Knits and Bits

I like to do some arts and crafts in my spare time, when I’m not plugging away at my drawing table. I buy them as little pre-prepared kits online, which comes with pieces of material and assembly instructions, meaning there’s less waste and less random materials floating around. These little things help to keep me sane, and give me some kind of artistic distraction besides reading, walking, surfing the net or doing any other kind of not-very-interactive activity.

I must say, as far as hobbies go, this is actually quite rewarding. Unlike other hobbies such as cooking, gardening, shopping, playing video games or watching TV/movies, creating little arts and crafts has (a) a tangible goal in sight, and (b) a sense of reward when you’ve finished your miniature masterpiece. Which is why I’m posting these up to share with the world. It’s cute, fun, and you do take pride in the results.

Knitted Toys

I’m not a great knitter, but I’ve been knitting since high school. I mostly made scarves, but I eventually decided that knitting cute animal toys would be more fun. Unfortunately, I no longer knit very much, since it takes me a long time to finish anything. My fingers are just not nimble enough.

Cow and Rabbit

I knitted this cow and rabbit pair a while ago, adding a bunch of accessories to them (and making both of them very female). The original knitting pattern comes from Etsy store owner, Jellybum, who has a variety of very cute small animal knitting patterns. Size-wise, they sit quite comfortably in the palm of your hand.

Kitty Cat

This very simple knitted cat was a free pattern from... I can't find the place again, sadly. It's one of the most simple knitted toys I've done, mostly involving knitting a rectangle and sewing it together to make the body. Get two plastic eyes for the head, sew it and the tail onto the body, and you're done. It's real easy to make, so making a tribe of these would be pretty cute.

Elephant

This one is the Flower Power Elephant, a free pattern that I downloaded because the elephants looked so cute with the flower embroidery on their sides. It's a little bigger than your hand, and you can also knit a bow for the elephant head if you want (Though mine is a boy elephant).

Jellyfish

This Jellyfish I knitted on a whim - it's not the sort of thing I'm normally interested in (Jellyfish aren't exactly huggable). I bought this pattern off NeedleNoodles of Etsy, and it was a bit of a challenge, but at least the final product looked like a jellyfish.

Lion

A very rectangular lion. This 'lil fella was the first hand-crafted toy I ever did, and the one that started it all. I saw the kit amongst a bunch of animal-toy kits in a Lincraft store, and bought it because it was the easiest one to do. It cheered me up when I having a bad day, and started me on my crafting hobbies.

Pug

Yes, this is a "pug", not just a "dog". This knitting pattern was created by pug-and-knitting fan dangercrafts, and is called Wasabi the Gregarious Pug. I had to learn to knit in the round to create this, and it took several tries.

Giant Fruit

These two cushions are fairly big - I included a sunglasses case to show you their size. I bought this pattern off the internet somewhere, and it was quite an old pattern, so I doubt it's still floating around. It's got two other cushions - the corn cob and the bunch of grapes, but it was just too much work to do all four. Especially the grapes. Wow.

Fruit with Rattles

I knitted a number of fruit-and-vegetables with baby rattles inside them for my niece, so they make a noise when shaken. I got the knitting patterns off Knitting Patterns Central, and they were pretty easy to make. I got some patterns from different places, so the mini-eggplant is from here, the orange is from here, and the remaining pear, apple and peach is from here.

Crochet/Amigurumi

Crocheting is something I tried a long time ago, and made a horrible mess of… so it’s been a long time since I gave it a try again. Recently, I decided to try it again, and after 2 days of trying (and then failing), I finally managed to crochet an amigurumi! Amigurumi is the Japanese word for cute little crochet dolls, and I’ve always wanted to do some since they’re so small and cute. Crochet in this sense beats knitting, since you need less skills to do crochet toys than knitted toys, though crochet toys are often a lot smaller than knitted ones. I hope to make more amigurumis as I go!

Peanut Bear

I finally learned to crochet! It took me 2 days of crocheting (and then unravelling the failures) before I finally figured out how to crochet an amigurumi (cute little Japanese crochet dolls). This one is from Nerdigurumi, which is a wonderful site full of free amigurumi patterns with a gaming/anime bent. It's one of the easier patterns, and there a series of videos on the site which will help a beginner learn to crochet. Check how I made this here.

Bumblebee

This is a very simple crochet project, and the second crochet amigurumi that I've done. It's also a rare chance to finally use those plastic eyes I bought a few years ago... and then didn't have any more use for when I was doing cakes. This one fits nicely into the palm of my hand, and the pattern is from here. I have a blog post of how I created this little bumblebee here.

Happy Cactus

This cute little cactus is the third one I did, and it has such a happy face that it seems like it belongs in something like Super Mario Bros. It's smaller than the bumblebee, but just the right size, since this is meant to be "ornamental". The same size as a real cactus of this type. It took only an hour or so to crochet the whole thing, and because I did it at my sister's house, I took no pictures of the process. The pattern for this can be found here, and is once again, quite simple.

- I sold one of these at New York Comic-Con (NYCC) in October 2011

Angry Bird

This angry little red bird is from the popular game Angry Birds, a catapult casual game that I liked enough to crochet the main character. I made this pattern up myself (my first one!), and I've put it up online for free. The pattern is on this blog post here, with pictures of how I made it.

White Angry Bird

A companion to the Red Angry Bird, my version of the White Angry Bird looks suitably dorky. You can get an idea of how big these two birds are, but looking at the picture for the Angry Red Bird. The "Angry Birds" game is highly-popular, so I decided to do a few free patterns of some of its characters. The free pattern for the Angry White Bird is here, along with the pattern for the Angry Red Bird.

Shark

This is a crochet of a shark chewing on an Australian surfer... the unlucky guy! The original pattern is very easy to do, and it's from here. I increased the size of the shark since I wanted it to be more "cuddly" (as it's a present for a friend). In the end, it turned out to be bigger than the size of my palm, but no more than that. Everyone loves the mauled surfer. See my blog post about making it here.

Kirby

Here I have my tiny crochet of Kirby, which turns out to be the most snug, perfect size for a marshmallow Nintendo mascot to be. I crocheted it from the free pattern on this blog, with a few minor changes (mostly the eyes). Instead of crocheting the eyes, I used a pair of 8mm safety eyes, which in my opinion looks more suitable. Check out my creation of Kirby on this blog post..

Blue and White Totoros

This little blue and white Totoro set I made myself, mostly because the only other Totoro crochet pattern I could find online was massive. Since I intended to make a larger grey Totoro as well, these are very small, as you can see in relation to my hand there in the picture. I wanted only to make smaller amigurumis, so I can work faster on projects and make more of them. See my free pattern for these two Totoros here.

Felting/Sewing

“Felting” is basically cutting up pieces of felt according to scale-diagrams printed on paper, then sewing the bits together to make huggable soft toys. I fell into felting while trying to find basic knitting patterns, and I found it a lot easier and faster. Felting produces some very cute and huggable toys, and while size-wise they are unable to be larger than a certain size (unlike knitted toys), they make for projects with some variety and complexity. And since it’s all just sewing, you don’t need to learn any new knitting skills.

Tiny Orange Cake

This is the companion cake to the tiny Blueberry cake from a bit earlier. This was also a mobile phone charm or something (though I think it may be too big to be one), and very cute. The orange slices were glued on, and I'm actually getting to like using glue rather than stitches on the smaller pieces.

Chocolate Slices

This cake is most unusual - those slices of brown felt you see are actually all glued on. The results are very elegant and lovely to look at, though once again, it's only the size of my palm. I glued the brown slices a bit too far apart, so I had a few left over, which was too bad. With more slices, it would look better, but I misjudged the distance between each slice. Oh well. At least my skill with glue is better now.

Banana Bread

Cute little kit I got. This turned out to be quite simple to make. It wasn't that much sewing to do, and the results were predictably adorable. This kit turned out slightly larger cakes, the size of my palm. It's a good size for a small project - anything bigger and it'll take longer to make.

