Aren't these cute?! They are from leftover balls of knitting yarn and scraps of felt. The pattern is from a magazine that's out now called Craftseller. Apart from being in charge of blanket stitching around their little eyes, I can't claim any credit for these! I can't crochet to save my life but having said that, I've never tried to learn either! My friend is self taught with the aid of YouTube video's on crochet! These little fella's take about an hour to crochet. We think just changing the wool, makes them all look quite different from each other - as if they've got different personalities! Awwwwww!
We decided we wanted to make some Misfits of our own. So one day last week we sat down with paper and pencil, and came up with these random array of animals. It was such a sense of achievement designing and making them from scratch. They are of course, made from t-shirts and such like, so apart from the stuffing they don't cost anything to make.
The worst one? We think it's the snail. You can tell it's meant to be a snail (least we hope you can!) but it doesn't look quite right, especially from the back. We think the only way round it, would be to make the snail in one piece, rather than a separate body and separate shell as we did here.
As for the best one? We can't decide! Though secretly, we do both like the seahorses!
We used the same template for both of these seahorses. The reason one is larger than the other is totally down to the materials used. The sandy coloured one is made from a satin strappy vest and so it has no 'give' in it. The aqua coloured one is a very stretchy strappy vest, hence it ended up bigger! So yes, these are fully recycled from my friends clothes - again!
My friend and I are doggy people as it were! Between us we have 5 dogs, 3 of which do dog agility. The only reason the other 2 don't do it, is because one is too old and the other is too young at just 6 months old. Soon there is to be a new kid on the block too, so we'll be up to 6 dogs between us then - nice even number!
Anyway, point is, we have lots (and I mean LOTS!) of dog leads - different colours, different styles etc. We always seem to be able to justify why we need another one! We guess there's worse things to spend our money on and get addicted to! So we needed somewhere to hang said overflow of leads! We came across this 'self-assembly style' of laser cut bone shape and lettering. You could pick any wording up to 5 letters long. We went with WOOF coz it was a general word - as opposed to a dogs name or anything.
They arrived really quickly and we set about transforming them. We used acrylic white paint all over and drew the paw prints on it with a brown permanent marker pen and a paw print stencil (which we made using a paw print punched out of vellum).
We used all-purpose glue to stick the lettering on with. Attaching the dowel pegs was a little tricky. They were meant to just fit in the recessed holes and be screwed in from the back. Although this worked, the pegs were still a little too wobbly for our liking! Aryldite glue, longer screws and some washers later - sorted! All that remained then was to give it a good coat of varnish. As these are for indoor use, I thought I'd use my quick drying varnish - mainly because it doesn't have a yellow tint (like the old polyurethane varnish). But unfortunately, when applied it just seemed to make the marker pen paw prints...not so permanent! So we quickly gave up on that varnish. This one has been done with a gloss polyurethane varnish.
Next stage is mounting it on the wall! I have to leave that part of it and ask for help. Last time I tried to drill into the wall, it was like someone had taken to the wall with a semi-automatic rifle! 
I can't crochet at all, so I utterly admire my friend for making this - a giraffe! Especially when, she doesn't really know how to crochet either! She literally decided she really wanted to make him, so she set about learning to crochet, line by line and using You Tube etc to watch video's on how to crochet each type of stitch! Am in awe of her perseverance skills! She had a slight bit of problem with tension and I know she crocheted quite a few extra horns and legs trying to get two that were the same! Was like a body part factory - limbs everywhere!
He's made entirely from scraps of leftover wool that I had stored upstairs from previous projects, so he's a great stash buster and so makes him all the more satisfying as he was free!
But here he is in all his assembled glory! What's not to like! In fact I think he's so cute, I've asked if perhaps she could make a similar one, from blue and grey and turn him into a donkey! She likes a challenge, so watch this space!
How's about this for an idea then? Works on the same principle as the old abacus! And no, I'm not that old - we did have calculators when I was at school!
Basically, there are 9 beads on the pink strand, representing numbers 1 to 9. There are 9 beads on the purple strand, each bead representing 10. So when you're counting your rows, you move the beads up one at a time on the pink strand. When you've reached row 9, all the beads on the pink strand will be up. The next row, row 10, you move all 9 beads back down and move one bead up on
the purple strand.
In this example below, the number of rows completed is.........24. Genius isn't it! And best of all, we didn't have to buy a row counter!
You may remember a while ago, we made a peg bag or two. Well recently, we were asked for a larger peg bag to accommodate more pegs than you can shake a stick at! How many pegs can one person need? More than our peg bags can hold, obviously! So we set about the task. Trouble was, we didn't have much time as we had promised to make one rather quickly as said persons old peg bag had died a death (probably due to overload!).
Firstly, we thought we really needed a small wooden coat hanger. That was our first problem! We didn't have a single coat hanger suitable for the job! Once we realised we had to use the same small plastic coat hangers that we already had, we had to design the peg bag around it. Out the window went the idea of just enlarging the template!
Much scratching of heads and brain storming with lots of "oh no....hmmmm......no, that wouldn't work!" moments, we came up with this new shape! We adapted the washing line design with an added chicken and a wash basket. The letters PEGS and all the clothes are done with a zig-zag stitch. The grass is free-motioned on afterwards.
We would change the design slightly next time....if indeed there is a next time!
We've been at it again! Here's another owl picture! You may remember the one we did a little while ago, that had just one owl sitting on the branch. Well now we have double trouble!
The words Best Friends at the bottom, are stitched with a single strand of blue x-stitch thread in back stitch. The trails of the butterfly and the bee are stitched with a running stitch in grey x-stitch thread. We find that using black can sometimes look a little harsh!
I prefer a white frame too but as this picture is for a friend of a friend, a dark wood frame suits their lounge decor apparently!
I wonder what to make next? I have a few ideas buzzing around in my head as usual! I quite fancy making an owl family tree, so watch this space!
