Friday, November 18, 2016

The tiny toys

I finished these (finally) last night. It's surprising how long they took.

tiny toys overview

They differ in size but none is more than about 3" long. The frog, snail, and caterpillar are made of worsted weight yarn; all the others are of "4-ply," which is like fingering weight.

I highly recommend using worsted weight if you make these. The patterns are from "Knits for Kittens," a fairly new book. These are actually MOST of the animal toys in the book (there is also a little donut and a cat head and a couple of other toys).

Here are two more close-up shots:

tiny toys 1


tiny toys 2


It's very hard to make the faces on these - for one thing, it's hard to embroider well on knitting, and for the other, they are very small. I'm less pleased with the faces than I thought I would be.


***

I think this afternoon/evening I am going to (finally) get out the rest of the Christmas decorations (the tree, the garland that goes over the windows, the pillows, the Nativity set) and put them up. For one thing, it's time: I will be traveling essentially all of next week, and when I get back I will be rushed to finish up things related to teaching and finals.

And secondly, I'm just tired. This has been a very stressful few weeks for a lot of reasons. My stomach is acting up again which leads me to wonder if it's a stress or anxiety issue. (Or maybe it's just female stuff, as things unpredictably wind down as I slowly approach 50. I've said before my mother had digestive disturbances....)

And I desperately feel the need of something to cheer myself up. (I hope this does. One year in the past, another year that had been brutal, I had to sit down and cry because I thought of all the people I would no longer be able to send cards or gifts to, because they were gone.) And I just want to ignore what's going on in the outside world for a while - there's precious little I can do to change it, I can only live through whatever may happen.

I also tentatively have plans to go shopping tomorrow. Not grocery shopping; my stomach issues are once again circumscribing what I can eat and also I will be gone pretty much all of next week. But I do want to go to a few places and buy some funny silly little stocking-stuffer type gifts, some for family, maybe some to mail off to friends, and maybe get some cards in case CPAAG decides to do the card exchange again this year. (And even if they don't, I have a few addresses I can send funny cards to).

I also need to finish the gift-mitts for AAUW; hopefully I can do that Sunday after helping decorate the church. (That will also help to cheer me up: being around people I care about, doing something useful, and usually there are at least a few laughs during the time.)

I did have a go at packing the Christmas presents for family last night; they JUST fit in my suitcase if I unzip the gusset (my dad's gift is large). There's enough room for a couple days' worth of clothing, as well, and my carry-on can hold my toiletries and pajamas and some books and whatever project I decide to take to work on during the (small amount of, I expect) downtime I get during the break.

I'm already thinking forward towards Christmas break: my one big project is going to be Ana Rosa's Shetland Pony in a Sweater. It was kind of expensive as patterns go for me, but I decided I couldn't resist it any longer. (I might do a brown pony rather than a white one, though). 

1 comment:

purlewe said...

OH MY GOODNESS!!! Those are fantastic! I love the snail and the mouse and well.. all of them really. What a wonderful gift to your niece.