Twin Lollipops

This is from a Chinese kit, which I bought for $3.50 in Chinatown... having caught my eye for being so adorable. It's a Strawberry and Cream lollipop, paired with a Caramel and Chocolate lollipop. I had to cut out the paper outlines and the felt (unlike the expensive Japanese kits, the Chinese ones also never have pre-cut pieces), which was a bother, but expected. The finished product is the size of a keyring, and I have a series of photos of the process here.

Sheep Charm

Oh, I like sheep, so when I saw this Chinese kit for $3.50 I bought it. The odd thing was, and this is a problem with some Chinese kits, the end product didn't quite look like the picture on the cover. The cover had huge plastic eyes on the sheep, but it turned out to be tiny little piggy eyes in the actual kit. This is like photoshopping your online dating service photo... the "big eyes" thing is very Asian indeed! Here I have a blog post on this.

Four Cakes

This big pink cake is actually four separate sections, bound together by a ribbon. You can take each section out and use it as a keyring or something, but it looks way better in its original form. This was created from a kit I bought in Hong Kong, that appears to have come from Mainland China. Can't really trace the company, since it was produced a while ago.

Blueberry

This was the first of a string of small cakes I made - it's a blueberry cake, and it's from a kit I bought in Hong Kong (along with the two other kits). I think this is a Chinese rip of a kit that was Japanese in origin... there are a number of companies producing similar kits in Japan, but sadly, I don't know who they are since this is made by a different, non-Japanese company.

Chocolate

A slice of chocolate cake, once again made from a Chinese kit that was a rip off a Japanese kit. This has cardboard propping it up inside the felt, so the shape is a lot more defined than the other cakes. On the downside, you can't hug this slice o' cake without crushing the cardboard.

Cookies

This cupcake full of little cookies was a bit different to the usual felt cakes, but a welcome change.

Sundae

This is a cup of mango sundae, created by a kit from uber-popular felt cakes master RUKO, who designed the kit together with japanese hobby company Sunfelt. I first read about it on this blog, and went in search of them online.

Orange

Another little cake kit from Hong Kong. I think it's a copy of a Japanese kit as well. Funny how you rarely see orange-themed cakes in real life, but here, anything is possible.

Roll Cakes

A chocolate and green tea roll cake, from a kit I found at a Two-dollar store that specialised in Japanese goods. This was from Japan alright - the kit had no English words at all.

Music Box

This is actually not a felt cake, though it involves felt. It's a music box, consisting of a plastic base that can be wind-up to play a birthday theme. The felt bits and pieces came with the kit (bought in Hong Kong), and instead of sewing everything on, it was glued on. The glue was a horrid mess to handle, and I had to buy new glue when the kit's glue ran out, but it was an interesting experience dripping glue all over my table. I tried to buy some more of these, but when I went back to the store, they were all gone. Too bad.

Sheep

A sheep made of cloth, not felt, but it's sewing-related, so I stuck it here. This little sheep is easily my favourite of the whole bunch - I like sheep a lot, and the expression on this one's face is priceless. It's made from a Japanese kit that I bought online (from Olympus, item# PA-450). The Japanese love their 'hitsuji'. It's a bit on the small side though.

Mousse

A strawberry and chocolate mousse. They're from the same company that produced the felt roll cake kits. Not the most interesting or exciting of felt cakes, but given the price (100 yen), that's not a big surprise.

Tiny Blueberry Cake

I made this blueberry and strawberry cake from a Japanese kit, but was surprised when it turned out to be so small. It's larger than a mobile phone charm, but definitely not as big as my other felted cakes. Still, it's cute and lovely, even if my camera can't seem to capture the details well because the cake is so small.

Three Strawberries

My little cakes sure have a lot of strawberries... this three-strawberry-with-a-dab-of-cream was simple and fairly quick to do. The little pieces of... nuts (?) that's on the bottle was glued on, and for once, I didn't make a mess of the glue. I have a blog post about this here.

