Sunday, September 30, 2012

baby orangutan kits

I've listed 8 kits for the Baby Orangutan pattern in my Etsy shop. There's only a few because they take a lot of time to put together, and I sell them at cost (since I can't get the yarn wholesale). You'll get enough yarn to make 1 toy: it's a lovely soft single-ply wool. It's not too fuzzy, but should brush up quite nicely to give your toy the right look. You'll also get enough fingering weight yarn to knit the rucksack, and a vintage button from my stash. There's a lot of fun colours to choose from! I also included precut kerchiefs, since the toy in the pattern photo looked so cute that way. The fabric is unfinished, so you might want to finish the edges with a bit of hand-sewing or fray-stop liquid.

These kits include a copy of the pattern, since I no longer sell patterns in my Etsy shop. If you've already purchased the pattern, just let me know, and I'll refund the price from the cost of the kit.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

baby orangutan

It's been almost a year, but I finally have a new pattern for you! The Baby Orangutan is available in my Ravelry shop. I knit the first one ages ago, and had so many requests for a pattern, I knew it had to be the next design I developed. The final version is a little different, but I think he's cute and clever!



The right yarn, and a few interesting techniques, combine to make the toy look just right. You need a soft, fuzzy yarn in rusty red for the main colour. The face is created with intarsia, while the thumbs are little bobbles, and slipped stitches give shape to the ankles. A little rucksack for adventures seemed like the perfect accessory. This one is knit from fingering weight yarn, and you can make it with or without the flap on top. I decided to use a finer yarn for the rucksack, so it's simpler to scale up for my larger toys.



I haven't had the pattern test knit, since I didn't want you to wait any longer for a new pattern. However, because it's sold on Ravelry, I can easily send you updates if I need to make any changes to the pattern. If you find a mistake, please send me an email or Ravelry message, so I can take care of it right away.



I will have a small number of kits for sale in my Etsy shop, probably tomorrow. I'll post an update when they're ready.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

images from my week

Kyr

Lev

autumn colour

hungry goat

all images borrowed from mricon



Wednesday, September 5, 2012

back to work

Today is my first full day of work since Kyr was born, 18 months ago. Both boys are off at preschool today, and I finally started getting myself organized! I wrote up lists of projects, prioritized everything, went and got supplies, and then attacked my disaster of a yarn stash (I figured it wouldn't do to start anything before I knew what I had).


Four hours later, everything is finally back in it's place, neatly organized into bags by weight and colour. There's also a large bag of yarn to be sent off to the thrift store. I discovered I have far more of some things than I will probably ever use (how many outfits would I have to knit to use up 6 large ziploc bags of fingering weight yarn?) But also much less of some things than I would like (such as full balls of worsted weight yarn for knitting toys). At least I have what I need for the first project on my list.

Tomorrow, I think I will clean up the rest of my studio, just to make a really good start at this working thing.