Making Time to Make it: Dolly the Dachshund

I was having a tea-break at work and reading through some of my favourite blogs when I came across Gretchen's new pattern for Dolly the Dachshund.  I knew right then that Dolly would have to be my Making Time to Make it project for this month!  I decided there and then to make Dolly that very evening.


And here she is...

Isn't she lovely?

She has been stolen already of course.  Anything soft and cute in this house seems to end up in Lillia's nest.  Here's Dolly being held in a pair of very chocolatey sticky hands (post chocolate krispie cake making!)

Of course another was requested.  In bright pink naturally.  So now Dolly #1 has a new friend in Dolly #2...

This is such a cute pattern, thanks Gretchen!




What are you making time to make this month?


x

Preparations

There are preparations under way...

It was 51 weeks and five days ago that we had that massive snow storm here in the UK.  I know because 51 weeks and five days ago I was in labour and stuck on the motorway for two hours whilst trying to make the usual ten minute trip to the hospital. 51 weeks and 5 days ago Phoebe Elizabeth arrived.

Today she is wreaking havoc by emptying out my handbag and attacking Lillia's Sylvanian Families house...I am glad she is at school or there would be hell to pay.

Lillia has chosen what Phoebe's handmade present should be, something from our old favourite bible of ridiculous toys...

Of course I need to make two, as Lillia couldn't be without :)  A creature is slowly forming, but it is causing me some grief...it requires bias binding, I've never used it before and it's all getting rather messy.  Hopefully he will be ready by Wednesday...

It is difficult to get these things all completed with Phoebe crawling about the place investigating every nook and cranny...

...and I have still to package up my little birdies for my swap parcels, so many things to do!

I have a couple of fun crochet bits nearly completed for the Big Day...

But they require the addition of an old enemy...

Yes, I need to make Evil Pom Poms...poms poms and me just don't get on, I just never seem to be able to get them right, but I am willing to give them another go with the help of my new Pom Pom maker, I shall let you know how I get on.

Happy Hooker Backwards Project #34: Bedfellows

I started this particular project on my second night in hospital.  It took me nearly two hours to get beyond the first round of stitches - no matter what I did I just couldn't get it to work.  The old lady in the bed opposite, Joyce, kept encouraging me though.  She kept saying "don't give up girl!" So I didn't...I just changed things a bit, altered the slip stitches to become single stitches, changed from an 8mm to a 4.5mm hook, and kind of winged it.

Nearly everything I did was wrong.  The size, the yarn, the stitch, the hook, the technique, the increases and decreases.  This project was doomed from the very start.

But somewhere along the way....

...a new friend began to take shape...

...and what should have been a disaster....

....actually turned into....Topsee :)

Named by Lillia (the spelling is hers too) Topsee is a new firm favourite in our house.

I made her arms and legs longer than the pattern, and her head is bigger, her ears are floppier.  Her eyes are beadier and her nose is wonkier.  But Topsee is our beautiful bunny friend...

She is already to be found mingling amongst the toys...

...helping with morning spelling practice...

...and I had a little smile to myself when I found her abandoned in the reclining position in Lillia's bed...

Lillia says she is "nimble and flexible", a Ballerina Bunny, which then led to the request for Topsee to have her own wardrobe.  We love Strictly Come Dancing in this house and we always watch it together on Saturday nights.  We decided that Topsee's first dress should be just like Holly Valance's salsa dress.

Here's the original...

And here's Topsee's very own crochet and sequinn version...

  

Yes, we do love Topsee :)

And here's the usual summary of the project:

• Cost - about £6 - I used less than a ball of each colour to make topsee, plus a little extra for her dress. 
• Yarn -  The purple is Patons Cottom Twist Aran (55% cotton, 45% acrylic) and is delightfully soft and tactile.  The light pink is Patons Smoothie DK.
• Hook - 4.5mm and 3mm.
• Difficulty - Goodness I struggled with this one!  I just couldn't get the hang of the slip stitches, but once I changed to single stitiches instead I got along better, but I had to make a lot of adjustments along the way.
• Overall happiness with finished object - Oh very happy!!  But not as happy as Lillia and her new best friend :)

Horge - a crochet creature

Sometimes I come across a crochet pattern I just have to have.  My eyes go all starey, I get the look of a hunter about me, my debit card twitches in my purse... Horge was one of those patterns. 

The pattern is from Mr Fox's Toy Emporium on Etsy, a UK seller whose shop is stuffed (geddit?) full of wonderous, and sometimes scary, crochet creatures.

 

Horge is small so is incredibly quick to make - I made mine over the course of two evenings in front of the telly. I couldn't find the recommended 16mm eyes, so mine are 10mm (from Hobbycraft) but I think they work just as well (dare I say even better...)

 

If you too now have the starey eyed look of one desperate to make your own Horge you can buy the pattern here.

Thanks for those who left comments on the last post, at least now I know it is possible...even if I can't do it myself.  I am still trying to sort out my laptop problems, in the meantime I am stealing time on my mum's and...sssssh...at work (during breaks of course...ahem). 

Speaking of work, I am still slowly trying to find the balance between working four days a week, commuting, doing the school run, being a mum in general, crafting and blogging...as well as being rather unwell with this blasted ulcerative colitis.  Will there ever be a balance?  Probably not.  In the meantime I am finding lots of cheats to get through.  Today for example I took these pictures using my iPhone 4 on the window-sill at work...the light is pretty good at 7:30am. If you look closely you can see the London Gherkin building...