Cat Clock

This I bought at Morning Glory for about $10, and is the first Korean kit I've done. I don't read Korean, but fortunately it's easy enough to understand (due to the drawings), so I was able to put this clock together with minimal confusion. The clock itself is included in the kit, and it runs on one AA battery. So far, it appears to be quite accurate. The bad news is, this clock is a little flimsy. You can't toss it around or shake it, or even move the clock hands with your fingers - the whole thing will fall off the clock face! It's for my niece though, so I hope my sister won't let her touch it (lest it falls apart). You can see my blog post about it here.

Creamy Green Tea Roll

This green tea roll has cream on top, which was kinda interesting to glue on. Once again, I made a mess of the glue... and because of the double layer of felt, the top bits were rather hard to sew on. All in all, I was pretty happy with how this turned out. You can see a post of how I made this here.

Russian Dolls

Believe it or not, this kit was only $14 from Kinokuniya. Not sure why it was so cheap, since it came in a pretty nice metal tin. For once, this isn't from Japan, not that it matters, since for some reason, I really wanted to make some Russian dolls. The kit contained enough material for 3 of them, and without anything interesting to do with them, I decided to embroider the names of some couples onto them and gift them. Congrats, Claire and Pedro, Ben and Nam, and Kath and Paul! You can see a blog post of these dolls here.

Fruit Custard Tart

This is the last kit I had in the cake felt series that I bought off Rakuten, and so I took extra care in making it. Once again, it turned out pretty small compared to what I was expecting... no bigger than half the size of my palm. I think it's actually meant to be a mobile phone charm, but given how complex this one was to do, I'd hate to use it as a charm and have parts of it fall off due to wear and tear. See me make this lil' tart step-by-step on this blog post.

Wool Felt

Wool felt is also known as “needle felting”, and is not a very well-known craft. However, this produces some of the most delicate and lovely pieces of small “crafts” ever… especially if you’re creating fluffy objects like cakes or cute animals. It involves getting a piece of wool, rolling it into a ball, and stabbing it repeatedly with a sharp needle. The needle has very small “teeth” on it, and as it penetrates the ball of well, it snags parts of the wool and interlinks the fibers together. After some stabbing, you can mold the ball of wool into any shape you want, and attach other parts to it. The only downside is, most wool felt products tend to be quite small, and is not very “huggable”. They make lovely ornaments though.

Slice o' Orange Cake-in-a-Cup

This is the first wool felt project I've done in a while, and boy did it take a while to achieve those orange-slice shapes. It was pretty easy apart from that (it was listed as "simple" on the box), and this was originally from a kit designed by Rio Fukada. I did a blog post detailing the step-by-step of how I made this.

Small Cake

This was my first attempt at needle felting. Before that, I have heard of needle felting, but didn't look into it because it seemed quite strange (witness all those youtube videos of wool-stabbing). I was also afraid I'll make a horrible mess of it. Then I was given a kit as a present, and it turned out easier than I expected. Not to mention a stress-relief! *STAB STAB*

Toy Poodle

This toy poodle took a long time to do, and boy was it frustrating. The difficulty turned out to be quite high, and because of that, I stabbed myself a great deal on my left hand. I've never pricked a finger while sewing, but now my poor left hand has been left full of holes. Wool felting isn't so appealing to me anymore. You can see me create the poodle here.

Strawberry Rollcake

This felt roll cake was my first roll cake, and amazingly, I didn't stab my fingers off doing this one. I think it's about time I invest in some safety gear if I want to do more wool felting. This was one of the harder projects, and it says so on the cover of the kit - it's the only wool felt project I've done that's listed as "challenging". It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but the little fruit bits were a lot of work. Perhaps that's why. See my blog post about it here.

Papercraft

Anything involving paper is in this section, and there are many different kinds of paper craft. There’s the kind where people build complex sculptures out of cardboard, there’s origami, there’s quilling, there’s paper cut-outs… it goes on and on. Personally, I like the models built out of Chinese paper triangles (also known as 3D Origami), probably because they involve minimal thinking when it comes to the building blocks. But I’ve gotten bored of 3D Origami, and will probably try other kinds of papercraft in the future.

