A gift from Granny

On a recent trip to Sydney for 'work', if you could call spending all day wandering around looking at Quilts WORK(!), Granny returned with a gift for the boys and for the Mama as well.

Sock Monkey Kits

Now I had never made these before but think that I managed to turn a pair of socks and a bag of stuffing into something quite extraordinary. The boys helped to stuff their monkeys and Big Bro took his to school for their TOYS module.

The first one took me about 4 hours to make (with Big Bro's assistance), and I was seriously thinking of giving the second one back to Granny to do but got stuck into it anyways and it took less than 2. I guess when you know what you're doing it gets easier.

I love how they both are different and each has it's own personality. So far Little Bro named his MONKEY and Big Bro has names his GEORGE-SOCK MONKEY- LUKE SKYWALKER. Now that's not 4 names that are interchanged. That is his full, must be used in length every time, name.

Have you made any toys before?

One hat made by me - Priceless

I sat down and over the course of 2-3 days alowly worked away on a new hat for ME! I am so happy with how it turned out. I got the pattern from here and the yarn from here. I had never used this cast on method before but just followed the pattern and trusted that my ribbing wouldn't unravel when it came time to remove the 'waste yarn'. *Gulp*

I find it really satisfying to be able to make something myself. Although sometimes it takes me hours and hours to make something I could have brought with less than what it cost me in yarn, it comes with a certain feeling that definetly can't be brought!

I'm back!

I finished a project or two that I have been working on for quite a while today and got them in the mail and all. They are being shipped off to a good friend and I hope they arrive before her new bubba.

I had decided that my blog, or reading all the other blogs on my reading list, were becoming all too distracting and that I REALLY needed to finished off a wedding quilt from almost, not quite, 12 months ago!

I grabbed a favourite, funky layer cake and just started cutting it! I'm kinda brave (sometimes silly) like that. Most times it works out for me and the very rare occasion it doesn't... well lets just not talk about that. It is a little crumpled looking because it has been folded up for a while waiting on the binding to be hand stitched. But I am happy with the end project and wanted to keep it for myself, so I am hoping that means they will love it too!

This one is for her new little Man who is due on the 31st, and today I posted them off. I had started this one a while ago and spent 2 hours echo quilting around the middle block images but decided that I didn't like it, so that meant I had to unpick it. This resulted in the project sitting on my table for a month or two waiting to be unpicked before I could get back to quilting it. I hate unpicking but am a believer that if you are unhappy with the way a project is going you should stop now because it is easier to fix now and be happy with the project, rather than finish it off and never use/look at it again. I do hope that this little quilt will make it up there before the new Little Man arrives. Although I'm pretty sure that she is happy to waiver the remaining 23 days or so.

So now that I am finished these projects I can finally look back into my sewing room and finish off some more projects.