Crochet Chirpy Bird Tutorial

Look at this adorable little fella! Isn't he just so cute? I named him Chirpy Bird because he's so pudgy and cute, and looking at him makes me feel happy due to his lovely, bright colours.

Chirpy Bird!

Make your own little amigurumi cute bird with this free pattern below. The pattern makes up a bird about 4" tall and 5" wide. Post your bird in the comments!

(Update: I've just amended the typo error for the legs in the pattern.) 

Check out this Ravelry link to find a pdf of this pattern.

Details

·         3.5mm hook

·         Small amounts of Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo

o   4 colours for body

o   Orange for feet

o   Yellow for beak

·         9mm safety eyes

·         Toy stuffing

·         Tapestry needle

# ‘inc’ = 2 sc in one stitch

# ‘dec’ – decrease across next two stitches

Tips
For the joining of colours, you may want to check out this video by June Gilbank of Perfect Stripes for Amigurumi (YouTube). It creates a nice and easy seamless join.
For the decreases I like to use the method displayed by Nerdigurumi that creates an Invisible Decrease (YouTube). It really does create an invisible decrease that is hard to spot.

Body

Each row is an increase of 6. For each line, 1 sc is added between the inc’s in order to add 6 per round. Usually a pattern would read *1 sc, inc*; *2 sc, inc*; *3 sc, inc*; and so on, but I have split up the even rounds to avoid that hexagonal shape that forms when the inc’s are stacked round by round.

Overview: Increase by 6 stitches for the first 12 rounds. Sc around for the next 12 rounds. Decrease by 6 stitches for the last 12 rounds.

Note: when changing colours, make sure to tie the loose ends as you go. I simply double knotted my loose ends together across the back.

In Pink:

1. 6 sc in a magic ring [6]

2. Inc around [12]

3. *1 sc, inc* around[18]

Change to Blue:

4. 1 sc, *inc, 2 sc* around, 1 sc [24]

5. *3 sc, inc* around [30]

6. 2 sc, *inc, 4 sc* around, 2 sc [36]

Change to White:

7. *5 sc, inc* around [42]

8. 3 sc, *inc, 6 sc* around, 3 sc [48]

9. *7 sc, inc* around [54]

Change to Green:

10. 4 sc, *inc, 8 sc* around, 4 sc [60]

11. *9 sc, inc* around [66]

12. 5 sc, *inc, 10 sc* around, 5 sc[72]

Change to Pink:

13 – 15. Sc

Change to Blue:

16 – 18. Sc

Pause here to insert the safety eyes on the row between the Pink and the Blue.

Change to White:

19 – 21. Sc

Change to Green:

22 – 24. Sc

Change to Pink:

25. 5 sc, *dec, 10 sc* around, 5 sc [66]

26. *9 sc, dec* around [60]

27. 4 sc, *dec, 8 sc* around, 4 sc [54]

Change to Blue:

28. *7 sc, dec* around [48]

29. 3 sc, *dec, 6 sc* around, 3 sc [42]

30. *5 sc, dec* around [36]

Change to White:

31. 2 sc, *dec, 4 sc* around, 2 sc [30]

32. *3 sc, dec* around [24]

Pause here to stuff the body with toy stuffing.

33. 1 sc, *dec, 2 sc* around, 1 sc [18]

Change to Green:

34. *1 sc, dec* around [12]

35. dec around [6]

36. Cut yarn, thread needle, and sew up end. Tie up.

Beak

Here we create a circle that we will fold into a semi-circle and use, when stuffed, as the beak.

In Yellow:

1. 6 sc in a magic ring [6]

2. Inc around [12]

3. *1 sc, inc* around[18]

4. 1 sc, *inc, 2 sc* around, 1 sc [24]

5. *3 sc, inc* around [30]

Cut yarn, leaving a long tail. Fold the circle in half and begin to sew the two edges together. This should start to create a semi-circle. Stuff the beak lightly when ¾ of the seam has been sewn. Once complete, use the long tail to sew the beak to the body. Sew the flat side of the semi-circle to the row between the Blue and White colour-change on the body. This is the halfway point of the body.

Wings

Note: when changing colours, make sure to tie the loose ends as you go. I simply double knotted my loose ends together across the back.