Grasshopper

This actually isn't papercraft... It's metalcraft. However, I posted it up here since the concept's close enough. Unfortunately, while the kit of this grasshopper was well-designed and the finished product was interesting, I didn't find it particularly fun to create. Infact, it was a struggle to do, and if you messed up and broke the thin metal while trying to bend it... that's it, you've ruined the whole thing. It didn't help that the instructions were a tad unclear.

Animals

Not the most sophisticated of all papercrafts, but I kept it because it looked good on the shelf. This was from a small folding kit from Japan (for kids, seriously), and these were quite simple to make. Fold, then glue the joints. Ofcourse, since it involves glue, I made a mess of half of them. The original pack had 10, I'm left with 5.

Ball

This is from a Korean kit I believe, and it's some kind of lucky charm ball. It took me a while to figure out how to fold each individual piece of the ball, but the end results are very beautiful. The ball is stitched together with thread, and makes for a great hanging decoration.

Big Cat

This 3D origami was from either a Chinese or a Korean kit, and I can't say it's my favourite. It's a good deal bigger than I expected, and the material was also quite coarse. Nevertheless, I made it, kept it and now displays it in the bathroom.

Dog

From a series of kits that were probably made in China but destined for the Japanese market, due to the dual English/Japanese assembly instructions. This dog is a little stout and not one of my favourites. It's okay, I guess.

Owl

I like this owl better than the dog. It looks as an owl should - calm, wise and sleepy. Unfortunately, you can't really see the single red triangle for the beak unless you look really closely.

Panda

Hmm, you know this one was coming. It's cuter than the dog origami, but it's also a little stout for my liking. The green bamboo shoot is a win, though.

Maneki Neko

The first 3D origami I did, and the one that piqued my interest. This is still my favourite, and I believe it came from a Japanese kit (though it may simply be a Chinese one with high production values). A Maneki Neko is a good-luck charm cat that summons good luck into your home my its raised paw.

Peacock

Ah, the lovely blue peacock. This, being a bird with a different shape, was a welcome change from the other animal 3D origami. Wish it was a bit more colourful, though that might end up making it look really 'busy'.

Hello Kitty

The only 3D origami that I can confirm to definitely come from a Japanese kit - from Sanrio, the owners of Hello Kitty. And boy, I didn't like this one much. Firstly, unless I messed up the assembly instructions, the cover photo looks different from the finished product. The finished kitty looks a lot longer than it's supposed to, and I can't figure out why. It just doesn't look very good. There's also 2 yellow pompoms on each hand I couldn't be bothered to add in. Whatever.

Lucky Stars

These were a bunch of lucky stars I made, and bought a few tiny bottles to put them in. I didn't really intend to keep them - they were meant as gifts, and I believe I gave one to a friend for good luck. Folding lucky stars isn't the most interesting of papercraft, but they can be really pretty if the paper used is nice.

Odds and Ends

Here is where I put all the the other bits and pieces I do in my spare time, those that don’t fit in any of the other categories on this page. A lot of it is mostly time-killing activities, not that it’s not fun to do and share with everyone. I think it’s good to engage in different kinds of hobbies to keep the mind challenged and refreshed.

Cat Scraper Foil

This was my first attempt at scraper foil, which I bought for a cheap price at some art store. It was a cute picture and that appealed to me, especially in the intricate detail of the wicker chair. It didn't take me that long to do, but the picture is also quite small, so hard to say what it would be like if the picture was larger.

Times Square Jigsaw

I am actually doing jigsaws in my spare time, because I'd gotten suddenly a tad obsessed with jigsaws. This is the first I've done in YEARS, and it's also a teeny weeny 4" x 6" puzzle of 234 pieces. It's part of a series called "World's Smallest Jigsaw Puzzles". The finished puzzle is the size of a postcard.

Sailing Puzzle

After the "Times Square" puzzle, I decided I must do another one, and so here it is. This was nowhere near an interesting a picture as the Times Square one was, but this series of mini-jigsaw puzzles don't seem to have a lot of interesting variety, and this was the most interesting one. Too bad.