The other two Easter dresses

I just realized as I looked at my blog that I had forgotten to show the dresses for my other two granddaughters.  I was able to take a picture of Zoe in hers, but I had to send Portia's up to Maine with her dad, so I did not get a picture of her wearing the dress.

Portia's

Zoe in hers. The sweater covers most,
but it looks like Portia's but in
different material.

Owl Baby Bunting

A friend of mine called and asked me if I knit.  Now, that was a question that was easy for me to answer, but then she asked me to make a special bunting for her grandson that is due in August.  I told her I could try if she sent me a picture of it since I could not understand what she was asking for. When she sent me the picture, I realized it was for a crocheted bunting.  Now, the challenge was greater, but I felt confident that I could do it.  I told her I would do my best.

She asked me to do it in forest like colors because they are out doors people and she didn't want any baby colored owl like the pattern showed.  I chose to do it in these brown colors because I liked the color of the variegated yarn that I could get for the feathers.  It was such a great match for other yarns that I could get for the body and head of the owl.

After a few do-overs I finally got a stitch count that seemed to work out.  I had the whole head part done and realized it was going to be too wide, so I had to take it all out as far as the neck and make decreases so it would get smaller.  I had to make a side seam that I had not intended on having because I had done it on a circular needle, but after I finally finished the whole thing, I realized that it was probably going to be too wide.  I took it in a little which doesn't even show because it is where I sewed the front feathers in place.  The inside looks fine because there are no raw edges, either.  I also made a matching hat since the baby's head will stick out above the owl's head.  I decided to make legs and feet on the owl even though the picture did not have them.  I think it will be much easier to strap the baby into a car seat with an opening between the legs.  I just made the feathers in long strips and then sewed them together like shingles to give it the layered look. That actually took the longest because I had to make so many strips.  I attached the feather front to the sides only of the owl, so it can be free to lift up when the seat belt is hooked. I also gave my owl a tail.  I could not see the back of the owl in the picture she sent, so I don't know if it had one or not.  I just wanted to make one on mine.  I started out thinking a whole different way for the tail, but finally decided it looked fine when I fanned it like I did.

As an added gift, I made a baby stuffed owl to match the bunting.  I love making the toys, so it was no problem at all.

This shows front with toes and the hat.

Back shows tail and bottom of feet

Baby owl toy

Back of toy showing the tail

Final project of bunting, hat, and baby owl toy.

It had been a while since I had done any knitting so it was a good project.  Also, it gave me something to do while we were taking a car trip down to Florida.  I only had to finish about three rows of the feathers, the hat, and the toy after I got back.

Easter Dresses

I had an itch to do some machine sewing,  so I decided to make Easter dresses for my granddaughters.  I took the three that live close to me to the store to pick out the pattern they wanted and the material to make it.  It was so cute to see the three little girls, Dot (8), Lucy, and Lexi (both nearly 7) choosing what they wanted.  I had already taken Dot and Lucy before, but it was Lexi's first time.  Dot and Lucy chose the material for Annie's dress and I already had the pattern for it.  The pattern that Dot and Lucy chose had a little purse pattern, so I made purses for each of them with some of the extra material.  I bought the hats, but since Annie's head was too small for the hats, I made hers.  There was a pattern for a hat with her dress pattern.  I had a hard time getting it to be the right size, but in the end, it does fit.  She just doesn't like to keep it on for too long.   I have two other dresses made for my granddaughters who do not live here, but I will wait to post them later.  I chose a simple A-line sundress for them and bought sweaters to wear when the weather is too cool for a sundress.  Here are the final results of what they chose.

Dot is so skinny that she added the belt.

Annie in her beautiful yellow.  Her sisters said she loves yellow
just like her grandma.

Lucy loves pink.

Lexi chose a totally different pattern than her
cousins.  She wanted a sun dress, so I had to
buy a sweater for her to cover her shoulders.

