Futurama and amigurumi go together like… like mac and cheese… like Sheldon and Leonard… like a rose tatt and advanced calculus, baby!

Just take a look at some of these (free) original crochet patterns by crafty Futurama fans, and see how long you can resist grabbing a hook and yarn to make your own!

Bender Bending Rodríguez – Amigurumi Bending Unit 22

Futurama’s cranky robot Bender is not an easy character to capture in crochet — appropriately enough — but this free Bender amigurumi pattern from Stitch is well worth the challenge.

It would be fun to use a metallic silver yarn for Bender, rather than just a light grey. Bender’s pattern calls for DK weight yarn, however, so you might have to look around a bit to find the metallic in that weight — depending on where you live. My local yarn stores tend to have the fancy-pants novelty yarns in a slightly heavier weight, more in the crafts yarn category. You may have better luck in The Big City, or online.

Are You More of a Nibbler?

Nibbler fans,
how about Alicia’s life-sized Nibbler? — he’s complete with cape, shoes, and diaper!

Or get a cute free crochet pattern for Futurama’s Nibbler, courtesy of the lovely and talented Amber of Cthulu Crochet.

Or try the version by Elizabeth Jarvis, whose skill with the hook is much to be envied: Nibbler, Guardian of the Bum Fodder, will cosy up to your spare toilet paper roll and keep it safe from… I dunno, whatever uses up all your t.p. when you’re not looking, leaving you pawing desperately at the empty cardboard roll with your knickers around your knees…

But I digress.

Paging Dr. Zoidberg!
Paging Dr. Zoidberg!

But if semi-inept lobster-inspired aliens such as, oh, say, Zoidberg, are more your speed — no problem. We can always count on one of the clever crocheters of Craftster to come through.

Tracy (who blogs at Mostly Nerdy Crochet) has your Zoidberg amigurumi pattern right here and also here, with more photos here to enjoy.

As far as I can see, Tracy’s is the only free Zoidberg crochet pattern out there at the moment — but again, if you’ve got one or have spotted one somewhere else, please let us all know in the comments. Meanwhile, I’ll keep an eye peeled — you never know what will turn up in the needlecraft forums.

And would you like a side of Brain Slugs with that?

Brain slugs are not only strangely appealing, but they’re an excellent choice of project for the crochet beginner — or for the experienced crochet artiste who just wants a little WIP to pull out to work on during those interminable family holiday gatherings, come to that.

Tracy has posted a free pattern for a “grapefruit-sized” Brain Slug, with a PDF you can grab to print out.

And over at Hook And Needles, Alicia came up with a pattern for large and small brain slugs a couple years ago when she needed a “subtle” Halloween costume for herself and her dog Raffi — love love love that idea!

Could you size up your Brain Slug to make a baby hat?
A conversation-starting tea cosy?
A golf club cover, or several?

Dare you to wear a Brain Slug to work! :)

Turanga Leela…???

Still looking.
Drop a comment if you’ve got a Turanga Leela pattern to share, eh?

p.s.
New to the mysteries of crochet?

Among the many goodies over at HookAndNeedles.com (really, if you’re at all craft-inclined, you need to go spend some time there!), Alicia offers some of the better video tutorials I’ve seen on learning how to to crochet. Check out her Amigurumi Tutorials here. You’ll want to be sure you’ve got a good grip on making a magic ring (a.k.a. “magic circle” or magic loop as some call it) — the starting point of most of these projects). Alicia’s tutorials are nice high-quality videos, shot close-up and clear and well-lighted, so even if you’ve never picked up a crochet hook before, you can follow along and be making your own Futurama amigurumi in no time!

It’s easy to create a professional-looking  torn-edge effect,  to use when you’re scrapbooking or making greeting cards, gift tags, or other torn paper crafts — even some amazing art.

3 Easy Steps:

1.  Start with a good quality paper — off-white is great for gift tags when layered over a patterned or dark-coloured piece of paper.

