Owl Mobile

Hi everyone. Hope you all have had a good weekend with plenty of sunshine. This is my latest craft project: the little knitted owls. My first knitted toy and the first owls I've ever knitted. I'm very pleased how they turned out. They had been on my to-do craft list but my work colleague motivated me to have a go at them as she couldn't read the pattern. The owls turned out to be easy-peasy to make :) I have a feeling I will be knitting more of them in the future!

The owls come from a lovely book Baby and Toddler Knits made easy. I bought it at my workplace from a bookman and it only cost me a fiver! Bargain! Funnily, this book turned out to be a selling hit among my colleagues and quite a few of us got their own copy. The book is published by DK - one of my favourite publishing houses. They are good at releasing handbooks and the instructions and photos in their books are always clear. There's also a knitting guide at the back of this book too. It's a hardback with glossy paper and beautiful photographs. Another lovely add-on to my crafty book bookshelf. I just love the knitted pattern on the cover!

The whole project is an owl mobile for a baby :) My owls are more of a key ring type. Actually I've already given them away to people at work. 3 went to my colleagues who have a special liking for owls and one went to an autistic boy who loves his book about baby owls - he always brings it to school from home :) 

I had to take a few photos before I let them fly away :)

They came out pretty small, about 7-8 cm high. Very light as stuffed with polyestre. They don't take much yarn, literally scraps and some tiny amount of felt. They are also fast to knit. Just finishing off the bits may take a bit longer but I always like to get my details right :) I didn't have the same yarn as recommended in the book so I used grey yarn to combine with different colours. I think it combines very well with all sorts of colours. 

I hung them on my seasonal tree just to see what they would look like:

This gave me an idea: I'm going to knit my own owl gang, just using different colours to match my mantlepiece decoration :)

A few photos outside :) I even made a crude rustic mobile for them using garden stitcks ;)

My cat Cookie aka Mr Nosey was "helping" me take the photos outside. He's got to be everywhere where something is going on. His job was to hang around the bushes and check if any stranger is approaching :)

But after 5 min. he was ready to take a chilling break :P

Cooling down with his leg sticking up in the air ha ha

Ready with my knitted owl gang for Handmade Monday blog hop. Do join in and have fun reading about other crafters' doings. Have a good weekend and thank you for your comments. x x

(Early) Christmas Cards 2013 (9) & A new furry addition to the household :)

What a week and what a weekend! Each day of this week brought something new and  each was busy for me one way or the other. The weekend is just passing by. I really don't know where this time is flying. Day after day and night after night and we are already at the end of September. To be honest, I haven't done much this week - just a few cards in the evenings to add to the overall Christmas card collection So I'm showing you the two new ones :) This time a little more traditional take on Christmas cards with lots of green accents. I missed some green shades after such a long time making red and white Scandinavian ones. 

I absolutely love that lacey die cut Christmas tree (Cheery Lynn dies) and the red heat-embossed reindeer from A Muse Studio stamp set. The poinsettia on vine punched border is Martha Stewart's punch.

Little details - tags, strings, borders, charms is what I've always liked :) I'm still in love with bakers twines too. I keep seeing a lot of them on eBay and in craft shops. They add a lot to the festive charm.

And another go at Christmas greens but this time with a bit of yellow too :) The image is comes from a Noolibird stamp I bought last year and this cute folky bird in a festive wreath has always been one of my favourites in my stamp collection. 

This year another punch joined up my collection - a Woodware punch - Large Holly Leaf - how did I do without it before? I find it so useful and I just love the shapely holly leaves it punches. I feel tempted to use it on each of my cards! 

And finally, last, but not least - meet Cookie - our new addition to the household :-)))) We got her yesterday from a woman who apparently saved her life from an outdoor fire. She's full of beans and she's just trying to settle down. She's about 10 weeks old.

I just melted when I saw her photo on facebook. The white whiskers and the "milky" moustache simply captured my heart.

She's so little and so everywhere! I haven't had a little kitten at home for ages! I'm getting used to it again.

She's so sweet and she loves a lot of TLC. She is not liking our old cat Stinky though. She's very distrustful towards him and giving him lots of hissing and growling at the moment. I hope they will make friends in the end because Stinky is a real can't-be-bothered docile cat.

Linking Hand-made Monday no. 136 tonight. I'm really curious what other crafters have been up to.