Batgirl gets her wings

Meet Batgirl! I don't really know where the inspiration foe this little doll came from, but gradually the idea of making a doll with bat-wings has been emerging from the depths of my imagination. Partly from the works of Tilda, whose dolls tend to have angel wings, I think. And partly from all the magical Halloweeny creatures created by Calamity Kim, (check out her new blog) although this little critter is a much simpler, less elaborate creation. Somehow things have melded together and she just had to be made.

I combined patterns for a cat doll and a mouse doll in one of the Tilda books and changed the profile of the head slightly to make it look more bat-like (I couldn't say batty, now, could I...). Bats have more of a snout than a car's triangular nose, so I just added french knots for the nostrils. That, and the little fangs - not quite grown out, she's just a little girl, you know - and she looks like a bat to me. The wings complete the picture, of course. I drafted them from a picture of a bat found online, added batting and pipe-cleaners inside to give a bit of structure, and there she is! I stitched together a little party dress for her, moths seemed appropriate - I bet little batgirls just love moths... (or 'moffs', as she would say...). The dress is short sleeved, but that's OK:

If she feels cold, she can use her wings as a cloak. Sweet little thing, isn't she?

Owl be ready

 This is the place to go for bad puns, it seems...
Meet Poe made from Heather Bailey's pattern "Edgar Owl and Poe" (much better pun). He was made for my youngest sister, who, as I might have mentioned earlier, has a thing for owls. The minute I saw this pattern I knew I had to get it and make one for her. Once it arrived I looked at it for a while and put it away, meaning to get back to it, as one does. Somehow I never did, until the day before her birthday...

What better time to get started than the day before your deadline! Choosing the right fabrics was what had stumped me earlier, but I had the scraps from the star quilt I'm working on lying on my work surface, and once I realized I could use those, the rest was easy. I found some pieces of wool felt in my stash in colours that worked well with the rest, and got going.

It wasn't all that difficult once I had cut out all the small pieces. Some of the felt pieces were supposed to be cut using pinking shears, but I searched high and low for mine and couldn't locate them. No doubt they'll suddenly appear now that I'm finished...

Anyway, the pattern was well written and it all came together quite well, I think, although my late start meant working into the early hours!

The best part was that my sister was overjoyed and found a prominent place for him to settle and survey his surroundings right away. He is supposed to be a pincushion, but I'm sure that with the look he gives you no one will dare stick a pin in him ever!

Little people

I found a picture of a little knitted girl like this on Pinterest and managed to locate the pattern on Etsy here. After visiting a local yarn store and finding the perfect shiny black yarn in my stash I was ready to download the pattern and start knitting my own Little Red. Isn't she sweet?

The umbrella needed some kind of support and after a bit of searching in shelves and cupboards I ended up using the domed lid from a cherry tomato container. That meant that I had to make the umbrella a bit smaller than the pattern called for, but it doesn't rain all that much indoors, so I guess Little Red will be safe and dry, LOL. She seems quite comfortable anyway, sitting there on my red shelf, making me smile every time I walk past her.

While I was at it, I also knitted this little guy from a pattern I found in an old magazine.He was put in one of the Christmas decoration boxes, so I won't see him again for a while, but no doubt he will be a nice surprise when I get the boxes out in December!
Both were fast and easy knits and very satisfying - a few evenings of waving some needles and yarn about, resulting in two little friends - you can't beat that for results!

F is for Flossie, Faye, Flora and Fernanda

It all started so innocently with Flora the Gardener. I found the pattern somewhere and liked her prim little face and felt watering can - such a practical feature, don't you think?
No sooner had she got her hat on, than she announced that she wanted a friend. A quilting friend. After a little think, Flossie the Quilter was born, complete with half finished quilt (what is a quilter without a UFO?) and paper tape measure from IKEA.
With a gardener and a quilter in the house there was reason to believe that there wouldn't be much housework done, so another friend with a broom was next. She, however, evolved into Fernanda the Witch, who was no more interested in sweeping than the rest of them, so to finish the quartet, Faye the Fairy with her magical wand designed to bless my rooms and make them dust free arrived. Sadly I have to report that there is some kind of malfunctioning where that wand is concerned. Matters will have to be looked into....

