Custom designed toys

My dear and very good friend Tricia is a professional illustrator who lives in Nevada USA. Well a little while ago she contacted me.

Her son, Sean had been worrying so much that he couldn't sleep; so together they designed aliens. Their aliens were just so very cute. They named them the Seansters, of course. If you visit her blog, you can stay up to date with shopping coupons, see all the aliens and get free clip art, colouring pages and organiser pages.

She asked if I could possibly make a toy that looked like the drawings. So I got out my knitting needles and made Green Sean.

I had problems getting eyes big enough as he turned out a little larger than I had planned (I really shouldn't start knitting something from the feet upwards)

Well What do you think? I'm quite pleased with him myself. He will be flying off to Nevada tomorrow. That's a very short trip - for an alien

Working on that list

Yesterday, I went to my new "Let's Knit" knitting club; we meet once a fortnight in Starbucks, Bridgend. This was our second meeting (I did say new) The lovely thing was that we had two new members - this brings our total membership up to 6. I think that's a wonderful start.

After coffee all round we showed some of our projects that we are working on and got a decent amount of knitting done while chatting. It's just so nice to get out sometimes and meet up with like minded people. Our Emma, also known as Atomic Knitting brought patterns and yarn samples for us all to drool over - oh yes alpaca and silk - amazing.

She also sells her own hand-made stitch markers, knitting needles and other fab stuff - go check out her site.




Despite having a busy evening planned, i was able to make a bit of a dent in that list I showed you in my last post. This is Maisey the sweetest corn you'll ever meet. I made him specifically for Thanksgiving but he would look just as great on display to celebrate Halloween or Christmas or would make some budding chef a very handsome sidekick for their kitchen.

You can find him in my Artfire shop

Time to slow down...and speed up!

SLOW DOWN?
Well yes, I'm absoloutely terrible for seeing a new pattern or having an idea and going "Wow, I want to make one of those."
The problem is that I now have so many projects "on the needles" that I'm running out of places to put them and NOTHING is getting finished.

So speed up?
Yes, I must try my best not to start anything new for a while (but it is sooo hard)
I MUST finish more of my projects
I tried a "WIP Wednesday" which means every Wednesday I must try to finish as many WIPs (Works In Progress) as possible. But it doesn't seem to be working. I think I need to have more days in the week dedicated to finishing items.
How many projects did I finish yesterday (Wednesday)? One. Only one.
I crocheted this dragon from this to this....

Not bad, but not really making a dent in my list. What does my list look like?

Ooh, er, don't ask, Ok here goes...

1. A blanket for christmas for my daughter - OK so that was a BIG project and was a knit along so I couldn't go faster than 2 squares a week - but I am way behind if it is to be finished by Christmas.
2. A crochet scarf - another crochet along but not really putting the effort in that it needs.
3. Psyduck - yes, the Pokemon. He has alot in common with my son and will be holding his copy of "Pokemon Platinum Version" on Christmas morning.
4. Sean's Alien- This is an incredibly cute illustration drawn by his mother that I am trying to make into a toy. I've knit his feet and hands just fine but I've made his body about 3 times and ripped it out again - can't seem to get it right. Next try will be the last - however it turns out.
5. Corn cob critter - Yes he is a little man made from a corn cob. I started knitting him for Thanksgiving but he was bigger and had more parts than I thought so he is still in bits with no boots yet.
6. Scarf in Merino - I got some lovely soft Merino wool in a swap - It's just begging to be made into a scarf; so I'm doing about 4 rows a day on that one - fun pattern though - it looks like waves.
7. Bright Scarf - In a different swap I got some fun fur yarn with lots of colours in it. I would have loved a scarf in that fur but not enough was there, so I've trawled the yarn shops and found regular yarn in the same colours. I will have a scarf after all. A block of fun fur on each end and then blocks of each colour between until it is done. I've done about 20" so far - so it's going well.

So as you see, I need to concentrate a bit - one at a time huh?

I'll post pictures as I finish each one. That's a promise to you and to me.

Autumn fun

I've been doing some swaps with friends on the internet, where you make a little creature on a given theme and then send them to each other with some goodies like chocolate, bath products or something else small and really nice.

So what to make on the theme of Autumn? Why squirrels of course. What else says Autumn like these little guys scampering about collecting nuts and fattening up ready for the Winter?

The lovely lady I sent these to said that her twins loved them so much that I have put them up for sale on my Artfire Site They are just big enough to fit into your pocket to carry around and give a secret cuddle to. Hee hee, yes, they are Secret Squizzles!