2.  Set it in lukewarm water. You want it to be completely moist but not soaked.

3.  Pat off any extra water, then gently tear out the shape you need.

It’s just that easy to get a great effect with torn paper edges for all of your paper craft projects!

If you’ve seen a zig-zag quilt, you’ll immediately see the fascination. It looks like giant bands of rick-rack trim sewn into a quilt — but really, the zig-zag effect is achieved with a series of triangles and a trick of the eye.

Now, you might look at a zig-zag quilt and figure it’s pretty straightforward to make — but it turns out there are a couple of different ways to cut your triangle pieces and a couple of different ways to assemble them, too.

Check out these quilt tutorials for great instructions and, better yet, for the photographs and illustrations that are soooo essential to make sense of each quilter’s cutting and piecing methods –

I love the way this shows how the quilting community tends to share ideas and build on each others’ creativity, too:

Taylor Groneck has a quick tutorial for a zig-zag quilt based on a pattern in Denyse Schmidt Quilts, and with the advice of…

Nettie Pete (of Etsy and A Quilt Is Nice fame) who shares her Zig-Zag Quilt Tutorial for the quilt inspired by…

The Purl Bee’s Zig Zag Quilt. The Purl Bee is the blog of Joelle & Jennifer Hoverson’s awesome and inventive crafty-sewing shop, Purl, by the way — and if you visit The Purl Bee, better plan to set aside a couple hours to explore… and you’ll want to check out their Triangle Tutorial, too, if you’ve ever had trouble making nice trim corners.

In fact, most quilters (except maybe the real quilting divas among us) agree that the main challenge of a zig-zag quilt — once you’ve picked the fabrics and planned the colours layout — is to take care to get the points of the triangles lined up right when you’re sewing them together.

Another help for this might be the triangle templates and clear how-to illustrations in a new free zig-zag quilt pattern that Anna Maria Horner, author of Seams to Me: 24 New Reasons to Love Sewing, offers as a free PDF download on her blog. “The Folk Dance” is what Horner calls her version of the vintage zig-zag quilt pattern.

That old Victorian favorite, the shadow box, is very hot right now as we seek ways to personalize our homes and showcase those things that are most important in our lives.

Shadow Box
A shallow display case or deep picture frame, usually with a glass front, typically hung on a wall and used to display three-dimensional objects.

The shadow box has long been a popular way to display military medals, and small scale-model scenes are also traditional. In fact, almost any three-dimensional objects can make a one-of-a-kind display to treasure.

At a veterans’ nursing home that I visit with my therapy dogs, every resident in the Alzheimer’s wing has a shadow box on the wall outside their bedroom door. It’s a glass-fronted “memory box” collage of photographs, notes, war medals, signed baseballs, small musical instruments… memorabilia and keepsakes that help us to know who the occupant of the room really is, — not just “old Charlie in the striped robe” or, worse yet, “Room number 147″ but an individual to be appreciated and respected.

Equally important, the “memory boxes” help us to jump-start a conversation, to find common ground with the seniors. And they help the residents to recall a time of youth and vigor and lust for life and purpose, perhaps to keep a little of that spirit alive against the ravages of age and illness.

Rather than the usual wall-mounted display cases, those shadow boxes were a planned feature when the nursing home was built and framed in between the studs of the interior walls.

Few of us have that luxury in our own existing homes. But a shadow box can be a beautiful and meaningful piece of wall art, too, with a few sturdy picture hangers.

And yes, it’s absolutely “do-able” to make your own traditional wall-mounted shadow box. You might start with an old picture frame or window frame, or simply put a backing piece on a small set of curio shelves. A sliding plexiglass or glass front is easily made with a few strips of wood moulding to keep the clear cover in place.

As for what to put in a shadow box — turn your imagination loose!

StormTheCastle.com has one of the more detailed tutorials I’ve seen, taking you step-by-step through the making of a fantasy shadowbox diorama — a shadow box that holds a miniature scene of with women warriors descending to fight fantasy creatures in a dungeon.

Diorama
A partially three-dimensional replica or scale model of a scene or landscape, etc. for purposes of education or entertainment.

