Quidditch Cup XX - Match 3

Happy Sunday to you!  I'm actually going to attend a church this morning!  (I find there's less pressure when you're going to an out-of-state church with friends.)

Just a quick, fun photo today:

Yes, it's VintageBeef and PauseUnpause riding a broom.

I participated in the Quidditch Cup XX!   For Match 3, all you had to do was submit a photo of you (or a stand-in) riding a broom (or other floor cleaning device; plenty of people now have newfangled electric brooms, or Swiffers).

I did put out a tweet, just because I was in a whimsical mood.  This photo features the most recent VintageBeef plushie, too, who is now on his way to his forever home in Nevada.

Here he is posed with "Tangerine" (you've met him as "Wolfie"):

Just adorable!  I might change my Facebook page picture.

I'll be back home in South Carolina tonight, concluding my whirlwind galpal trip to see DSCA and Deevius!  Possibly more crafting shenanigans to follow (including art trade lootz!).

Cheers and craft on!

Merry Christmas 2014

And now for a word from our past:

Merry Christmas from Team Canada! @PauseUnpauses @VintageBeefLP @EthoLP pic.twitter.com/mfmaMi3Pq6
— Katie (@Velvet_Key) December 27, 2013

And to all a good night!

VintageBeef III: UK Bound

After a terrible time trying to get a VintageBeef plushie sent over to the UK via USPS, he has finally made it into the hands of his ever-patient new friend, Zdenka.

I ended up shipping him FedEx instead; I'm not trusting any more third party handlers.

A side note: the customer service for FedEx is fantastic.  Very friendly, helpful, and forgiving.

Yesterday, I received this tweet:

Beefaroni cant wait to get out of the box & explore the UK! THANK YOU @Velvet_Key SO Much! @VintageBeefLP #mindcrack pic.twitter.com/J8okaHvBPU
— Zdenka Kolarikova (@ZdenkaK__) December 18, 2014

Finally, after fearing he'd been lost in the international shipping shuffle, Beef made it all the way to Great Britain!

The real Mr. Beef had this to say:

@ZdenkaK__ @Velvet_Key that's so cool!
— VintageBeef (@VintageBeefLP) December 18, 2014

I'm so very happy for Zdenka, and she's already informed Beef that he shall be meeting his plushie self at the announced London Minecon in 2015.  She's promised me pictures, and I'm very excited!

Thank you Zdenka; I would collaborate in any fangirl manner again!

YorickBeef!

I finished the sixth VintageBeef plushie early in my Thanksgiving break, and decided to tweet a humorous picture after finishing his head:

Alas, poor @VintageBeefLP! I knew him well: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. pic.twitter.com/gPd6TXcSZH
— Katie (@Velvet_Key) November 26, 2014

(That's from Hamlet.)

 No reply from Mr. Beef this time, but it was more just for fun than anything else.  He is now listed as a reserved item for Dailyn Jones on Etsy, so I hope he sells soon!

Pillow Talk, VintageBeef Style

Funny story.  I used to try and learn one new craft per year.  Past crafts have included:

- iron-on t-shirt images
- hand-sewn teddy bears
- fleece pillows
- jewelry making
- book binding

I still have many supplies in my attic from these past attempts.  When I was having my tunic for cold LARP events made, I went up to get Penelope, my duct tape bust model (who is about 20 lbs smaller than I am now).

For some unknown reason, I decided to rummage around in my other craft supply boxes while I was up there.  (Seriously, the precise reason escapes me.)

And I found four 14" pillow forms from a craft session I had participated in when I worked for the university as a cafeteria hostess.  We had made a throw pillow for each of our student managers as gifts (maybe Christmas gifts?), and then I had offered to take the extras home.

So, three years later, they were still in their shrink-wrapped plastic bags.

And I said to myself...hmm.

Pillow covers are nothing more than two flat panels stitched together at all four edges.

So I did a few measurements, and came up with a double-sized estimation for the first panel:

Since VintageBeef is my most requested plushie

(and I had the yarn handy) I gave it a shot.

When I finished the panel, I noticed it was at least an inch or so short of being tall enough.  (Uh oh!)  I added another row of brown at the top, but I wasn't going to frog the entire panel and try to make it taller.  I decided to wait, do the back, and try it anyway.  Crochet is somewhat stretchy, right?

The back:

Legolas' Elven Focus cannot be interrupted.