What's this?

Maybe not so easy to guess from this picture, but we had a hail storm today. It's been really cold and wintery, snow in the air, and the mountains in the distance are dusted with caster sugar again. Being an optimist I had put winter coats and boots away, but that was way too early it seems! Well, April is a tricky month, I tend to forget that every year - it's something about the days getting longer and warmer, and you think Spring has arrived, and the next minute Winter lets you know it isn't going to let go yet. And woudn't you know it, when I got my act together and went outside to take a picture of this terrible weather, it cleared and the sun was out! But only for a few minutes...
I had to rescue these tiny tidings of Spring - they looked so shivery and unhappy outside, so they're back in my living room again for now, waiting for better days... It's far better indoors today, both for humans and flowers. The Easter decorations are out and it is warm and cosy here. Lots of books and magazines to read - I got started on a bit of sorting out, so now I have three piles of magazines - one to keep (by far the highest pile...) one to throw out, and one to go to new homes. I'll continue tomorrow by sorting through all my old cross-stitch magazines. There are loads that I will never stitch anything from, and they could do with new homes, and that should leave enough space to store the "keep-pile" from today's purge, I think...
Finding the excuse to stay indoors on such a blustery day (love that word, reminds me of a little poem about bears I have somewhere...) also meant time with my sewing machine. I've been going on about this quilt, so I'd better show you a picture - proof that I am actually quilting the thing now! More of that tomorrow, I think.
Now for that poem*:

Bears, on the whole, like a blustery day

Because it refreshes their plush

And blows out the tangles and crumbs that collect

And which just won't come out with a brush.

So they walk in the wind and think it good fun

To get huffed at and puffed at and blown.

If it's gale force or more, that's all to the good

And you won't hear a teddy bear moan.

But they don't like those days when it's windy and wet,

When it rains and it blows both together.

They'll huddle indoors and sit by the fire

And grumble "What inclement weather!"

On those wet windy days you can seek them in vain:

No teddy, no matter how stout,

Will venture outside, for he knows if he does

His umbrella will blow inside out!

*I found this and several others in a magazine years ago and cut them out and stuck them in my little blue notebook, but stupidly didn't include the information about who wrote them... Hope I'll be forgiven!

The angelic guest

Bella aims to be the best kind of houseguest. Never intrusive, but prepared to be a good sport whatever happens. She waits quietly in her room in the morning for the family to finish using the bathroom. She has donned her new bathrobe with hand embroidered flowers over her gingham PJs that she bought especially for this Christmas holiday visiting friends in the country. She has a crick in her neck after sleeping in an unfamiliar bed with her hair wound round pieces of paper tissue and tied with ribbons, to give her otherwise straight hair some semblance of curls for tonight's party. - Now, was that the bathroom door? Yes, time to rush across the hall........ but, too late, one of the teenage girls beat her to it. Oh well, she'll just have to wait outside the door- one of the other guests popped out of her room at the same time, it would be silly to go back to her room now. And she may be an angel, but she is keeping her place in the queue, because she just has to go....

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Old St. Nick is back! He has been hiding out in the attic since January, but promises of fresh baked cookies tempted him downstairs today.
I don't usually decorate until the last week before Christmas, so that it all will be new and fresh when the holidays start. That means that a lot of my homemade creatures and decorations are hidden away for about 49 weeks a year. When I finally get the boxes down and start opening them, it is like meeting old friends again, and I find myself chatting with them, asking them where they want to sit this year and comiserating with them about having been squashed together in a dark box for months and months - quite batty, don't you think?
Never mind! I'm still a kid at heart, and who wouldn't be cheered by the sweet little faces of these cherubs? Never mind about those chubby, less than perfect hands and feet.
And what about my snow family? Covered in artificial snow and getting all tangled up in those Christmas lights - who can blame them, having to make do with those akward branches instead of hands? And still they're smiling! I must admit I have a thing abut snowmen, so they tend to turn up everywhere at this time of the year. The great thing about them is that they can stay on a bit longer as well, since snowmen aren't out of season until March or April. These two seem to think they have been hanging in there for ages already, politely hiding heir yawns, but quite ready to go to bed in their little PJs, thank you! Yes, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here, but I still have boxes to get out of the attic, some cleaning to do and a few presents to wrap. My bathroom angels are almost finished, and I only have the binding left on my Christmas table mats. Now if only I could get the rest of the quilting done on that tree skirt I'd be ready for the holidays, but there's nothing like some last-minute stress and I might get there yet... ;-)

