Owlishly

Amazing.

Really, I know a gazillion people have already linked to Kathleen Dougherty's awesome fantastic Grosgrain blog where she sews fantastic children's clothes and then GIVES them away, but her latest is too amazing not to post about.

By doing so, I'm entering her contest to win this fabulous Marie-Thérèse gown.  Seriously, if you don't read her blog, you need to get over there and take a look, and probably stay for a while.  Through serendipitous clicking I found her blog and subscribed immediately.  I think it helps that my daughter is on the smaller size of the dresses/clothes that she's usually giving away.  I've never entered one of her contests before, though I've been seriously tempted, but this one blows everything out of the water. Really.  Even if you don't have little girls, her clothes are so sweet to look at, so please do just that. 

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In the bat boy news, I've got him all finished up except his wings, oh, and his second ear, and part of his tail.  But other than that, he is finished.  I'm seriously always behind on holidays, but I can only keep hoping that one day I'll be ahead of the curve.  Hopefully I have some sympathizers.

I do know how I want to do the wings, I've planned the pattern in my head when I'm supposed to be sleeping, so I haven't gotten up and actually tried it, but I'm pretty sure it's going to work.  Lately, I've found that planning patterns while I'm going to sleep is actually becoming an effective way for me to fall asleep; except it's sometimes not the best plan for remembering my actual plans :)

Marcus the lion boy

Here's my latest request from a certain little boy-

He wanted a lion boy :)  I made him look like one of my childhood friends.  Marcus' dad had gone to high school with my mom & dad and they all got reacquainted planning their 10 year reunion.  After that our families were fairly inseparable for the next 10 years.  Marcus' parents went on a safari to Africa and came back with fantastic treasures and while making this little boy, I was reminded of them a lot.

As usual, I hope to get to the pattern soon, but geez, the way things go around here, I don't know when I actually will.

I've also been working on heads :) I find they're good to make when I'm undecided on what to do next, or trying to figure out in my own head what I want to do with a certain doll before actually trying it out. It was certainly a challenge balancing them long enough to snap their image!

Then this is a little owl that I couldn't resist from Etsy seller the buttercup! Super, super cute!

I used that big CF card for these and wasn't able to upload them on my computer, a cd came with the card but I can't even use that because it's one of those itsy bitsy cd's and it doesn't work with my laptop. So annoying.  I have to go get images printed/archived onto cd's before being able to upload the images from that CF.  Anyone with a lot more knowledge than me know how to fix that? Any help will be MUCH appreciated!

Ta-Da! Mere the Mermaid amigurumi pattern

She's finished at last!

I named her after a sweet mama friend- Mere, whose whole name is actually Meresani. She’s one of the kindest mamas that I know.   My two little ones love her,  and while my little boy was trying to come up with "M" names my little girl liked Mere's name (pronounced Mary) and I thought it was a good choice. It works out well too since Mere is the Old English word for sea, according to wikipedia at least.  Sometimes I don't research very well, and have spent far too much time fine tuning this doll anyway :)

Anyway, she was really fun to make, and I enjoyed trying to come up with my own version of a mermaid that wasn't like all the other super cute versions out there. I wanted to make her extra special by embroidering details like scales on her tail and giving her a little shell bra & sea star hair accessory. Additionally, I took pretty detailed photos of how I did the hair also since this was a bit of a departure from my regular hair.

Also, it helps that my little one LOVES her and wants to take her everywhere.  In fact, I had to put my foot down after she was sure that Mere wanted to take a bath since mermaids love the water.  Two year old little girls don't quite understand the logic that yarn mermaids and bathtubs don't necessarily go hand in hand.

So I'm happy to say that her pattern is up, both at my etsy shop and at my Ravelry store. 

Japanese Craft Book- 13 digit ISBN 9784529044950 10 digit ISBN 4529044955 Children's Crochet Patterns 90 * 100 * 110 cm

Okay, this one is one of my favorites.  For some reason it's part of the Let's Knit Series, but it's all crochet patterns for sweet little kids.

How can you not want to make everything in this book! 

The little kiddies in this book are so sweet and endearing, I especially like the patterns for the boys, that's actually why I bought this book to begin with.

How cute are these little girls!

The blanket and slipper patterns are included.

These little boy patterns are SO endearing.

I know it's about the patterns, but aren't these images adorable?

I seriously wish I had time to make these all, they are so cute.  Dang it.  But I know that whoever ends up with this will make more clothes from the patterns than I would!

Japanese Craft Book- 10 digit ISBN 4021904050 13 digit ISBN 978-4021904059 Japanese Baby sweaters and more Asahi Original Collection

This is one that I bought to make the pretty coat on the front cover, but then ended up never getting to it in time.  Now my little girl is too big, and the only thing I ever sort of made was the little capelet for my niece, and then ended up majorly modifying the pattern to only include the lacy part of the pattern.

Front cover

contents

even more contents

bonnet & booties

Don't you love the aesthetic of these books, they're all so pretty.  The patterns are for boys and girls, and seem like they'd be fairly quick to make.  I think the charts help out so much with all of these books, they make the patterns so simple to understand.

Japanese Crochet Pattern Book- 10 digit ISBN 4861912016 13 digit ISBN 9784861912016 Desserts and Food theme- keito no tei taimu fujita tomoko no nitsuto ru mu- 毛糸のティータイム

Another book that I couldn't wait to get & drooled over every time I saw projects made from it, and then opened only a smattering of times to admire but never ever make anything from. Nuts! These are really fantastic projects.
 
Yum!- what a perfect front cover.

Back cover

a lovely "pear" of ideas :)

I really wanted to make this

an apple coin purse

pattern example.

This one is definitely one of the most beautiful crocheted fruit/food books I've ever seen, I wish I had time & the inclination to actually make some of these projects.

Japanese Craft Books- 10 digit ISBN 4391117584 13 digit ISBN 978-4391117585 Japanese Felt Mascots- tenuide tsukuru doubutsu masukotto chiisana tomodachi 190 ten

Okay, so what I think I'm going to do is use the isbn # (and the actual titles if I have them) as the title for each post and do one post per book, that way it's easier to categorize.  In no particular order, this post and the following 10 or so, are the books that I'm going to be listing for sale on Etsy as part of my decluttering/passing really neat books on to someone who'll actually use them kick :)

This one's fun because it reads from right to left.  This includes patterns and instructions for all of the little felt cuties on the cover, front & back.  I've seen them come to fruition on a bunch of different blogs and I always adore them, but for some reason I'm never especially compelled to make any of them. My son loves all the little mascots in this book, but he prefers just looking at it, and doesn't really want me to actually make any of them for him.  They are super cute aren't they?  I especially love the mallard!

front

 

back

materials & supplies

how to

super cute examples of what you can make

I think one of the bad things about actually doing this and spending time with the books trying to decide which pages best represent the book as a whole is that I'm remembering why I bought these in the first place!  I'm committed to pass them on though so I'd appreciate all the help I can get with that ;) Thanks.

Francisca the butterfly & Laura the ladybird

Here are the twins, I've absolutely no time to write, but I'll share images and be back soon!