Slug

Another Christmas knit - I made this little slug using cheezombie's pattern for Simon's brother. It was good fun to knit, with an interesting technique for the eye stalks.

Tom's Monster

For my older nephew, I made a Gruber monster, based on a pattern from Molly Makes. I changed the colours a bit, and added a belly button, which I made deep by stitching securely through felt and wadding, to sculpt the body more.

It was really very enjoyable to sew, all handstitched in mostly blanket stitch, and came together surprisingly quickly. It went down well on Christmas day too.

I only have an in progress photo, I'll post more photos when I've uploaded them.

Joshua's Teddy

This Christmas I knitted a Teddy using the Baby Bear pattern from Itty Bitty Toys by Susan B. Anderson.

I knitted it with some lovely, squishy yarn that mum and I had dyed in bright colours a couple of years ago. The pattern was an easy, quick knit, with the only real tricky bits being getting good placement of the limbs and facial features.

I think it worked out well, and my nephew liked it!

Soldered Stained Glass 'Window' and Presents

I'm having a bit of a catch up on things I've made but not blogged about.

I spent a lovely day at New Year while cat sitting for friends working on some embroideries using techniques I picked up in a workshop with Margaret Beal.

I used the same technique to do both the presents (for a Birmingham Embroiderers' Guild Christmas pennant) and the window piece, except that the window has stitched outlines.

The pieces are worked on a base of acrylic felt, with layers of polyester organza on top. The soldering iron is used to make marks into the layers, both freehand and along a metal ruler. With care, the top layer can also be removed, revealing the colours below, and allowing for further mark making.

The window had an outline square and free-machined lines inside, forming spaces to work within, rather like zentangling.

It was a lovely process, very easy to get 'flow'. The only thing to be aware of is the risk of burning from the soldering iron.

All packed up...

I've been using zip lock freezer bags to store my current and upcoming embroidery projects, and they look so appealing, all packaged up ready to stitch.
I'm off to give blood tonight, and even with an appointment there's usually a long wait, so I thought I'd package up these projects to give me something to do while I wait.