Hats for the Missionaries

I often have the sister missionaries from my church over for dinner.  When I was making my things for the holiday festival and for Christmas presents, they seemed particularly interested in some hats I was making.  I decided that since I am almost finished with most of my projects that need to be done immediately that I would take the time to make some hats for these young ladies.  I have a pattern that has been most popular and of which I have sold at least three.  I decided to use this same pattern for both of them and just used a different colored yarn.  They can choose who gets which color.

The hats are made from left over yarn that I used to make sweaters out of.  It is 20% wool/80% acrylic.  They do look nice and will be plenty warm for them to wear while serving this winter in New England.  One of them is from Idaho and is used to the cold weather. The other one is from the warmer part of Brazil.  She was most excited about the hats I was making and was anxiously waiting to experience her first snow. I will give them the hats the next time they come to eat which is in a couple of weeks.  It hasn't been that cold to need them for now, anyway.

Now that I have finished the hats and the third play mat set, you would think I would have a break. Not so, I have at least one more play set to make and possible two more.  The next one is also going to be a forest set.  It is for my son's girlfriend's sister.  They saw the mat that I just made and fell in love with it.  They want one, but not with all the same animals.  That means that I will need to do more downsizing for possibly three more animals.  I will need to check their size first to be sure I do need to make them smaller.  I will be doing the raccoon and skunk again.  I think I may try doing the skunk its original size. I will also have to do a hedgehog, a deer, and an owl. I'm sure the deer will need to be made smaller, but the hedgehog and owl may not need downsizing.  The mat is for a girl, but they do not want any pink.  I am going to use the same owl fleece for the back of the mat as I used on my last one, but the front will be different.  Kay says her sister loves owls, so I am going to put a baby owl sitting on a branch of a tree on a light blue background material to look like a daytime sky.  I may add a sun for extra detail.  I will use the same material from the back for the edging unless I find something better in the store.  I know owls are quite popular right now, so it is a good chance that I will find some cute owl print material like I did for the fox mat.

Forest Play Mat Set

I have finished the forest play mat set.  It has been an interesting project.  I located a book of patterns for these adorable forest animals that had all but one of the requested animals for the set.  I was confident that I could turn the squirrel into a skunk, so I bought the book and was excited to start creating the animals.  The problem is, the patterns are for larger animals than will fit in a hanging play mat set.  I have halved patterns before, so I thought it would be no problem to do the same with these animals.  How do you half an odd number?  That was the problem, but because I wanted the animals to be smaller than larger, I always opted for the lesser number of rows, stitches, repetitions, etc.  Sometimes it works, but other times it gets off quite a bit.  All in all, they look okay.  I like the way these patterns give the animals more of a real animal look than do my other patterns for little animals.

This is the top of the mat.  The baby's room is being done in a fox theme with the colors of gray and navy blue.  I downloaded a picture of a fox and enlarged it by graphing 1/2" - 1".  It made it perfect for fitting on the mat.  I cut the fox out of orange fleece and white felt for the face and white fur for the chest and tail.  I used black felt for the feet, nose, and ears. I found this great fox print for the edging.

This is the bottom of the mat.  This fleece material with the adorable owls is perfect for a forest theme and a gray room.  I decided to stitch through all layers of the mat so that the fox outline would show up on the back of the mat as well as the front.  I usually just appliqué the top and then I have to tie the rest of the mat to keep it in place.  By doing it this way, the mat stays in place without tying it.   

This shows most of the animals as they are hanging.  I was unable to get a good angle to get all of them.  The bear is the most hidden of them all.  

This is the bear as will be seen by the baby as he lays on his back and looks up at the animals. This was the first animal I made and was surprised at how large he still turned out to be. I usually have my animals hang from their heads, but it was suggested by my sister-in-law that I should put the hanger on the back of the animal and have it face downward.  I hadn't thought of that, but that is what I did and it worked. The yarn I chose for this bear is really soft, but does not look as nice as I thought it would.  It was also very hard to work with.  One good thing is that it doesn't show mistakes. It was very difficult to get the straight needle through to sew the seams and to add the details like the eyes and toe nails.

