Last weekend was the big Vancouver anime convention, Anime Evolution. It was awesome, great cosplays, lots of neat events and the dealer’s hall was cool. I think as with Tsukino, I most enjoyed the artists and crafter’s alley. The panel went really badly but really wonderfully at the same time. No projector, speakers or screen meant the helpful videos demonstrating techniques could not be seen, and more people than we had bargained for meant we had to either turn people away or run out of supplies (we chose the latter and improvised as we could), but it all came together beautiful. People were really happy, appreciative and enthusiastic and there were some amazing guardian angel types helping everyone else out with the techniques, since the demos weren’t visible by most people in the room.

I had a great time though and hope to do this again next year, armed of course with more supplies and more vigilance about chasing down projectors and things way ahead of time!

I was fortunate enough to pop into Daiso on Sunday while on a quick trip to Vancouver. For those who don’t know, Daiso is a big Japanese dollar store type place where everything is $2 that carries housewares, stationary, paper products and a crafts section. Oh yes… that’s right… a crafts section. They’ve got yarn, crochet hooks and knitting needles, buttons, felt, all sorts of stuff. Despite migraines, a very busy and overheated store and exhaustion all around, I picked up some neat things for the arsenal. I’ve always loved the Daiso polyfill stuffing so I got some more of that, also found some cute plastic links that will make great stitch markers and a few other knickknacks. In a better mental state I’d have browsed around more and probably spent way more money, but it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t. The best thing about the trip, aside from the figma and gachapons the kid scored, was my newly discovered love of Bunny King and a big score of hard to find color cotton mill ends of Lily Sugar & Cream and Bernat Handicrafter Cotton at a local craft store in Steveston Village. Top that off with coming home to a newly arrived order of exotic yarn from Herrschners and I was on cloud nine. Be sure to check out the awesome engrish warning label on the styro beads “Never use it”… uhhh yeah.

I’m wanting to go on a videogame themed amigurumi bender, and I’d like to hear from the masses. I get a lot of positive feedback from folks along the lines of “I’ve been looking for a free pattern for this guy!” or gleeful statements of that sort… which makes me wonder, what other sorts of bizarre, obscure and awesome characters are people looking and waiting for?

So riddle me this, what characters or game themes would you like to get a free Amigurumi pattern for? I’ll pick one and do it up to the best of my ability then post it free. Please leave a comment or tweet me or something along those lines

In other news, I am getting all social with a facebook fan page (you can join by clicking the buttonmajigg to the right, no pressure or anything… just saying is all ) and twitterings… come join me yes? So it’s not just a big empty room with like my mom sitting in the corner.

I started working on this prototype pattern in hopes of finding a way to make the PS3 controller a bit more comfortable to clutch for hours on end. It’s a good start, though I did mess up the mirroring of the bootie part so that is why it’s taller on one side than the other. I will be fleshing it out a bit more, sorting out some bits and posting a finished pattern when I am satisfied that it looks good and is all evened out.

In terms of functionality, it’s more comfy than the naked controller, you can hold it in a sort of more relaxed way, but the cone parts slip around more than I’d like them to, so I think I’ll add some little teeny dabs of silicone, once cured they’ll be like grippy little nubs on the inside to give traction and keep things in place (think like the little traction bits they have on the bottom of some slippers/socks). It’s totally removable

In other news… I am off to go fetch the windex and cotton swabs to clean our game controllers. May these photos serve as a sobering reminder of the consequences of eating cheetos whilst going on videogame benders.

It’s been a while since the last update but I have a few projects on the go so please be patient. I’ve got my favorite character from Azumanga Daioh (98% done, just need to embroider the mouth), the Katamari pattern (60% done, must add more nubbies!) and also, in honor of the soon to be released Bioshock 2, the coolest thing I have yet to make (surprise! 35% complete).

Tsukino Con is fast approaching and I am blowing the dust off my sewing machine for the marathon of sewing I have ahead of me.

In the meantime, gaze at my lack of updates in anticipation for the awesomeness to come.

I live in Victoria BC, a moderately sized Canadian city that is uber-westcoasty and is blessed with a University that is blessed with an Anime club that has blessed our community with an annual anime, manga and Japanese cultural convention, previously called Kei-kon, now reborn as Tsukino-Con. This has been great for the kid, and to be truthful we had a hoot last year too. All are looking forward to the convention in February, despite my nervousness at the continually decreasing amount of time I have to sew costumes.

We are n00bs on the scene, however as always, being the eternal meddler, I wanted to *do* something, so I have signed up to do a workshop panel type creature where I teach Amigurumi crochet. I did a dry-run of my really ambitious plan which is now being reworked and scaled back to a more sane and doable version, however the videos I prepared may be helpful to the interwebs as a whole so I have released them on the youtubes in all of their “made for Tsukino-Con” glory. There are some references to kits and local stores which are irrelevant, but the video quality is decent and I remembered to stay in frame for most of it, so they videos may be of help to folks just starting out and wondering what exactly they should be doing with the tangled mess of yarn that stands before them.

I learned from horrible grainy youtube videos, and now I pass that torch to the next generation… behold, the Nerdigurumi Youtube channel!

Of particular note, is this playlist that has instructional videos of pretty much each row of the pattern I designed for the workshop. It’s basically a peanut (see left) that can become a bear, a bunny, a cat, a dog with floppy ears like Cinnamoroll, or can remain a peanut. It’s a short project and the videos go over most of the steps so if you need some hand holding, I’m your girl! Plus when you are done you get to have this little weirdo on your left, and what’s not awesome about that?