BIRTHDAY PRESENTS....

I have made these Molly Monkeys before and given them as Birthday presents and they have always been well received.....

These two were made for a couple of school friends of Hebe's back in September...

The pattern to make Molly, which is free to download can be found here at mmmcrafts...

Larissa who devised the pattern also has more patterns for sale on her Etsy shop, these include the pattern for Katy Kitten, you may remember I made a few of these a little while back....

With the Katy Kitten pattern you receive a free pattern to make a coat and shoes for her, the pattern also fits Molly Monkey, so this morning I set to work making a coat and shoes for this Molly..

 Gorgeous little shoes....

She will be in the post this afternoon, hopefully to arrive with my niece for her birthday on Friday....



DRESS UP FRIDAY....

Well here they are as promised, the pictures of the children before they went to school dressed as Bible characters this morning.  The school has been having a 'Bible Week' this week, culminating in dress up day today when they were to go dressed as a bible character. 

So, here we have Freya dressed as Joseph in the technicolour dream coat....

Finn as King Solomon, not overly impressed I feel ! .......

And Hebe as The Queen of Sheba, Mmmm, not the best costume I know, but I was struggling at this point and we had this belly dancing outfit in the dressing up box....

Not to be left out, Clemmie as, well, Clemmie, who else....



As I said yesterday, they were not overly impressed with this, especially as it is Red Nose day and I am sure children across the country will be dressing up in all sorts of silly/fun costumes.  they were even told they were not allowed to wear 'Red Noses'...

FINISHED !

Do you remember this ? My granny stripe blanket that I was making for the soon to be revamped Wendy House...

Well it is now finished !!, I think this is possibly the largest thing that I have ever crocheted, it measures 200cm x 165cm, I am really happy with how it has turned out, I don't however think that it will make it into the Wendy House full time (perhaps it can just pop in for the odd day), as I think it looks quite at home here on the Playroom settee...

I used all the odd balls of double knitting I had in the house, nine different colours made up into 36 stripes, each stripe took 40 minutes to crochet, 20min one way and 20min back again, by my reckoning and allowing for time to complete the border edges and sew in the ends that means I spent approximately 26 hours making it !  Goodness that seems an awfully long time !........

I will miss doing those Granny stripes, it was nice sitting with the blanket draped across my lap as I whizzed back and forth, Clemmie would swap from sitting at one side to the other side as I worked so that she could have the blanket on her too....

It has been put to good use already by Clemmie who dragged it through to the living room to snug up under it to look at her new books....

The new books were sent to us from Cat all the way from New Zealand...

We have had a few conversations about Pukeko's before Christmas, and then last month this parcel arrived, so very kind Cat, and a belated big thank you from us ....

I am off now to make a costume for Finn, it has been Bible Week at the children's school this week and tomorrow they have to go dressed as a Bible character (this has not gone down to well with the children especially as it is Red Nose Day and friends are going to their schools dressed in red, silly outfits etc !), anyway, we are having Freya as Joseph in a Technicolour dream coat (finished that one last night), Hebe as the queen of Sheba in a belly dancing out fit (what else !) and Finn as King Solomon, so I better go and sort out a cloak and some head-wear, its a good job Clemmie is not at school yet as I think I would have been pushed to finish four outfits....

Will delight you with those tomorrow.....

HAPPY GIRLS......

I have spent a lovely hour this morning making these little lovelies....

They were so simple to make, just string, felt and a bead....

But don't they look great ?

Arn't the colours totally fabulous ?

I found the tutorial to make them on this, new to me blog ArtMind, there are some fantastic tutorials there which are well worth a look....

After making I got a bit carried away playing, without even the excuse of a child being in the house, the older three were at school and Clemmie was at nursery for the morning !...

Wouldn't they be great tied onto a present, made into keyrings, hanging from zips, or strung up 'bunting style....

So many ideas, sometimes I think my head will burst...



N.B. They may not make it on to be any of the above, Clemmie has come back from nursery and whisked them all away to 'school', where she of course is the teacher !.....

