Yarn & Books

Soon to be on its way to a new baby.

These were a ball to make! ;-) 

More books in the stack for 1/2 Price Books.

Toss out Tuesday seems to work for me--I only have to think about it once a week and 7 things--one for each day isn't too hard--at least this week.

A few more than 7 things this week....Yeah!!

Big Top

Have always loved the Humpty Dumpty Circus when I've seen it in magazines and toy museums. There was a set for sale at auction, so I got up real close. 

The Humpty Dumpty Circus was made by the Schoenhut Company between the years 1903-1935. I think this (above) is a reduced-sized set or assembly.

A website that has a lot of information about the circus is HERE. 

A short article about the Schoenhut Company and circus is HERE.

My girls think the clowns are creepy--they are a little. :-)

Late Strawberries

Mrs. Mouse is marveling over her late harvest.

The strawberry instructions were in the magazine Mollie Makes, issue two.

Hearts Game

Vintage cards from a 1950's Hearts game (Whitman Publishing).

Love those big earred elves.

 

I found my troll paper dolls! I have had the outside cover in a different place and thought that I had thrown out the dolls long ago. Well, I was happy to find that I had not.

Now, I would like to find the make-it book with patterns for Richard Scarry dolls that I had when Em was small. Did I throw it out??? No idea....

Finger Puppet

A knitted finger puppet I whipped up the other evening.

I have no idea what animal? it is....

Finger Puppet

I used variegated sock yarn on size one needles.

Cast on: 20 st.

stockinette stitch 18 rows (give or take)

(K2, SSK) 2 times, K4, (K2tog, K2) 2 times (16 st)

purl

(SSK) 4 times, (K2tog) 4 times (8 st)

purl

K1, SSK, K2, K2tog, K1 (6st)

pull the working thread through all stitches, gather

and stitch the puppet's back up using the mattress stitch.

Pointed ears (make two)

Cast on 2 st.

Kfb, K1 (3 st)

purl

knit

purl

(Kfb) 3 times (6 st)

cast off

Fold ear in half and stitch along the long cast off edge,

then placing onto puppet, stitch one to each side.

This ear could easily become a bunny ear by continuing to knit,

before casting off, until the length is pleasing.

Nose

Cast on 3 st.

Knit one row

Thread the working thread through all three stitches,

gather roughly into a triangular shape

or circular blob and stitch to face.

You could always knit one more row to get a bigger nose.

(each nose is guaranteed to look different) 

Toadstool Home

I made this little felt toadstool house for Meg at Christmas.
The very cool pattern for felt toadstools is from the little house by the sea blog.

I finally got a decent photo of this toadstool using a lightbox that Meg and I made out of a cardboard box. Got the idea from a post from Delphine on non dairy diary blog. She linked up to a site that had the lightbox instructions on it. We took a large cardboard box and cut windows in three sides, covering the openings with tissue paper. The main box opening stays open and you line the inside of the box with a piece of posterboard to cover the back wall and floor in a continual sheet. Then shine lights from the sides and top--preferably full spectrum or sunshine and voila--you have better light for photos. Now I want to fiddle with the color of the background, use props, work with the lights a bit more, and use a tripod. Anyone want to see the lightbox? I can post a picture of it.....

'Lil Wombat

This is a little softie that Meg crocheted. I added the arms and legs and smart little red bow. I love the brown nose Meg gave him and the wee topknot. He is residing next to my bed in a candle-light that I use in the middle of the night when I am awake. The light is enough for me to read by but not bright enough to awaken J. That is good.

This is a pencil sketch that I did yesterday of the same little dude.

Christmas Bear

This is the bear that I made for Meg this Christmas. I followed a pattern for a bear that I found in a Japanese magazine (Cotton) but I made it out of brown linen instead of mohair. I made up the pattern for the bear's bed, dress, etc. with heavy inspiration from Lynn at Molly Chicken. That bear is all of 6" tall and man were the pieces small and fiddly. I used sleeves from a flannel nightgown of Meg's, when she was about four, for the comforter and pillow. The little dress is reversible and on the other side is a red heart button from a grade school dress of Meg's. :-)

Mouse House

Finally I can show you what I've been making this month. The girls are always checking my blog to see what I've posted so I didn't dare make any mention of my makings. This is the house for a mouse that I did up for Emily. The bed and house were purchased--unpainted and I made the table, mushroom stools, food, teapot/mugs and soft furnishings. Close-up pictures will have to wait for a sunny day--the rainy day we are having here is the pits for photos. :-) Some of the ideas here were inspired by the Danish company Maileg's Mouse House.

This is the mouse that I made of felt to go with the house. I like how she turned out. I made up the pattern myself. The hands I would change--make them part of the arm pattern and her bottom could be a little rounder. I put little plastic pellets into her body so she could sit on her own on her wee mushroom stool. The table is an unpainted wooden candle holder glued to a round piece of wood edged with felt.

Once upon a time when I was eleven or so, my brother made me a life-size round table for my room. It was made of 2x4's and had a skirt made from a white chenille tablecloth. I remember spreading out my precious nic-nacs on it. This little mouse-sized table reminds me a little of my brother's gift.

Here is the back of the mouse's head, showing the gusset I added.

The two-sided dress I made for the mouse. Lynn of Molly Chicken inspired the double-sided pattern.

