Thursday, January 09, 2020

A little one

This is the second finished item. I finished her on Christmas Eve, so I named her Marzipan, after the Christmas candy. (Though not just for Christmas. And I like marzipan, I know not everyone does)

Marzipan

She was made using Claire Garland's The Princess Snowdrop pattern but I used different colors. She is knit all in one piece - the legs are made by casting on at the end of rows - and it's a fairly clever construction. I once noted that knitted toys came in different designs, ones where you knit flat pieces like the pieces of a sewn toy, and then had tons of finishing to do, and others (which I think of as designs that make better use of the unusual things you can do with knitting) where they are more or less in one piece, and things like increases and decreases provide the shaping, and there are far fewer seams to sew up at the end. This one is that kind of pattern. (It is free on Ravelry).

The pattern really only takes scraps; I used less than a ball (maybe half a ball) of Red Heart Soft*


(*Many toy patterns are written to be made with fancy wools or alpacas that I have learned living in a warm climate, if you're going to have something out on display, use a man-made fiber or you may find a little hole eaten in it eventually. I am not the greatest housekeeper but even people who are more attentive to it than I have complained about various bugs)

Her sweater is just some scraps that I had - it takes a very tiny amount. The heart is knitted intarsia-in-the-round style, which I would not want for a garment for me, but it works for a small toy.

Marzipan sweater

I made the face very simple: just a couple of little lock-washer eyes, and an embroidered nose.

Marzipan

Her legs are a little bit "noodly" but I think greyhound's legs just naturally look kind of "noodly" compared to their body.

Just by comparison, here she is with Belinda, so you can see how small she is:

size comparison
***

I did run to Sherman today. No Creatable World dolls (as I kind of expected; the Target has a v. small toy section and I also suspect dolls that could be played with as a non-binary gender might not sell well here) and none of the new MLP stuff (actually, very little MLP stuff at all)

I did, however, go to JoAnn's. My mom had carried on the tradition my dad did of giving "stocking money" (a large-ish bill tucked in each person's stocking - $50 was typical in recent years). I spent it there - just over five yards of warm brown Kona cotton, for the sashing on an eventual quilt where the focus fabrics will be scraps of different pink prints (and maybe a few leaf-greens). I also got a new doormat (it's dark out now, and I put it out, or I'd photograph it - it's kind of a simple Art Deco style and it seemed like it would suit my house. AND I bought a Simplicity-branded drawstring bag. I don't really NEED a big laundry bag (though I could use it for a larger knitting project), but I really liked the sentiment on it. (you can see it here.) It has women in a variety of dresses (including a mod 60s floral mini) and it says on it "It's okay if you don't like me, not everyone has good taste." It made me laugh and honestly that's a sentiment I'd like to feel - I tend to be too much of a people-pleaser and if someone seems to dislike me, I think it's some fault in me rather than a fault in that person (or accepting that just not everybody can like everybody else, though I tend to think it's silly to dislike someone for a trivial reason, like how they dress).

But yeah, maybe having a little reminder that "the people who like you are simply people of good taste and sound judgment, and the people who don't, aren't" will help.

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