In Pink:

1. 6 sc in a magic ring [6]

2. Inc around [12]

3. *1 sc, inc* around[18]

Change to Blue:

4. 1 sc, *inc, 2 sc* around, 1 sc [24]

5. *3 sc, inc* around [30]

6. 2 sc, *inc, 4 sc* around, 2 sc [36]

Change to White:

7 – 9. Sc around

Change to Green:

10 – 12. Sc around

Cut yarn, leaving a long tail. Flatten the piece, do not stuff. Sew the wings onto each side of the body on the same row that the eyes are attached. When sewing across, make sure to include both sides of the green wing to avoid any holes.

Legs

In the body, we staggered the inc’s and dec’s in order to avoid the stacking that creates the hexagon shape. For the feet, we want that hexagonal shape so we will purposefully stack the inc’s and dec’s.

In Orange:

1. 6 sc in a magic ring [6]

2. Inc around [12]

3. *1 sc, inc* around[18]

4. *2 sc, inc* around [24]

5. *2 sc, dec* around [24]

6. *1 sc, dec* around [12]

7. dec around [6]

8-11. sc around

Cut yarn, leaving a long tail. To shape the feet, push the base of the foot towards the leg – this should create a flat, hexagonal foot shape. Do not stuff. Attach the legs to the row between the pink and blue stripes. Line up the legs so that they are the midpoint between the eyes and wings on each side. 

And there you go! You've made your very own Chirpy Bird!

Enjoy!

Knitted teddy and crocheted blanket

(I never know what to title my posts with!)

Today is Wednesday, and I decided that I need to post an update of everything that's been happening! I've been knitting a teddy for my Grandma's birthday - which is tomorrow - and got it finished over the weekend. I took a couple of pictures along the way, but completely forgot to take a picture of the final product. These are the latest pictures that I took: 

So, this is the teddy without the face, the arms and the sewn-up head.

...and this is the teddy with the face (white features and black safety eyes), picking up stitches at the side to attach the arms.

I will eventually like to post the pattern for this teddy, but I'd like to post a picture-guided pattern. I need to make a teddy for my Mum soon for Mother's Day, so I can do the pattern/pictures for that one. So stay tuned!

So, I had that teddy sat on my desk for about four days, and I completely forgot to take pictures of it completed. Yesterday, I wrapped it up to send off in the post to my Grandma - only then did I remember that I hadn't taken any pictures of it! Damn. Oh well. Like I said, I'll do a picture-guided pattern once I make the next teddy for my Mum.

The next project that I started, was my crochet Granny Stripe Blanket. Last week I posted a picture of the blanket sample that I made. I was planning on waiting until I had money to buy lots and lots of yarn for it, but I got too excited so I started with one of the balls of yarn that I already have. Naughty me. I took the yarn and my crochet hook to London for the weekend (I was visiting my boyfriend), and started the first few rows. The pattern requires you to chain 240 stitches. Every 20 stitches, I would place a marker, in order to make it easier to count the stitches at the end. Each set of 20 that I chained, I would count and count again, to make sure I had dead on 240. The pattern says that if you are out by one stitch, it can mess up the pattern (as it requires it to be a certain amount due to the repeat). Luckily, I had the right amount of stitches, so went along, chaining the next few rows. It took me a while to realise that the pattern said to chain the foundation chain loosely, and I later realised why. I had gotten to my second stripe when I noticed that my work would not lay flat, and that it was curving/bunching to one side - damn too-tight foundation chain.

So, unfortunately, I had to rip back the five rows that I had done, and start over again, with a bigger sized hook for the foundation chain (and then switched to the regular hook once I'd done the foundation) and start that dreaded Count all over again, checking and re-checking my stitch count, placing markers at every 20 stitch interval, making sure that the chain wasn't too tight. Nightmare. But, I am now on the 3rd or 4th row, and all is right in the world:

The next colour in my stripe sequence is this lime green colour. It looks lovely next to the purple. This blanket is going to be really brightly coloured. There will be 60 stripes in total, so depending on how many different colours of yarn that I will use, will depend on how many stripes of each colour I need. I'm undecided as to whether to do a random pattern, or to have a sequence of colours and an order to follow. Random would be good, but I'm quite OCD so I'm not sure if I can *do* random!

That's all for this week. Looking at my blanket makes me want to crochet more of it, but I have an essay to write with a deadline on Sunday, so I really ought to get cracking on that! I'm enjoying crochet so much at the moment (this is my first project) that I want to crochet at every possible opportunity, rather than studying. I have to restrict myself and 'reward' myself at the end of the day by crocheting before bed. Oh what an exciting life I lead!

