Day 354: Starting a Jaeger

I’m starting on another plastic model kit, and got a torso done. This will eventually be a Jaeger from Pacific Rim: Uprising. If you’ve never seen the Pacific Rim Movies, a Jaeger is a giant robot piloted by 2 or 3 people inside that fights giant monsters. Also you should go watch Pacific Rim, it is my favorite movie of all time!

I also did a little bit of knitting practice today too just to keep up my momentum. I feel like if I keep practicing I might eventually get the hang of it. It definitely feels a lot better than my last few attempts at knitting. Progress!

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Day 353: Knitting practice

Another day of knitting practice. Once I get started I can feel myself getting faster, but I still need to watch a video of the stitches before I start to make sure I’m doing it right. I think I am getting comfortable enough with the knit stitch that I might try going downstairs to watch some TV while I work soon.

Day 352: Knitting and crochet!

I did a little bit more knitting practice tonight. You can tell the difference between the stockinette and the garter rows now! Purling is still tricky, but I am getting faster. I also spent just a few minutes adding to my hoodie today. My elbow is feeling much better but I don’t want to push it until I’m sure it is fully healed, so I set a timer and stopped before anything started to hurt. I’m looking forward to being able to crochet normally again soon!

Day 351: Knitting practice

I got a few more rows of knitting practice done tonight, including one purl row. At least I think that’s a purl row. It took about 3 youtube videos for me to figure it out. I don’t feel very confident in it and I was very slow but I did it! Continental style seems to be working out well for me. The stitches make more sense when the yarn is in the “correct” hand, where I’m used to holding it for crocheting.

Day 350: Knitting practice

I started this over the weekend. I’m using cotton yarn so hopefully I can make a dishcloth out of this practice piece. It has been a little while since the last time I tried to knit so I had to look up videos on how to do everything again. This time I decided to try continental style, since I heard it was easier to learn if you already knew how to crochet. The continental knit stitch definitely makes more sense to me. I still haven’t figured out how to purl properly yet though.

Day 349: Captain Phasma, and some big goals

I finished building Captain Phasma and I think she looks amazing. The chrome is so shiny I had trouble taking a good picture without getting tons of weird reflections. It looks fantastic in person, though. Sure it is built from a kit, but I consider it the same as making a scarf from a crochet kit. They provide the materials and instructions, and I provide the time and skill to turn it into a finished object. I had a lot of fun and I have two more model kits to try when I’m ready for more.

What’s new for year two?

As I mentioned in my blogaversary post, I have a few changes in mind for the next year of Daily Creative Thing. Year one was about finding the motivation to make things every day, learn new skills, and get my creative mojo back. I succeeded beyond my wildest expectations!

Day 347: Weaving in ends

I’m still avoiding crochet for a while until my elbow heals up, but I couldn’t stay away from this sweater. It is frustrating to be so far along with this project and unable to keep working on it. If I can’t crochet at least I can weave in ends. From the dozens that I started with after adding to and shaping the front, now there’s just these two left. It’s not as fun as crocheting but at least I get to feel like I’m moving things forward a little bit.

Day 346: Captain Phasma progress

Captain Phasma has legs now! I was going to block off the background so you couldn’t see my messy desk but actually I’m happy to show off my mess. There’s multiple kinds of crafts represented, and multiple nerdy genres. It might be a mess but it’s my weird mess and I love it.

A year of Daily Creative Things

I started this blog one year ago today! Although I haven’t hit 365 posts due to some travel and emergencies, I have still worked on at least one creative thing every day for a year. It’s been so wonderful to learn so many new things, and to practice old skills too.

These photos are just some of my favorite finished objects so far. Looking ahead, I have lots of ideas for new projects, and maybe some new directions for this blog. For today though, I want to take the time to enjoy what I’ve built, and feel proud of how much I’ve accomplished in a year!

Day 344: Captain Phasma

Well this is a big departure from what I have been doing lately. I have been having some pain during crochet time lately and it turns out I have a case of “crochet elbow”. That’s like tennis elbow except it comes from spending too much time swearing at yarn instead of swearing at tennis balls or something. It should get better with rest, ice, and ibuprofen, but for the time being I need to limit the amount of crochet I’m doing. Hence Captain Phasma here. Putting together model kits uses a whole different posture, so it didn’t cause me any discomfort. It was fun to hang out with the spouse for an evening while we both worked on our models.

Day 343: Hoodie progress

Got another row done on the bottom edge of my hoodie. I think I will end up playing yarn chicken because I’m not sure if there’s enough to finish the bottom and the hood.