Frogglin Faffing

One of our staff members has resigned since she’s finished her training and is off to get a real job as a nurse. To mark the event, I’ve been making this doll for her:

Eventually, she’s going to have legs (I’m in the process of sewing her arms on in this shot) and she’ll be hiding a big nasty scary looking syringe behind her back. She’ll also have pink hair – Janes favourite colours are black and pink, so yanno, working with that.

The head and torso (which you can’t see under the skirt) are worked from this pattern by Owlishly. The skirt is freeformed mostly, but following the basic directions. The arms, legs and hair I’m making up as I go along. I don’t mind admitting I was just having too much trouble with the pattern for these bits, and after starting an arm over for the 30th time I decided to wing it.

By gosh it is too. The doll, I am sad to say, is still shoved in a bag awaiting my bracing myself and finishing the arms. In the meantime, I’ve jumped into something mindless. This is just repeats of three – three trebles, three chains – so there’s no pattern and I can watch the telly box without losing my place.

I found this yarn on the cheap at Kmart and as it’s my favourite colours ever ever I had to buy it. And like I usually do, I bought it without a project in mind. I decided to use it for this very simple wrap because the colour changes add their own interest without the need for fancy stitch work. It’s coming along really fast, which is good. Though why I’m crocheting a winter wrap in the middle of summer is anyone’s guess.

Yup, still with the trees. The one on the right is done but for the decorations and the base, the one on the left needs a few more rounds, then the base. You can see on the left one I got smart and added the yarn decorations as I went. This is because it’s SUCKING to do them on the other one, getting the knots tied in the pointy bit is unfun.

Neither of these are the one I posted last week, that was frogged once the new pattern started to work well. These are a little thinner, and I think I’ve figured out a way to give them a nice rounded base.

SO, I have to finish these, then whip up the littler ones, then felt them all, which I hope to be able to do this weekend to get Evie’s out to her on Monday.

Recently on a tour of the internets, I found the pattern for some ay-DORE-able felted Christmas trees.  They are, however, knitted and I do not knit.  I no longer say I can’t knit, because if I put my mind to it, I probably could. I just prefer not to, being way more comfortable with crochet. Hence the dilemma. I seriously wanted to make these trees, so figuring they’re a basic cone shape, I dove right in.

The first version was a fail. The cone instructions I’d hunted up online gave me a square shape, more like a pyramid than a cone. I moved the increases to different places and here we go, a cone shape. A HUGE cone shape. Once this one is done, I’ll alter the pattern again and make it smaller for other gifts, partly because it’s close to christmas and partly because this is going on forever. FOR EVAH!

I have the pattern written out, once I figure out the best way to do the base I’ll post that pattern on here so other people can leap in. I’m going to felt it in my new handy camping washing machine. Felting in the electric machine is complicated because we use cold for washing, and felting requires hot hot water. Doing it by hand does work, but takes ages, so I’m hoping my little camper washer will speed the process up some.