Bunny Post

I know I have been rather absent of late. I promise it doesn't mean I'm not busy crafting. I am exceedingly busy crafting. I have one thing I can show you. I figure that the recipient of this Christmas gift is unlikely view this blog, mainly because she is unaware of things like computers yet. She is only a few months old! Little Eve is my friend Emma's daughter and she is a baby I have not had enough time to get to know. It is times like this I am sad not to live closer to my home town. I miss all my friends and family dearly and because of the big "lounge project" this year has been lacking in visits.

This little bunny is based on my Skinny Kitty pattern. I didn't make any reductions on the limbs as I wanted this sweetie to be slightly plumper. I also stuffed the body a bit more than for the kitty.

The ears where made by picking up 3 stitches on each side of the head and shaping it in moss stitch. The two ears were improvised and ended up slightly different sizes which I think gives the bunny a bit of character.

I decided to make the face very simple and used 4 strands of embroidery thread. I recently read a post from UK Lass in the US. She had made a rag doll for her daughter and it only had a suggestion of a face. I saw how much expression could be read from the simplest of embroidery. I think with only tiny marks the expression is created in the mind of the viewer so it will change with each view.

I thought about making a pom pom tail but decided that it would be risky to have something that may fray and come off. Especially as it was a gift for a baby. I crocheted a loop and built up a tail shape and attached it to the body. I think it works well and is certainly less likely to come loose than my original idea.

I used Sirdar Baby Bamboo for the yarn, which is machine washable and very soft and smooth to the touch. I hope it will be loved for it's textures and the size, which is baby grab size. I also hope it is appreciated by the parents for its machine washable qualities!

I only have 2 or 3 projects to finish up this week and then I will be back with new projects that don't involve secrecy. I visit my home town next week and that is my deadline for finishing all my projects, then normal service will hopefully resume.

Secret Projects

I hate this. I am knitting away like fury and I can't share any of it with you. Bah! Be reassured though that in the week after Christmas I will be showing you all of the gifts that I made.

I picked up a bargain today. I got 20% off The Harmony Guide's "The Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Stitches". It was one of the few books in the Border's craft section that I thought would be very useful. There were a couple of other books that caught my eye, but I knew this one would be referred to time and time again. It is unusual to find knitting and crochet stitches in one reference book, which is why I bought this one. One of the reasons I learnt to knit was because I wanted to have nice smooth sections on which to hang my crochet. I have yet to do this, but this book reminded me of my original intention to combine the two crafts.

It makes me sad that Borders is going to close. I spent around an hour wandering the aisles looking for books I really wanted. I also wanted to say good bye to the place. We hold our knitting group in the Starbucks upstairs and I often bought my craft magazines in the great periodicals section. We haven't decided where we will move our knitting group too, but I am sure we will miss our bi-monthly browsing sessions.

I would recommend if you were expecting to pick up some bargains at Borders you go sooner rather than later. The stocks are going down fast, even though there is only 20% off most of the books there are some at 50% discount.

In the meantime here is a cute video to cheer you up.

And also can I recommend you go and check out U-Handbag's blog, as she is giving away some fab prizes for those crafters that sew. I can't believe I am publicising this giveaway because the more people that enter the less chance there is for me to win the fab sewing machine!

Hope the above goes some way to making up for my lack of content recently. I will finish my Christmas knitting one day - promise!

Business Card Box Pattern & Tutorial

In this post I showed you the little Business Card Box that I created for the Mary Clare exhibition.

Today I finished the pattern and tutorial to make the box, should you want to. This is a little bit of an experiment. I have never made any pattern that does not involve knitting, though this does involve a teeny piece of optional crochet. In addition to experimenting with patterns, I have experimented with the method of making the tutorial available.

I have recently found a great website called Cut Out & Keep. This is a craft website that allows you to show and tell the projects you have made, and to also post tutorials. The website is all encompassing and all crafts are shown and shared there.

I decided to post this first sewing tutorial on Cut Out and Keep and it can be seen here. If you are interested in the pattern you will need to download the whole tutorial and template. This PDF is available for download, for free, on my website here.

I hope you like this little tutorial, but more importantly, I hope you enjoy browsing around Cut Out & Keep. This really is an interesting site, full to the brim with inspiration.