I had idyllic visions of relaxing in my hammock and knitting away this summer. As we were driving to our favorite campground in Idaho, I even made Barry stop at Walmart because I had forgotten my knitting needles. Now, that is desperation! I just had to have something to knit my fuzzy purple yarn. Well, I think I got to knit for about an hour on that trip. That was in June. What is it now, November? Well, my fluffy purple yarn is finally all used up!

There’s some little girl that will be getting a snuggly birthday present!

My friend April is updating her little bunny knitting pattern book and I just got done with a few illustrations for it.

Fun, huh? I love April’s knit bunnies. And, I miss April. She moved far, far away…

She has new bears that I haven’t seen yet up on her site. I love their uniqueness, their quirks, their circus clothes. They are just so cute I can hardly stand it.

I am in search of a style as distinctive and irresistable as hers. What talent!

Here’s my newest teddy in her smock and apron:

She’s made from a pattern in my Japanese teddy bear book. I haven’t scanned the page for you to see what the original looked like, but I did change things around a little bit and added some clothes to make her mine. She’s my first bear made with traditional mohair fabric. Here paw pads are merino felt made right here in my kitchen. She’s stuffed with polyfil and pellets, so she sits nicely on the edges of things. So, for the past few days she’s been following me around so that I can keep an eye on her.

Too bad mohair is so expensive, because it is much faster to just cut out pattern pieces than it is to needle punch or rug hook them myself.

But, needle punching mohair….

Hmmm….

So, there has been a lot out there in crafty blog land about japanese craft books. I’ve envied the ones posted over on angry chicken over and over. There’s this hand made felt one I’ve been drooling over for months now. Then this blog got started and I started browsing the eBay sellers. Well, here’s what I got in the mail today:

I’m pretty excited about the baby elephant. It’s the perfect size for a punch-needle project. And my kids are definitely getting hedgehogs for Christmas. The patterns are clear and easy to follow, despite the fact they are in japanese.

I’m sure this won’t be my last japanese craft book.

Here’s a little tiny guy. Despite his diminuitive size, he’s taken a long time to make. I spun super fine lace weight merino yarn, then made the fabric for each pattern piece with punch needle emboidery. That took me awhile because it was my first punch needle project and I didn’t get the same density of loops on the pieces, and then I forgot to make one of the body pieces a mirror image of the other. I was working on this way back in April while I was listening to the General Conference broadcast. I took him to Boise with me too, in hopes of finishing him, but I was quilting.

Anyway, he’s done now and I love him! He’s pretty crooked and wonky. Sitting down he’s 4 or 5 inches tall, fully jointed, with glass eyes, and ribbon Amy sent me tied around his neck. Now he’s sitting on the book shelf by his big pal Rupert.

Here is the bunny my friend April made me for my birthday (with her own pattern, might I add). She’s knit with alpaca yarn. I’m not sure what kind of fiber the dress is– I think it’s some acrylic blend. I love the color! April is an awesome knitter.

but I haven’t blogged about it. I’m excited about the gifts I gave, so I want to put pictures up here.

Barry’s mom got the first bear I ever made all repaired and ready to sit on a shelf.

For my mom I knit some handspun angora yarn from my rabbit Sally.

Can you see how soft she is? Angora yarn is so fun the way is fluffs out and gets a fuzzy halo. I put a little bag of lentils in her body and she sits perfectly.

What do you think of her hooded sweater– with earholes? The yarn is handspun wool that I dyed when it was roving (with pink lemonade and blue raspberry lemonade) then spun it. It turned out to be a nice perwinkle color, so Brenna decided that was what the bunny had to be named.

Happy mother’s day moms! I hope you like your little critters

It started as this. Then it was this. My super soft angora yarn has been sitting in my yarn bowl for months just waiting to be transformed into something other than a skein, and April’s bunny pattern was the perfect thing!

Despite my crazy day I got quite a bit done. We started swimming lessons at the YMCA. Jonah screamed, so despite my best efforts to swim laps while my kids were in class, I ended up standing by Jonah, trying to convince him that holding on to the wall with me two feet away or 20 was the same thing. Brenna the fish had a blast.

Then we had the food delivery at church and one of the sisters didn’t get most of the groceries she needed. So, I spent the afternoon on the phone trying to track down canned goods and beans while Logan screamed and eventually fell asleep in the high chair.

Now it’s time for me to do yoga and go to bed.

I was sitting back and letting yet another month go by without submitting something to Loobylu’s Month of Softies, but last night I decided to just do it. I broke out some pants full of holes and made some bean-bag monsters. Their hair is made of scraps of handspun yarn and their teeth are handmade wool felt, then I got an old bag of lentils out of the pantry and stuffed away.

This is Abenya from the land of Abanar (ask Brenna for details). She especially loves the sweet smell of cherry blossoms, and the view from up here.

This is Jonah’s monster Mo. He’s a little scared of heights, so he’s soaking in the spring air here among the lilly of the valley.

The kids have been playing with them all day– and they should be good for a game of bean bag toss too.