And the front of the finished product:

I have no idea whether or not adding one extra row of single crochet at the top of each panel helped at all, but I know that seaming the panels on the outside was a definite good call.  I used slip stitches (3 per corner) on the left, bottom, and right sides before inserting the pillow form.  Then I had to continuously squish the pillow down inside while slip stitching the top shut.  I chose to use the coffee-colored yarn all the way around for the border, because it was the most dominant color.  Plus, using more than one color would have caused structural weaknesses in the seaming--more knots to come unraveled.

Easy peasy!  The pillow is up for sale in my Etsy store!

Ooh, and I also made a tweet:

Hiya @VintageBeefLP! Here's your chance to cuddle with your own cozy, bearded face: pic.twitter.com/cSW6ltuhYI
— Katie (@Velvet_Key) October 13, 2014

And the tremendous Mr. Beef himself favorited and replied:

@Velvet_Key Omg that is so cool!
— VintageBeef (@VintageBeefLP) October 14, 2014

FANGIRL FIESTA!

Of course.

Now I'm pondering the wisdom of dressing up my PauseUnpause plushie in a Halloween costume for "teh lulz" as the kids say, and tweeting the picture out on Friday.  Hmm...must ponder.

Later!

Cross another one off the list!

I am so excited--tonight I was able to photo, pack and list on Etsy the trio of Team Canada plushies I've been working on since April!

A huge, HUGE thank you to Zdenka K. from Manchester, U.K. who placed the order and has been supremely patient with me!

Here's one of the photos I snapped before bagging up the boys:

Yes, the sign says U.K. or Bust!

(Yes, I did have to look up the flag before scribbling it down.)

And now, for those of you keeping score at home, we have:

- Etho

- Beards & Beanies Kickstarter

- Nebris

- Enderman

- Custom Wig

...still on the crochet docket for the month.  (Yes, I know what day it is.  Don't make me cry thinking about it.)

In a few days, I'll share the photo of the gift I made for the dear Panda's birthday (very last minute, but also very low-budget, so I couldn't argue with that!).

Cheers!

The Beefy Trio

After I completed VintageBeef V, I knew I would rarely have the opportunity to photograph a trio of Beefs ever again.

(Mind you, this was just a few days after the Famous Tweet of May 2014.)

Thanks to pollen season, everything down here is covered in a fine layer of greeny-gold dust, so I grabbed my craft tablecloth and set up my photo op:

Photo was first shared with my Facebook followers.

I then waited a few days before passing the same image on to the subreddit:

Mind you, when I tweeted this picture, I deliberately did NOT tag Mr. Beef.  I figured I had hogged the spotlight with the other picture a couple days before.

Imagine my surprise to see the top comment...

FANGIRL FIESTA!

Other, close-up photos from this shoot include:

Zdenka's Beef playing Tetris

Anna's Beef terrorizing Legolas with a Nazgul action figure

C. Helinski's Beef reading 'Asterix and Obelix'

Of these three, one Beef headed up to Alberta, Canada and the other to Albany, New York.  The third is part of an entire Team Canada order, which will be shipped all together by the end of June.

So now, dear readers, you are up-to-date with all the fangirl activities so far!

Oh, except perhaps the mention of my plushies at PAX East 2014:

(Jump to 47:36 for the good part!)

Perhaps this weekend or Monday I'll be able to do a reveal on my projects from this month!  I still have a lot of work to do, but I'm looking forward to making progress!

The Tweet That Started This Year's Blogging

It took place on May 1st.  I had finished another Beef (Beef IV, for those keeping track at home) and wanted to do a quick photo before Deevius came over to play LotRO.

I knew I was very close to finishing Beef V, but I figured a shot of a couple of Beefs hanging out on a Thursday night with some PS3 controllers was just all-around fun.

So the Panda helped me set it up, snapped a quick picture.  I put it up on Twitter and went about making dinner.

Nothing exceptional, and the lighting could've been better.

Deevius arrived along with Josh/Kuri, and we went about our normal game night routine.

Until my tablet became possessed.

A side note: sometimes my tablet is choosy about what it decides to alert me about.  But even it couldn't ignore all of the emails suddenly generated by this:

@Velvet_Key Is it wierd that this picture makes me wanna cuddle with me?
— VintageBeef (@VintageBeefLP) May 2, 2014

Thus, thanks to the fabulous exposure by Mr. VintageBeef himself, my Tweet is still being favorited today:

@VintageBeefLP It's game time! ...on the couch. With cuddly Beefs. pic.twitter.com/gab68aqSlH
— Katie (@Velvet_Key) May 1, 2014

It was at this point that I decided that I needed a place to centralize all of my social media, photographs, and general shenanigans.

