Buttercup and Bird

I’m not finding much time to do crafting just for me at the moment, but as they say “all work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy”, or in my case just a little bored, so I’ve been working on a couple of other projects this week too, all for me, me, me!!

I had some lovely Istex Lett Lopi yarn in my stash that my sister brought me back from Iceland and as my slippers have just started to fall apart, I thought I would knit myself some replacements. It is a really simple pattern called Nola’s Slippers which you can find here on the patterns page, or here on Ravelry if you are a member.

And this is how mine are looking at the moment

They are knitting up really quickly, so hopefully by the end of the weekend I will have some snuggly slippers. The yarn is just fantastic. I do like the way single ply yarns look. It is a bit scratchy, but hopefully that means they will be lovely, hard-wearing and snuggly to keep my little toes warm this winter.

And as I am not the tidiest of workers (ahem) and my workspace gets a little messy, I also made this cute little fabric box to sit on my worktop and put all my scraps in. It is working a treat! The fabric is a japanese linen blend by Cosmo that my lovely other half bought as a little pressie from Purl Soho, possibly my very favourite fabric shop. Maybe I will get to go there one day!

Now I can just dump all my odds and ends of fabric in there to sort out at a later date. Brilliant. I am planning on making another to put my notions in.

And of course I have been working on a few dolls. I do think these little ladies are a couple of stunners, but then I guess I would say that!

I’ve been experimenting again with different ways of doing the wigs and have come to the conclusion that it is just a jolly labour intensive job however you do it.

So here is Eva, looking rather bashful.

Her hair is the fantastic Jameison and Smith Shetland wool that I have been using a lot. I just love this yarn, the colours are wonderful and it gets so soft with time. And I love being able to support a traditional British industry. This time I have used a honey coloured yarn in a shoulder length style.

Eva is wearing a little dress made from Michael Miller Love Birds fabric, with some exceedingly cute red and orange striped leggings underneath and over the top a pinny of off-white organic cotton which has a pretty embroidered pattern.

And here is her friend Celeste ( I’ve been listening to Kirsty MacColl too much I think).

Celeste has the same gorgeous Romney yarn that I used for Rebecca’s hair. She is wearing a plain white dress with a vintage crochet lace trim, blue organic cotton trousers underneath and over the top a pinny of gorgeous Liberty Tana Lawn. This print is Phoebe.

I was trying to go a bit more autumnal with my colours, but this outfit just seemed to fit Celeste perfectly. I always try to choose the outfit to match the doll and I love seeing how my dolls evolve and come to life.

I’ll be adding Eva and Celeste to my shop later today hopefully.

Well, it is a lovely warm weekend here (amazing for October!) so hopefully I will be able to get outside later and get some more inspiration for my next batch of dolls.