Gilbert. Named after the city I live in. He’s stuffed with wool and a beanbag full of peas. He is made from the free Rowan pattern, Sheep Toys.
I am busy making his counterpart right now. After that I really should start knitting some useful things!
I bought this pretty pouch bag from kakaymarie’s shop on Etsy. It is very well made and just lovely. I like buying things made with care by others from Etsy. I don’t have a shop there but I thoroughly enjoy and revel in the creativity of others.
This is a felted wool doll stuffed with wool roving. You can find the pattern here. It was knit in the round in one piece using size 2 double pointed needles and lots of patience. I would say it took me a little over a month to knit the doll, but I have a full time job and did much of it here and there. Sometimes though on weekends, I did put in 3 or 4 hours at a sitting while watching BBC mini series’ such as Bramwell, North & South, and the Catherine Cookson films off Netflix to make the time go faster. The body, before felting, was 26 inches and shrunk to 19 inches which is 27 percent. She is the size of a newborn. She sits on her own and has a butt shaped like a diaper, which I think is pretty cute.
The doll has heft, and if I weren’t a grown up I would want to carry her around. She is warm and feels good in my arms. I used 5 balls of Knitpicks Palette: 3 for the body and 2 for the hair; and 4 bags of roving to stuff her. I crocheted here little top in a Cotlin, and shoes in Bamboo & Ewe. I bothered to write what I did down, so I will provide an improvised pattern for the top and actual pattern for the shoes if people request it, otherwise I won’t bother. The top is more improvised as I went, but anyone can do that if they know how many to chain in the beginning and how big to make the arm holes.
Making the doll was a satisfying experience, and I learned how fun felting can be.
I ordered a bracelet off Etsy a few days back and got it in my mail last Saturday. It came in a pretty, Christmas-type box so it felt like I was getting a present in the mail! The bracelet is a counting bracelet and it comes with directions as to its use. There are 50 natural stone beads divided in 10-bead increments between small silver beads, and two rings of which one is showing in the center of it for this photo. Each time you count something you move the ring over a bead. I’ve used it for counting rows for knitting already, and I think it is a terrific little tool. In my mind, I’ve designated columns like an abacus: 1’s and 10’s, so that each time I finish 10 rows, I put the one ring back to the beginning and move the second ring up a notch in the 2nd 10-bead segment to represent 10 rows completed. There is a focal bead and dangle on the underside. If you want details, you can go here.
Today I am using it to count calories, only the first 10 bead segment I am calling the 10’s column while the remaining segments are 100’s. I am having a lot of fun with my bead bracelet. My 7-year old daughter even used it for counting. I think these bracelets would be good for kids. You could add a ring or two more for additional “columns”. She had so much fun and thought it was the coolest thing ever.
I made this blanket for a gift. I wanted something simple and warm, so I used this pattern from Project Linus called Newbie, and I highly recommend it. I made it about a foot larger, and crocheted until the whole thing was gone. It turned out about crib size. I used Lion Brand Pound of Love in a soft yellow and bordered it with Caron Simply soft. I like how the border feels around it and I like how squishy and spungy the Pound of Love is. When I started crocheting and knitting a few years ago, I was not attracted to synthetic fibers and wanted only to stitch using cotton, wool, bamboo .. it didn’t take long for me to decide acrylic isn’t such a bad thing, especially for a baby blanket that will get washed a lot. Cotton can be heavy, stretch out of shape and be hard to dry in the dryer, but terrific for dishclothes and face cloths more than anything else.
What I like about the Newbie blanket is it is simple, beautiful and dense with few holes. The border is a combination of single crochet, sideways fan with the last row as bauble. I like the spongy little dots around it. I made the border up as I went, so that was my own thing.
One thing I like about crochet for a blanket is that its thicker. In crochet you go through two loops rather than one loop like you do for knitting. Also, there aren’t many crocheted blankets you can find in the store. I have assumed they have no machine to duplicate a hand made crocheted blanket.
My daughter is modeling a hat I made from a pattern I bought by Brooklyn Tweed called Fortnight. The yarn is very soft wool by Knitpicks called City Tweed. I absolutely love the yarn and the pattern. I made it a bit longer than the pattern called for because I like hats that go a little above the brow. Here it is rolled up for the rim effect.
I bought this Amigurumi crochet doll pattern from Etsy found here. She was fun to make. I used a yarn of lace weight for the body and some cotton yarn for the hair. This doll can be placed in so many poses. I’ve included some here. I still have sandals to make her. The pattern comes with lots of different dresses to sew up or crochet.
Heres proof of other things done in my house besides crochet! My daughter is proudly displaying some cookies to help celebrate Easter we made this morning.
I’ve been crocheting granny squares kind of like one would do a puzzle, for the challenge and for samples of possible future projects. I used Aunt Lydia’s fashion crochet size 3 with a 3.5 steel hook for these because I was interested in seeing the stitch definition clearly. I think this one might make a pretty pillow. The outside border is an fpdc sc combo that I really like. Its called Snowfall and you can find it here. Another nice person who writes patterns well and gives to us all some beautiful things we can make.
Here is another one by Jessica Tromp. She has all sorts of crochet patterns of every kind imaginable, as well as knitting patterns. She passes on her knowledge to the world for free and keeps up her web site. I find what she gives to us all extremely charitable. She uses charts which I personally prefer. Her site is here
This square is simple and looks a little like the basic granny square only a step up, and a little more lacey.
Today, for the first time I faced reality. I looked at Pupsterina clustered together on my little daughter’s shelf and realized I have re-entered childhood. I care for these things way more than my 7-year old ever would. And my husband plain old doesn’t get the fascination. Why don’t I spend my craft on more practical things? I’m not sure. Something about the little faces I’m creating expresses me in a way a knitted sweater or socks just won’t. I have one sock. I knitted that about a year ago. What little toy can I knit next?