Which is why I'm here with you!

Tomorrow, I'll show you what I affectionately call "The Beefy Trio," which will effectively bring us up-to-date on the latest craziness!

Commissions Everywhere!

When I listed the second VintageBeef plushie on Etsy, I received an inquiry from somebody else about a VintageBeef plushie.  Over the next few weeks to a couple months I just started to accrue a list of people willing to wait until September for their plushies!

VintageBeef III made an appearance on the Mindcrack subreddit:

Unfortunately, after a month his buyer hadn't contacted me.

Thankfully, there's a waiting list, and the next person was more

than happy to give Beef III his forever home.

During this time, I had also been hard at work on my first-ever Zisteau plushie.  He ended up being a whole lot more work (because of all the color-changes) and I had been sick, which didn't help me keep on track.

Thankfully, his buyer was so understanding, and was thrilled with the result:

Mindcrack Plushie Series #5

Of course, I also did some gimmick photos.  The one that made a Reddit appearance was:

This one to date has received the lowest karma.

I think it was the time of day I posted it.

However, I did also tweet the photo to the buyer, and I included Zisteau at the same time.  She and I had mutual fangirl fiestas when this happened:

A couple days after that, I also tweeted this picture, but did not tag Zisteau.

What did I say about a Mindcrack army taking over my house? Saaaaaave meeeee..... pic.twitter.com/KNMmo0bSuQ
— Katie (@Velvet_Key) April 28, 2014

 Yup, I had a bed full of Mindcrackers.  I also did another photo op with them, but I'm saving the pictures for a future release, when there's downtime between plushies and I want to keep the followers on Facebook and Twitter entertained.  ^_^

I think my favorite part of the Zisteau commission (other than the awesome sorry-for-making-the-buyer-wait lava bucket!) was that Midnight_Sentry fully intends to go to a MineCon and have Zisteau sign the plushie (I suggested to her the cape idea I used).  She's promised to tweet me photos!

Mutual fangirlishness rocks!

Next time we'll have to talk about my (to date) most infamous Tweet!

Tuesday Minecraft Musings

I promise this time we're getting back to the Minecraft Mindcrack crochet!

When we last took a look at my crochet history, I had mentioned thinking about making VintageBeef as a plushie, since his Minecraft skin is simpler (discounting the front of his chest with the apron).

I went through several searches for his skin on Google, and ended up at PlanetMinecraft.com.  I compared all the different 'VintageBeef' skins available to the other search results Google had turned up before settling on the one I considered to be the most accurate.

Then I chose the 'papercraft' option, which generates a pretty good panel layout.  And that's really the secret behind Minecraft crochet: find a way to get whatever it is you're trying to make into a papercraft pattern, and you can turn it into crochet panels!

Well, needless to say as discussed in a previous post, I succeeded with VintageBeef, who now happily resides in Dalian, China with April (and the latest creeper, who was glimpsed briefly in a post from last week).

Of course, I had taken tons of photos just to properly get an idea of the size and pose-ability of the plushies.  Then I decided that I would keep track of my work using DeviantArt, and began establishing what I called the Minecraft Plushie Series (M.P.S.).

Regrettably, the first plushie is the only one not in the 'standard' pose.

I finished my own PauseUnpause; to date he is the only one.

Then I got a little crazy and sent BTC his own plushie.

Then I wanted to complete Team Canada with Etho.

Somewhere along the way, however, I got a message through DeviantArt from a gal who had commented on the VintageBeef picture.  Her SN was PauseUnbeef, and she was the first person to order a commission!

Thus, I began tweeting out things like progress pictures for her, and then when I completed the plushie, I had to do group shots to prove that the plushie was indeed finished:

But my lovely, more-social-media-adept husband said...

"Why don't you put that up on the Mindcrack subreddit?"

I knew nothing about Reddit other than the fact that my husband's opinions were often down-voted because he's a sheriff's kid who owns a gun.  It seemed like I was throwing myself into an online pirahna tank--offering my art in a feeble attempt to not get it ripped to shreds by rabid fans.

But I tried it:  

And VintageBeef...well, you see.

(Yes, there was a FANGIRL FIESTA.)

The Panda was floored that I could attract 170 upvotes with a single post.  (I had no reference for comparison; I just wanted to know why the 13 people who down-voted me did so.)

I'm a perfectionist, and I take rejection pretty hard.