Until next time - where I will have hopefully done more to my blanket, or have something new to report on this teddy for my Mum.

A secondary introduction to this blog

I haven't posted in a very long time. I partly put this down to my university course, as I have been very busy since September, but I also blame myself, for not putting in the effort once a week to write a blog post.

Over Christmas, I picked up the needles again and started knitting some more. I also began learning how to crochet, and even have taken an interest in quilling. I've been reading through a couple of craft blogs when I have been looking for patterns and designs, and have had a nosy through the rest of the blog for different people. It made me realise, that I wish I had a blog and I remembered, duh!, that I do have a blog; a very neglected one. I felt bad an immediately wanted to write in it to liven it up again, and share my crafty wonders with the world!

I have changed the URL of my blog to 'kadi2tog'. I'm wondering how long this will stay (knowing me, not very long). I thought it was quite amusing, as when you remove the 'di' from my name, it sounds like 'k2tog' anyway. ...yes, a very lame joke ...moving on...

So yes. I am back, with an introductory post telling you all that I am  back, and that I promise, promise, promise (pinky promise!) that I will start blogging at least once a week. I realised that you can't just wing-it with a blog - it's best to have some sort of idea what you want to post about each week, so you don't end up rushed for time, or end up sitting at the keyboard with writer's block, not having made anything in the past week. So, I shall take my organisation OCD and whip up a plan each week of what to write.

I am rambling. I will stop. I have done so many things recently, but can't fit them all into one post, so I may have to backtrack and cover what I've done over the past few months. My latest projects have been to design my own teddy for my Grandma's birthday next month (the design of which I plan on writing up and posting online), and an increased interest in crochet. I want to knit a blanket in crochet - but first I'd need to buy supplies and to practice my treble crochet to get it perfect, before embarking on such a massive project. I'm really looking forward to it, though.

Oh, also, I'm getting a flat with my partner soon. Yay! I shall be moving out of my student accommodation and setting up home with him within the next few months. So exciting. I mustn't get too ahead of myself because we're still trying to find the ideal place. As soon as we find it, everything is Go!

That's enough for today. I'm off to do some more knitting of this teddy. ...I'll post a cheeky quick pic just to show you what I'm up to:

This is the teddy so far. The pink bits of threat are markers for where I'm going to place the safety eyes (they're on the way in the post). I'm knitting out the right arm by picking up stitches with a crochet hook and creating something to work with. I found the method here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt5h31YgclM&list=PLAB263A84CBC405EA&index=9&feature=plpp_video

I'll post a full entry about this little fella once I get going - must remember to take pictures at different stages! This is the little guy that I'm writing the pattern for, but I may need to make a couple of them before I get the pattern right (because that's what the professional knit designers do, right?). So, that'll be a fun task for me. Plus I'll have lots of cute lil' teddies laying around.

...and here's another photo of the sample I made yesterday for the Granny Stripe Blanket that I want to make:

I really need to fix up my edges. I did it wrong, I think. I'm no crochet master, but I'm enjoying it so much. So long as I remember to keep my tension steady, everything should be fine. I found the pattern here: http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2010/05/granny-striping.html

The colours she uses are just lovely. I'd love to do something similar. It'd cost about £25 to get all the acrylic yarn that she used. A bargain, to be honest, as yarn isn't cheap. I need to settle into my new place first before I make any big spends like that. We're saving as much as we can to make sure we have enough. I'm itching so badly to go buy some yarn to start this project. I mean, I have a big plastic box full of yarn, but I need about 17 million balls of different colours for this blanket. I have nowhere near 17 million, I have about 20. So, I must be patient. At least it's something to look forward to, though!

That's enough from me today; I have to go to bed because I have lectures in the morning. Boo. I mean, yay for education, yay for learning, etc. etc.

Until next time, guys. Happy crafting ~ ♥

It's been a very long time!

