Adventures in Woollyland...
This delightful Alice in Wonderland doll is another fab PDF pattern from Amy Gaines' Etsy Shop. I love all things Alice and I simply couldn't resist her, although I suspected the project might be beyond my meagre talents.
The doll was knitted on straight 3mm needles and I mostly used Patons Fairytale Dreamtime DK yarn from Addicted to Knitting, which has a great next day service for the impatient knitter.
To make the doll, you knit each bit separately, body, hair, legs, arms, skirt etc etc and then stitch each piece together. It was a bit like being a serial killer in reverse (my husband pointed out that I even have a box of eyes just like a serial killer).
As with previous toy projects, I found the slender needles and the large amount of increasing required a challenge (the instruction to increase in every stitch tends to make my heart sink).
One additional thing I picked up during this project is that I need to watch my tension on the first and last stitch of each row in a bid to get neater edges. You also have to try to form a firm fabric so the stuffing doesn't show through. The bottom of Alice's head was a bit dodgy so I added some extra stitches to stop her neck wobbling.
I just love the detail in this pattern though - the stripey tights, the headband and the bar across her Mary Jane shoes really bring the doll to life. I was a bit sceptical about using real blusher to do Alice's cheeks but it turned out a bit of Clinique Innocent Peach was just the ticket.
I'm not sure either the knitting or the making up is perfect, but she is absolutely Alice to me...
Mmmmm green...
The ever-amazing Keiara made these fabulous alien lampwork beads. These are micro-sized version of her awesome Lil Bit beads and stand just over 1cm high. They are fantastically detailed, with pink spots on the front and purple scales up the back.
My contribution to this fabulous pair was embarrassingly small. I used sterling silver eye pins to create wrapped loops onto earring hooks. Great beads kind of make themselves into jewellery I think.
These cuties also inspired me to make an alien plushie to go with them. I've been wanting to make plushes from my own patterns for a while. Whilst "original" would be a bit much (the earrings were of course an inspiration and my husband says it looks a bit like one of the aliens from The Simpsons), this is my attempt:
To start with, I drew a rough shape onto cardboard, even though I'm lousy at drawing. To ensure the pattern was symmetrical, I folded it in half to cut it out. Using my pattern, I made the alien's body from green polar fleece (I have enough left over for my own alien race). I sewed the two halves together on the sewing machine and clipped the curves.
The eye circle is made from blue felt and appliqued on with embroidery floss. The pupil was cut free hand and glued on. I decorated each leg/fin/tentacle with a purple arcylic button. The bow is made from a square of Moda Free Bird from a charm pack (I was too lazy to cut something out from a bigger piece). I stuffed the alien with a combination of toy filling and plastic pellets to give it a bit of weight.
To finish off my alien, I sewed a ceramic start button on its bottom and, with a touch of narcissism, attached one of my "By Melanie Jane" tags.
A reasonable attempt I think, but not a patch on the earrings...
Melx
Make Jewellery Magazine Issue 18
Slender pickings from my point of view in October's Make Jewellery Magazine. However, having hastily bypassed a necklace made out of sabre tooth-shaped beads that looked positively hazardous to wear, I found the Peace & Harmony project by Linda Jones.
I was particularly taken with these tree of life disc earrings. So, I went ahead and ordered two discs and some 10mm haematite rounds from e-beads. For each earring, I threaded a haematite bead between two smokey grey Swarovski crystals onto sterling silver headpins. I attached the tree of life discs with small jump rings and then added my earring hooks. Very simple, but most stylish I thought.
As I'm incapable of buying beads I've seen in a mag without having a peek at what else the shop in question has to offer, I bought (amonst other things I confess), these rather cute antique silver skull beads ( I do love a nice skull bead).
To go with them, I also bought some fancy round spacers and I just added from my stash very teeny sterling silver round beads on the top of the skull and either side of the round bead. These earrings are made in the same style as the tree of life pair with the round bead on top and the focal bead dangling off the bottom, which I think is a good design to use in future.
I do find earrings very satisfying to make in terms of fairly instant gratification and both these pairs will make fab additions to my hippy and goth jewellery collections respectively.
Melx
Stripey fun
My PDF knitting pattern adventures continue with this sweet stripey turtle. She (note the pink embellishments) is from Amanda Berry's Fluff and Fuzz collection that I found in her Folksy Shop.
I didn't get off to the best start when I mislaid the PDF pattern in a fit of cleaning out my email inbox. Amanda was kind enough to send me the pattern again and this time I saved it firmly to my hard drive and printed it out.
I made the turtle from Rowan pure wool DK in gilt for the head and legs and two shades of green for the stripey body. You make each body part separately on straight needles - the head and legs in one piece for each one and the shell in two halves. The pattern was very easy to follow and the making up instructions were very clear. You sew and stuff each body part and then sew them together.
The hardest part for me was using the spindly (I know I use that word a lot of this blog) 3mm needles. I kept pulling stitches off the needle if I misfired a stitch. It was very good practice from that point of view as many of the patterns I've got lined up are knitted on slender needles.
The striping on the turtle doesn't match (one side short stripes and the other long), which undoubtedly saved another headache. I tend to find it boring knitting two identical sides of something and one side always ends up being better than the other.
For embellishment, I used hot pink buttons for the eyes (mainly because that's what colour I had in the right size) and a matching felt flower and button from Blooming Felt. I added a small Papermania bow to her head.
Although it's not quite as neat as the pattern pictures, I was really pleased with my finished turtle and I'm definitely going to try some more of Amanda's patterns.