Hopefully Done With Play Sets for Awhile

I finally finished another farm play set.  I hope that it is all for awhile.  I do love making them, but after having made so many since the beginning of Dec., I am quite tired of knitting them.  I need to take a break from knitting for a time, at least.   I know it won't be long before I feel I need to make something more.

This is the new set. It is much like all the other farm sets except for the last one that had arches.  This is for a little girl so I made a girl doll to go with this set like the one I made in January for another little girl.

This shows the toys and cow pouch on top of the crib sized quilt that is going with this set.  This is the back of the quilt.  I showed the front in a previous blog. It has farm print material in the center.  I made it to go with the last girl farm set, but they did not want it since that little girl is already older.  This one is for a baby, so the quilt will go better with this set.

Nothing else going on for now.  I think I will be trying to learn a new craft for making this year's adult Christmas gifts.  I am going to try to learn how to wood burn and will be seeing if I get good enough at it to make presents.  Time will tell.  It is exciting to learn a new craft every once in awhile.

Seed Farmer play mat finished

I have finished with the seed farmer play mat set, except for the cow pouch.  I am partly done with it, but since I have shown pictures of what it looks like, I am not going to blog it with the set.  It will be finished to go with the set before I give it away.  The order request was for a farm set with arches.  My farm set usually does not have arches, but it is always easy enough to make it become one.  Most of the toys are machine sewn, so it was a little trickier to get the hooks on, but I think they look okay the way I did them.

This is the mat with all the toys hanging.  I actually made nine toys for this mat because they are small enough to have two hang from each side of the arches and one in the middle.  Usually, there are only five with one from each side of the arches.

This shows the mat without arches.  I designed this mat to
look like seed farmers like the couple that are having the
baby are. They grow organic seeds for market. I found
the perfect print material for the border.  It has rows and
rows of seed packets. Sunflowers is one of the types of
 seeds they grow, so the sunflowers were a nice touch.

This is the back of the mat.  It is simple and is made of a soft fleece.

The gender of the baby is unknown, so I just made the man
farmer doll. His hair is from fake fur. I made a small helmet
pattern with a gusset down the middle.  It was tricky to get the
shape I wanted to go around the ears and when I glued it on,
some of the glue showed.  I used hot glue at first, but it was
why the glue showed. Hot glue dries white and crusty. I had
to cut out the bad parts to get the glue out, cut some new
pieces to fill in the empty spots, and then I glued it on with
no sew glue which dries clear and does not glob up. The  other
problem I had with this doll is that after he was stuffed, I
realized his neck was too long. I had to tuck it down into
his body a little bit and sew it down so it was shorter.
Once I had the hat finished, it looked just fine. 

This little lamb always turns out just a little bit differently every
time I make it, but this one is adorable. The wooly looking
material I use is difficult to sew into such a small object.

I always do the duck for the farm mats, but this one is a little
different than my last two.  He is made of felt instead of
fleece and his beak and feet are made from some material
that I usually use for making diapers.
It is water absorbent material that is shiny and I like the
texture for these body parts.

I had so many problems getting the face of this kitty to look
right.  It is new to the set.  I added her as one of the extra four
I needed to complete this set.

This sweet little puppy is also one of the new ones. His ears
are always the part that looks strange when I first get it sewn.
They stick straight out like wings, so I had to tack them down
so he wouldn't fly away. He is also a little crooked, but he looks
good from this angle. His head is on a little sideways, but that
is okay. He just looks like he is looking to the side instead of
straight forward.

These are the four toys that I have made before and since they all look pretty much the same, I just took a picture of all of them together.  My last cow was reversed with the black and white areas.  Also, this one is made out of a soft fleece instead of the felt that I usually use for the cow.  Fleece is actually a little easier to use because it isn't as thick.  Felt is wonderful to use until you try to turn the tiny parts right side out through an extremely small opening.  Fleece turns a little easier, so when I found that I had some white and black fleece, I decided to use it instead of the felt.