A fox themed play set certainly needs a fox and this was the
reason I needed for buying the book of patterns. His nose is
a little shorter than it should be, but he sort of looks like a fox.

This shows the bottom of the fox and more of what the baby will see.

This is a squirrel/skunk.  I used the squirrel pattern and widened the tail and used fun fur to get the furry look. His front legs do not show up, but he does have them.  They just came out a little too short.  Another of my miscalculations.The problem I had with this skunk is that while most of the animals had patterns for 14"-15" animals, he was only about 9". I automatically started him with the half pattern like for the other animals. It wasn't until I had gotten the head done that I realized he was going to be much smaller than the others.  I thought I would need to do another one and just use this one for something else. When I got the tail on, he looked big enough and so he is it for the skunk that was requested.

Just wanted to show the stripe down his back.  I was able to use a pattern for another skunk pattern that I have to do the stripe.  I didn't just want to use that pattern for this skunk because the face is not done in the same manner as these animals. It is just a round head with the snout added.  This one has a more realistic looking face and fit this set of animals better.

This bunny was so hard to knit. I wanted to use this
super soft yarn, but it is not easy to sew together.
All his parts are sewn on so crooked, but it is almost
impossible to take out, so one arm is higher than
the other and one ear is lower. You can say he
has character.

See how lopsided he is?  I made the pom pom tail
with a different yarn so it would be easier to
work with.

Another Farm Play Set

I just finished the farm play set that I needed to get done in January.  It is for a little one that is turning one at the end of the month.

This shows the entire set.

This is the little cow.  Because I only had a little bit of white felt and I didn't want to wait until I could go buy more, I decided to make the cow black with white for the side of the head and the spot.  I usually make the cow white with black.  I also chose to use gray for the nose, horns, and feet because black cows are usually darker in these areas.

The chick is knitted instead of being made from material.  I decided to add her to the collection because I like her so much.  She is one of the cuter animals that I knit from this pattern collection.  Anyway, every farm needs a chicken or two.

I was quite pleased with the little pig.  I had so many problems with the snout the last time I made it.  This time, it was the ears that don't look quite the  same, but that is okay.  Many pigs don't have matching ears and I think it gives it character.

This is actually the second lamb I made for the set.  I chose the wrong material the first time, and when I stuffed it, it started to tear.  I went back and doubled the material, but after getting the face on, I realized that it had a big hole in the hip on one side.  It simply was not durable enough for a baby to play with.  This material was tricky because it peeled off the backing that it was on.  Once sewed in place, it seems to stay intact.  Hope it stays that way.  It is so soft and fluffy.

This little duck always comes out pretty much the same.  I made this one out of the same soft fleece that I made my last one out of.  I forgot to put stuffing in the feet, but I think they are actually better without the stuffing.  Duck feet are pretty flat.

I made this horse just like the last one because I liked it so much.  It is made of felt and is a very simple pattern to make.

This shows the cow pouch without the animals in side.  This is supposed to be a pillow, but I like to put a zipper in the bottom and leave it empty so the animals can be stored inside when not being played with.  I also changed the pattern a little bit for this cow.  The pattern calls for straight legs, but we all know that cows do not have straight legs.  I added a little knees to this one and I think she looks a little better.

Every farm needs a farmer.  Since this play set is for a little girl, I decided to make a farmer girl.  I also chose to knit her instead of making her from material like I did my other farmers that I have made to go with this play set.

This shows the cow with everything stuffed inside.  I was much more successful with getting everything in this cow, including the extra animal (the chick) and the farmer girl.  What happened with my last set is that I read the pattern wrong for the cow's body.  I thought I had to only make one body part and fold it in half.  That is why it was so long and skinny.  This cow has plenty of storage space to house all her little farm animals, including her farmer girl.

The little girl I made this play set for is too old to actually have a mat to play on, so I did not make a mat.  Instead, I opted to make a small crib sized quilt.  I just used the left over material I had from the mat that I made before and just zigzagged it onto the quilt through all thicknesses.  This way, the quilt stays in place and I didn't have to tie it.  I used a fancy stitch around the edge that doesn't really show up that well.  The front is cotton with the flannel print that has farm animals, barns, tractors, etc. on it added to make it a farm themed quilt.  The back is a pretty dark mint green flannel that shows the stitching that was added to the front.  I don't know if the person buying the set will want the quilt, but if not, I will just give it to my new little grand baby that is on the way. By making it with the off white front and the green back, it can go for either a girl or a boy. That works for me, because I don't know what we will be getting this time.  Hoping for another boy, but we will see.

