The great sew-up-a-thon!

If you're a long time reader of my blog you may have noted the list of unfinished UFOs on the left hand side of my blog. At the beginning of 2012, I seriously took stock of all the unfinished objects that were hiding in weird places around my house. I dragged them out, dusted them off, photographed them and took note of what still needed doing on them, frogged a few in the process and blogged about them here in these two posts (UFOs and PhDs (a belated New Year's Resolution) and UFOs and PhDs (Take 2)). There were 14 of them at this stage.

It's now the beginning of 2014, and do you know how much attention I have paid these UFOs? That's right. None. They're all still languishing in their bags and baskets and cupboards. So this January whilst I'm on holidays, I'm making a concerted effort at finishing up those projects that essentially just required minimal sewing up and assembly.

I do like knitting toys but sometimes I hate sewing them up!

So drum roll! Here is the parade of  finished toys....

Stuffed Tropical Bird (sewn up and completed 5th January 2014)

My Mum gave my kids a Women's Weekly Book called "Knit a Square: Make a Toy". This is a combined effort from a few people knitting the squares. All the squares were knitted several years ago - it just needed sewing up. (Is anyone getting the impression this is my least favourite part of knitting toys?) This one is for sale or gifting.

Bits of birdy in early assembly stage. And this is where it stalled....

And this is what it is supposed to look like when it is finished.

 And so I forced myself to finish this one first. I swore and cursed and threw a few things while I was doing it, but about three hours later it was done. I'm proud of how it came together. It stands independently really well.  And then it posed for photos.

Raiding the chook's food

The Nativity Camel (Sewn up and completed 9th January 2014)
This is an addition to an existing Jean Greenhowe Christmas Crib set which belongs to the small grandsons of a friend of mine. The Christmas Crib was knitted by an elderly lady in a nursing home. However, one little boy when looking at the three kings, said "Where's their camel? They need a camel!" The original pattern doesn't have a camel so I'm knittied this one from Alan Dart's Noah's Ark instead. I was hoping the scale will work with the Three Kings.

Again partially assembled camel

This one had stalled because of the legs. Camels have weird knees. The legs are assembled by wrapping the knitted piece around a piece of drinking straw and carefully over-sewing whilst not crushing the straw. This was clearly a scary proposition to contemplate and so I put it aside. But this time I gritted my teeth and just got on with it. I stuffed the straw pieces firmly as well to make sure the legs were strong and stable. It only took a couple of hours to finish this in the end. Then the camel went and played in the weedy patch next to the railway lines.

The Christmas Sheep (Completed January 14th 2014)
This sheep is part of my sister’s Christmas Crib. Once again all the bits were here but I had to sew it up. There was probably only about an hour’s work here. Just finish it will you! (I also need to make a few more sheep, one sheep is lonely, 3 is a flock).

Sheep bits

And on January 14th 2014 in 36 degree heat, I sewed up the rest of the sheep. He is now a finished sheep. The kids think he looks evil but I pointed out that it was for their Auntie and they thought that an evil sheep was appropriate to go with her other evil pets.

The Jean Greenhowe Teddy (Completed 15th January 2014)
This was born from a skein of beautiful hand dyed merino I bought at a craft show. I love the wool and he is just the right level of fuzziness and squishy-ness. But I can't get his face right. He is supposed to have knitted nose and no mouth (see pattern picture below). I have done this but then removed it cos it just wasn't right... Also his back seam is off centre (which makes me cranky).

I knitted the nose and finished embroidering the face on 15th January 2013. The nose is knitted in an olive section of some leftover Trendsetter Yarns Tonalita yarn from the Shades of a Scarf project. He’s now a very woebegone looking teddy. Basically you can here him saying "Hug Me!". He is going into the gift box for the next baby gift.

Bear with no nose....

From Jean Greenhowe's Christmas Special, Reindeer and Polar Bear

 

Who could resist this face?

UFOs and PhDs (a belated New Year's Resolution)

All knitters know about UFOs: the inevitable unfinished objects. Us sophisticated types prefer to refer to them as PhDs (Projects Half Done). I don't really believe in New Year's resolutions (as I never keep them) but I did sort of set one for myself this year. I decided to that I need to finish the unfinished objects (But first I needed to find them... This may be the reason why a New Year's Resolution post is actually happening midway through February).

So here are the UFOs I have unearthed from various nooks and crannies and hidey-holes. This was a really useful exercise. I got to be honest about just how much stuff I have stashed and discover where it was hidden. Dragging them out into the bright light of day to be photographed forced me to decide their ultimate fate. Will I ever finish them or should they be frogged (that's unravelled back to balls of wool for those who aren't fluent in "knitspeak")?  Do I really need to stop procrastinating about sewing fiddly things up?

The Dead Fox. This is one of my longest standing UFOs. I've blogged about this one and the inspiration for the project before. However, I really find feathers type novelty yarn hard going to knit for any length of time so its likelihood of getting finished any time soon is pretty small. It hasn't got enough votes to go to the top of the "To Be Completed Next" list at this time.

