crochetingwiththecat

[crochetingwiththecat]

The start of the Odyssey blanket is taking FOREVER so have a quick throwback of a blanket I made earlier this year and have given to a family friend going through some health issues

And of course, it did pass Alice's approval standards

[crochetingwiththecat]

YARN ACQUIRED!

Now just to wind it and start trying not to mess this project up! At least I have some music to listen to while I work 🖤

[crochetingwiththecat]

THE YARN HAS SHIPPED FOR MY ODYSSEY BLANKET AND WILL ARRIVE TUESDAY!! Hopefully I'll be able to start on that pretty soon after getting in the yarn then. . .

Anywho, funny story now. So my cat, Alice, loves to come into the bathroom to use the litterbox when I go in but doesn't like looking at me when she does her business so I get to see this:

So I decided to give her something to look at:

She loved it 😅

Anyway, close up of Alice's personal cross stitched art gallery:

[crochetingwiththecat]

While I continue to wait for yarn, I decided to make a thing. This thing is not quite done, but it finally is recognizable and I am very proud considering I am doing it without any pattern and just making it up as I go along.

How it started:

Where it is now:

[crochetingwiththecat]

I am still waiting for yarn to come in from the manufacturer so no odyssey blanket yet. Right now, I'm trying to finish up other projects which I'll share when theyre done. But for now, another throwback to a gift I made for a friend back in 2019.

Pattern:

[crochetingwiththecat]

Dude, trust me, I understand the obsession with Epic 😅. I too am counting down the days to the Underworld Saga release (11 days!!!!)

And thank you!

Is it possible to request your pixel art for the Odyssey cover, I'd like to do a c2c crochet blanket using it, I think... If not its okay, its your work, and it would be quite big.. and I have a habit of biting off more than I can chew with crochet projects..

The short answer to this is yes, I am happy to share the pixel art designs with anyone who wants it. My stipulation is that I really want to be able to finish the project for myself first.

So, once I've finished the book cover part, I will figure out how to make the file available for anyone who wants to give it a try too! You are also welcome to message me and I'll send the file that way once I'm all set.

Thank you for the ask!

@mydnyteraven

[crochetingwiththecat]

Throwback to the beginning of quarantine in 2020 when I made one of those giant bead lizards out of clearance yarn. Pattern by Luckymermaidcrochet on etsy.

[crochetingwiththecat]

Is it possible to request your pixel art for the Odyssey cover, I'd like to do a c2c crochet blanket using it, I think... If not its okay, its your work, and it would be quite big.. and I have a habit of biting off more than I can chew with crochet projects..

The short answer to this is yes, I am happy to share the pixel art designs with anyone who wants it. My stipulation is that I really want to be able to finish the project for myself first.

So, once I've finished the book cover part, I will figure out how to make the file available for anyone who wants to give it a try too! You are also welcome to message me and I'll send the file that way once I'm all set.

Thank you for the ask!

@mydnyteraven

[crochetingwiththecat]

The Finalized Draft

Alrighty, I finished the main part of the blanket and have ORDERED SOME YARN! I've only ordered the one colour for making the inner book cover part so that'll be sorta boring but a good start on getting the base completed.

The Nobody part will be coming back but I don't know how I want to do that so I'm redesigning the outside part and will hopefully have that designed and added before I finish the book cover.

The icon positions are not locked so that will change. The icon list descriptions below the cut.

Top (left to right):

-Trident for Posideon

-Cyclops eye for Polyphemus

-Wind for Aeolus

-Pig for Circe

Left (top to bottom):

-Bow and Arrow for Odysseus

-Lightning for Zeus

-Lotus flower for lotus eaters

-Skull for the Underworld and Tiresias

-Bloody sword for Odysseus killing all the suitors and for the Trojan war

-Scylla

Right (top to bottom):

-Helios' cow

-Charybdis

-Orchid for Calypso

-Caduceus for Hermes

-Owl for Athena

-Helmet for Trojan war and Odysseus being a general/king/killer

Bottom (left to right):

-Loom for Penelope

-Trojan horse

-Siren

-Sheep for Polyphemus

These icons are from some of my favorite parts of the Odyssey but also from some of the parts that I remember the best. I plan on rereading it while I'm working on the book cover so if there are any icons I want to update or change I can...