Now that I have this play set made, I need to get onto the fox themed play set that needs to be done for February.  As I was finishing up on the doll tonight, my son stopped by and asked me how much I charge for a play set because he has a friend who is expecting a baby soon, plus his girl friend's sister is also having a baby.  He is interested in a couple of play sets.  I guess I am in for some more work ahead.  Doesn't matter, because I do like to make toys.

Gloves Finished

With a lot of long hours and little sleep during the month of December I managed to finish all of the projects I needed to get done for Christmas except for one glove in my husband's pair.  I figured he would understand if his weren't finished by the time we celebrated our family Christmas on the Tuesday after Christmas.  He knew how hard I had been working to try to get them all finished.  It is a good thing we had a few extra days after Christmas before we celebrated so I could get them all done.

These are the two women's gloves I had to do over because the first ones I did sold at the holiday festival.  The black ones are for Cheryl and the brown ones are Kay's.  I guess I need to shorten the fingers on Cheryl's, but she has not returned them to me so that I can do that.  It isn't hard to do because each finger is done separately and ends at the tip, so I just need to take out a couple of rows and retie them off.  It just takes time.

These are for Ellis and Portia.   All the boys gloves have just the fingertips a different color whereas the girls have the multicolored fingers.

These are for Dot, Lucy, Ezra, and Annie.  Dot did not like the way the fingers felt so I had to take hers out and redo all the fingers except for the thumb.  She wanted them to have just purple fingers so I took out the last couple rows of the green for the palm and started the break in color there so it would not feel funky where the color changed for each finger.  It worked and she likes them better, but I did not include a picture of the do-over gloves.  Annie's mittens needed to be longer for the wrist, so I just picked up stitches on the cuff and knitted the other direction to lengthen them.  I guess they fit now, because they never told me if they did after they got them back.

These are for Lexi and Joey. Lexi almost always wears pink, so her main color was pink.  Joey's gloves match his coat wonderfully.  I was going to do his in red with navy blue fingertips but he just got a coat that is black with this bright blue design of some kind swirling throughout.  These were the exact color of his coat so I used the navy blue and red for Ezra's.

These are for Zoe and Jackson.  I had to redo all of Zoe's fingers on one glove because they were a little too tight.  Somehow one glove fit and the other did not.  I always knit it the same, but the tie in for the colors seemed to be the problem.  There are always so many strings to tie in and hide when there are so many different colors being used.  I could not actually tie a knot because it left a bump if I did, so I had to weave all the loose ends into the yarn in such a way that they would not ravel or come undone.  It took almost more time to tie in the loose ends than to actually do the knitting of the glove.  It was probably a crazy idea to make them so crazy looking, but I just wanted to use all the colors so the girls would not be jealous of the color of some other girl's gloves.  All the same colors were used in each glove.  What varied was the main color and the cuff for each pair.

These are the only pictures I have for the six pairs of men's gloves that I made.  I had three pairs finished before the festival, but I sold one pair and had to make another one plus the other three I needed for Christmas.  These gloves were all made from 100% wool and all of them fit wonderfully.  Each were done in a different color.

By the time I had finished almost all of the gloves, I finally got a better way of tying in the fingers. At first, I was always getting a big hole, but I discovered a way to avoid that and the last pairs of gloves were being done without the holes.  I wish I had discovered it earlier because it would have saved time and effort to weave the holes shut.  Gloves are not really that hard to do, but I never want to make so many again at one time.

I have started working on the projects that I need to finish that were ordered at the festival.  I need to get two play sets completed.  I am almost finished with the one that needs to be done for January and will get started on the other one as soon as I finish this one.  It needs to be done for February.  I may take a break with knitting after that for awhile.  My arms and fingers have taken a beating from all of these extra hours of constant work.