Kewpie Doll - quick skirts

Bought a little Kewpie Doll for granddaughter for Christmas - mostly because she kinda looks like a Kewpie Doll herself :-) Then, because most of the fun of playing with dolls is in dressing them and changing their clothes ... I made some ultra quick tutu skirts for the doll. "Knicker elastic" and bits of lace, ribbon & fringing - and please excuse the fuzziness of some of these pics



That last one is quite the thing for a NYE party, don't you agree?

Twas the day before Christmas ...

We had an early Christmas with our grandchildren before we left Melbourne :-)
and I gave them the 1st installment of the Alphabet Project. Here it is hanging on the wall ... it works Yea!

Grandson likes the bat the best ... it is a Boo the Bat by Mochimochi, a perfect size for a little person and he loves the way the wings button up and unbutton for flying ...
Granddaughter likes the baby fish because it is "pinkie" and has "Big eyes - like moine!"

The pattern is Glubby Goldfish by Cheezombie on Etsy

She also loves the dragon a Norbetta and the pink Cockatoo - Oh - you've not seen this one.

I managed to get 3 cockatoos knitted up in time, see the previous post for the Sulphur Crested Cockie, here is a Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo - adapted from the same pattern by Barbara Lennon - the tail is a bit over-wide, cheek patches are embroidered on after -

















and a Major Mitchell Cockatoo - which gets granddaughter's vote because it is a "Pinkie"

Alphabet Soup

Promised in the last blog to show you the finished 'flags / pockets' for the 1st part of the Alphabet project.

With Christmas looming I've decided to give the grands A to G with the rest to follow once they are made (H will be a horse - My Kingdom for a Horse!) sorry I digress ...

Here is A - G hanging on the clothes line
And a close up on the letter B which has extra things sewn on ...

Now you may have noticed that in the top photo the letter C looks rather empty ... that is because when I took that photo I still hadn't finished a Cockatoo ! Finished the 1st one this morning - a Sulphur Crested Cocky :-)







Very happy with this cheeky looking Critter - think I've managed to get that slightly 'punk', rather over-confident, slightly Bob Hawke look that I love in the real birds.





Am planning to knit up a Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo & a Major Mitchell. The pattern is another of Barbara Lennon's in the Cleckheaton out of print booklet. Slight adaptations including making the feet and beak in knitting (instead of felt fabric).

pre Christmas Panic

As always my plans for masses of wonderful Christmas gifts have far exceeded my capacity to make them all.

Have been knitting up a flurry of snowflakes, living in Australia means that Christmas time is closely associated with snow ... NOT !!!
but they are pretty. Here is the 1st batch of snowflakes pinned out to dry :-)
Now I've talked a lot about the big Alphabet Project for my grandchildren - making (mostly knitted) toys for each letter of the alphabet and a pocket thing with the letters and names on ... This is such a mega project that I've decided to give the grandchildren just from A to G this Christmas ... with rest to follow later when I finally finish them.

I had already made an Ant for the letter A - but I simply couldn't resist making the totally traditional Apple as well ... and yes I am typing this on an Apple laptop (product placement warning folks!)

The pocket things are also quite time-consuming. Here are some progress pictures - they are A4 sized doubled felt "flags" with the letters appliqued on











Then pockets to hold the toys, made of cotton drill with the names of the toys painted on in screen-printing goop. Which has to be heat-set ... lots of ironing (oh don't we love ironing NOT!)


Photos of the finished "flags" next post

It's all about the Chair

Lillian has a new green chair - and here she is having a Christine Keeler moment :-)

Lizard Lurv

The knitted Frilled Neck Lizard / dragon toy is finished - I really lurv this guy, he is quite a character :-)


Even when he was being sewn up he was clowning about ... but some toys are like that!

Cheerio for now!

Yarn Dear - Oh Deer!

All the things you can do with yarn :-) and as Christmas is just around the corner ...
Some of the larger craft / sewing stores have cheap papier mache reindeer ... take one of those, some PVA glue, a thinish paintbrush for applying the glue and some nasty acrylic yarn + some time and some sewing pins to hold yarn in place while the glue dries ...