Other photos from that session included:

Featured only on DeviantArt

Also posted on the Mindcrack subreddit

(It got about the same karma, but if Beef saw it, he didn't comment this time.)

Featured only on DeviantArt and Twitter

PauseUnbeef loved her plushie; he arrived in California safe and sound!  Plus, I got more queries and interest in future commissions.  

One thing I had decided from the outset, however, was not to flood the Mindcrackers every time I made a plushie of their character, or posted a photo.  I needed to be strategic!

More about strategy and other commissions in the next post!

Thursday Catch-Up

Wow, well there goes my goal to blog every day in May (but at least I made it further than my May goal from last year...).

So much happening this week!  Tuesday I was called in for jury duty (in traffic court, which is also considered a 'magistrate court')--all located in an old brick strip mall along with with a tailor alteration shop as well as a renal care facility.  (o.O)

My poor panda husband was trying to give me directions as I'm madly circling the parking lot looking for the appropriate entrance, and then my cell phone (which has been steadily holding less and less charge) decides it has been possessed by the beep demon, so I had to hang up on him.

Anyway...there is a trip to a Verizon store in my very near future...is it too much to hope that they still offer my model of phone as a free upgrade?  My hard plastic case has protected my little Samsung Gusto for the past few years and I don't even think I ever took the protective plastic off of the screen...it'd be a shame to lose it so soon!

Then the great and craftsy Deevius came by so that we could work on re-shaping the Halloween mask she bought into something more Silence-y (from Doctor Who).  (Note:  While I sometimes have great crafty plans, they often fall flat and do not achieve their true potential due to my own derpiness.)

Several hours of gluing, caulking, and painting later...well.  She's going to take it to a friend in the art department where she works and ask for shading help.  (Mostly to see if what we've done can be salvaged.)

In between all of that, I've been doing an emergency rush order of a 'cactuar' plushie (no, I do not play Final Fantasy) for a friend; he had an acquaintance fall from a ladder and fracture his clavicle, which required emergency surgery and a stay in the hospital.  Pics to come when it's completed!

I'm also in the process of designing business cards to hand out on Saturday.

Why, you ask?

Well...I'm attending my first con!  (It might be a small con, but a girl has to get started somewhere!)

The SC Comicon is being hosted by Borderlands (a local comic book/game/nerd store) and when I participated in the blood drive they held on Free Comic Book Day (May 3rd), I got a free one-day pass to the con!

Thus, the great and fabulous Deevius and I shall be attending, (possibly along with Mike the Coworker's fiancee Midori) and doing a group costume.

She's going as a Silence from Doctor Who.

I'm a cheapskate and I'm going as a Silence victim.  (What could be easier than wearing normal clothing and drawing tally marks all over my hands and face?)

I also plan to tote one of my Minecraft plushies around with me (and I will be wearing my Broken Buttons shirt), and handing out business cards to those that ask where I got him from.

I have a choice of taking Etho (who belongs to me) or VintageBeef (who's part of a triple order and the other 2 plushies are not yet finished).  Etho has 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube and Beef has 900k.  Beef is by far my most popular sale item, but I'd want to contact the buyer and ask if it was okay to take him to the con (in the case of severe handling).

Decisions, decisions!

But before all of that happens, I'm running another session for my D&D players on Friday night!  I'm so excited because I'll get to share this with them:

It's our entire party!

From left:  Xerxes, Saffron, Darius, Malaris, Kuri, and Ana.

A special thanks to Nbiester on Deviantart for taking my commission request and showing it who's boss.

We'll get back to crochet shenanigans another time...maybe tomorrow...maybe later!

Minecraft Crochet Segue

(Because I was mean last time and showed Etho with no context given.)

Who is Etho?  Etho is the third member of the Mindcrack server group known as Team Canada.

Etho's YouTube Channel

Although I do not subscribe to his videos, I have on occasion enjoyed his exploits with PauseUnpause and VintageBeef.  He has close to 1.5 million subscribers, and has one of the largest audiences on the Mindcrack server.

Here's the finished plushie:

This is the classic posed-against-the-doorframe photo I use for all new plushies.

I made Etho and then had no close third friend to give him to, so he remains steadfastly beside my PauseUnpause and has posed with him for quite a few photos, some of which have never been published to any of my social profiles.

Fun Fact:

I had originally planned to do

a webcomic using photos of

my plushies and their many

adventures.  I only got through

one strip before other things

grabbed my creative attention.

