – heck, I knew carpal tunnel was probably in my future with as much as I type and text – but, I wasn’t expecting to have problems this soon into my crochet adventures.
Today at work my hand was so swollen that I decided to use some of the ice we have here and try to soak it for a little bit. I don’t know if it made much difference, but at least I was trying to bring down the swelling.
My father bought me some Epsom salts, so I think I am going to try to soak my hand in those tonight and see what happens. I’ve also heard from people that Aleve or Advil might be good to help with the inflammation. I’m going to try using a combination of these tactics and see what might help. Of course, my father and husband are saying that I really should take a night or two off and try to rest. The thing is, (a) I have orders to fill and I don’t want to get behind, especially not this soon into building the business; (b) I don’t want to take a night off. I get so much enjoyment – pain and all – from crochet that it really does help to settle my mind. I haven’t been pushing myself as much – I went to bed early last night and stopped working when ordinarily I would push through to finish because I was so close.
With the Labor Day holiday coming up, I’m still waiting to see what happens. I tend to think I just hyperextended my finger from hours of keeping it straight-ish to hold the yarn for my projects, and with some soaking and some brace action, I’m hoping it will be back to normal soon. However, if it isn’t feeling better after the holiday weekend, I will be going to the doctor or to urgent care to get it checked out. I may not like making a big deal of things (unless I can make fun of myself), but if it is something that might stop me from pursing either my primary or secondary occupation, then I am going to have to get it taken care of. Hopefully, it’s just a bit tweaked and by Monday I’ll be right as rain again.
Until then, follow me on Instagram (@lilluvviesamigurumi), I’m sure I will be posting more awkward pictures of myself as I try to adapt to my injury. Like I said, if I can’t laugh, what’s the good in it?
Hugs and cuddles,
Elisha
Lil' Luvvies 