Crochet Cricket Ball

Pretty much the title! Also, hello! It’s been a while. Okay, maybe not- the last post was only nine days ago, but it feels like forever for some reason. I think it’s because I’ve been super busy with a lot of stuff, so feels like more time has elapsed than it actually has. Unfortunately, a fair amount of it are things that I can’t yet post about on here. But soon though, so keep your eyes out!

Before I continue, I should say that the first screening of my film went down really, really well last week at Showroom Shorts. To be honest, I was a bit overwhelmed with the response it received. In a good way. Hopefully that’s a good early sign of things to come for the festival submissions, but I don’t want to get my hopes up. Though secretly (shhh, just between us) I am, because it’s hard not to. Especially when you want something so bad. But whatever, what happens, happens. I’ll keep you updated on here for any future screenings… Here’s me chatting about my film on the night. Photo credit Ben <3

Also, while on festival talk, I was at Manchester Animation Festival the week prior and I honestly had the best time! Seriously enjoyed it all: the films, catching up with a load of lovely people, meeting cool new people and taking part for my first time ever in the infamous Skwigly quiz! Same time next year, then! Thanks to all the staff and volunteers for making it such a good one this year, I really think it was my favourite MAF I’ve attended! Few photos below, where I was candidly captured at various events. The first, me looking like a total nerd watching an immersive VR film and the second one, at the quiz, for balance! Photo credit: Chris Payne.

Now am I going to chat about the crochet ball this post is meant to be about? Nope. No I am not. Just need to put it out there that yesterday I LANDED MY FIRST EVER KICKFLIP!! How about that, eh?! I got heelflips three weeks ago and now these. Love it.

Right, okay dokie time for crochet! All this build up for not much:

It was basically an exercise in using chenille yarn, because I’ve never used it before and really wanted to try it out, with the aim of creating more amigurumi plushies. It’s such a soft yarn, but wow, the stitches are hard to see. They get lost within the fibres so easy, so it’s not the fastest and it’s easy to lose where you are in the pattern, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it if I use it more often. The next task I’ve lined up for myself is to create said amigurumi out of it, to see how that works out. But, that might not be for a while yet- the amount of ideas I have for crochet is honestly quite ridiculous! It’s one of those things where you just keep having ideas of stuff you want to make and the list just gets longer and longer and the ideas don’t stop! I don’t think I’ll ever have the time to do them all, but wow, I am going to try!

I also found out that I’ve been crocheting amigurumi inside out. But luckily I found this out fairly soon after having started it, rather than several months or even years later! No wonder my work didn’t look quite like how they’re intended. This ball was the correct way, but the previous two I made way back when, were wrong. And this one looks so much better. I did under stuff it slightly, but it’s super soft and squishy, so makes for a quite nice stress ball in fact! It’s a nice distraction on my desk.

This one was never meant to be a cricket ball as such, I was just playing around with adding stripes while working in the round, but when I had finished it, it was definitely giving cricket ball vibes! Subconsciously thinking about cricket, I guess…