Horge is now off to live with his new owner, K, who writes over at Grillyfish.  K is my friend and co-worker (and talented children's book illustrator/writer) who is selfishly abandoning us in return for nothing more than a higher salary and a better job, pffft, some people...

:)

Ali

x

The Matryoshka returns

Quite some time ago I wrote a tutorial to make one of my matryoshka dolls.  I created a rather rough-round-the-edges template and used Scribd.com to share it.  However many readers have had troubles downloading the file :( I have been happily emailing out copies when requested but then I discovered Google docs...so I have now updated the link in my original tutorial.  If you would like to download the lovely but scribbly hand-drawn template you can now do so here.

Strangely this all coincides with the discovery of an unfinished matryoshka doll...

Whilst having a clear out I discovered this doll still waiting to be brought to life - completed and pinned and ready to sew, but somehow found hiding in the bottom of my "To Do" basket.  I had no idea what she looked like as I have no recollection of making her. 

This made the sewing process rather exciting! Two minutes on the sewing machine and I turned out this beautiful lady...

A bit of stuffing and a quick application of make-up and the latest Matryoshka was ready to face the world!  Please meet...Thomasina!

She may look like a Lady but Thomasina has a past.  Yes indeed.  When I asked Mr Snipsnaphappy his opinion on the following photo (I wanted to know if it showed Thomasina's best side) he felt it looked as though she was "standing in the light of a street lamp waiting for trade"...

Thomasina is a bad girl made good, working her way up and out of the streets and onto a better life in the leafy Kentish suberbs.  She spreads the word of the Matryoshka Doll Tutorial and encourages people to make their own beautiful friends for themselves and for others!  You should listen to her - go try the tutorial! And do stop by to let me know how you got on :)

x

5 years ago today...

5 years ago today I was still in hospital in a daze wondering how on earth I would ever be able to look after the tiny helpless creature in my arms.  Well, it was a long road but somehow we have made it through five years without too much incident and we have a perfect, gorgeous, opinionated, clumsy, clever, beautiful, funny, quirky, firey, skinny, energetic, imaginative, sensitive, lovely 5-year-old girl to show for it.

She is in school today then afterwards we are treating her to afternoon tea at the Cadburys Cafe, I don't know who is more excited about this :)  As is our tradition I made her one of her presents.  This year she chose something out of my Curious Creatures for Immature Adults book.

A pretty floral print doll perhaps?  A cuddly princess?  A cute little animal? Nooo...

She chose "Mr Skelly", the cheese-eating, dancing skeleton!  Not one to disappoint my daughter I set to work last night and after three hours of sewing and stuffing, a bit of swearing, and two glasses of prosecco our very own Mr Skelly was finished...

Of all the things I have made her Mr Skelly was the one that has had the biggest reaction.  She came downstairs to see her pile of pressies with Mr Skelly on top and ran squealing across the living room yelling "Mr Skelly Mr Skelly!"  So it was well worth the effort :)

I have to say I do rather love him.  He is settling in nicely and is currently sat in the armchair opposite me reading Lillia's new copy of The BFG.

Now earlier this week I promised you a dancing skeleton and a cake the colour of a dead fish.  Having delivered on my first promise it is only fair I share with you the cake.  Before I do I must first explain.  I made a fabulous (and huge) two layer madeira cake sandwiched together with jam and buttercream.  I then went to ice it using ready-to-roll royal icing but failed miserably.  I just couldn't get it to look like anything other than a big white lump of wibbly wobbliness.  So hubby whipped up a ton of buttercream and we dyed it pink, not counting for the fact that buttercream is slightly yellow and therefore the whole thing went a kind of dead salmon colour...

Believe me it tasted divine...it just looked like salmon mousse.

I am now off to get ready for the next round of celebrations and chat to Mr Skelly about cheese.  Happy 5th birthday Lillia!  

A day off with hubby

Yesterday we went to Whitstable, just the two of us.  It was our first day alone together doing something just for the sake of it in over four years.

It was one of those kind of days where everything falls into place and the universe seemed to be telling us, "you deserve a good day".  The sun shone, the skies were a constant blue, there was always a chair to be found in the shade, or a cafe when we needed a drink, the perfect place for lunch, the perfect parking spot in the cheapest carpark.

We took with us one gremlin and two bunnies all packaged up and ready for Toy Society drops.  It was hubby's first hands-on experience of toy dropping and we had a great time surreptitiously leaving them around Whitstable.

One on the steps on the beach by the Neptune pub...

One on a bench on the beach looking out to sea...

 And one by the church on the High Street, see if you can spot it!...

We had Kent apple juice and scones, we mooched around the shops without hurrying, stopped to buy toffee crumble in the old fashioned sweet shop, and strolled through the fish market.

We walked along the seafront, all the way from the oyster company restaurant on the beach to the end of the beach huts, something we can never too with little legs in tow!

It was the perfect day out from the stresses of reality.  Thanks Whitstable xx

Oh, and in case it all seems too romantic, we did stop at John Lewis on the way home to buy a new hoover!  Well, we have been married seven years... :)