Gentleman's Sampler Afghan cushion. This is from Nicky Epstein's Book "knitting for Your Home (which is out of print these days). I actually got to meet Nicky at Craft Show in Melbourne a few years ago and she kindly autographed my book and told me that it is now considered a rare item. This cushion is intended for my son's room. He choose the patterns and colours for the initial two squares we made and the buttons we used. It goes with the decor in his room where the interior walls are painted to resemble stone castle walls.

Two squares done

This one is definitely a keep and finish. Need to decide what other two squares to make now. Actually also toying with turning this into the outer layer of case for his new Asus Tablet. These two squares are the right size to make one side of a case.

Domino Cushion. At a craft show a few years ago I picked up a little book called  Domino Knitting by Vivian Hoxbro. (In fact one of the things I consistently by at craft shows is books). This was a test piece. I wanted to see how to make basic domino squares and then how to add an I Cord edge.

Completed cushion front

Domino knitting book

This one is finished. I just need to add a cushion back and then stuff it. This is a definitely finish project. I need to go and measure it and see if a commercial cushion insert will fit. This one will be a gift or for sale as it doesn't really go with my home decor and my husband sees all cushions as offensive and requiring killing and dismembering. Though cushions in the kid's rooms escape his radar. It would go with the girl's bedroom renovation though. Hmm....
 

Domino shawl. This then led to the domino shawl / wrap. This was inspired by the wool which was birthday present. The photos don't really do it justice. The three colours: a brown with a blue thread through it, a grey marl and a black all have metallic gold and silver threads through them. I'm not sure how big this will be as I haven't really got a handle on how far the wool will go.

This is a very fun knit in small doses. I used to take it with me to ballet rehearsals (no more of those now since the eldest daughter retired from competitive dancing about three years ago) but it's getting a little large to be readily portable. This one I will definitely finish (but in little chunks). I'm not sure if I will wear it though!

Thomas the Tank Engine. I think Thomas is actually the longest running UFO I found (about 10 years). He is still a UFO mainly because he is sort of finished and functional as is. This is an Alan Dart pattern from the English Woman's Weekly (again out of print) and now worth a fortune on Ebay (if you can get one).

This is Thomas. He looks sort of finished doesn't he? In fact he had at least 5 years of quality playtime with my son when he was little. I actually dug him out of stuffed toy chest to take his photo.

However, these are the bits still to be added. I gave up on this for a number of reasons. It is knitted in 12ply (about aran weight) on very small needles so it is really painful on the hands after any length of time. It is extremely fiddly to sew up. And finally, notice that black bit still on the needles. I ran out of the ball of 12ply I was using and none of the other blacks quite matched. There is very little knitting to be completed here. It's mainly sewing up.

I will finish this. After all who could resist a face like this and this is a future family heirloom. I can just see it handed down through the generations. It's knitted out of good quality wool and has already stood up to a mountain of abuse (I meant vigorous play) with no visible effect.

Dickensian mice. Another vintage Alan Dart Pattern from the English Women's Weekly. I like to have a number of small knitted toys as gifts. These ones make ideal Christmas presents. So I tend to knit them when I just want to do something little.

This is nearly finished. I have the head and arms sitting there waiting to be sewn up and stuffed. I just need to remember which one I was knitting....

Ninja Knitter. My Ravelry account name is ninja_knitter. Ravelry is like Facebook for fibre artists Those who knit, crochet and spin). My little avatar at the moment is a calculator, but I want a ninja knitter. So I'm making one. This is mainly unfinished as you can't crochet black under artificial lighting. I'm also designing as I go, so it's a bit slow.

Sheep. This sheep is part of my sister's Christmas Crib. Once again all the bits are here but I have to sew it up. There's probably only about an hour's work here. Just finish it will you. (I also need to make a few more sheep, one sheep is lonely, 3 is a flock).

Camel. This is an addition to an existing Alan Dart Christmas Crib set which belongs to the small grandsons of a friend of mine. The Christmas Crib was knitted by an elderly lady in a nursing home. However, one little boy when looking at the three kings, said "Where's their camel? They need a camel!" The original pattern doesn't have a camel so I'm knitting this one from Alan Dart's Noah's Ark instead. I'm hoping the scale will work with the Three Kings.

I started sewing up the camel but need to look at the pattern to figure out which way the neck and head go together. Also, I dreading those legs which have straws in them to make then stand up properly. I did mean to have this one finished for last Christmas...

The pattern comes from this book

A headless bear. This was intended to be an aviator bear for my Long-term University Office room mate. His hobby in his spare time is to fly a light plane into remote communities and bring hands on Science to the kids of the school of the Air. He is affectionately known as Phiggles - the Flying Scientist. If you want a clearer picture of exactly what he does have a look at the ad made by Vegemite about him. The pattern for this bear comes from Debbie Bliss's book Teddy Bears: Twenty Five Irresistible Designs for knitted bears.

So I raided the stash, found some wool, knitted away and then ran out of wool. I have made the body, both arms and legs and sewed them up and stuffed them. But he is head-less.

It has been suggested that I just sew him him up and leave him headless. I may just do this.