WoollyRhinoCrafts

Every once in a while I still get questions about this cosplay from years ago. I blogged about it pretty regularly (because back in the day, I was good at blog updates) and I always meant to gather all of the posts together to make it easier to read about it in chronological order for the folks interested in the process. But then I kept forgetting. Of course. I'm someone who likes to read about other peoples' processes and it motivates me to do stuff and gets my creative juicy juice flowing... Well, here it is. I've finally done it! Crochet Sailor Saturn! Every post (I hope), in order! If I find I missed any then I'll add them. They're filled with WIP pictures and are pretty detailed. I fondly referred to this build as "Sweater Saturn." It was hundreds of hours and it was the hottest, heaviest, least breathable, most miserable costume I have ever made and I have zero regrets. I entered the costume contest at the aquarium and did not even place and then I w...

UPDATE 2/12/23: I don't want to go into great detail about the decision to scrap Sylvanas. It was a recent one and it was not done lightly. To save you from a lot of angst, I'm just going to say that the more I looked at the word I'd done, the more I wished I'd used royal blue instead of navy.  The Recap: I started this idiotic/genius project over three years ago, but I worked on it very sporadically until about 9 months ago because I had no money because making things for people doesn't quite pay all the bills and also allow one to afford the shitloads of yarn and other things I needed for this personal project. I got a real job, so I had money, but then I had no time - the Great Adult Paradox, I suppose! I wanted to pull this off for DragonCon this year, but if you follow me on any social medias, you know that I worked on it nonstop and then even worked on it at the con and crashed and burned. I didn't have time for all of the detailing and I'm a huge ...

UPDATE 2/11/23: I had to admit this but I scrapped this project, and I did it pretty recently. This pattern is still good though for some fingerless mitts or a base for any sort of crochet cosplay gauntlets. Visit Etsy to see my current ready-to-ship inventory as well as check my commission status. There are a lot of patterns out there for fingerless mitts. I wanted a pair of solid, sturdy ones for my Ranger-General Sylvanas gauntlets. If you keep up with my Facebook , you know that I've gone insane and I'm crocheting a Sylavanas cosplay based on her Ranger-General skin in Heroes of the Storm. NB: This is NOT a pattern for the completed gauntlets, this is just the mitts they're attached to. Finished mitts measure approximately 11" in length and 4" across at the widest part, so they're small adult or kid-sized. Because I am a waif of a human. For larger mitts you can either use a larger hook size or add length or girth in the form of more rows or stit...

UPDATE 2/6/23: I'm still glad to answer questions. I enjoy answering questions. I reblogged a thing on tumblr last week where I said something along the same lines. I'm not at all annoyed by genuine questions from interested parties, even if the questions are the same questions that have been asked before (this is especially true at an event like DragonCon - unless you were standing nearby, you didn't hear the answer, so it's totally ok to ask again). I'm really very mellow, but there were some people hanging around me that were making fun of the other people that were coming to talk to me - this was lame and that's not how I roll. I hope it didn't deter anyone. So many people had questions and many were the same, valid questions. For those of you that missed me at DC or if you're just curious, but don't want to ask...here are the answers! Q: Is that knit or crochet? A: 100% crochet, even the incredibly tight stitches around my elbows. Those...

UPDATE 2/6/23: Just made some formatting adjustments to this fine, fine post.   Poof = yarn and time NOTE: This is not a pattern because... I really enjoy finding excuses to use this picture. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. I didn't write down numbers of stitches nor numbers of rows for ANYTHING. I wrote down measurements and more measurements. And drew pictures. With measurements. Then did a whole lot of measuring. Crochet a row, stop, measure, decide if I need any increases or decreases, repeat. The boots were marginally more simple, but equally time-consuming. What Is This Then? This is me explaining to you what I did to make my very specific boots and how I made them to fit my specific feet. Your task, if you choose to accept it, is to extrapolate this mighty knowledge to create your own boots. Sailor Saturn's boots are unique among the scouts. Different scouts have different shoes. Know yer shoes, kids!  You should be able to do this with pr...

  UPDATE 2/6/23: These very nice boots utterly destroyed my feet. FYI. I wrapped up the final pieces of my crochet Sailor Saturn cosplay last week...at least the pieces that will be on my body. The Silence Glaive is still in a sort of limbo. It's been raining for days upon days and in order to do my repairs on the mighty beast I need to lug it outside on a not-rainy day with low humidity. The Weather Gods have not been on my side. I'm going to be...um...injecting(?!) epoxy resin UNDER the crochet in the weak spots that need to be reinforced. This is insane, I know. If it doesn't work I'm just going to coat the whole thing in a layer of epoxy and some silicone. I was trying to prevent it from becoming insanely heavy, but my tragic design flaws during Stage 1 may have ruined this dream. If I end up coating it, I'll be able to use it to for real bludgeon people at DragonCon, so watch out! For any future crochet-covered props, I'm going to be sure to create fra...

UPDATE 2/6/23: Format fixing. I was moving full-steam ahead on this mighty adventure. 'Was' is the operative word. I had some grand goals to finish completely by the end of this weekend. But alas! I thought I had another skein of Caron Simply Soft 'Passion.' I was trucking along on the boots when I ran out and discovered that I had no more. 'Passion' is the main purple I'm using. I don't even need that much more to finish. I left the house to get another skein and both Walmart and Michael's failed me. They always have this color, but not when I need it. I'm not going to order a single skein of yarn, so...I guess I'll be finishing the yarnwork for the Silence Glaive. Sweater Saturn Bag Lady Mitts Not having made a great deal of gloves in my crocheting time, I poked around the Internet until I found a pattern I could modify in order to work for this costume. I went with Stitch11's Simple, Easy and Quick Arm Warmers . I dropped my ...

UPDATE 2/6/23: Corrected some weird formatting. Bringin' The Law! Nisha's glove doesn't have any pink on it, so I went ahead and painted it. It only took about an hour. You know I love progress pictures so here, look at this: It looks much better on my hand and finished. Ignore my stupid face. It looks like I'm surprised I have a hand. I'm so bad at selfies. I ordered the other paint colors I need (as well as fabric glue) and I'm going to cut out the boot armor pieces, belt buckle, etc. from cardboard shortly, so that I can attach all of them and get started painting as soon as the stuff comes. I don't think the painting will take as long as Zer0. At least I hope it doesn't... Mainly because I have hundreds of hours of work left on the Saturn suit. Sailor Saturn's Bodice The bodice (sans sleeves) took about 80 hours, give or take. I'm still not quite done with it. I need to go back and add needlepoint detail stuff and the sl...

UPDATE 2/6/23: Did some format-fixing... I finally got back to work on this monumental task. I decided to dive into the bodice, which I anticipated to be the most difficult part. It's proving to be quite challenging. Again, I'm trying to avoid the Sailor Sack look and I'm going for a form-fitting top that doesn't strangle me, further smash my already flat chest nor pinch my armpits. Oh, and I also want to be able to get in and out of it easily. The nature of crochet doesn't allow me to make a big crochet fabric panel and then cut the fabric to the appropriate size and shape. I have to shape and properly size each piece...at the same time...as I go...while also concerning myself with the ridiculous shading I was compelled to do. It's involving a lot of strategic increases and decreases and constantly checking measurements to ensure that everything is happening as it should. It's quite tedious. By "quite tedious," I mean "really, really tedi...