I will get back to making the cow pouch so that I can be totally finished with this set.  The baby is due any day, so I am just getting it done in time for my son to give it to his friends when the baby comes.  However, I knew that if I didn't get it finished in time, it would still be okay.  It's not like the baby will be playing with the set for a few months. I think he just wanted to give them a gift when the baby arrived. Also, when I get going on a project, I like to finish it right away.  I started this set just last week, so I feel happy that I have been able to get it done so soon.  Designing the mat is always the hardest part.  It just takes so much time to figure out what will go on the mat, find the material necessary to meet the needs of the design, cut things out, heat bond them into place, and then applique' them all in place.  Choosing the materials and getting the toys cut out also takes up quite a bit of time.  It actually takes much less time to sew them than it does to get them cut out.

Another Play Mat

I have finished another play mat that my son ordered for his girl friend's sister who is having a baby girl.  They loved the last play set that I made with the fox theme, so they ordered one with a forest theme.  Two of the animals are the same as in the fox mat, but there are three new ones.  I had to go through the whole refiguration of the pattern to downsize the animals for the three new ones.  The other two were so easy because all of that was done before.  This mat is for a girl, but they didn't want any pink.  They figure she will get plenty of pink things and they wanted the animals to be in realistic colors.  One of the new animals is an owl.  I decided to make the background of the mat with an owl as the main theme.  The back is also with the same owl print that I used on the fox themed set. I had plenty of that fleece material left to make another mat. I downloaded a picture of an owl sitting on a branch of a tree that looked easy enough to applique' onto the mat.  I decided to sort of make it like a night owl, so I bought some material that sort of looks like sky.  I could have gotten a navy blue to make it darker, but I thought the lighter blue would look better for a baby.  They had so many shades of blue for this print, so I just chose the one that I thought looked better for a little girl and matched the owl print material that I found to use as the border.  Next, I had to find some material I liked for the arches.  I found lots of blue with white stars.  I wanted to use that as the arches, but there were also many shades of blue for that one.  It was a challenge to find the one that matched both the background color and the border color.  I was about to give up and go a different route from stars as the print when I located the perfect one.  With the material purchased, I went back to the owl.  I enlarged it with graphing again, 1/2" to 1".  To make it look more like a night owl, I put a large white moon behind the owl's head.  I think it is very cute and I am happy with the creation.

This shows the mat without the arches attached. I first tried just using fabric glue to attach the eyes because they have so many layers, but after getting everything else applique'd on, they didn't look right, so I also sewed them into place.  It was difficult to do.  It is hard to see in the picture, but the eyes have the white, a little bit of blue, and the small round black center.  I was afraid the needle might get jammed because of the amount of glue I had used to put them on, but it didn't and I really liked the way they looked once I did get them sewn around.  It made them stand out even more than before.

This is the mat with the arches and the animals attached.  The arches were an experience.  I wanted to make them a little taller than the ones I have made in the past, but I miscalculated how much taller they should be.  They are really tall, but I turned that mistake into what I like to refer as, "a happy accident."  By having taller arches, the mat can grow with the baby.  While the baby is still very young, she can lay on her back and reach up to the animals who are being hung with two or three rings instead of just one.  As she grows and can sit up, the extra rings can be removed so that the animals hang higher and she can still play with them, but more at her eye level.  Works for me.

This little hedgehog is one of the new characters to this set.  Kay, that is buying this set, chose this animal because she thinks it is so cute.  She really likes the way I made it, so I'm glad I did it, although it isn't really my favorite.  Kay loves the feet.

The little deer makes a cute animal for a forest themed play set.  It is rather sweet.

Here is the wise old owl.  It took a combination of two patterns to make this one.  I used the tail from another pattern, which you cannot see in the picture, because there wasn't one with this pattern.  I also added a belly to this one which was also not with the pattern.

These are the two like the ones from the other mat.

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.