Melx
PDF yumminess
I've been trawling Folksy and Etsy for some new knitting patterns to try - mainly toys and small accessories. I've bought quite a few knitting books but individual PDFs have a couple of advantages - they don't take up much room and it's easier to contact the designer if you have any questions.
This is the first of my haul - a cute knitted cupcake purse from Amy Gaines. I was attracted to Amy's patterns because they were really pretty designs and also knitted on straight needles (I'm not feeling up to those double points yet).
I found the PDF instructions and illustrations really clear. The purse is knitted with spindly 3mm needles and I used Rowan pure wook DK for both the base and the icing. I found it a bit tricky to get started but once I had got the increases done for the base, it was fine.
The ruffle was knitted separately. I found that part a bit tough as you had to do knits front back and front again to increase one stitch into three. I found this quite hard with the small needles and I'm not sure I did it right, but it looked quite ruffle-like when it was done so I decided it would do.
The purse is made up by making a seam up the back and attaching the ruffle at the bottom of the icing. I used pink ribbon braid for the drawstring rather than yarn as I can't plait for toffee. I sewed on some bugle beads for sprinkles. To finish the drawstrings, I used a couple of glass Pandora-style beads from Totally Beads.
I was very pleased with the finished cupcake despite a few imperfections. I've bought three others patterns from Amy that I'm looking forward to making. I've also just ordered her book Little Knitted Creatures, which looks fun too, although it will take up more space than the PDFs...
Melx
More Sew Hip Issue 21
In a fit of enthusiasm, I've done a second make from October's Sew Hip. This is the Hold-me-tight clutch by Christine Down.
I have to say that when I was preparing for this project, I was a bit perturbed by the materials list.It suggested you needed 1x1.5m of fabric for the exterior and 0.5x1.5m for the lining. I cut out the main template for the bag, waved it near my fabric stash and then ascertained that I could easily manage with a half meter for the outer and a fat quarter for the lining.
For the exterior, I used some Flower Fairies fabric I've had for ages. I found a complementary lilac floral fat quarter for the lining. The decorative ribbon for the front and for attaching the metal ring is from the fab Blooming Felt. You will note how the ribbon attached the ring is in fact upside down, but at least I didn't sew it the wrong way out.
The bag is a classic lined, zipped pouch and, although I've done several before, my limited spacial skills make it a challenge. I had particular difficulty with the instruction, "Flip the two exterior panels and zip over, so that the wrong side of the exterior fabric is uppermost. Repeat all the above with the lining fabric, placing it wrong sides together with the exterior fabric." The problem was that"all of the above" was with the fabric and the zip a different way up. Anyway, I managed it, although my zip ended up a bit mismatched in terms of where it finished. I concealed my teensy error by hand sewing some of the fabric over the excess zip.
I thought it was quite funny that the project said, "Try to find a coloured zip that matches your fabric - it's little details like that which made your projects look professional!" I'm not sure that my matching navy blue zip is going to make up for the wonky lines of stitches across it but I can hope...
The strap piece was quite thick to sew for my lightweight machine and I caught my finger trying to shove it under the foot. Unfortunately, the metal clips I had weren't wide enough for the fabric, so I attached the strap directly to the metal ring - it's a key ring anyway so I can still detach the strap if I need to.
Making the rosette brooch was fun and fairly easy. I topped it off with a pretty button that I had bought on spec only the day before, thereby justifying my policy of adding to my substantial stock of buttons on a regular basis.
To finish, I added a glass bead as a zipper pull - a touch I always feel makes up for any other defects in the zip installation.
I've had the bag out for a test drive and nothing fell out, so I declare the project a success...
Melx
A pumpkin is not just for Halloween...
Following hot on the heels of my pumpkin tea cosy, I was thrilled to see the pattern for this pumpkin bag in Sew Hip Issue 21. I always eagerly scan the October (aka August) issues of my craft magazines for Halloween projects. It's just a pity that you usually only get one month's worth rather than the five that are reserved for Christmas projects!
Anyway, the pumpkin bag by Joanna Landau is designed as a trick or treat bag for kiddiwinks. As I'm more of an all-year-round pumpkin kind of girl, I thought it would make a cute fabric basket for my bits and bobs instead. Hence, as the project suggested, I made a version lined in black felt to add additional structural robustness.
As I was a little low on orange and black felt, I sent for some supplies from the delightful paper-and-string, which arrived the very next day. I cut out the pumpkin segment pattern to make a cardboard template and was good to go.
The pattern suggested attaching the fusible interfacing to one side of the felt after cutting out the segments, but that seemed like a lot of work. So, I attached the interfacing to the whole piece of felt and then did my cutting. This was especially handy when cutting out the black lining segments as I could actually see the outline of the segment on the white surface of the interfacing (trick marker on black is less effective than you might hope).
The eight segments were attached on the sewing machine, which was moderately straightforward. The pattern suggested putting a small circule of felt on the wrong side of the pumpkin to reinforce the bottom of the bag. I glued my circle to the right side of both the outer shell and the lining to hide a tiny bit of dodginess where the very tips of the segment met.
The lining was made in the same way as the outer pumpkin and then I sewed the lining into the pumpkin by hand with embroidery thread. For the handle, I decided to use two pieces of black felt stitched together rather than interfacing a single piece as I thought it looked more elegant.
For decoration, I chose not to make a pumpkin face but rather glued on a selection of spooky embellishments from my stash. I added fab Halloween ceramic buttons from Injabulo to the bottom of the handles for a bit of extra loveliness and to hide some of the handle stitches.
My pumpkin is a tiny bit lopsided, but I'm very excited about filling it with goodies. I do like those tiny chocolate pumpkin you get at Halloween so maybe I will do some trick or treating...
Melx