I am ever so sorry, I will make more of an effort to post, seeing as I haven't posted since the 28th August! By that point I had moved back to my Mum's to get ready to move to uni, and moved into my uni house with my boyfriend and one of my best friends on the 3rd Sept (with two more friends waiting to arrive shortly). So I spent a while unpacking, but surprisingly have been doing LOADS of knitting recently! My friend has become interested in knitting and has been learning the past two weeks, so we sit knitting together in the living room every day. I've been updating my ravelry, and because of that, I have been neglecting my blog. So sorry. :(

But here's my big list of all the things I've made in the past three weeks:

This is the front and back of my catnip bunny from ravelry (seriously, I love that site so much).  It's so adorable, it's about 1x2inches big, it's so cute. ♥ The way that it's made confused and amazed me; an even number of stitches that follow the *knit 1 slip 1* pattern across, and it makes a little pouch that can be opened at the very end. I think it's adorable.

I also made a cowl, which I have yet to take a picture of, but my friend thought it'd be funny to take a pic of me struggling to get it on:

...I made the bind-off row too tightly knit, so I had to struggle with it to get it on, haha. But, it's really soft and warm, and when it does fit on properly, it feels good. I'll try to remember to take a pic of me actually wearing it. :) But, it was a nightmare to make, as for one it was on circular needles (which I find difficult to hold), and the pattern was repetitive and boring (one row of k5, p5, another row of k1,p1 etc). But, I finished it, and I'm really pleased. The original pattern said to knit it so that it was about 18inches long, but I didn't want a long one so I made a slightly-wider one, with less height and used up a ball of wool for it. Will come in very handy over the winter months.

Next up that I made (which I finished in the early hours of this morning) was this Celtic braid afghan square, which I only did two repeats of the pattern for, because I got bored and wanted to get on and do other projects. Here it is:

The first picture shows the cables better, but the second shows the actual colour of the wool. Silly 2am-lighting. I was so pleased with this, I made one small mistake in the left hand corner, but other than that I did quite well. I want to do a pattern similar to this for handwarmers/fingerless gloves, have a cable pattern running up the back of the hand. Just need to get the right sized needles then away I go. :)

And finally, the best 'til last, is 'Kevin', the Sheldon turtle pattern:

I freakin' love him. I made him for my friend that I live with, and I also have projects lined up for my boyfriend and other two friends that I'll be living with, but I did this one first as I had all the materials. It took me 6 days to fully complete him, just because I kept getting frustrated and having to put him down and start on something else. But tadaa, here he is, detachable shell and all. ♥

So now, after a mad few days finishing recent projects, I only have one project left, and that's my purple socks that I'm doing (toe-up design), but I don't have the heart to do them right now. For now, I'm gonna get ready for bed, get an early night, and get on knitting tomorrow. I'm going to try and keep up with my blog, but I just keep forgetting as I'm so involved with my ravelry account.

Adios~! ♥

Lots to do, lots to do! Update of the past week

I've got so many new projects lined up, and have a fair few things to update you on. Fortunately, my projects aren't large as I'm going to make house-warming gifts for my house mates in September, so they're little teddies. Unfortunately, I don't have the right colours of wool for them, so I can't get them done quickly anyway. The 'queue' function on Ravelry is a god-sent to be honest, I don't bother writing my projects down now, I just save it all on there and can access it whenever.

Firstly, I'll update you on my socks. I had a mad knitting spree when I finished the first one, and knit about 2/3rds of the second one in about two days. Then stopped. No idea why, but I didn't feel like it, and I'm so close to finishing:

I need to knit another half an inch or so before decreasing for the toe. I need to give myself a kick to finish these, then I can wear them in bed when it's quite cold. :)

I absolutely loev the colour of this wool. I'll definitely be buying some more of this wool (DROPS Fabel, I think?) To make other stuff in the future. ...or just make more pairs of socks with it!

I also started designing my own blanket squares. I'm making a charity blanket as I've mentioned before, and I've made notes on the design for it. I need three different kinds of squares, and I was making notes to design my own. This is how far I've got:

 Above are my notes and general scribblings and the start of the square. It's a basic "YO, K2tog" pattern but it looks pretty cool. I did a little test-knit, and I should've taken a picture before I unravelled it all. But yes, hopefully it'll be good enough to make as part of a blanket. But I'm not sure about the colour, because the wool is horrible cheap stuff that doesn't feel nice at all, but I use the wool for test knits, or making teddies, as they don't have to be softy soft.

Speaking of teddies, I've started making a 'Miffy' bunny for my house mate, but encountered a problem. I ran out of wool. I've made the head:

...which needs stuffing and the face, but, I don't have enough wool to start on the body:

This isn't enough for the body. Plus, I bought the wool years ago and have no idea what it is, so I've got to go to my local knitting shop and ask them if they can help me get something similar. So this project is on standby until after the bank holiday.

