Happy New 2010 Sale

Nothing says Happy New Year like a SALE.

So until 5th January, you will find ALL my products at Eddy's Pressies at Artfire have been reduced in price by 20.10% That's puppets, accessories, toys and homewares. With more lines being added all the time.

I'm stuffed - but the toys are NOT!

Now that Christmas is over, and I'm all stuffed full of turkey and everything else, it's time to get back to toy making; I've got a lovely sparkly pink pony all knitted and ready to go but I've run out of toy stuffing!

Yes, no more toy stuffing; I only have a little left and that's not enough to stuff pony's leg!

My local yarn store has recently changed owners and has run out of lots of things (yes, stuffing is one of them) and due to the holidays and snowy weather, I haven't been able to get out to a different town to buy any. What am I to do? I can't make stuffed, knitted toys without stuffing - or can I?

That sounds like a challenge - and I love a challenge.

What can I think of that I can knit but is hollow and will stand stiff without polyfibre filling?

Well, yes, I pondered for a while until I got to experimenting.

A PIGGY BANK.

But not just a stuffed pig made to look like a piggy bank but an actual hollow bank with a slot for the coins and a plug in the bottom to take the coins out of. The knitted plug has a little button on it so you can get hold of it easier.

At first, I thought I would just cover a cardboard tube to get the stiffness. But cardboard does not stand up well to washing (and everything needs washing occasionally) Then I found this stuff called, EVA foam. It's sold in sheets and is usually used by card-makers to cut little shapes out of. But then I could see the brightly coloured foam inside and I didn't like that, so I knitted a lining too.
Hallooo in there! Yes as you can see, Once the plug has been removed, he really is hollow in there (you can see the slot on the other side) and it is quite a big space - Space for lots of savings. Now we are all starting to think about saving whether it be for next Summer Holiday or even Next Christmas.

A cowl just for me.

I recently bought some yarns off my plurk friend. Yes that's social networking like Twitter only easier to follow. Her name is Selana and she has a wonderful shop on artfire where she sells knitting patterns, stitch markers and this fab yarn.

She will happily make up any colours you ask for; for this project I asked for a blue/green mix. The yarn is 100% wool and very pretty.

Here is a better picture of how the colours turned out after knitting and blocking. Very nice don't you think?

and this is me trying to look all innocent in my new cowl. I made it a big longer than the actual pattern (by 14 rows) for snuggliness. The pattern itself is available free on ravelry (which is a free site for knitters and crocheters to socialise and get patterns and advice) We now have over 500 000 members worldwide so you're bound to find something you like or discover something you did not know.

"Ugly hat"

My daughter has been hounding me to death about getting her one of those peruvian style hats that they sell in gap and places like that. I don't even like these hats; they look ugly to me with their big earflaps and dangly ties (that the local kids don't even tie - drives me nuts - I wanna go tie it for them!!!)

So eventually I gave in, partially because I'd got a new yarn in and wanted to see how it knitted up. It is called Rainbow Multi by"Creative Yarns uk"

It took much botching to ensure that the two earflaps looked the same, using this self-patterning yarn. But after that it didn't much matter what the yarn did.

I even had enough yarn left at the end to make a short scarf too. This was only a 100 gram ball so quite a big surprise to me.

Well, my daughter likes her hat - and even I think it didn't turn out TOO ugly. Quite proud of it in fact.

Merry Christmas Coach cards at Zazzle

Do you or your kids play baseball? basketball? netball? rugby? Aussie Rules football? UK football or soccer? Then you can find these handsome "Merry Christmas Coach" cards at Zazzle.

There are even codes for you to use at the checkout to help you with your card-buying spree.

At Zazzle.com you can enter 12DEALSSTUFF for 30% off stocking stuffers; keychains, stickers, magnets etc

and at Zazzle.co.uk you can enter UKWINTERSHIP for free shipping on orders of £25 or 25Euros

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