Gee, I'm really into the HANDicrafts ...

Those are some Lizard's Legs - front legs for the knitted Frilled Neck Lizard (see my previous post) he is now in the sewing-up stage.

And - I've been working on the mascot Dog Costume - I posted about the front paws last month. I've had a bit of help with the head - from a friend who made a quarter of the current NRL Team mascot costumes ...

First step is to mock up the head in card - this will become the pattern. I've yet to do the ears but it is looking dog-like :-)

The Dromaius novaehollandiae (or Emu)

Is this a patented polishing cloth with very long legs?

Or is it a knitted toy Emu saying,
"Could you please sew my head on now? Please..."

So I did.


I think she is quite proud of her long legs! See the previous post for details of the pattern etc.

kNovember kNitting

More of the alphabet project knitted toys ... and E is for Emu. Still in parts and awaiting a head:

Like the Wombat for W - the Emu pattern is by Barbara Lennon from the Cleckheaton booklet "Wildlife in 8 ply" (out of print unfortunately). I'm using the same 8 ply yarn as for wombat and kangaroo - with some contrast naturally brown / undyed wool for the legs & feet ... I am adapting to make this emu about 1/2 the size of the original pattern and I've made the legs as Icords.

Now this project is for me :-) and yes, I have an embarrassing number of PHDs for myself (that's Project Half Done) when a project is for someone else I usually get it finished. But this pattern was irresistible - such a cute Military / NutCracker style jacket with lots of details ... the "braid" is actually cable knitting :-) it is in the Rebecca Magazine N0: 43 - Rebecca is a German publication but it does come with an English translation (phew!) I like the styles and the slightly different approach to knitting. I waited for the Bendigo Woollen Mills sale (still on) to get the yarn - a soft bluish grey 12ply Rustic. I've finished the peplum already :-)

And here is a sneak preview of some knitting I've been commissioned to do for a theatrical production due to open in Sydney about March / April next year. Lots of knits, mostly scarves and these are some of the samples.
The designer is Julie Lynch - the way she uses and colours and textures is wonderful!
Because most of the characters in this show are really poor people; the knitting has to be tatty, "dirty", holed, poorly fitting, badly knitted ... so folks, those holes and dropped stitches are deliberate ... really !!

This red scarf has even been EATEN!

Toy Food - let them eat cake

So what did I make for little boy's 4th birthday? I gave him the white & blue striped summer shirt seen in this post (he got the tartan one earlier) and I made him some more felt food. Both grandchildren love playing 'shops' and 'cafe' with the food I made previously (see these posts & post for some pics). Once again I used Umecraft's great patterns, slightly adapted so the food can be 'made'.

Here is the slice of Lemon Meringue Pie - made & in parts












The piece of Chocolate tart with cream & slice of Passionfruit Cheesecake share a base - I embroidered the passionfruit seeds :-)











those cats would like some cake...

And talking of cake - here is my granddaughter wearing the "Marie Antoinette" dress-up dress I made for her ...

Cute huh! and what about the other Blythes? Well I always take Lillian to Melbourne so she can catch up with BiBi - and we found that my daughter has created a lovely little woodland scene for the dolls to stroll about in.

Intergenerational Creativity

Have been in Melbourne for my grandson's 4th birthday ... 4yrs old - Gosh!

My gorgeous daughter made a great play-mat for her boy to play with his cars in an imaginative way. A piece of AstroTurf with some of the 'grass' plucked out to make a road. I helped with some road-making while I was there ... plucking plastic grass is very slow & tedious work! The houses are more of my daughter's creativity - yoghurt tubs with masking tape, paint ... and little boy made garages from some boxes - it must be genetic :-)

Daughter is far more artistic than I am - she gets that from darling Hubby's side (his mum is an artist). I love it that our daughter is painting & creating again; she needs to paint as I need to make things. When she was a little thing I used to sew and knit 'around her' when she would not settle to sleep without me - just as now, she paints 'around' her little one ...
To me, that is what a Yummy Mummy looks like.

Her current works are quite 'woodland', almost cute animals with a dark background - quite sweet but not kitsch. Like this critter - not quite of this earth ...

