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

Crocheted bowl

I have finished my little crochet bowl :) yay! It took me only 2 crocheting sessions to complete it and it turned out to very easy :) For someone who crochets table runners, bags and jumpers on a daily basis it's nothing big, just a very basic crochet bowl, for me - it's my first ever crochet project that has been made and finished entirely by myself. So the first step into the crochet world has been taken. I'm in.

The project comes from a book "My first crochet book" for crafty children. No harm in starting with simple crochet projects for kids, is there?

The bowl can be turned out with its rim folding out to the outside...

...or with the rims folding in to the inside... It's just a little thing for storing some jewellery, coins, buttons or shells on your shelf. 

I gave this bowl to my male colleague at work. He says he likes such cosy crocheted makes. Now, I've moved onto another project to practise my crochet skills - I'm working on a storage jar cosy - simple but colourful and striking. I'm also trying my hand at crocheting little cute flowers.

New Baby Cross Stitched Card. A very "stitchy" weekend.

This weekend has been all about cross stitching. Woohoo! Finally, I have finished my cross stitched teddy  and mounted it on a card. I was backstitching it all afternoon yesterday and today I've washed it, ironed it and mounted on the card and embellished the whole thing :) Quite elaborate piece of work considering how many hours have gone into stitching the teddy itself plus how much time I spent today pondering on the card layout and choosing the right stamps! :) Pink gingham paper was a must! - I just love gingham patterns. Cross stitched cards are the most time-consuming types of cards but they are so unique and special in this way. Not bad ;) Pleased with the results.

The card will go to my colleague, who recently has had a baby - gorgeous ginger-haired Millie May. Hope she likes it. 

The cross stitch design comes from Cute Cross Stitch magazine, a newbie on the press market, issue no.1, Spring 2013. The stamps I used to make a tag: Nordic Baby from The Waltzing Mouse Stamps and the punched lacy heart border was made using Martha Stewart punch Heart Border. 

Still on the cross stitch frontline, yesterday a new issue of subscribed Cross Stitcher arrived through the post and since I just loved their added freebie, I started stitching it immediately :) These 3 supa cute retro / folksy flowers are sooooo my style! They will make a set of 3 cross stitched notelets. 

I'm really enjoying stitching them right now!

Speaking of the cute flowers, I have been sooo over the moon when I managed to get hold of these 2 gorgeous sets of stamps:

In a way they are very special for me. These are the stamps by Basic Grey from 2009 - series: Ambrosia Bitsy Bohemia stamps. Very difficult to buy now as they are the retired products. I spotted them being reserved and then bought by someone else in a 2nd hand craft market group on facebook (doh!) and since I'm always on the lookout for the craft products with a unique folky feel, I knew I had to find a set like this for myself too. I scoured the whole internet looking for them and finally some persistent search on ebay made my dream come true :)))) there was one seller in Germany who was still selling them and now I can enjoy card making with these beautiful designs. How lucky I was! My favourites among these sets are naturally the  gorgeous folky butterfly, 2 birds on the branches and a folky medallion with a butterfly inside (two separate stamps).

To finish off with this stampaholic confession, I'm linking up tonight at Hand-made Harbour to do some blog hopping. Hope all you have had a good weekend and enjoyed the last two sunny days. x x