Butterfly Puppet

 

 I can take most of the puppets  I need for an order from stock, but there was a special request - a butterfly. I had to think about the mechanics of it for a while. In the end I sewed the glove and the butterfly wings separately and then hand sewed the body on to hold it all together. Note tatted antennae! 

Take Along Knitting

 

It turns out that the cardigan I was asked to knit is a good take along knitting project. It's very easy, consisting of oblongs of garter stitch, and is knitted on big needles. The yarn was a bit thin for the needles, so to get the correct gauge I combined it with a 3 ply grey yarn that was also in the stash. I've done the back and two fronts, I have the sleeves to knit and then the selvages to do.  That may be a stay at home job. 

I'm in a bit of a whirl at the moment though. The jewelry lady wants 50 bags this month instead of the usual 30, in anticipation of Christmas sales. Someone has ordered 8 puppets. I have them in stock, but will need to replace them before the market on the 7th December. And someone else wants 5kgs of spun wool. I said I'd give it a go, but I'm struggling to find the time to spin. It doesn't help that this is the time of the year for Christmas lunches, pantomimes, et cetera! 

Snakes And Lizards

 

You want a food cover with tatted snakes and lizards?  Sure, no problem. For the lizards I used Jane Eborall's Pamela's Gecko pattern, and for the snakes I adapted a Teiko Fujito edging. The butterflies are also Jane Eborall's pattern, the SCMR butterfly. 

Sewing

 

I took some time off working on the food cover to sew myself a dress over the weekend. I bought the fabric months ago, but there always seemed like something more urgent needed doing than turning it into a dress. I tried to take a selfie, but that didn't show how the dress looks on, so I took a photo in the mirror. There was plenty of fabric, so I was able to cut carefully positioning the motifs on the fabric, lining up the motifs on back and front skirts and that sort of thing. 

Another Gecko And A Snake

 

The brief for the food cover is lizards, snakes and butterflies. Right. Jane Eborall's gecko works fine for the lizard. What about a snake? Google threw up great numbers of tattooed snakes, so that wasn't useful. Pinterest gave me one pattern, by a Canadian designer, on Etsy, but it was a rather frivolous snake. Instead, I turned to Teiko Fujito and adapted the pattern I used on a skirt last year. 

I left the picots off and added a head and tail. The head is a bit small because I ran out of thread. I started with a chain for the tail and am pleased with the idea, though it needs a little tweaking. 

Geckos, Tatted And Real

 

I've tatted two geckos for my food cover, carefully marking off each line of the pattern as I go. 

There was a gecko on the pantry window last night, so I took a photo of him. This is his underside, but look at his legs, they show how clever Jane Eborall's  pattern is. 

In The File

 

The next food cover requires lizards. I've tatted Jane Eborall's gecko before and I reckon it qualifies as a lizard. It was tempting to just print the pattern out again, but in the interest of saving ink, I trawled through my file until I found it. It has a mark against each line for each time I've used the pattern. Surely that's unnecessary I muttered to myself as I started tatting. That was until I looked carefully and saw I'd tatted an extra ring. I will have to start again, and this time I'll mark each line so I'm sure of where I am in the pattern.