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First pair of socks

Knitted for Molly

Sock Yarn - Regia silk colour, shade 185.

Pattern - Regia sock pattern, slightly modified to include two large holes, lots of ladders, four five or six dropped stitches, various extra stitches here and there, and some very crap Kitchener stitching on the toes.

O.k...moving on...

New book.

ISBN 9784579111640. Making cute little bags from your little 'uns drawings.

Very cute. Reminds me of a time many moons ago, when Tom was around 5 years old and his class had made little cakes and a paper envelope to carry them home in. They were allowed to decorate the envelopes in any way they chose, and my friend's daughter chose to decorate hers with lots of drawings of... *male parts*

Lots

and

lots

of

them.

Very good drawings they were too.

I wonder if she still has that envelope ? That would make an interesting bag. I'll ask her.

Lavender Baby Tutorial

Template first

You will need a small amount of felt for the ears, fabrics for the face and body, and some plain light cotton fabric. My baby pattern is about 4" or 10cm high, but make yours as big or small as you like.

Cut a strip of fabric for the face (my piece measures 4"/10cm x 9"/23cm) and body (5"/12cm x 9"23cm) and pin and stitch together along one of the long edges.

Next cut a piece of plain cotton ( I used an old sheet), slightly larger than your sewn together fabrics and pin together around the edges.

This is my first tip - when making softies out of cotton fabrics, I always back them with a plain piece of cotton, this gives your toy more strength and avoids that lumpy look when you come to stuff it.

Next, pin your pattern piece to the fabrics and stitch all around close to the edge of the pattern. You'll be doing this for only the front piece of baby. 

Cut out about a quarter inch away from your stitch line.

Next, pin and stitch the ear strips in place.

Now flip your baby over onto to the remaining fabric so right sides are together, and making sure your head and body seams line up, pin and stitch together. Don't forget to leave a gap for turning. Sounds obvious I know, but I've lost count of the number of times I've forgotten to do that Goddammit.

Cut out and snip carefully all around for maximum curvability.

Turn right side out, stuff, putting in a teaspoon or two of dried lavender if desired, and stitch gap closed.

Baby should now look like this.

And now for my second top tip - shape the ears when your softie is at this stage, that way you don't have to deal with itty-bitty ear shaped bits of felt that are very tricky to pin and sew in place. Just cut a straight line to the length you want and then round off the corners. Simple huh ?

Embroider the face, add a little hair, and your all done.

Have fun.

And have a lovely weekend too.

New Years Resolutions ?

Possible resolutions.

1. Lose a few/lots of pounds in weight ? - Nope, I don't think so, because I like eating things like these too much.
2. De-tox, therefore give up wine and chocolate for a month or two ? - HA - like that's ever going to happen.
3. Stop swearing/cussing so much ? - *#%k that for a game of soldiers, swearing is a stress buster for me, also my husband never swears so I like to think I'm swearing for two.
4. Try not to get crabby with my dearest children ? - Probably not possible, but I'll try. (Definitely not possible if I adhered to the first three resolutions. Therefore I am doing my children a favour by eating flapjacks, supping wine and cussing a lot)
5. Hoover, dust and keep the house tidier ? - Why, what's the point ? It only lasts for a nano second, and I really don't want my gravestone to read.. 'Not much to say about her, but she did keep a tidy house'.
6. Exercise more ? - But everything I like to do involves sitting down, knitting, sewing, reading, blog surfing ,laughing with my friends in the pub in front of a big log fire, the list is endless. My lungs have a lot of laughter exercise at least.
7. Make time to make more stuff ?. Ah, that's more like it. I choose this one.

On that note, I've been busy making stuff this week

t'other side -

Pram quilt,shoes and lavender baby for a friend's baby- don't you just love those fabrics ? So sweet.The brown spotty is from the Minny Muu collection by Lecien, I got mine from Fabricshack (highly recommended, fast shipping and very good prices), I've also seen it at Superbuzzy. The pink and cream quilt fabrics are from the Merry Bonbon collection again by Lecien, purchased from Reprodepot , the basic shoe pattern came from this book which you can get at Amazon jp and Yesasia and the lavender baby came from me.

Obviously the lavender baby is a very simple design, but I have a couple of tips when making softies like this so I'll post a little tutorial for her next week if you like. Which has just reminded me of another resolution - to post more often. I've got out of the posting groove lately, what with life getting in the way and all, and I fret too much about whether I've got anything to blab about, so maybe I'll take a leaf out of Kenneth Williams' book. In his diary, some days he would just enter one word, like..

F*%k.

Which I think is hilarious, and just about sums up a day, some days.

: )

Not today though, friday is always a good day in my book. Sweeties from the sweetie shop for the children (and Daddy), fish and chips for tea, card playing and drawing and being allowed to stay up late with Mummy in the kitchen, and knitting and wine for Me. Heaven. I hope you have a heavenly weekend too.

x x x