Bathrobes for angels...

It's the Twilight Zone here...
The weather has been so bad lately that I feel I haven't seen daylight for weeks. But that doesn't stop some angels from seeing the light of day - the little light there is...
Things seemed a bit akward at first, but these bits of wire sticking through her head didn't seem to bother Bella much. Until her eyes were added, that is... Then she started looking accusingly at me, so I had to help her with her hair. Lots of pigtails with ginham ribbons in them. She seemed happy with that, until she realized that she had next to nothing on - hence the blush. I'd better get a move on with her bathrobe so she can keep her modesty intact and get her a set of wings. Because she is to become a Bathroom Angel, waiting in line to do her morning "toilette".

Well, I did say that I wouldn't make that many Christmas pressies this year, but I just had to make two of these angels to go with the Sleepy Angels I made and gave away last year. I'm proud to say I have done most of my Christmas shopping today, so now I have a pile of books and other presents to wrap. I'll do some more baking tomorrow, and then I should be all set- I think... No doubt I'll come up with something I Just Have To Do at the very last minute. We cant have Christmas without some Traditional Seasonal Stress, now can we? But that's half the fun of the Holidays, isn't it ;-)

Stuffed

I'm getting there! All the 12 dolls for my UFO-swag are stuffed and the first one is assembled. Well, almost.. They are all headless so far, but I just had to take a picture of the little pile of bodies - it's almost grotesque :-)
Couldn't help sneaking in the little bowl I gave myself as a xmas present. It's the excact colour I want to paint my living room walls and has the caption "The glow of a happy cat" painted along the rim along with the back cat. When I put a night light in it, the cat seems to be embracing it and is ever so sweet - it cheers me up no end, and that can't be bad, can it?
I'm going to collapse in front of the TV in a minute, but as I never can be idle for long, I've got my sewing kit ready to stitch some more bodies. The woodeb beads are the heads which are to b stuck on with glue later on, and I have some white and orange wool ready for hair and beards. I might be able to meet the challenge of finishing them before the end of the month!
It's been a busy week at work so I'm really looking forward to a fun weekend with my fellow quilters - it's "quilt till you wilt"-day tomorrow and we have all been challenged to make something yellow to remind us that spring is getting closer and the days are getting brighter. I've decided to make a small purse to keep my sunglasses in. It will look like a sun folded in half with a zipper along the fold. More about that tomorrow. I hope it works out, but zippers aren't really my favourite thing... Some pentagon coasters with stars are also on the agenda - a bit difficult to explain, but I'll take some pictures along the way.

The forgotten kit

A friend challenged me to finish and old kit in January. "Oh, but I never buy kits" was my quick reply. However, my subconcious knew differently - a few hours later it dawned on me: didn't I buy a kit when I first started out as a quilter? In one of the first Keepsake catalogues I laid my hands on there was a Christmas swag of snowmen and Santas that I started on, but never finished. Quick search through all the boxes in my craft corner, and sure enough there it was. For some reason I had decided to make not just the four figures included in the kit - why not make twelve!!! What was I thinking?? They are quite big - 8" tall, so a swag of 12 of these will need a bigger mantlepiece than mine... Well, I could use them for presents, I suppose. On further inspection it turns out that I have stitched all the twelve bodies and 24 legs and stuffed most of the legs and one body. I think I ran out of stuffing and that's why they were put out of the way. But seriously, there isn't that much work involved, so I should be able to finish them before the end of January. Isn't it great to start christmas preparations early? ;-)