The diorama itself is clearly the builder’s real passion, and a perfectly adequate shadow box has been created to display it that uses a homemade wooden box fastened to the back of a picture frame.

To commemorate a special occasion — first day of school? first date? graduation? wedding? — I think a homemade shadow box would be a one-of-a-kind keepsake with a lot of meaning behind it, a piece of personal art to treasure.

What about taking a piece of your kids’ art off the refrigerator door to use for the background, add a favourite photo of Junior, and create a shadowbox display with his modelling-clay masterpieces?

In fact, making a rectangular shadow box is a craft project that kids can do themselves, or with a little adult help, for a keepsake or to give as a gift.

First, you’ll probably want a frame (this is optional, however). Picture frames, mirror frames, window frames — any of these would work just fine, and can be picked up for “next to nothing” at a yard sale or rummage sale, perhaps even in your own attic!

Secondly, you need a box the right size to fit the opening in your frame. It should be no more than about 3 or 4 inches deep — and it could be much more shallow, in fact, depending on what objects you intend to display. Obviously, a collection of rare coins will not require as deep a display case as you’d need for displaying a trio of autographed baseballs, or a dungeon scene in miniature!

If you’re not much of a carpenter, think about the boxes that might be available to you already.

I once made a dollhouse style of shadowbox from six of the little wooden boxes that tangerines come in, 2 boxes across and 3 boxes high, all fastened together and each furnished like a different room in the house. Those tangerine containers are extremely lightweight, so they’re excellent for hanging on the wall. I just used a bit of wallpaper and fabric to cover up the spaces between the slats of wood.

You could even use a sturdy cardboard box as a base, if the objects you want to display won’t be too heavy. When we need a source of good tough cardboard, or boxes strong enough to carry a lot of books, the staff at the local liquor store is more than happy to donate the empty boxes that used to hold wine bottles — wonderfully sturdy!

For something extra-special, consider a fancy shape or a shadow box with shelves or dividers — either to make yourself or to buy and then fill with your own special memorabilia. Browse around eBay or Maxis Minis gallery of custom shadow box designs for lots of creative ideas.

What’s not to love?

Okay, maybe the price, for those of us who err on the side of really really frugal.

But these attention-grabbing Halloween decorations are made of papier mache, which inevitably leads the Artsy-Crafty ones among us to think, hmmmm, maybe I want to try something like that myself…

Screaming heads — not even anything much in the way of miscellaneous body parts to try to create. Just a bit of wire and the dismembered heads (and arms) — how hard can that be?

Let’s see… Roll and fold some cardboard for a form, mix up the wallpaper paste, and tear some newspapers into strips… Wire for the up-flung arms, so much a part of the “Eeeeek” expression that makes these figures so amusing, and the loopy legs… The feet might have to have some weight added, just to keep the head in balance upright, but maybe not if the bottom was kept quite flat while the papier mache was drying.

Let each layer of glued paper dry completely before adding the next. Here’s a tip —papier mache is still wet if it feels at all cool to the touch. Then finish off with acrylic craft paints. And I’d use play-dough or bread-dough clay or modelling clay for the teeth, just to make the project go a bit faster.

Or you can buy the
Screaming Heads (Set of 2) from Better Homes and Gardens.

Boo! Home Decor for Halloween.

I just came across this cute idea for a craft for kids, to make a Wreath of Leaves with all the beautiful red and yellow leaves we can’t resist picking up on a walk through the autumn woods. And I was thinking that a more sophisticated decoration — one that might last just a bit longer than a wreath with a cardboard base — could be made of pressed leaves with a bit of wire glued on in the stem area, tied to a wreath form or circle of heavy-duty wire, similar to the way you’d make a more traditional wreath out of overlapping evergreen tips. Another thing for the “must try” list!

As kids, we used to collect fall leaves and press them carefully between pieces of waxed paper with Mom’s old iron, trimming the extra paper away from the edges when they had cooled. Of course, that was long before wehad the option to preserve fall leaves in the microwave oven. Half the fun was going for the family outing to collect the leaves in the first place, of course.