[crochetingwiththecat]

My god-awful sewing is on display today but please enjoy a BEAUTIFUL UGLY FROGG

[crochetingwiththecat]

Throwback to when I spent a week furiously trying to finish a giant project to give to min farmor before flying to see her. But the result was gorgeous.

This came from a kit I bought on clearance and was worth every penny.

[crochetingwiththecat]

A keychain:

PERRY THE KEYCHAIN:

[crochetingwiththecat]

The Compasses

So the compasses really got this project idea started. I saw them on somewhere (I do not remember where) and was able to get the pattern (the pattern is by Virklust, link below). This was the first part I tested out the gauge so then I could plan everything else to that size since it's the one part that I am not making my own pattern for (as I am horrible at writing granny square patterns).

I used a D/3.25mm hook and 4 different colours. I haven't figured out how the colours will go for the final design since there will be 10 of them, but that will come.

Left is it blocked at 6x6 inches and the right is it tested with the border before blocking.

[crochetingwiththecat]

The Icons

Alright, next is the icons as I am calling them which are gonna be small snipets of the story which I can easily make a recognizable picture out of. There will be 20 of them and they'll all be 29x29 stitches with a border of their accent colour. I'm trying to keep the colours lighter to pop out of the black border frames and keep it to 2-3 colours but we will see if that holds.

The 2 swatches I've done (again, not keeping to the colour for the final product) are for Aeolus/wind and Poseidon/trident. Aeolus was with a D/3.25mm hook and too small/tight so im going with the F/3.75mm hook like done for the trident.

These icons are more or less being drawn free hand but I'm using Google searches to get ideas for what I want.

The icons along with the compasses will both have borders on them which I have successfully tested out. The colours are wrong but I love the slight difference in texture the double crochet clusters bring.

Lastly, obligatory Alice (my cat) who "helped" with the crocheting and blocking process.

[crochetingwiththecat]

The Book Cover

So I'm not sure when I'll actually START the blanket cuz right now I am very much in the design and planning stage as it's huge and everything needs to line up.

I'll start with breaking the parts down to pieces, the center most piece is pixel art I made by using a book cover I found online (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-odyssey-homer/1123741766) which I liked the look of. Then I tried using softwares to pixelate it and it . . . Didn't go well. So I drew it myself. It took 4 days. It was horrible. But now it's done and I'm never doing a pixel art that big ever again.

Anyway, here's the pixel art of that.

To turn this into a blanket piece, I'm gonna be using tunisian crochet purl stitches to create a giant (183x282) piece of fabric that I can then cross stitch the pattern onto. I've done this before to make another blanket for my friend:

The swatch I made of the yarn I'm using (plymouth worsted merino superwash) is 20x20 stitches to 4x4 inches (which is my gauge for the whole project.

Here's the swatch blocked (6×6 inches) made with an F/3.75mm hook.

[crochetingwiththecat]

Alright, so the above was my initial started blanket design. Today, I've tried to reorganize the colours so I have like 6-7 constant main colours on the blue/green/black/white spectrum with a couple of accent colours like red and gold. The purples and greens are placeholders for now for icons/compasses and the NOBODY THAT IS MY NAME is also a placeholder right now.

I'll also be documenting some of the swatches I've been crocheting to get the gauge right and edit the patterns a bit.

I started working on a new project that's been in my brain for a while now and I HAVE TO DO IT. It is a blanket based on The Odyssey. It is still very much in the planning stages. I'm gonna use fancy merino wool yarns and a couple different techniques and design most of it myself. My current idea looks like this:

It will be roughly 5 ft by 9 ft and will be AMAZING (I hope)

[crochetingwiththecat]

I started working on a new project that's been in my brain for a while now and I HAVE TO DO IT. It is a blanket based on The Odyssey. It is still very much in the planning stages. I'm gonna use fancy merino wool yarns and a couple different techniques and design most of it myself. My current idea looks like this:

It will be roughly 5 ft by 9 ft and will be AMAZING (I hope)