Chunky Cabled Mittens and Ramblings

These are the matching pattern to the hat I finished last month. This time I doubled up the yarn as I was not happy with the loose knit of the hat so far as warmth goes. I am very happy with the mittens, they will be warm and I like the style of them.  I worked on them often while visiting and waiting for hubby at the hospital. He should be coming home today .... fingers crossed.

I also knit a lining for the hat after I finished the mittens, in order to make it warmer. It was my own fault it was not thick enough, as it was supposed to be a chunkier yarn than Bernat Softee Chunky. None the less, I have fixed that up now as well.

For Christmas I made many pair of mucluc style slippers for the family, some hats, a warm long mitten for hubby at dialysis, some cowls and scarves, and a shawl. And of course the toys and sweaters for the niece'sand nephew's children. The dialysis nurses ended up getting some flat Santa ornaments, or some fat Santa ornaments (my own creations), or a snowman or one of the crochet tarts. I had intended to send just the tarts and cupcakes, but hubby wanted a variety so I improvised! :D I have also made several more of the sheep, so the flock now has a blue sheep, pink sheep, black sheep, mohair sheep, and the original white sheep. Might make a few more to enter the January contest, or perhaps not. I have been entering many contests the last month, so perhaps one will be lucky.

I got some new pattern books for Christmas, one of Susan Anderson's knitted toys, and another of amigurumi dogs. I am looking forward to getting into those now, but I want to make a little more progress on the sweater I have started first. That will be an entirely new blog post I think!

Cheers, and happy New Year to all who drop by to see what I have been creating. I don't know who you are, but there are many of you from all over the world and it always makes me smile when I see how many people around the world do pop in to read. Thank you all!

Chubby Sheep Amigurumi

I have found so many interesting groups on Ravelry, which inspire me to create my own things. One of the recent groups I joined is called The Underground Crafter, and the moderator of this group has her own blog in which she reviews patterns and books, and she also creates her own designs. The current design is a truly adorable sheep. So far, I have made 3 of these little toys, each one very unique and sweet!

My initial sheep was completed using a skein of mohair yarn that I received in a swap package. It was a little hard to crochet with as it was so fuzzy, but I was determined to have a mohair sheep. The popcorn stitch is lost in the fluff, unfortunately, so I added some legs and a tail to it to bring it to life. This one, alas, is a favourite of one of my cats, who kept trying to steal the yarn as I was making it, and now he will pounce upon it and take it away to play with if I leave it within his reach.

I then set about making an ordinary sheep in white acrylic yarn, nothing fancy at all. I discovered in making this one that  I most likely did not do a very good job on the popcorn stitch of the mohair sheep. But, she is cute and has her own personality! She also got feet and a tail, since the popcorns were not overly well done.
Sheep number 3 was done in Caron Simply Soft yarn, and is the most like it should be. Yarn is so important, even when making toys! This is the little sheep with the blue face, legs and a blue "collar". I thought this would be a great gift for a baby .... and I like it so much I am now making another with a pink face!

So, thank you, Underground Crafter, for the joy of creating these little toys! They are quite easy, especially if you already know how to do the popcorn stitch (I know how to do it well now too!)

Underground Crafter Group on Ravelry

Underground Crafter Blog

Christmas Fairies Amigurumi

I have several very good friends that I play Scrabble and other word games with on the internet, via Bug Cafe . If you play Scrabble, you know all about the Tile Fairy. She often favours my opponent with choice letters (LOL, you know who you are!) so I thought I might create a fairy to celebrate their word play skills. And so the amigurumi fairy was born!

Tah dah! 3 Fairies waiting for a new home!

They are also good at shelf sitting if they don't fit on the Christmas tree.

I have not finalized the wing pattern yet, but I think I favour the smaller wings on the first doll in the picture. 

I have written down the general directions for making her, if anyone is interested I would post them for you. The dress and hair I like to personalize, whatever direction the creative muse directs me, but the body and head is the same for all of them. If you follow the picture sequence, and you know some basic crochet, you would be able to produce your very own little fairy creation! The hardest part was finding stars for her wand ... these I eventually found at the dollar store in some packages of beads in the toy section. I cut a sparkly pipe cleaner for the handle of the wand and just put it through the hole in the bead and secured it that way. After all, what is a fairy without a magic wand???
The arms and legs are just a strip of single crochet (2 rows) done to the length you wish. The legs fold over the arms, and are secured with a few stitches. My legs are about 43 stitches long and the arms are about 24 stitches. For the hands. I do 3 dblcr at the ends. The feet don't need to be made larger as I crochet shoes on her later on. After the legs and arms are completed, I crochet a top onto the body. Crochet the top of the dress, then when the circle is large enough, leave small holes to poke the arms through by skipping a few crochet stitches and doing a ch3 instead. Then next round, crochet into the 3 chain stitches to secure the dress to the body. To make the front, back and sides, you stop increasing remember and just crochet around the rounds. If the top is too large, I decrease a few stitches around the waist.

Perhaps this is a clearer picture of the way the arms and dress are attached.

Continue to make the skirt of the dress. I use different innovations to make some kind of ruffled skirt. The shoes are crocheted on the bottom of the legs, sc a row, then on the second row of sc, continue passed the leg for 3 sc for the toes part of the shoe, turn and crochet to the heel then fasten off.
The head is just a sphere which is then sewn onto the shoulders. I used 3 stitches of sc on each side of the head for ears. Some of the ears I made pointy, like elf ears. If you forget to make ears before you attach the hair, it is too late!  The hair is another variable for me. Some get curly hair, some get a ponytail, and some get both! Depends on my mood of the moment. The face is usually embroidered after the hair is done, and I make a small bump for a nose, also embroidered. I use a coloured pencil to give the cheeks a blush once the facial features are done. Since these are fairies, they do need wings. This is still a work in progress for me, as all of the wings have also been different. I tried butterfly wings but they were not really what I wanted. Last I secure the wand to one of her "hands" so it does not come off. If you intend to let a little one play with the fairy, it would be better to leave the wand off or find another way to make one without the wire of the pipe cleaner.
If you do make your own, would you let me know how it turns out? I get so much inspiration from seeing what everyone else makes!

The head is attached through both the dress and the body underneath so it is able to hang from the Christmas tree, or anything else you wish!

Better view of the ears. I like them pointy!

A few of the other Christmas Fairies I made ... They evolve with each fairy, as you can see. Theses are the first fairies!

A hat for me!

I have been busy getting things ready for Christmas, and have not posted about them as that would ruin the surprise! But I have been busy making things the last few weeks.

I bought a new jacket for myself a few weeks ago and it is a very different colour from what I have had in the past, so, this means I need new hats and mittens etc to go with it. On Friday I happened to see a call for test knitters (on The Testing Pool group in Ravelry) for a hat, so I jumped into the test. I already had the yarn, 3 skeins of Bernat Softee Chunky in hot blue that I had found at the Zellers liquidation sale a few weeks earlier. Who knew I would need this colour for my new accessories? :D

The hat was a fast knit and I am very happy with it. It has 4 good sized cables around it, with a lovely wide ribbed edge. I still need to block it, but I am looking forward to wearing it once the snow returns (not too soon I hope). It will be perfect for my dialysis drives to pick up hubby.

The designer of this hat is a very young, and obviously talented designer. On reading her blog page, she is only 18. (or she was when she wrote that blog entry!). I believe she will be engineering many wonderful designs over the coming years. Thank you Katja for accepting me to test this hat for you!