MY FIRST BUNTY BUNNY....

We have actually named her Dandelion Rabbit, well Clemmie has, best not to ask sometimes ....

I have wanted to make a knitted rabbit for some time now, I have admired these beautiful rabbits made by Julie at Little Cotton Rabbits...

Julie sells gorgeous knitted animals in her Etsy shop, although she does not have any listed at the moment..

I don't think that she sells the patterns for her knitted animals, but she does sell patterns to make these little fellows, how cute are these !, I have bought the pattern for this egg cosy bunny, but more of that in another post...

Back to the knitted rabbit, after realising that Julie did not sell patterns I continued searching, and found these patterns....they are by Debi Birkin, I actually found them on periwinklepark on Etsy, but they can also be bought from the Debi Birkin website...



She's made using James Brett Kool cotton which is lovely to work with...

I made Dandelion with detachable shoes, so that they can be changed, as can her dress and bow.

I am so pleased with how she has turned out, as are three girls who are fighting over her as we speak, I think another two are definately called for...

My original idea was to have a rabbit that would have her own little suitcase of clothes and perhaps her own bed, I will have to look through my doll's clothes patterns to se what other clothing might be suitable, Hebe has requested a school uniform, and Clemmie would like her to be a Princess...

There is even a Bunty Bunny knit along on Ravelry where people are knitting a different themed Bunty for each month....

WORLD BOOK NIGHT....

Tonight is World Book night....I had heard of World Book Day, but not World Book Night, How has this passed me by ?,

 World Book Night is a celebration of adult books which was started in 2001....

World Book Night website

Last year 20,000 'givers' were chosen to distribute 40,000 copies of 25 selected book titles...

This link is for an event in Trafalgar Square, London  last night that was shown on BBC News (the coverage is15mins in, so scroll along to get to it), the event was attended by lots of Authors, including Alan Bennett who was a crowd favourite apparently, who read to the crowd, and more books were distributed...

Books were given away at events around the country, libraries and blogs, which is how I learnt about it...

Colette of Colette Moscrop had been chosen from thousands of people to be a 'giver' and had a giveaway on her blog to win a copy of...

And, I won a copy !

My book arrived this morning, just in time for me to join in tonight, and Colette had included some chocolate and a lovely colourful bookmark....

In the back of each book given away there is a unique identity code, receivers are encouraged to pass their book (once read) to someone else, who then passes it on and so on, a bit like book tag....

You can then 'track' the book as each new owner registers the book on this website and see its journey, How cool is that ?....

So, who should I pass the book on to ?

I thought it would be nice to pass it on to a reader of this blog..

So tag, you could be next, the first person to comment is it......

If you go on the World Book Night website you can register for next year....

EASY PEASY BOOK PAGES BUNTING....

As you probably know it's World Book Day today, I was a little disappointed that the children's school did not have them going in dressed as a favourite book character as they have done in previous years, I have fond memories of  just managing to get a stripy jumper finished off the night before for for Finn to be Dennis the Menace, and still pulling bits of wool through an orange net to make him a black wig as we were going out the door to school, and cutting up old tights to make different coloured stockings for Freya to be Pippi Longstocking...

Anyway, to get back to the point....

I saw the idea for this bunting here at Amelie's House ,if  you have time have a look at the book character biscuits that she made for her children to take to school for World Book day, amazing....

I used some old Charlie and Lola sticker books that Hebe had completed, I ironed 1" bias binding in half down the length and slotted the pennants into the fold, pinned and zig zag stitched along in a contrasting thread...

I used what was left over from making the large bunting to make a smaller one to hang across the fireplace...

Great use of something that would have gone to be recycled, and a brilliant way to brighten up the playroom...

I am eying up some old annuals on Finns book shelf now (Beano would work well I think), and what about maps ?, the possibilities are endless......

MONTHLY MAKES FEBRUARY 2011...

February gone already !, and I am late with my post for Annie's monthly make, so apologies to her..

Anyway, here are a few of my February makes....