So, I don't have many projects that I can do at the moment, other than finish the socks, which I'm going to crack on with right now.

Oh, one final thing, I was reading through some blogs earlier and they mentioned wordle. I used this ages ago, but now they've introduced a feature which lets you add your blog URL. I did this, and created one from this blog:

They're so fun to make, and you can sit tweaking them for ages, changing the colours, angles, etc. I've been playing with it for quite a while now. It's very interesting. And of course, the largest words would be knitting and socks and patterns. So yeah. That's about it from me today. Happy Knitting! ♥

Finished elefante!

Yay! I finally finished the little elephant! His ears are floppy, and his head lolls about, but nevertheless he's still very cute and my sister is going to love him:

He's so cute!  He's my proudest achievement in knitting, I'm so pleased. I feel sad giving him to my sister but I know she'll look after him. He was quite easy to make (and the pattern can be found on ravelry), and the hardest part was sewing his head onto the body - I'm terrible at sewing, and the reason why his head is floppy is because of this, but yeah, he still looks cute.

Also, I've been getting broody to knit baby clothes, but don't have enough wool or the right size needles to make cardigans, so I made a teeny tiny sock from a pattern on ravelry that I found:

 This is the ickle sock on it's own...

...and this is it next to the sock that I made for myself to wear (with my diddy size 3 feet, so even that sock isn't that big). It's so cute, and I'm in love with this wool. I'll have to remember what brand this wool is, and get some more in different colours. Speaking of my pair of socks, I've almost finished the second one of the pair - I need to knit a few more rows then begin the decrease for the toe, so soon I'll have lovely warm socks to wear.

Right now I'm not sure what my next project is going to be - I might finish off this little orange chubby chirp that I'm making, as well as finishing off my sock. I'm also trying to come up with a design for the teddies that I make - y'know, the ones that I showed in my first post:

 I want to change the pattern so that it can be knitted on dpns, and will show the purl side on the outside, rather than be made with garter stitch. All I've got to do is work out the frequency of increases and decreases, and do a test knit for the sizes of the arms, legs, etc. Should be a fun project. One day I'd like to create my own patterns, such as sock patterns, and see about selling the patterns or the actual socks. I know it'd take a while before I get to the stage where the patterns are good enough to sell (I'd have to start off with free patterns) but hey, you have to start somewhere.

Right, I'm off. It's my sister's birthday tomorrow so I've gotta sort my stuff out today to travel down tomorrow morning. Adios, knitters!

I am a bad person!

I haven't posted in goodness knows how long, shame on me! Unfortunately I've become somewhat addicted to World of Warcraft, so a lot of my spare time has gone to playing that. On the bright side, I have a new job (making milkshakes and smoothies), so I can start earning some pennies and hopefully buy some more much-needed wool, and in even better news, I've literally just finished my first sock!

It's sooo pretty, and sooo comfy! And the greatest thing is that I have size 3 feet, so it was quick to knit the sole part of the foot, haha. I'm looking forward to knitting the second one - my initial idea was to make any old pair of socks, just to say I've done it, but this one fits so snugly, I actually think I'll wear them!

Also, I've been making an elephant for my sister's birthday, which is the 24th August. I found the pattern on ravelry (called 'elephante') and so far I've done the body and the head. I'm struggling with the ears as they need to be crocheted and I haven't the foggiest how to do it, so I'm going to nick some ears from a different pattern. Here's my progress so far:

(Mm, and look at the difference in picture quality. I may start taking more pics with my actual camera rather than my blackberry). It was so fun to make, and the stripy pattern is so cute. I'm so pleased with this. These two projects, the elephant and the socks, are my more complicated but rewarding things to have made.
So I'm off now to finish watching The Back-Up Plan (which is hilarious) while the other half is doing a raid on WoW, and to continue by finding something else to start knitting. ♥

Cabled headband

Yay! I've learnt how to do a simple cable! I picked a pattern off ravelry, which can be found here and here. And here is my headband:

The pattern asked to use 4mm needles, and create 19 cables. I, stupidly, used 3mm needles, and ended up needing to make 25 cables. Longgg. It was tedious, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I'm keeping this one as a prototype, and will create one in a different colour that I'd actually wear - I'm thinking a reddy-purple.