Here was the first and only panel of the comic:  

The premise was that the MineCon cape I had tied to the Pause Plushie would bring any of the plushies that wore it to life.  And they'd have adventures all over my house, up to and including holding my husband (the Panda) hostage so that I would crochet Etho and Pause a new Beef for them to play with.

Anyway, that never happened.  But here's the picture proof that plushie Pause went to MineCon:

Signatures include: BdoubleO, GenerikB, BlameTheController,

SethBling, VintageBeef, KurtJMac, DocM77, MCGamer, Pyro

Guude, WBaj92, Zisteau, and JustVan (Bonus!) 

But as it happened, I started working on other projects, some of which were my very first commissions, and first inventions.  I've only ever published one crochet pattern to date, and that was only here on this blog.  That will probably change in the future, as I choose to divulge the new techniques I've learned/invented/muddled through to the masses.

Other Minecraft creations:

Mini-VintageBeef

(Also known as 'why you can't make those big plushies smaller'.)

Patches done after the style of the Minecraft creeper, pig, and sheep.

A little cake keychain.

All three of the above are for sale in my Etsy store!

Well, that was a short post, but with more pictures!  Tomorrow I'll share about how I got started on taking commissions...

What?

Head of the lore writers?

Oh, right.  Hmm...maybe time for both?  We'll see!

Let's Pause For A Moment

And consider how I got to making plushies in the first place.  In actuality, VintageBeef was not the first attempt I'd done at Minecraft plushies.  The chest piece on the right belongs to the first attempt.

Any idea who it belongs to?  (If the horrible title of the post didn't give it away.)

VintageBeef's best friend on the Mindcrack server is PauseUnpause.  

(The two of them frequently play through maps together, and are sometimes joined by a third guy.  When they play all together, the three of them are known as Team Canada.  More on that in a future post.)

So if I was going to do this plushie thing properly for my best friend, I figured there needed to be one plushie for her, and one for me.  I think I waited maybe one entire day after finishing Beef to start Pause.

April was arriving in late July.  (I finished Beef on July 6th.)

Let the crocheting commence!

  

After many long evenings after work, some frantic housework so that April would actually have a bed to sleep in while she was with me, and some stress, I was finally able to set up the surprise in the guest room:

Was I proud?  Oh yes.

I had achieved something I thought would be impossible!  My husband was secretly in awe of my magical crochet abilities!  It was fabulous!  And then...started the tiny, infinitesimal thought process...

What if I sent this as a tweet

to the REAL VintageBeef?

Because in my mind, there was nobody but me, the Panda, and April to appreciate my crafting genius.  Oh, and Mike at work.  (This whole Mindcrack thing is his fault.)  And I had completed a mighty craft!

But no.  I settled for pinning it to my Minecraft Pinterest board and called it good.  For about two minutes.

So what if he never sees it?

Maybe his followers will like it.

Oh boy.  So I used my personal Twitter account to send the following to both Beef AND Pause:

Four favorites?  Pretty good.  Not exactly a viral reception.  (Because everybody knows about Mindcrack, right?  ...guys?)

And then I got an e-mail (since I don't own a smart phone or similar device).  What was inside?

It's here that I began what I now call "Fangirl Fiestas".

They take place in my head when I'm in no public position to dance like an idiot out of sheer happiness.

That was my first and only 'famous' tweet from that account.  But that's another story which segues directly into joining BlameTheController's (BlameTC or BTC for short) Build Team.

What's that all about?  Find out in a future post!

VintageBeef's Channel

PauseUnpause's Channel

It's Been An Exciting Past Year...

But I feel that I should lay it out in a somewhat-chronological order, for my sake.  One day I'm going to look back on all this and either say:

1)  You were crazy!
2)  That's so cool!
3)  What were you thinking?

Or possibly a combination of all three of those things.

So, rewind with me a bit to June 2013.  I was expecting my friend April back from her school year of teaching in Dalian, China.

I knew I had to make her birthday and Christmas presents special.  I also knew that handmade goodies are the best goodies.

So I began this project:

With my beginner-to-intermediate crochet skills, the plushie soon took shape:

And thus VintageBeef became the first Minecraft: Mindcrack plushie in the series that is gaining me some crochet business today.

For those who don't know, Mindcrack is the largest publicly-known Minecraft server, populated entirely by YouTube personalities.  It was started by GuudeBoulderfist, and he invited the current members.  (It is private and white-listed.)

View Beef's YouTube channel here.

So, did I get the plushie finished in time?  Was he the only one?  Stay tuned!