Lots of Little Stitches

I was busy boasting to a friend that I'd been sewing a rolled hem by hand - "Ahah" said he, "I'm making a wedding dress in silk chiffon, would you hem it for me." And so I am - a lovely soft dove grey colour and I might, eventually, get proficient & efficient at rolled / whiped hemming but right now it takes at least an hour to stitch 1 metre and when the fabric is not on the straight of grain it flutes and plays up. This shows some of the better bits I'm also mending / renovating a lovely old hand-knitted baby's shawl. Mending & reinforcing and then embroidering over the top of the mends so they no longer look like mends. Ladybirds & leaves in bullion stitch - where there is a ladybird on one side of the shawl there are leaves on the other side.

That photo is almost to scale as the beetles are only 1.5cm from toe to toe.

Paws Awhile

Sorry but I do love silly puns and I have been making paws.
They are for a mascot costume - a dog. Built around a pair of cotton gloves, padded and 2 fingers are stitched together for that cartoon animal look. I was having a lot of angst about making these paws as I've seen quite a few disasters with costume gloves and animal paws. But I made these about 3 dozen times in-my-head and when I finally plucked up the courage to sew them for real - they went really smoothly :-) I'm quite chuffed with them as I think they achieve that compromise between looking like a cartoon animal & being wearable.
Have also been knitting a hand covering - a fingerless glove. There are not many garments or styles that I dislike but I have issues with fingerless gloves - traumatised by too many episodes of "Steptoe & Son". However, I've been commissioned to knit a whole lot of things for a stage production and one item is a pair of these objects. SO - in an attempt to overcome my distaste and to get my head around how they are knitted and to show the designer what sort of yarn works best - I've knitted a sample ...
This was the prettiest free pattern I could find on Ravelry (if you are a Rav member here is a link ) I used "jitterbug" Colinette's sock yarn. The 'real' mitts for the stage production will not be so pretty - I think I'm going to be knitting in distressing; holes etc to make them look old & tatty. Urrrrgh way to Steptoe!

Been playing with my Doll's House again

Yeah I know - when will I grow up! Although I still haven't quite finished the bathroom I've moved my attention to the 'Entry' which is on the 'ground floor' or bottom shelf of the cabinet - this doll's house is a converted cabinet and it is all about the interiors. Because the 'entry' is on the bottom shelf and because it is really small, this room is quite dark and in it's previous incarnation it was way too dark. The floor was dark wood, the wallpaper black with a red print ... and I forgot to take photos of it in the Before state. Sorry!

It obviously needed a face-lift but I hadn't any ideas until I saw the wonderful mini tiles at the Turkish shop in Newtown, Ferah. They sell little tiles with magnet stuff on them - for fridge magnets BUT peel off the magnets and with lots of polyfilla as 'grout' - Tah Dah
The 2 smaller tiles at the centre front (with the urn & the monkey - I think it's a monkey?) I've had those for ages - I think they are Dutch. The new wall paper is a gift wrapping paper, turquoise to pick up on the tiles and the gold will shine when I get the lighting working. Then I got the skirting board and cornice timbers out, painted them to match, glued them in ... then it was time to address the ceiling.





The old ceiling rose - made from Fimo - was black & red, so it got a whole lot of paint and some gold beads (more twinkle!) I had to cut through the rose to get the wires of the new light fitting through ...



And here we are - ceiling and cornices glued in and still drying (hence the sewing pins to hold everything in place). I've popped some of the old furniture back but some of this has to be replaced as it is not the right scale ... even the flowers in the boy-with-urn statue are the wrong colour now! Oh well, the oz$ is doing well again the US 'green-back' so its a good time for some internet doll house furniture shopping :-)

Meanwhile - I've encountered a problem with the lights that I've bought. They are a 12volt system & now I need a 12volt battery ...

But I'm really happy with the Entry now - the Turkish tiles and the French looking wallpaper are fitting with my new ideas about the family that lives here. Current fantasy is that it's a house in Paris, about 190something, the gent of the house was a diplomat who traveled widely with his lovely wife before they returned to Paris to raise their family ... sounds nice huh!