Next up, is going to be a pair of socks (just need to find a nice pattern), and then some more chubby chirps out of my scrap yarns from the sock wool.

Also, yesterday, I had a go at crochet, and managed a chain stitch and a double crochet - I was trying to make a mini scarf for my boyfriend's teddy; I made a really long chain stitch, but by the time I'd finished the double crochet, it was a lot smaller as it twists etc., so I've gotta go back and make an even longer one! Ah well. It's quite cool that I can kinda crochet. I'd like to try and make something, now.

But today, I am having a duvet-day so will not be knitting very much.

Completed Chubby Chirp!

I finished my little chubby chirp! (You can find the pattern here) It didn't take long to make up, and it looks sooo cute!

How adorable is he?!

I also got some more wool today:

(The colours look better than in the pic). The reddy ones are for a pair of socks that I want to try, as I've never made socks before, and the blue is to make the little elephant I said about two days ago - only the pattern says 1 ball of 100g wool, and I bought a 50g ball and didn't notice until I got home. Damn. Oh well, I can start on the socks next.

So excited about all the knitting I'm doing at the minute. And, when I went to Nest today, I found out that there's a knitting group that meets on Mondays and Fridays 2pm-6pm and I think I'm going to go along on Monday, providing I have a project on the go.

Anyhoo, off to apply for agencies and jobs. I applied for a charity door-to-door job, and I have an interview for next Tuesday, to work in local areas in London. I'm so excited, I really, really, really hope I get it.

Knitting!

I've been knitting on and off for years, but I've decided to make a blog, in the hope that it'll inspire me to knit more, and share my creations. At the minute, I've been making these teddies of my own design:

This is my first one that I made; I've made several since this. I make these by making two identical sides of the teddy, by doing a simple garter stitch pattern, and casting on and binding off stitches to make the arms.

This is one I created for my Mum for Mother's Day one year:

I made the back half of the body with longer arms and legs, so that when I sewed it all together, the arms and legs bent around, so it would look like it was sitting. It kinda worked; it usually just flops over - something I need to work on.

I went on a photo-taking spree, and took pictures of all my knitting stuff, to show the start of my collection, which I'll hopefully build up as I carry on knitting. These are my boxes of knitting stuff:

The one on the left is FULL of wool, and the one on the right is all my knitting/cross-stitch books (I lovee cross-stitch, just have hardly any materials for it) and also all my mini things that I've made; I've made little swatches of patterns, and kept them all - really they were just testers to practice my knitting, a few years ago. But anyway. My favourite thing that I've made is the little grey cardigan that you can see in the bottom of the box. It's a properly proportioned cardigan, and it's uber cute. Only problem is, it doesn't fit any of my teddies:

^ Here you can see Eddy (the teddy) sporting the cardigan with the too-long sleeves. It'd be perfect for a little doll, or perfect proportions to template making a larger cardigan for actual people, but alas, it is useless for my teddies. Oh well, it's cute.

For the past few days, I've been knitting a teddy for my boyfriend, as he's seen my pink one and wanted one himself. I used the same pattern that I used for my one, only this time I used a stockinette stitch, and it looks a lot better when it's stitched and stuffed. I uh, got impatient when wanting to finish this - I didn't have any stuffing, so I ripped open an old cushion out of my room (nobody was using it, anyway - put it to better use!) to be able to stuff this little thing. It took me two days to finish, as I was babysitting in between making it, and this is the final product:

He looks all funny. I love his cute lil' face. I think his body is a bit too long (looked fine when I used the same pattern before, with my pink teddy, so it must be the gauge) but my boyfriend says it looks fine, and he loves it. He's named it KaL. I'm gonna make it a little jumper like my one, too.

So yeah. I've got a few ideas of things I want to make, and I want to find sources of inspiration in new projects. It's my birthday on Monday, and on Tuesday my boyfriend's taking me to London (so I can go to build-a-bear!) and I'm gonna get some more knitting stuff; needles, buttons, etc. I need ideas of things to make, so I can keep busy through the summer. I'm also quite interested in learning how to crochet, and how to do quilting as I'd love to make a big blanket.

But that's enough for now - and this post has taken FOREVER to write as the pictures have taken aaages to load as I'm using a dongle - and I'm off to find ideas of things to make next.