3 Peas in Pod

This is the first vegetable that I crochet earlier this year, requested by a teacher who works with special needs children.  She showed me a picture of it taken from the web and I managed to find the pattern.  

These cute little Sweet Peas are by Ana Paula Rimoli and can be in her book Amigurumi Two! : Crocheted Toys for Me and You and Baby Too.  She has a lot of cute amigurumi in the book, you should really check it out if you want to make some cuddly bear or robots for your kids.

Purchase the book here

Book Depository | Amazon

So, this teacher works with special needs children who are either austic, physically disabled or have speech difficulty.  In order to make communication easier she thought of these peas with different facial expressions, thus the Angry, Happy and Sad face, the children  could just hold the pea that best reflect their emotion at that moment.  Genius idea right!    As the teacher has no idea what is a suitable size, I made them big, as shown in the photo below.

This project was made using 100% acrylic yarn, I used safety eyes so there is no fear of them fall off the peas and ended up somewhere they shouldn't be (like in a child's mouth/nostril/throat/tummy), unless you really tug it with all your might and risk tearing the peas up.  I crocheted the cheeks too, didn't want to use fabric color nor felt for it.  Mouths are sewn on using 2ply yarns.

A couple of weeks later, this teacher contacted me again because one of the mum saw the peas and wanted it for her child.  She requested them to be of smaller size and with orange hats for all 3 peas.  I downsized them and these peas are about a child's palm size so it's easier for her to grasp and hold or even play with them.  The mum mentioned that the pod will be with her child every where  therefore I added a zip to keep the peas in the pod and a strap with button so that she can hang it on the bag etc.  Oh, did I mention that this was supposed to be a birthday gift for her child? *smile*

I love how my craft helps people in so many ways, makes me feel great every time I start a project.

I have not list this item in my Etsy store yet, if you are interested to get one, simply drop a comment in this blog post or send me an email to shopofcuiros(at)gmail(dot)com.

Disclaimer : This post contains affiliated links.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Couple of months ago, I received an order from a music teacher for a caterpillar in Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar book. I was very happy to receive such request because I am such an Eric Carle fan and his caterpillar is so adorable~ As I searched for the caterpillar pattern, I found out that there were so many The Very Hungry Caterpillar fans out there.  I finally settled for Britteny's Boutique's Hungry Caterpillar but made a little bit changes.  You can see her free pattern over here.

Britteny's caterpillar pattern is very simple, just a few balls for the body and head, the difficult part for me is to sew the body together and making them curve up correctly like Eric Carle's illustration.  It's challenging and the crafter perfectionist in me made me sew them a million more stitches so that the body stays in that way.  My poor fingers and thumbs were screaming "MURDER" because it's quite difficult to stick the needle in between 2 balls and try to pull the needle out from the other side.

Britteny uses felt for its eyes but I wanted to keep every thing crochet thus I crochet them instead.  Its just a simple sc around with increase sc to make them sort of longish shape.

I went to study Eric Carle's illustration of the caterpillar and decided to use 3 different shades of green yarns instead for its body.  I added more "hair" because me think it's a hairy caterpillar.

So far I have made 3 of this, each in different size and I never get too tired or bored making this.  The weaving in of the "hair" onto the body was a little therapeutic for me and I could do it while watching the tv.  I also find that by making the caterpillar with 2 strands of acrylic yarn gives it a sturdier and firm body, so it does not sort of droop down when you hold it at the tail end especially coz the head is slightly bigger and heavier.  Of course with the added strand means I just pushed the notch for sewing them together up 2 levels (can you hear my fingers and thumbs protesting???)

So what do you think of my caterpillar?  From the music teacher's feedback, the kids love the caterpillar and every one grabs for it when they are in class.  Aye!  Fighting over the caterpillar!  I think I better make another one so that there won't be any "wars" in class lol.

If you want to try making this caterpillar, the free pdf pattern by Britteny is above in this post.  If you rather I make this for you, simply drop me an email to place an order.

The 2nd Rebirth Story of Shop of Curios

I wrote this post in my other blog in 11 July 2014 to document the start of a journey, one that makes me turn to something that I love for survival.  2 years on, the shop has taken a few baby steps forward, not quite the dramatic success I was looking for initially, I am still struggling financially,.  Regretfully, things back home was not looking good at the moment and I have lesser time to crochet.

