Westwood Thirst Project

The Knitting Club was recently contacted by Westwood's NHS to help out with a Thirst Project awareness campaign. They asked us to crochet a water droplet for them to hide around the school for a project raising publicity about Warrior Fest and the Thirst Project. Somehow, I ended up being volunteered to crochet the water droplet. I couldn't find any good patterns, however, so I based my droplet off of this pattern:

Since the original pattern is only two to three inches tall, I had to modify it a little. I added about five or six rows, which caused it to increase in both height and width, and my resulting water droplet looks like this: 

My water droplet is rougly half a foot tall, which still seemed a little on the small side, but the NHS officers seemed to accept it, so hopefully they won't ask me to redo it. I'm not completely sure what this publicity project is, but I'm happy to have made my contribution.

Warrior Fest

Knitting Club is running a booth for Warrior Fest for the second year. This year, we plan on hosting a draw-of-luck game where each ticket could potentially win a prize, and all money will be donated to the Thirst Project. Since Warrior Fest is very soon, we are working on quickly making an array of crocheted stuffed animal prizes to hand out at the event. Ones we are planning on giving away include:

Plus others depending on the time and resources we have. We are planning on making mostly smaller prizes with a few larger ones, and each can potentially be won by an (arguably small) probability. Hopefully this will encourage more ticket sales however, and thus provide more donations for the Thirst Project overall. 

Revamping the Shop

Most of my Etsy listings expire soon, so I'm focusing today on fixing up my shop and re-organizing products and policies and layout. I renewed my Etsy listings for my top hat, miniature Baymax, and donut, as well as added a new product based on this pattern:

   

I also updated my shop policies to reflect Etsy's new change in shipping policy and terms. I adjusted my rates accordingly and double checked to make sure they adhered to Etsy's new terms (which included notifications about the USPS's recent increase in retail rates).

Lastly, I've been working on a banner for my shop, but I discovered my lack of talent with photo-editing and graphic design. I downloaded a program for image editing and am currently working on figuring out how to add layers and different effects, but I will try to get a banner up by this weekend.

Pony Pattern

One of the most popular patterns circulating Pinterest is for this horse, developed by the blog All About Ami:

I have been a little intimidated by this pattern since I first saw it, especially because it involves many asymmetrical increases and decreases, as well as a five-part mane. However, I finally decided to give it a try and documented the process as I went.

At first, I was a little worried because the head seemed much larger than the body. Looking back over the pattern, I couldn't figure out what I might have done wrong, so I just left it and hoped that, when put together, it would look right.

The next part I crocheted was the mane, which consisted of five pieces sewn together: 

Then I sewed these pieces, along with the ears, together to create the body-portion of the horse: 

Lastly, all I need are the limbs and tail of the pony, and will upload the finished result onto my Etsy when completed. 

Valentine's Whale

I've been working on crocheting a bunch of the Knitting Club products. We have had quite a few orders so far, and so we are all trying to pull our resources together and get the orders out before Friday. We're aiming to raise enough money to sponsor an alpaca (the semi-official Knitting Club mascot) throught the Heifer Project.

Many of the patterns we included on our list are not quite "Valentine's" themed alone, so we have taken to sewing little hearts on the sides of the stuffed animals. One of the animals I have recently finished is this narwhal:

I am considering selling this one on my Etsy account as well, and will likely add the listing as soon as I can take some better product pictures.

Knitting Club Fundraiser

Knitting Club is working on a project this year to sell crochet stuffed animals and raise money for the Heifer Project, which donates an animal to a community in need. We have been organizing this for a while, and are planning to start selling this week. Since it's so close to Valentine's Day, we decided to have a theme for our products, and so recently I have been collecting free, available patterns that we can easily make and sell in a timely manner.

Here are the products we are planning on selling/creating custom orders for:

Small bird

Penguins

Rose

Valentines Puppy

Nelson the Narwhal

For the next week or so, I think I'll focus mostly on fulfilling orders and working on our product inventory. (If anybody reading this knows anyone who might want to order, let us know, and we can send them the full list of products and pricing!) 

Designing Caravan Furniture

I have decided to turn some of my attention back to my caravan, but this time I am going to be focusing more on the interior furniture and putting everything together. I'm using this picture as a model for my designs, though I'm not yet sure how much I plan to deviate from the original design:

What I am aiming to achieve

Since I am trying to write my own patterns, I thought I would give it a try with something simple, such as the countertop/sink and the overhead cupboard. Here is my first attempt:

Countertop Pattern:
Sl st: slip stitch
SC: single crochet
Ch: chain
BLO: in back loops only

Row 1: ch 7, sl st into second stitch from hook, turn
Row 2: SC in every stitch, turn
Row 3-8: SC in every stitch, turn at ends
Row 9: BLO: SC in each stitch, turn
Row 10-19: SC in each stitch, turn
Row 20: BLO: SC in each stitch, turn
Row 21-26: SC in each stitch
Row 27: BLO: SC in each stitch
Row 28-37: SC in each stich, sl st to starting end

The pattern for the sink may be a little trickier, however, Since there is a dip where the base of the sink should be, I probably will need to make the top of the counter in multiple pieces, then crochet the pieces of the counted together and sew the sink into the gap. I will test out various possibilities and post the pattern for the best one once I decide what to do. Other than that, the rest of the furniture should not be as tricky, and I will be assembling the entire caravan soon.