Bits of Bunnies...

I AM doing some work on Ma's blanket, but I have to confess to still being overly absorbed with bunnies.

I thought I would show a few pictures of bunnies pending. The shoes are made on double pointed needles. I am including some photos of the process, so you begin to get an idea of what goes into making a rabbit.

The ears are knitted flat in my favourite stitch - moss stitch. My nana made sweaters for me and Boo when we were growing up and she loved moss stitch. Whenever I use it, I am reminded of her.

Next, the ears are folded and sown along the bottom. They are then bowed out into a proper shape.

This is the leg section. I like little chubby legs...think of the dancing Shetland Pony advert and you get some idea of my body type, plus my lack of co-ordination! 

Double pointed pins are used to start making the shoe. At first it's a bit fiddly, but you soon get used to it.

Then the leg is sewn up. The shape is right but it looks a bit raw and messy. Add a row of chain stitch around the edge plus a button band and button, et voila...

...a neat and tidy leg.

For the knitters among you, the ears are adapted from Fuzzy Mitten and the legs and shoes are an exact pattern from TwinsKnit.

One of my favourite bits, is making the little cardigans. Made entirely of rectangles, they are quick to make and just look so dinky and cute! I made the pale pink one first, which is why it has a different button from the others. The rest have lovely spotty buttons from an Etsy shop called Paper and String. I can indulge my love of colour with the cardis, and also use them as a semi-legitimate reason for buying yarn!

Working on the assumption that I will still be faffing about with bunnies tomorrow instead of crochet, I shall make and photo other bunny bits!

Eek!!

Is it beginning to look a lot like Christmas? Is it really? Not in terms of my getting on with Christmas presents.

Last night, I finished my 4th bunny with a skirt:

She is wearing stripy tights in hot pink and baby pink:

(This camera angle makes her look out of proportion, though she isn't). Like the other bunnies, she has velvet ribbon threaded through her skirt and tied with a bow:

So far, so good. But what about Christmas? Well, we have some little nick-backs dotted around. They are all of the rather chubby variety, as I myself am:

WOW... My utterly brilliant iPad has added falling snow to my snowman, with me having nothing to do with it. How cool is that?!

There are decorations ON the tree:

(Look...the lights are twinkling. I love you iPad)

And a particularly lovely decoration UNDER The tree:

Now on to the cause of my Eek!!

Ma's blanket. She is staying with us for 2 weeks over Christmas and New Year, so I know I can continue working on it then if necessary, but I would like to have more done.  Here are the joined pieces so far:

Though it is not particularly clear, the bottom two rows have pale blue as their extension colour, and the top row has a mid blue. I have almost finished another row of mid blue, which will go BELOW 

the pale blue:

Then, on either side of the mid blue rows, there will be ones with the turquoise from the central motif used as the extension colour. When it gets to that stage, I will try it on the bed and either make more squares, or edge it.

I have various squares ready to be worked up:

So today, some happy hooking, probably watching all the quite addictive podcasts on You Tube where people give tours of their craft rooms!  Wish me good luck...

Sewing and ironing

Sewing is something at which I would love to become more proficient. I have a fairly simple sewing machine, and I do enjoy playing around on it. Ironing, on the other hand, is not something I wish to pursue with greater vigour.

This morning, however, I did a little of both.

I sewed up these little skirts and then ironed them:

They look cute on my rabbits, though I think the pale blue one might be a bit too long:

(On reflection and seeing her standing on a non slippery surface, I like the long skirt. I've also hitched it up a bit on the 
body)

I also tidied up some dresses and a cardi by hovering over them with steam. It is surprising how heavy an iron is, especially when OCD peeks in and insists you keep on straightening the pleats in the dresses!

I'm hobbling around like an old crone because we also put the Christmas tree up and decorated it. Having cats that love to scratch, and a variety of dogs (think Irish Wolfhound wagging her tail; Duck Tolling Retriever with a tendency to cock his leg against trees; and now an ex street dog who will forage through things),we have always opted for an artificial tree up on a table. It took almost 2 hours to get our 6' tree put together. Then we realised our mistake. Up until we moved to the flat in February, the tree had been in our Victorian house with lovely high ceilings. Here, in the flat, it wouldn't fit on the table. Fin had a brainwave and we removed the bottom three rows of branches so now we have quite a little tree, but it still reaches the ceiling:

I am working on another rabbit in a skirt, but in the meantime, here are a couple more shots of the pretty maids all in a row:

Made a discovery...

It's been a few days since my last trip to Blogland. The spirit has been willing, but the flesh has been oh so weak. I met with my new psychiatrist, who has doubled the level of my mood stabiliser meds. The result, so far, has been an INCREASE in the mood swings, plus feeling like I have the flu. Fun.

I showed you the little nautical themed outfit I have been working on, in my last post. Well, here's an update:

Take the world' least graceful cat...

Add a lit candle with the bowl full of melted wax...

Enter a completed outfit on the table right next to the candle:

Watch as in seemingly slow motion, the cat misjudged a jump and knocks over the candle...and this is the result...

So back to the drawing board.

I was theoretically working on one rabbit yesterday. However, my 

concentration has been pretty rubbish. This resulted in my using a 

completely different yarns for the head and the body. So I now have TWO partially completed bunnies:

They look a bit creepy like this, actually.

Now. On to the title of the post. I use other people's designs to make my animals. The clothes are of my own design, but not the animal bodies. Being somewhat lacking in focus yesterday, I was playing with my iPad. I was doing a comparison of patterns. What I discovered was that basically, the same shapings appear in all the patterns, just with a few tweaks and peaks. My animals are a mish-mash of different patterns. What is interesting, though, is that the shapings are similar both in patterns from which you can sell your toys, and patterns that expressly forbid you use the patterns to make objects for commercial gain.

So thank you to Those talented designers who encourage folk like me to make some income from their work:

FuzzyMittens by Barbara Prime

Fluff and Fuzz by Amanda Berry

Twins Knit by Ala and Ela 

Alan Dart designs

Ooooh ... a new obsession

I knew, just knew, that buying fabric would one day come in handy. Over the past 3 years, since I started crafting in earnest, I have been drawn to fabric. I have bought it, experimented, and chucked the disastrous results in the bin.

Now, though, after the delight of Dottie rabbit, I have found a legitimate use for the stash:

Never normally being one to let little issues like efficiency come between me and what I am doing, I will typically make one bear or bunny from scratch, finish it and then repeat the progress.

This morning, though, I had an 'a-ha' moment. The house was quiet, the dining table was remarkably empty, so I pulled out my fabric and cut out 16 skirt pieces:

They are all poly cotton. You will notice that I am fond of polka dots. These are now all ready for sewing:

Probably foolishly, I mentioned to Fin that I had enough fabric to do 20 more skirts in addition to these that are cut. So now I will have to curtail fabric buying.

I am also not really able to justify getting more wool blend Aran for the bears and bunnies, once you see it all stacked together:

I have all the clothing bits ready for the next rabbit, so this evening is going to be a nice rabbity knitting time:

Hopefully she will be ready to share with you tomorrow, along with our Christmas tree!

Adding a bit of sewing

First off, we are very sad in our house. Our lovely Bodhi finally succumbed to senile dementia, limited vision and hearing, and arthritis. He was put to sleep on Wednesday evening. We are missing him enormously, and Atos is quite lost.

This has added to the stress I am already feeling about getting Christmas presents finished. So last night, I had a stern word with myself, to remind me that knitting and crochet are fun. So I put down the 'have to' pieces and worked on a 'want to' project.

As you know, all my bears are dressed in knitted clothes but 

I have been fiddling around with the idea of incorporating something sewn. I am not the world's best sewer, but I do neat hand sewing and can do basic machine sewing.

I have quite a bit of fabric hidden away, so I brought that out. After trial and error, I worked that a strip the width of a fat quarter was just about right. I then did all the seams by hand, threaded some ribbon through, and it was done. This is the rabbit with my first skirt, in red polka dots:

I made a green moss stitch cardi with a spotty red button and put little red buttons on her shoes. I managed to find exactly the right shade of green thread to sew on the buttons. This is not because

I have masses of thread, but because I have this very elderly emergency sewing kit given to me years ago by Ma, who is the most organised and efficient lady you could ever meet:

Now if I get into this sewing lark, I will have to develop an appropriate fabric and thread stash. My lovely cyber friend Avril will commiserate with me as neither of us enjoy going shopping for supplies!

So I put all the bits and pieces together and was not satisfied with the skirt. I used my sewing machine to do a line of top stitches to define the ribbon casing and it all looked much better:

So this is DOTTIE. I have not yet decided whether to sell her online or through the craft shop. I do know though that I have loved making her. So much so that I have started another rabbit. This time, because of the buttons, I am going for a nautical theme. Any ideas for a suitable name?