First day of vacation

Besides my earlier post about corn, this is also the first day of the last of my vacation for the year. I have a little over a week off. I have spent the morning home in the garden for a while, and now inside making something for Esme (and us, actually). This cardboard butterfly was made with an old box, some yarn and a needle and then paint. It is hanging above Esme's desk now up against the ceiling. I think the features turned out pretty good for not looking at anything and following instincts... it even ended up with 'legs' against its chest ;) Mark sharpened a knife to cut the box with, and I cut it out. Esme painted some of the black, pink and orange and then played on her bike until I had finished the rest.




about four feet wingspan

I cleared out all of the old cornstalks out of the main garden and have exposed another four foot by six foot bare space. I have to think if I am going to let it sit (who, me?) or what to put there for the summer to the fall.

Sluggish around here? No not at all!

Custom slug order for JB - here they are!
One is a little longer than the other and has a bigger mouth - but every toy has its own unique personality, even when they come from the same pattern!



Sluggish? Actually we've been quite busy!

Our Thanksgiving was simple, at home and relaxing. We had a 'traditional pepperoni pizza' as CarrieK said. We took Esme up to see Grandma and Grandpa for about an hour, but she was more interested in tromping about their house getting into things than actually visiting (she is one after all). We went home and made pizza and watched a movie, then tired Esme entirely out so she would go to sleep early. I had to work on Black Friday at 6 am. That actually wasn't so bad, but then I have five years of experience under my belt and I didn't have to open the doors -- that poor guy in New York!


Slug with carrot
He has finally come back from St.Louis
He'll be in the shop

The toys all came back finally from the Crammed Organisms show in St.Louis. Some of them were just a little worse for wear. It took them a long time to turnaround the shipping (which I had to pay for both ways and that sucked) and they didn't do very well on getting pictures of things while they were at the show. I saw Bumblephant in just one photo out of the twenty some they took. I was glad to be invited to what was a wonderful and original idea but was kind of left wanting for more. Maybe they'll do better next year, as this was their first try at anything this large.

PDF pattern for Horse or Zebra softie now available

PDF pattern for Horse or Zebra softie (soft stuffed toy) is now available at KnitOwl toys with electronic delivery. Great for making Christmas gifts for your friends and family :)

Rocky the Ferocious Sock Dachsund

How Dachsunds See Themselves : Ferocious!

More KnitOwl toys and more dreams

That is a newborn size pacifier next to the tiny green kangaroo!
I still use tweezers to turn and stuff these little guys.
I've reserved the pink Mama kangaroo and joey for a lady in Canada who contacted me yesterday. Her nice comments on that toy have spurred me to make a few more baby kangaroos. I hope they would make good baby shower gifts. I'm sure another set will be in the shop soon as well.


SOLD

This black cat stuffie was made with the same pattern as the rag rabbit dolls. Alee at Stuffed made a rag rabbit from my PDF pattern and it is really cute! She did a great job on the face especially, using tiny stitches. I really appreciate her testing it out for me! I'll have the .PDF up in the Etsy shop for sale soon.

More Pregnancy Dreams: Again, my brain is working on things at night that I barely think about during the day. We were talking about how soon after Bazooka is born I'll be physically ready to do even light desk and counter type work. I don't think I'll know that until about 3 or 4 days after she is born, at the very least.

Last night I was dreaming about her already being here and taking care of her -- but my mental 'image catalog' is weird, and it kept bouncing between a lifelike doll I had as a kid and my sister's daughter when she was two. I knew I was dreaming and that none of it was like it will be - but some part of me wants to 'practice' maybe... subconscious wondering if I'll know what to do with her, etc... My dreams are always very real - like I'm actually there, doing those things, until something seems 'out of place' and because I know it's a dream then it usually breaks apart and I wake up.

Beaky

I signed up for a swap called 'Handmade Happiness.' You sign up through swap-bot and send two handmade items to your partner. It sounds like a fun and quick thing to do! Link for swap page: here

Stuffed owl made from an original pattern, available here. Mark suggested the beak curve. Handmade toy by KnitOwl 6.5 inches sitting, 11 inches standing.

Toymaker's Rant: Etsy used to have a lot more 'quality' toymakers, people who took some visible time with their toys when making them. Lately I see a lot of amateurish work and things that look more glued together or hanging together by luck alone than that good quality work I was used to getting inspiration from.

Quality toymakers like Hop Skip Jump, Loobylu, Jhoanna Aranez and Little Birds, all of whom I greatly admire.

I'm wondering where all the other 'artisans' went? I still see some, new and old, on Flickr. A lot of them have their own shops now..

Etsy used to be great because we were all in the same place. It was a benefit to post toys there because it put you into a search engine that was used by lots of people every day. It was like Ebay, but everything was handmade by a real person (often with a blog, who you could start a conversation up with). Not to say there aren't still a lot of nice things on Etsy... their yarn, beads, clothing, handbags etc... are still on the most part looking very professional.

Note: my work is nowhere near as 'professional' as those artists I listed above, but I do put some time into making sure my toys will stand up to normal handling and not look thrown-together. I should invest more in some materials like wool or linen, but does that make the toys too fancy for real children to get to play with them?

KnitOwl chugging along again...

Finished this little rabbit last night, and he's up in the shop. I'm still working on the first alien's embroidery.


Chris: What the wool yarn is for...
This belt is five years old, and needs to be replaced now.

I'm working on a series of photo essays about weaving, to post on our work site. It will take a bit to get everything polished, but what we have so far looks promising!



Two belts warped up and ready to weave.


A beautiful picture Mark took of one of the belts as I started to weave.

Linky Fest: This brought a smile today: Rutabaga Curling at the Ithaca Farmer's Market in Ithaca, NY. Found it at Wikipedia while we were looking up if a swede was a rutabaga or a turnip - it's a rutabaga (also known as a swedish turnip.. btw). [inspired by a fark thread about - Where's the battleship made of carrots?]