Emma, who is now 10, needed a camp buddy.
Voila! It only took me almost all day. 
Emma says it's a boy and it's name is Bobo. Naturally, I had to finish it at the party and Emma was quite interested so we looked at the others in the Ravelry gallery. She has dubbed the race, Funkies.
I used Sugar & Cream & Peaches and Fun Fur. Now if you think it is hard to knit with fun fur, you are correct. But let's give a what ever we give people to show we appreciate and respect their accomplishments (maybe a Huzzah?) to our sisters in crochet, because crocheting fun fur is much harder than knitting with it.
When Bobo was finally finished, Sophie, the now 4-year old, who copies Emma fiercely, appeared with something I had forgotten about. I sort of remember crocheting the gold lame* sweater directly onto the pig at an earlier gathering. Sophie was probably an infant, if she even existed. I am most impressed and amused by the teeny tiny arms. Plus, I got to hear this yelled today: "Sophie, put the sweater on the pig!" Now there's a novel sentence. I also crocheted a swimsuit onto a bear. It turned out to look like underpants. Actually, they may have been underpants, but Emma was young enough to be embarassed by that and called them swimming trunks. 
Don't despair! Despair not! Knitting is here also. And sewing. Sewing with repurposing. I suppose it was willful of me to cut up a shirt about which I actually have gotten compliments, but it actually matched the yarn. You may be familiar with the yarn. It's that orchid colored bulky cotton I've got. There were things in my fabric stash that kind of matched it, but not well.
It's somewhere between pink and lavender. To be honest (it's not like I'm lying), I didn't like that shirt because anyway it looked old lady or something. Shut up, I know.
I borrowed the top from a free dress pattern, which I'm not linking because I changed it so much. I wanted an opening in the front because I thought I'd be using a shirt with buttons and then the dress would button all the way from the top to the bottom. But before I even finished knitting, after it was too late to frog (another time), I decided it was too small. Therefore, I closed the buttonholes in the bodice and butted the front bands together and sewed them with a mattress stitch so they'd line up properly. I also cut off the button bands from the blouse and sewed it shut. Using a shirt was a fabulous idea, mainly because it's already hemmed. If I were to make another, I'd knit some sort of border that would hold better than plain ribbing in cotton. I would like it to have a horizontal orientation in order to hide the sewing better. I would have preferred to have sewn above where I attached the skirt to make the seam allowance lay flatter. I didn't because I thought the line of stitching would ruin the look of the ribs. I had thought the ribbing would be better because it would stretch. That's wrong for cotton, exactly wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Sophie likes the dress. She carried it around for quite a while before donning it. I think she wanted to give equal time to the dress that Aunt Janie gave her. It's driving me crazy that the edging on the arm front is curling under. I steamed it and it was laying fine. It's happening because Sophie keeps moving her arms. Why can't these children just stay still!
I learned some new things on these 2 projects. One was the magic ring, which is a crochet technique for making a holeless circle center. It doesn't start with a slipknot, so you don't get the lump. I think I've seen something similar used in knitting. I tried to invent it, but I was married to the slipknot. I also learned that stuffing toys with waste yarn doesn't mean you have to chop it up or save up little bits for years until you get enough. It means you can take acrylic yarn and pull it out of the skein and just mush it in. Not only do you get rid of some of that acrylic stash, but you can use a color similar to your project, so it won't show; it's much easier to handle than the polyfil and likely equally enviromentally evil. Win, win, win.
Don't despair! Despair not! Knitting is here also. And sewing. Sewing with repurposing. I suppose it was willful of me to cut up a shirt about which I actually have gotten compliments, but it actually matched the yarn. You may be familiar with the yarn. It's that orchid colored bulky cotton I've got. There were things in my fabric stash that kind of matched it, but not well.It's somewhere between pink and lavender. To be honest (it's not like I'm lying), I didn't like that shirt because anyway it looked old lady or something. Shut up, I know.
I borrowed the top from a free dress pattern, which I'm not linking because I changed it so much. I wanted an opening in the front because I thought I'd be using a shirt with buttons and then the dress would button all the way from the top to the bottom. But before I even finished knitting, after it was too late to frog (another time), I decided it was too small. Therefore, I closed the buttonholes in the bodice and butted the front bands together and sewed them with a mattress stitch so they'd line up properly. I also cut off the button bands from the blouse and sewed it shut. Using a shirt was a fabulous idea, mainly because it's already hemmed. If I were to make another, I'd knit some sort of border that would hold better than plain ribbing in cotton. I would like it to have a horizontal orientation in order to hide the sewing better. I would have preferred to have sewn above where I attached the skirt to make the seam allowance lay flatter. I didn't because I thought the line of stitching would ruin the look of the ribs. I had thought the ribbing would be better because it would stretch. That's wrong for cotton, exactly wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.Sophie likes the dress. She carried it around for quite a while before donning it. I think she wanted to give equal time to the dress that Aunt Janie gave her. It's driving me crazy that the edging on the arm front is curling under. I steamed it and it was laying fine. It's happening because Sophie keeps moving her arms. Why can't these children just stay still! I learned some new things on these 2 projects. One was the magic ring, which is a crochet technique for making a holeless circle center. It doesn't start with a slipknot, so you don't get the lump. I think I've seen something similar used in knitting. I tried to invent it, but I was married to the slipknot. I also learned that stuffing toys with waste yarn doesn't mean you have to chop it up or save up little bits for years until you get enough. It means you can take acrylic yarn and pull it out of the skein and just mush it in. Not only do you get rid of some of that acrylic stash, but you can use a color similar to your project, so it won't show; it's much easier to handle than the polyfil and likely equally enviromentally evil. Win, win, win.**Sorry, I don't know how to make an accent mark.
4 comments:
Wow, have you been busy or what? Having such darling little ones to knit for must help. I love the little creature. A friend here has been making them, too. I'd like to learn to crochet, but time is always an obstacle.
And sewing, too! The dress is adorable and so inventive.
Trés, trés, trés cute!
Why don't I have little girls to knit for? My little boys scorned sweaters.
I love the dress. The little stuffy is cute, but I would never want to make one. Too much time for such a little chotsky. (Is that the correct spelling and usage in Yiddish?)
That dress is brilliant! You totally rock.
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