I have been contemplating on setting up a blog for my shop for the past year but was hesitant, because it has been challenging handling family, work and my other blog, I didn't want to add another blog to burden myself.  However, I was at a crossroad again recently and base on my past experience, every time I hit this I have an urge to do something drastic.  So instead of going online shopping crazy (no money to do that anyway) I decided to dive in and set up this blog.  Perhaps this is the "push" or "nudge" I need to get me going.

So here we are, a new blog for a new beginning, the 2nd Rebirth Story of my shop.

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I was chatting with an old friend recently and she suddenly mention that she is hitting mid life crisis - again... this is her 4th by the way.  And on every mid life crisis she went all out to do something drastic such as [Quote] change job...do crazy things....life changing... [Unquote].  She is not crazy! Oh No!  Definitely Not!  I think she just uses the term to put it across in a casual way that these are the time she felt her calling which she has to do something to it, despite the fact that she had to work real hard to achieve what she set out initially.  I admire her bravery and it has brought her to where she is now, happy and successful.  

I have heard my calling whispering in my ears many times during my life but like every one I chose to ignore it, focusing on the more essential things or people than to abandon them to follow my heart.  Earlier last month I was reading What Are You Waiting For?: Learn How to Rise to the Occasion of Your Life by Kristen Moeller and it struck a chord in me.

What are you waiting for? Do you find yourself waiting for the right moment? The ideal relationship? The perfect job? Are you waiting for your “real” life to begin? Do think that the gifts of life are right around the corner? That one day you will arrive and everything will be okay? Do you endlessly search, yet never seem to find? Through the sharing of authentic personal stories and profound life lessons, Kristen Moeller explores our pervasive human tendency to wait for life and to look outside ourselves for answers. So we don’t try; we give up. We sell out and we forget who we are. We are afraid to succeed, afraid to fail, and afraid to say we are afraid. But as Wayne Gretzky said, “You'll always miss one-hundred percent of the shots you don't take!” Kristen Moeller's mission in life is to inspire you to get on the path, move forward and take the shot.

At the same time, there were some drastic changes in my life that totally thrown me off everything and I have an urgent need to do something to get out of the situation but just wasn't sure what that SOMETHING is.  I went on with my daily stuffs with this nagging feeling, talking about this with my friends and one day I found the answer!

Long story short, I have been selling Dr Lily's Organic aloe vera gel since 2009 in facebook but I did not really give it the attention it deserved.  A few years later when Qoo10.sg started in Singapore I started a shop there to sell the aloe vera gel, again I did not put in enough effort to market it but luckily it ran on its own and I get sales trickling in slowly.

This time I decided to quit waiting for the right moment and to make a different, it's my turn to rise to the occasion! For a start I am going to try to be a little bit more aggressive in promoting the aloe vera gel.  At the same time I like to try to make some crafts to sell too.  I have been interested in sewing, crocheting and knitting during my younger days but having lost touch with crochet after so long, I thought I should tackle a simple project for a start.  So I googled for simple crochet patterns, couple of hours later I saw a lovely amirugumi owl template at A Morning Cup of Jo Creations and fell in love with it almost immediately!  After a handful of not so perfect owls that DinoBoy gladly added to the mountains of soft toys on his bed, I managed to made the first perfect owl (the grey owl in the 2nd photo below), which DinoPapa immediately said he wants it, I added the chain keyring and made it into a keychain. 

First batch of not-so-perfect Owls

(A) Baby Owl & (B) Mama Owl made by using A Morning Cup of Jo baby owl template

Next I decided to revamp my shop's name in facebook page and Qoo10 mini shop to signify a brand new start but couldn't think of a name. Along came my sis to the rescue and viola~ Shop of Curios is born! You can find us at Facebook and Instagram do stop by to check out the prices of the Dr Lily's aloe vera gel and the amigurumi owl keychains.  I hope to add more of my crochet works in the future and bring these cheerful little creatures into your heart~

In the meantime, I would appreciate if you can help me spread my shop's name to all your relatives and friends~  Follow us to get instant update of any new craft creations, products, great deals the minute I upload them~

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