First, a Christmas ornament. This was a kit that came with an issue of Simply Knitting that I picked up when I was at my parents' house. It's a kit for "4-ply" (American translation: fingering weight yarn). They included small amounts of red and white in acrylic. There were three possible patterns. I chose the one I liked best; I didn't realize the kit was probably kitted up for the one with a lot more red in it and I ran short on white....
so I wound up taking the leftover white dk from the SECOND item I will show you, unplying it, and using it, keeping my fingers crossed that the whites were similar enough it wouldn't stand out.
I think it came out OK:
I had to add in the new yarn right over the end of the patterning, so the whole top of the ball is the different yarn. (And in other news: "Double knitting" is, in fact, twice as heavy as four ply so you can divide strands of it in half and have four-ply weight.)
I will have to squeeze and squish it back into shape before next Christmas when I put it on the tree; it got kind of misshapen in my luggage.
The second item is actually the first of the numerous toys I made over break:
This is Bryony. She is TINY - like, 3 and a 1/2 inches long. Her kit came in a back issue of Simply Crochet and I just never got around to making her before. The instructions suggested unravelling the mane and tail yarn to make them fluffy but I like them better this way.
I named her Bryony because at the time I was making her (just before Christmas) I was watching some kids' specials on TV and one of them was a different sort of movie called "Arthur Christmas" - essentially, a competition between the "current" Santa's two sons for which one would take over the "business" - the brusque and efficient Steve, or the more-traditional and kindly Arthur. (The idea being: heart wins out in the end). When Arthur finds out a little girl's bike has been forgotten, he sets off with the retired-Santa (his grandfather) and an asthmatic reindeer and one of the elves - a hyperactive package-wrapper named Bryony. I liked the name so I appended it to the little unicorn.
(The movie is odd but sweet. I guess it was a British-American collaboration: some of the humor seems more "British" to me, and the voice actors seemed to all be Brits. One thing I liked was the way it kind of explained away the "but how does Santa live so long?" by making the position, rather than the individual, the eternal thing, and that it is essentially a hereditary position).
When I've shown all the critters I made, I should take a photo of "The League of Crocheted Ungulates" because all four of the crocheted critters I made were ungulates (well, at least in part....) and the only other toy I made was a knitted cat....
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While I was out of town, my Doki Doki box came. This one is for The Year of the Dog (I guess timing it to Western New Year - the Chinese New Year doesn't come until NEXT month). Fun stuff in this crate - a little sponge that is a dachshund head, and a stuffed Shiba, and a plaque like the ones people used to hang in temples (it said the inscription of mine was a wish for more luck in the new year). And a Cinnomoroll (who I guess is a dog and not a bunny) notebook.
And then this nice big thing:
A doge floor mat! It's maybe about 15" tall, and I've put it in front of my living-room chair; it matches better than the woven mat I did have there.
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Yesterday afternoon I broke the long stall on the "birb" quilt - put together a few more blocks and tried one of the half-blocks. I have about a dozen blocks left to do, and most of the half-blocks, but I'm hoping I can be motivated to work a little on it regularly and get it done sooner rather than later (I need to get back to sewing more; I enjoy it and I neeeeeeeed to work down on the fabric stash).
I went to the JoAnn's today and spotted this fabric when I walked in and it seemed so perfect (the colors are all colors in the bird fabric and I really like the design, especially on the back of a fairly plain quilt), so I bought a bunch for the backing:
Still not sure if I will hire this one out to quilt or do it myself, though at the rate at which I hand-quilt I should probably hire it out.....
And I went to a few other places (Ulta, and Five Below and Home a la Mode and one of the antique/local artist shops....). One of my online friends and I are doing a "winter doldrums" swap of small things and I found some fun stuff to send her.
I found this at Five Below and it was a total impulse purchase:
I once opined a person couldn't have too many of these smallish fleece blankets. This one has kitticorns on it (cats with uncorn horns and wings and rainbows) and so I couldn't resist it. (I did wash it first - I am paranoid enough about any new fabric items that's going to touch my skin gets washed, because of that old episode of "House, MD" where the kids got poisoned by pesticides from their jeans....which I guess actually WAS based on an actual thing that happened).
But yeah. It's super cute, and it's been so cold in my living room (lots of windows and at the exposed front of my house - it seems to be hotter in the summer and colder in the winter than the rest of my house), so it's nice to have.
1 comment:
I love to see colorful, pretty things when it's cold and gray outside.
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