Freebie pattern: JiJi the cat from Kiki's Delivery Service

WELL.
It has been a long time, almost a year since I wrote down anything....you'd think I planned it this way, the date of last post is pretty close to this one lol.
Anyway.
Life was a crazy roller coaster ride for last few months; it was certainly emotional, and had I enough wit,I would have remembered to rant here, but I didn't. The good thing is the learning curve was pretty steep and I had to take actions (some drastic) to try to improve the sticky situation I was in , and to relieve some stress I was making a LOT of things. I also watched a LOT of movies and TV shows I meant to but didn't have time for until now; in some ways, my life hit rock bottom, just so I can catch up with the things I loved .

So THIS movie, is probably considered a CLASSIC Ghibli studio movie - I love the character design but until this past week I did NOT see this movie (which bought the shock of my fellow animation fan who immediately disqualified me as a Ghibli fan or animation fan for that matter LMAO).

And though she was kidding, I realized I didn't watch a lot of classsic animation, so I'm going to be watching them in the upcoming days, at least from Studio Ghibli, whom I keep confessing my love for.  I actually watched a couple more of older Ghibli studio movie, "Whispers of the heart and When Marnie was There. I loved how accurately Whispers of the Heart captured daily life in Japan eons ago - the focus was on capturing time instead of fantasized characters we have these days. The second movie was very heavy and sad and I cried. Then, even though the ending left me completely hanging and unsatisfied , I went back to watch Kiki's Delivery service for the second time , in case I missed the ending somehow ( I didn't apparently). After, because I am crazy and was dead in love with the little black cat Jiji, I watched it the 3rd time while making this doll. Jiji is full of personality - sarcastic ,playful and bashful - a lot like my own little black cat, and it totally make me wish that my cat could talk to me!

I will say this turned out much better than I expected considering this was made in the wee hours in the morning. I am still surprised that I didn't stab myself while needlefelting the ears and the eyes.

To make this little guy, I used worsted weight Redheart Supersaver yarn with a 3.5mm(E) sized hook. The little nose is some baby pink baby yarn I had laying around since I learned the different size of hooks. The pattern itself is pretty straight forward, although I was a LITTLE BIT confused when I made the body part because of the shape (which made sense after) and I skpped out on the paws because I thought it made it... unnecessarily bulky looking? I mean when I see my cat sit this way, especially in the dark, I can't tell where his paws are; I see his tail ,body, head and his giant ears....so that's my interpretation of it.

For this pattern in other languages, click the picture

 The amazing lady who designed Jiji The Cat pattern (probably Angie is her name) - you can get my downloaded copy from the link above or  visit her Ravelery site by clicking the photo below (that's her version of the cat) where she has the pattern available in multiple languages such as Russian, Spanish, French and Dutch.

Goodbye DLP T_T it was good while it lasted.

YEAP, I fell off the blogging bandwagon...again. I think I'm just going to stop counting the many times I fall of this bandwagon and focus on the fact that I manage to come back to it pretty consistently....yes, there IS indeed a silver lining to every situation lol.

Anyhow, my crochet obsession has gone full blown - and as soon as I started to think that my "giant stash" of yarn was going down (instead of 2 giant bags, I can fit everything into ONE giant garbage bag), Michael's started their week long yarn sale.  SPEEEEAKING OF MICHAEL'S.... you know, this store was nowhere near my work or residence - or I never managed to find one. I knew one existed about an hour bus ride away and that was just too far for me to bother with. However now that I started crocheting and getting sorta serious about my arts and crafts hobby, a Michael's is in every corner I turn! one opened downtown Toronto, and there is TWO near my work, right on my way from and to work.  Although the selection in this store leaves lots to be desired as it is a smaller store, it still makes me happy to gander after the work day is over. The good part of this is, that its strengthening my spending control - since the store is so accessible now, I don't buy everything  I want at once for current and future projects I may engage in. WHICH is gggggRRRREEEAT!

ANYWAY...sorry rambled off there... lol

Earlier this year ,I had a whirlwind affair with Documented Life Project. This is a fantastic project - uses one book for 3 purposes ( I LOVE IT)and was a fabulous way to get started on the artistic journey.  I saw some from 2014 and the prompts were thought provoking and the artworks by others were just fantastic fun to look at. So I had a go this year. Although I thought it very commercial that they decided to endorse Dylusions art journal and abandon the 3-in-one book idea that originally made it popular, the weekly prompts REALLY spoke to me and related 100% to my life at the time and I was madly in love with it.   But then some point - I think mid May - I found that the prompts were not as...thought provoking. They were posted late, and I dunno - it felt like it was starting to get half-hearted. I couldn't relate to any of the prompts (which was odd cuz it was travel themed and I had just come back from travelling) and I stopped entirely by July.
I also slowly started to realize that I need to separate my journals from planners. It worked for me when I was just trying to get back into journaling and being creative; but as the juices start flow regularly, I found that I was spending more time being artsy in my planner vs. planning in my planner and I was starting to need more real estate for my creativity and stopped planning in my planner altogether  :O .  After some thought and with good dose of hesitation, I separated my planner from my creatives - I guess its true that you should never mix business with pleasure as one WILL overtake the other.  I still think this is a great project to get your juices flowing and will probably fall back to it (well ,the idea anyway, its too commercial now for me) whenever I feel its dwindling, but for now I need to say good bye to it.

The thing is, I still had tons of tip-in pages stuck to my planner....and on it I had started to write down some of the crochet patterns I wanted to try out that seemed to be within my skill level (waste not want not) - I actually now have a giant binderful of these patterns shared by generous souls on the internet XD.  Some I've tried successfully, some I have not and I really should because they are uber cute and should not be wasted. Anyhow, I thought I would start sharing these on line with my two cents as I struggle to make these, starting next week.

I have SO MANY free things I found online that I feel should be shared - so  I am going to start a Freebie Friday blog to share them  *YAY*. I'm going to start with crochet patterns because, as I say, I have a giant 3" binderful of patterns I really must try and sort through and I want to make a commitment to sharing/blogging. So along with Freebie Friday, I'm going to do a Crafty Update posts- which will just show what I'm working on now. Hopefully by committing to these two things I can follow through in my commitment to share more what I know  and help others find their creative (cuz everyone has it) and what I'm up to (and not fall of the bandwagon again LOL).  Till next time,

Love Always,
Shines.