Tweet

Little bird I made for Em this Christmas. The pattern is from the "Softies Kit" by Therese Lasky.

Back on the Art Cart........

I made this bear for a wee grand-nephew born in October. I will meet him this weekend and I can hardly wait. I made the pattern after being inspired by softies on Loobylu and Mollychicken's blogs. He is stuffed lightly to make him soft and squishy.

Meg and J both thought I had cut-up a favorite checked blanket to make him but oh, contrare--it is all new material. The checked material is just about as thick as the polar fleece brown but all cotton flannel....found at Walmart.

Fairy Ring and Some Housekeeping

Last year the girls and I played on vacation and left a fairy house in a hollow in the roots of a tree near the cabin. This year imagine our surprise to find a fairy ring of mushrooms in the front yard of the very same cabin. Meg said they are supposed to be dangerous places, that if caught inside of a fairy ring one can be snatched by fairies. For me it just added to the enchantment of an already beautiful spot on earth.

This is Harry Hedgehog sitting among the fairy toadstools. He is dressed in bathrobe and has his hot water bottle under his arm. This is just the outfit I need today and a hot water bottle is just the thing 'cause I feel kinda out of sorts at the moment.

My very talented Mom knit and put him together for me. It is another Alan Dart pattern.

Here is the newly refurbished fairy house. It was a little weather worn when we first saw it this year so we put together some new accouterments, like a nutshell floor lamp and acorn bowls of red berries, which disappeared during the night (?). Yellow flower tops served up with small pinecones made a splash on a center table of bark.

Also a comfy deer moss bed under a bark shelter. Slightly out of focus beside the bed is an acorn bowl with a snail shell in it. Must be French fairies enjoying escargo in bed. :-)

Beach Blanket Bunny

Here is Bunny getting a little sun on the porch. The millinery flower I attached to Bunny's ear I found while rolling some yarn into a ball--it was tangled in the yarn. A happy find. :-)

We gardened a bit this weekend--well, I gardened and J dug holes and trenches, how about you? It was a beautiful two days here and the coreopsis is in bloom! :-)

On My Lap

I can't show you my desk full of projects yet--I'm getting ready for an annual "summer camp" with the girls--but I can share what has been in my lap which has been full of yarn ever since vacation. With my mom's help I started my first ever crochet project during vacation and now it's done. We had blue yarn with us and not brown, thus a blue bear. I followed the pattern in this book Amigurumi World Seriously Cute Crochet by Ana Paula Rimoli but I'm afraid the head was not done exactly as written because I kept messing up the counting, etc. Each of the arms and legs are slightly different from each other too, but I guess close enough.

Then I started on a hedgehog--it has all these added on "prickles on its back--it is taking so long to finish so I started something new! :-)

I was inspired by the cuteness in Molly Chicken's archives of bears and animals and so I just started crocheting a little bear? in a blue and white striped shirt. No real pattern, just an idea of the amount of each color that I wanted and where I wanted it to narrow down. I'll probably show another picture of it when I've finished--if I'm happy with the face. I think that is the hardest part--getting a good expression.

Have a cooooool weekend! :-)

Chilly Days and Yarn

A good place to spend a chilly day--oh, the torture! On our week-long vacation to Michigan which was pretty chilly and sometimes rainy we managed-ahem-to enjoy ourselves. :-) How could we not with the beautiful beaches and a pretty cabin on a smaller lake to come home to. My Mom coached the girls and I in knitting and croceting and it was a regular yarn camp!

Now, you have got to love the mice in the photo below. They are part of a pattern of Dickensian Mice by Alan Dart (Sirdar pattern # 4132). Mom knit the pieces and I put the bits of the two mice together. I made the lantern all by myself with coaching from Mom. This guy Alan Dart is a wonder and here is his website. His patterns are often run in a magazine Simply Knitting out of England, which is on the magazine racks of Borders here in the states.

This is Matilda (Tilly) Pruit and Frederick Lumley.

Paydirt--I LOVE Google!

OK, anybody who isn't crazy for the Brownies by Palmer Cox had better turn a deaf ear to this posting. :-) I posted in January about these guys and now I'm at it again!

Yesterday with lots of time on my hands, thanks to my girls and husband, :-) I got to poke around on the web. I found all kinds of things about Brownies. Hee-hee-hee! Above are three cloth Brownie dolls printed by Arnold Printworks in 1892. Two articles online about the Brownie dolls here & here, a bio of Cox is found here and info. on Brownie cameras with pictures and old manuals can be found here. I never knew Schoenhut, well known for its Humpty Dumpty Circus and wooden dolls, made Brownies, some it seems for commercial displays as they are 3 feet tall. It is the coolest thing!

If you have made it this far and are still with me make sure and check out Wisconsin's History online site, here. It has 1200 online doll photos from their collection with info. That is where I found the cloth Brownie photos above. You can search by manufacturer, country, material used, and other variables.

Still wanting more?? I posted a pattern for a redwork brownie here along with a bit more about Brownies. :-)

Saturday Routines

We went out to get groceries this morning but had to stop and smell the lilacs! Nothing like it!

All of these seed packets--that says spring-time! :-) I like the swirls in the radishes.

Lilacs in the sun.

Emmy loves dollhouses like I do. Here she has invited Shrek and Fiona over to visit the family.