Tag: doll

Yarn, Knitting and Crochet

Projects Finished and What’s Next?

Iris Rose

Last Saturday found DD1 and I at the Fibre Shindig. Wow, what a wonderful experience but very hard on the budget! Lots of gorgeous squishiness leapt into my shopping bag to come home and join the stash party.

Speaking of stash, I am using up my stash of worsted ends with charity hat knitting.  I know that I wrote about this before but here are a some of the hats that I made this month.

Do you ever hit the wall creatively? I am so there. I haven’t even got the creative juice to clean up my new patterns and publish them. Do you think it might be spring fever after the long dark winter? I hope so as I am ready to rock those needles and hooks if I can just find the right project! I will update you next week; my mind is cooking up an idea while I am writing this!

Okay, enough of the grumbling! I have made a new toy and I am tickled with the result. How is this for some serious cuteness!
I started with my monster pattern, which is free on ravelry by the way. I made longer ears and left out the hair rows on the body piece. It is an easy adaption and a quick make.


I finally got this little sweater sewn up this week. It had been languishing in the UFO pile for only a short time, but I am determined that the UFO pile is going to stay at two week finish or frog status.


I also found this little cradle bag, almost finished, when I organized (sort of) my stash and finished it up this week as well. Looks like I am on a roll!

Happy crafting this week and may all of your yarn pull easily from the centre!

Knitting

Done Dollies!

Iris Rose

Last week my subject was undone dollies. This week, tada, they are almost finished! I only have two little mermaids left to sew up and I am all done with this portion of my sale stock.  I went from this

to this

in just five days!  The little babies are about 15cm or 6″ tall and the little kids are 10cm or 4″ tall.

I had a good time putting these together. I usually have fun knitting these little toys; so much fun in fact that I keep on working on the knitting part with no regard as to how long the finishing will take. I normally regret my knitting impulse but this time it was different. I didn’t hurry through the process last weekend. I took my time with the faces and hair and really enjoyed myself.

  
I confess that I do like all of them but one. I am just not happy with the face on one little one but have a plan to redo the eyes and I think that it will make a huge difference. A couple of the little mouths are crooked but, as in real life, I am just going to accept them as they turned out. Someone will find them huggable I am sure.

  
I need to get back to reducing my stash and knitting little toys is definitely not the way. I see a blanket or two or at least a couple of bulky sweaters in my future project pile. Now if I can just get to it.

Have a happy week and enjoy whichever craft you decide to work with.

Knitting

Procrastinating and Finally Getting Back To It

Iris Rose

I am so glad that Spring is finally here! I love the light later in the evening; it is still light at 8:45PM this week, yahoo! I guess that fills the exclamation mark quota for this post, so I will have to calm down and write about crafting.

I have been messing around with my new to me knitting machine (having a ton of fun) and have been neglecting my hand crafts. I have also procrastinated about pattern writing. I have two in the works but just keep gliding past them for the new machine. It is just so hard to resist!


I sorted out my stock after my last sale and found that, even though I have a lot of stuffed toys still, I am woefully short of knitted dollies. I am always surprised by the popularity of this little babies, I don’t know why. So, on the couch I have been perched this week and, so far, I have five babies and two little mermaids knit up and ready to assemble. I don’t have photos of these ones but have photos of some long sold to show you.

  

The mermaid is based on a pattern by Amy Gaines called Mermaid and the babies are based on a Jean Greenhowes’ pattern that is free on her website. I can’t ever knit a pattern as written, (why is that?) so both of these sweet dollies are modified to suit my purpose. Wendy Phillips’ patterns are in my Ravelry library and calling out to me as well. Maybe I will discipline myself enough to get to those next week.


Toy making is a really fun way to use up your odds and ends and there is always, always someone willing to adopt your work.