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?

Bits and Pieces

Life seems to have been very 'bitty' over the past few days, so this post is about bits and pieces of the last week.

I showed you the yarn that appeared on Saturday:

Well. Post haste, the lighter coloured grey has been turned into this:

This is for my wonderful FIL. Over the past few years he has had numerous operations, chemotherapy and radiotherapy sessions. He has not an ounce of spare flesh on him. Even though he is in Texas, he is very cold at night and hadn't been able to find a hat that didn't come off. Hence...a knitted balaclava. The merino wool is buttery soft and the garter stitch is bouncy and stretchy, so hopefully he will find it useful. It will be put in the post tomorrow.

Now that the nights start so early, we like a candle burning. For years I have used apple and cinnamon scented ones at this time of year:

It brings back lots of memories. In the background are some warm fairy cakes I made after supper.

Atos was a street dog in Romania before he was rescued. He had to forage for food to survive. Though he now lives in the lap of luxury, old habits die hard:

Supper was what I think of 'pretend real cooking'. This comprises a selection of prepackaged foods:

Then real food is added. In this case, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, yellow peppers, fresh tomatoes:

Then add the pesto and salami and boil the pasta:

Bit of grated mozzarella on top and voila - pretend real food in just 20 minutes:

Talking of food...we got our usual online Sainsbury's shop delivered. Whoops. A little confusion. We wanted 6 cans of Heinz tomato soup - the ultimate comfort food. It transpires, however that we ordered 6 packs of 4! Note that in addition to the stacked cans, there are some still plastic wrapped on the top shelf:

Tomorrow's supper will be a black eyed bean and root vegetable stew with crispy baked dumplings:

Finally, there is truth in the phrase that opposites attract: