Gift – Page 2 – Hopefully Creative

Tea Cup Scarf

Loopy scarf that pretends to be a teacup.

One of my friends had a birthday in August and I decided to use this as an opportunity for gift giving and reducing my yarn stash. I still had more of that pink stuff laying around that would suit someone who likes pink a lot better. Inspiration was easily found since Pinterest had thrown up a ‘tea cup scarf‘ at some point, and I knew she liked tea.

Rolled up pink and brown scarf that vaguely resembles a teacup

Skein of brown variegated yarn with a label reading Arequipa Singles and other details.

So I set out to dye some Arequipa singles yarn in ‘tea brown’ (some combination of ‘brown’ and ‘chestnut’), and after it dried, just started knitting on the knitting machine. I cast on 60 stitches on gauge 5 and just zoomed my way through almost the entire ball. I held back a few meters of brown for finishing, then attached the pink yarn and knit until that also ran out. With the last sections, I knit a ‘handle’ for the cup. Then everything got blocked on the hoard room floor, taking up the entire length. This seemed a little.. much.

Pink and brown knitted scarf with a loop on a mannequin

Pink and brown knitted scarf with a loop and a knit tea-bag on a mannequin

To remedy that problem, I made the scarf double layered by bringing the brown end up to the start of the brown and knitting down the sides and doing the same thing with the pink. I also added the handle when I was sewing down the pink sides. To complete the teacup look, I knit a small pouch (to hold some stitch markers) and attached a little tea-bag-label with an embroidered cup. I think it turned out pretty cool and it was a fun way to deal with some more of the pink, while making sure it went to a better home than mine!

Octopus Award

Making a plush to celebrate a fellow skater

Our new tradition of making an award for the end of roller derby season took place again. I got to make an award for one of our newest skaters. My inspiration came very late, but when it did, it hit hard. My skater is someone who does all kinds of things; in her daily life she’s a hairdresser and a barber, is getting married soon, moving into her house etc. I wanted to reference all of that, and include her way of turning around on roller skates, which is more of a ‘disco turn’ than a step transition. So I decided to make an octopus plush with a disco ball for helmet.

Gray and yellow octopus plush with a sequin 'helmet' and cardboard icons around its tentacles.

Back of gray and yellow octopus plush with a sequin 'helmet' and cardboard icons around its tentacles.

I already had the Octopus plush pattern from Choly Knight, so I decided to reference that. Since the normal round arms from the pattern wouldn’t be conducive to give a ‘holding something’ impression, I wanted some longer arms. Reddit came to the rescue with this post by CynamonoweKrzeslo, where the sewist also helpfully shared the pattern for their tentacles. I enlarged the pattern a little until it was the size that I wanted and cut some out in a grey fleece and yellow bobble minky. The test-tentacle looked great! So I cut out eight more before heading to bed.

The next morning, I assembled all tentacles and needed to decide on the size of the head. In the end, the original Octopus plush pattern head shape, the eyes and laughing mouth were all enlarged 150% and printed out. This looked great, so I embroidered the eyes and mouth on and assembled the plush together. One of its arms is put into the disco fever pose with a little hook that you can hang a tiny loop on. The helmet is made from foam and an overlay of sequin fabric (for a disco ball effect) – I am still finding sequins in my house. The pattern was based on the normal head shape of the octopus plush with a little extra space. Some ribbon is used for the straps.

Gray and yellow octopus plush, with zoom on the ring and key cardboard icons around its tentacles.

Gray and yellow octopus plush with a focus on the donut and comb cardboard icons around its tentacles.

To reference all the items, which I wanted to keep removable, I chose word icons (to keep a similar style) and printed them on cardstock. I put two together with a loop of sticky tape to get them to stay around the tentacles. There are two roller skates, a ring, a donut, a cupcake, a comb, scissors and keys. I also wrote a rhyming poem to explain what I did. The helmet is also removable, so it can also be a ‘naked’ octopus.

I think he’s adorable and I hope she’ll enjoy having him around!

Little Kraken Friend

A smiley eyed Kraken plush

A while ago the shark plush has found a new home, but I didn’t want him to be the only plush in his new abode. So I made him a friend!

I used the same Kraken pattern from SewDesuNe as for Brian, however, I exchanged his face from one from the Octopus pattern. The original features included in Kraken are ‘angry’ and ‘happy’ but I wasn’t too big a fan of the happy one. The Octopus has some other fun options and I chose the ‘smiling eyes’. I tried to use fabrics that were sea-coloured, hence the blue-ish hues. For the bottom suckers, I used a dotted minky.

I think he’s very cute and hope he’ll have a lovely life.

Baby Zebra Hat

Little Zebra hat for a little baby

To add to the little Giraffe gift, I wanted to make an animal themed hat. It needed to be a safari animal and my Ravelry searches unearthed a zebra version. Baby Zebra by Marji LaFreniere, a cute little hat in black and white with a mane down the back. I didn’t want to make it too complicated so I knit the body of the hat on the knitting machine. Since the yarn was very thick, I cast on my 74 stitches (72 + 2 for seaming down the back) by putting 2 needles in work and skipping the next one. Once I reached the length, I pulled the knitting off the machine and onto 4 mm needles.

Since a hat needs to be smaller on top, I did the decreases by hand. Once it was done, I sewed the back seam, leaving space for the tufts of the mane. I made the ears mostly according to the pattern (either the maker can’t count or I can’t because the row numbers didn’t match up) and attached those to the hat. I then cut lengths of yarn and knotted those in the seam of the back for the mane.

I have No Idea whether or not this hat is actually baby sized. I’m notoriously bad at this, generally making baby hats sized for like 1 to 2 year old kiddos. We’ll see on which end of the spectrum this one ends up. The bottom of the hat rolls a bit, but I think it still like it. You can also still see the skipped needles in the body of the hat, it almost looks like ribbing. However, I still think this thing is stinking cute!

Giraffe Version 3

Giraffes are for babies.

Months ago, I had a chat with the colleague who made the Safari Mobile about what she wanted to get for a gift. I showed her some of the stuffed animals from the past and she immediately fell in love with the giraffe (and who wouldn’t!). So I set out to make the giraffe during my holiday in June. She asked for realistic colours so I googled giraffe and set out to find some brown felt. I chose to do his body in the off-white that I had, because none of the other colours would really work. The horns, legs and tail would be brown, with his snout and inner ears white.

As usual, a Choly Knight/Sew Desu Ne pattern comes together really easily. It starts with meditative stitching of the spots and other details. Then sewing the pieces together where all the notches actually line up and then stuffing it to within an inch of its life. Once I had the head and the body both finished, I tried to pin the head on to see where it should go. It was a little lopsided and it looked so cute that I left it that way and sewed it on crooked. Look at his little face! I love him so much and I hope his new family will too.

Yellow – Turquoise – Orange

Made some baby gifts from self-dyed yarn and other happy fabric.

Baby gift time again! First up, dyeing. On the last day of 2022, the second dye project was a single skein of Chester Wool DK 115 (Worsted) 50s. It is 100% merino and has 50 grams in a skein for around 100 meters of yarn. Since I still had soft yellow dye stock left from the other dyeing I did that day, I put 20 ml of the stock in my pot. Then I added several resists around the skein and dropped the thing into the pot. When it had simmered for long enough, I took it out and dyed the resists turquoise. I couldn’t resist adding some speckles and chose orange. All in all this meant that the skein turned out extremely bright and cheerful. If you ask me, perfect for a baby.

Since there was going to be a new baby, I set out to make some baby things and settled on these two patterns: Easy Peasy Baby Ball by A la Sascha and Tiny Tot by Kristen Rettig. One is a rectangle hat with tassels or pompoms and the other is a ball. I used up the entire skein in the making of these projects, so no leftovers!

I’ve also had a bit of flannel in the stash with a similar colour scheme. There’s also some additional red and green, but I wouldn’t let that stop me. The flannel was bought to make some poppies, so I set out to do exactly that. I tried to make these somewhat symmetrical with the plaid, so the scale was based on that. There’s some difference between these two poppies, one has a green stripe near the head, the other green. One has larger hands, the other smaller, but they are still very similar.

Both knitting patterns were quick, easy to knit and went smoothly. Of course the hat is way too big for the recipient, but I guess my track record stays intact on that score. The last item for the little baby was a spit scarf. Now with skateboarders, rope jumpers and a terry cloth back. It feels very soft even if the snap is on the wrong edge.

I hope the little one will have a marvelous and colourful life!

Cape!

Everyone needs a cape, even if you’re only 2 years old.

In the same afternoon as the dinosaur tail, I decided that the little boy also needed a cape. Everyone needs a cape after all. However, capes for two year olds probably could be a choking hazard and we do want to keep him alive for a little while longer. So I set off on a google adventure and found a nice YouTube tutorial about a no-choke superhero cape. While superheroes are fun and all, I’m more of the witch and medieval type cape person, so I modified it.

I folded a black fleece blanket over and cut out a half circle shape. Then a smaller half circle shape for the neckline. With the cutting of this half circle, I automatically had a weird shaped piece leftover. My brain immediately went LIRIPIPE, so I used that to make a hood for the cape. I left part of the bottom seam open to attach to the cape part and sewed the rest shut to make a hood.

The idea of the no-choke thing is that the cape is attached by going under the armpits and around the back and Velcroed to the front again. I liked that idea but since I didn’t have the kid with me, I improvised with some elastic and Velcro on both sides. My theory is that elastics stretch and that if it’s too big you can add a small seam in the back of the elastic. To attach the strap to the front, I chose to make some triangle shaped bits with the other side of the Velcro on the backside. Since it’s fleece, no hemming required. I hope it fits, and otherwise I’m sure it’ll be a nice blanket.

Dress-up Tail

Getting a kid to turn into a dinosaur!

So, I just made the thing that I’ve been sort of vaguely but not really wanting to have for a while now. I’ve not made it for me though. It’s a *children’s* dinosaur (or dragon if you so prefer) wearable tail. With some fleece blankets, a lovely tutorial from Andrea’s Notebook that I only vaguely followed and a few hours and I’ve hopefully made someone’s new favourite item of clothing.

I chose some blue/green fleece that has been in the stash for the tail and some yellow for the spikes. The measurements from the tutorial were loosely followed, although I did sew a tail with a flat bottom and as such had fewer cut offs. The spikes were drawn and cut very loosely and then sewed together to be turned inside out. There’s an overlap on the spikes because I didn’t really measure and sort of eyeballed everything. The Velcro on the waist straps was some blue stuff I had left over and I thought it would look nicer than black or white. For the same reason, I didn’t zig zag topstitch the straps but just used a normal topstitch. I’m firmly of the opinion that it does indeed look nicer.

The last real change from the original pattern was to add a zipper to the underside instead of stitching it closed. I figure if this kid would wear his tail and then run around in the mud, his mum or dad would appreciate chucking it in the laundry. If the innards are removable, then that’s much easier. I didn’t have a coordinating zipper colour, but I did have a coordinating zipper pull. So I stitched in a rainbow zipper with a nice teal pull. All in all, a lovely quick project that was completed in a few hours. It also made me giggle when I put it on the 100+ year old mannequin. Somewhat.. anachronistic. I hope it’ll be enjoyed by the intended recipient!

Mini Manta Ray Plush

Gifting a miniature manta ray plush

After debating it for a while, I finally jumped on CholyKnight (Sew Desu Ne)’s Patreon. I’ve been using so many of their free patterns for my plushies that I decided that it was probably time to give back a little. As there was also a recent birth, I needed a tiny baby gift. Cue the Manta Ray pattern. This is a free plush pattern already but if you are a patron, you can also get access to a mini version. It’s got three pattern pieces, made out of four bits of fleece fabric and with optional spots. I left off the spots for this version but did include the eyes and the blush.

You first apply the blush, eyes and eye whites, then stitch them down. Then you attach the top fins to the top piece. Attach the bottom to the completed top piece while leaving a bit of the tail open. Turn it right side out and sew along the top fin seam so that the fins stay flat. Stuff the body a little and close up the tail and DONE. This was a super easy evening project and I really like it. As usual my living room was filled with fluff until I got the lint roller out, but that’s the price you pay for super soft plushies. That same evening I also cut out a pumpkin platypus but I’ve yet to complete that. Stay tuned though, it shouldn’t be too long.

Road Maps

Making some felt roads for a kids adventure.

As explained at the Play Mat, I had my heart set on roads. So eventually, I decided to make felt roads sections that could be placed any which way. While looking around, I found some templates for paper/laminated roads and decided those were a good starting point. Of course, I made some changes. First, I wanted all the roads to be 10 cm wide, the ones in the template were just about not 10 cm, so this meant some readjusting. Then I decided I wanted everything to be in increments of 10-20-30, so I cut off pieces here and added some there to achieve that. With the shapes decided, I cut them out of my felt. The result is 1 roundabout, 1 crossing, 2 t-splits, 4 bends, 2 long curvy roads, 4 long straight roads, 4 short straight roads, and one.. parking lot? An end bit that I felt would be stupid to waste.

When they were cut out, I really wanted to add road markers too. I first tried by fusing some felt to the top, but it was easily pluck-off-able and I decided that wasn’t good for a young person. So I turned to the next option, fabric paint. Since the Netherlands was still in lockdown, it had to be ordered online and I just hoped it would work. Turns out, it does. I made some more templates, cut out the sections where I wanted markings to be and got to painting. Every section then needed to be ironed for 5 minutes. This seems like a long time and my iron has an auto-off function so I don’t know if they have been ironed ‘enough’. However, I also test painted some numbers onto a shirt and popped it in the laundry and they didn’t come off, so I called it good. I hope that they will be useful for some time to come.

Tag: Gift