Meet Practice Ted!

Here's a cute little teddy!

As soon as I finished it, my husband claimed it for his car.  

The pattern's really easy.  All I did was draw a teddy shape on graph paper and work it in double crochet.  That seems to approximate to graph squares - not in size, but in proportion.  The ears were worked out as I made them, but they worked well, I think.  He did look rather like a gingerbread man without them.

I'm glad I made a practice ted, because there are some things I would change next time.  I did a little muzzle, which I wouldn't bother with next time - not effective.  And I'm wondering if his body's a bit long.  Maybe I'll make Grunge Ted a bit bigger, too.

Here's the wool I bought on Saturday for Grunge Ted.

Grey for the body, red for the little grungy t-shirt.  And then there's some white felt with sparkles for a logo for the t-shirt.  Pretty macho, no?  Possibly not, but I really can't bring myself to give my godson something I haven't made.  Not when I give everyone else handmade stuff.

Anyway, off to crochet an elephant's bottom, and work out how to convert an elephant pattern to a hippo one.  Shouldn't be impossible, I think.  I may be overconfident there, but I'll post pictures, disaster or no.

Headless Ted!

The Grunge Ted is developing well, and so is Mummy Elephant.

 A headless Ted, both sides done, still not decided what to do about the head.

 Side one, the front, with head.  I decided to work it upwards from the shoulders in the end, and put ears on afterwards.  I did consider making a circle for the head, but I thought it might look a bit too much like a gingerbread man.  This seems to be working.

And Mummy Elephant with two sides!  It's growing pretty fast, considering it's doubled from the original size and I'm working on the ted at the same time.

And look at this.  Remind you of anything?

Maybe it was only in the eighties and no one else would remember it now, but I'm sure that when I was at school we used a discus just like that, wooden and puck-shaped.  It never went very far when I threw it...

It's Spring!

In fact, this may be summer, so we'd better make the most of it.  My garden is getting going big-time.

My daffodils are bright and cheery, and in the background, there are my hellebores.  First time they've ever flowered!

 These are Ranunculus.  The name is Brazen Hussy, and the flowers open up in the sun and close up at night.  I love to watch them.

 This is my little Kojo-no-mai Japanese Cherry, flowering fit to burst.

 This cherry is just starting to flower - it's called Ruby.

 This bit of the garden is the bit I don't usually own up to.  We've got to think of something to do with it this year.  In previous years, we've grown veggies on it, but they either don't do anything or produce way more than we can eat.  We're thinking of a nice seating area to make it easy.  It's a good sheltered space.

 The best bit of gardening is sitting looking at it.  And we've had just the right weather to do that this weekend!

 Our bird-feeding station.  We put out all sorts of stuff for the birds, but all they want is the mealworms.  They chuck all the seeds out in search of the yummy worms.  The coconuts full of yummy fat and seeds they ignore.  Spoilt birds!

I love being able to put the washing outside to dry.  It smells so much better.  And I get to use my home-made peg-bag...

This is the reason we have fussy birds.  All the little pretty birds go next door for their dinners, and we get the big ones that can take care of themselves.

Best friends for once, having worn themselves out stalking birds.  Rascals!

Grunge Teddy

It's an absolutely glorious spring day out there, and I'm going shopping for yarn this afternoon, which makes today even better!

I'm making a big elephant for my friend's daughter's birthday (for my friend to give her), and I'll make a small elephant from me.  I've been thinking about my friend's son, though - my godson.  He's going to be nineteen, and a crocheted something seems a bit silly for a nineteen-year-old boy.  On the other hand, a voucher for HMV or somewhere seems a bit dismissive when I'm doing all this crocheting for his sister.

I think I may have hit on a compromise now.  A Grunge Teddy.  He likes dark blues and reds, so I'm thinking of a stylised kind of teddy in dark inky blue with a red t-shirt on, and possibly a skull and crossbones on the t-shirt. Something kind of ironic, you know?

I've done a graph paper pattern.  The body's okay, I think, but I'm not really sure about what'll happen with the head.  I'll probably start at the shoulders and work down to the legs all in one piece.  The arms are going to stick straight out, so the body, arms and legs will all be in one piece.  Well, two, if you count the front and the back.  After that, I might start at the shoulders again and crochet in the opposite direction to make the head.  Alternatively, I might do a circle for the head.  Still thinking.

I've got some yarn that will do for a practice ted.  It's good enough to work with, but not so good that it'll be a disaster if I ruin it.  Sirdar 4 ply cotton in Walnut - not quite as nice a colour as it looked on the website, but pretty good for a teddy.  For the real thing, I'll get some dark blue or grey, some bright red for the t-shirt, and some white felt for the skull and crossbones.  There might be something extra in the way of chain or safety pins too - a Punk Ted!

Will post when it's under way.  Exciting!

Sunshine Daisies Kindle Cover

Finished, with a little closing flap and button!  It took me a little while to decide what to do for a flap and which button to use.  I wanted to do an envelope type flap, using the shell pattern to decrease naturally, and it worked, once I'd done the maths.  (Not my strong point, maths.)  Then it took some time to sort through the button box and decide.  I found a white button which matched the flowers, but in the end I went for a shell one, because I just love those, and they go with everything.

Isn't it adorable?  I just love the freshness of the colours.  I have to admit to being inseparable from my Kindle, so covers are an ideal thing to make - an ever-present model to measure them on!

You can find this and other items on my Folksy shop, also called Little Lovely Stuff.  Click here.

Mummy Elephant in progress

I've been thinking for a while about increasing the size of a little elephant pattern I've used.  Small gauge wool is much more pleasant to use, in my opinion, so the pattern would need doubling in some way.


I got out some graph paper and started work.

I outlined the pieces as given in the pattern, then doubled the size on another sheet of graph paper. After that, I wrote down the basic pattern in terms of "increase this many here, decrease that many there". Very basic, but it works! So far, anyway.

Mummy elephant is for a birthday present from my friend for her daughter in June. It'll be yellow (like Primrose elephant) with white inner ears. I'm also going to do a baby elephant to go with it - white with yellow inner ears - as a present from me.

I've done about a third of the first side so far. I'll post updates as it goes on. 

Little Lovely Stuff's photostream

Little Lovely Stuff's photostream on Flickr.

I found a button on Flickr to share my photostream with Blogger, so I clicked it to see what happened.  Let's hope that no one ever leaves me alone with a big red button that blows things up!

Here's my current project - a cover for a Kindle 3.  I started with a couple of rectangles to fit the Kindle, pretty yellow cotton in a turtle stitch pattern.  Then I made a whole bundle of little white flowers.  They're not really daisies, but I like to think of them as daisies.


They all fit on!  Yay!


Next job - sewing on all the daisies.  I finished this late at night, hence the strange lighting.  Really must learn to use that camera...


Now the sides have been joined up.  Lucky I remembered to do all the sewing on before I did this...


and the back.
 

It fits my Kindle like a glove.  I'm really pleased about that.
Now all I have to do is add a fastening.  I'd like to make a triangular envelope-type flap using the turtle stitch you can see on the back.  Might have to experiment.  Then raid the button box.  Shell buttons are my favourites but that might look a little bit dirty against the white daisies.  Will post a pic when it's done.