Teddy Bears for school

Teddy Bears in PJ

The end of school year evokes many mixed feelings. The children are excited about summer vacations, the endless days of fun and happiness that lays ahead, while the parents are left with bittersweet memories of time slipping away, another year gone by and the inevitable change of their little babies growing up.

My child asked me to knit teddy bears for all the teachers, and other people who were important figures during the school year. We have settled on ten teddy bears, at first.  The class teacher, specials (art, music, gym, library) teachers, principal, vice principal, ladies in the office and then it grew out of hand. The nurse, the lunch lady and more. If it was my child's way I would knit Teddy bears forever. I stopped at number twelve. I am done with teddy bears, for now.

Teddy Bears in PJ

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Yarn Bombing

Yarn Bombing

After seeing images from various yarn bombing happening all over the world, I had an opportunity to see yarn bombing event in person. It was great.

Walking around the museum and actually participating (even though my contribution was miniscule compared to others) in the yarn bombing event was an interesting experience.

I wonder how long the yarn will stay on the trees and what it will look like in few months.

 

This little dog posed in the bicycle seat for its owners to photograph.

 

 

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Charitable event.

Maillie, the travelling monster

Miranda, the owl

After the tornadoes destroyed parts of Oklahoma everyone wanted to reach out and help.

During the past two weeks, Suburban knits put together e-book with twenty knitting patterns in order to raise money for Oklahoma charity Other Options, Inc.
In the e-book among many others beautiful designs are two of my knitting patterns Miranda, the owl and Maillie, the travelling monster.

All of the profits from the sale of this e-book will be given to charitable organization Other Options, Inc.
Here is the link to purchase the book.

k-tog-Oklahoma-Tornado-Relief


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Just a bit of nonsense

Kevin and Slug

Once again I took the needle felting class in our local library. I love to create something random and funny, poking the needle into the wool rowing and creating whatever I feel like at the moment.

Kevin, the alien is one of those random creations. I was experimenting with the shape and colors combinations, and he seems to be a friendly looking alien.

Slug was inspired by the creation my child made using play dough and clay. It most likely originated when we watched the movie "Flushed Away" and the singing slugs featured in the movie.  Even months after we saw the movie I still have at least a dozen slugs made of play dough and clay displayed all over the house. Whenever I discover one of those slugs I have to smile. And I am  thankful for the opportunity to have an excuse to get creative myself and do something random and funny out of fiber instead of another scarf, hat, socks, sweater, or mittens.

On another bright side, I have finally finished posting the entire children book "Monster Al" on my blog. Please check it out. Next step is to write up the knitting patterns.

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Monster Al

 

 

This is Monster Al and his friend Little Blue Bear.

 

What seems like a long time ago, I had class named Children Literature. Our main project for the class was to create original children's book. My child draw a picture of a monster, and that drawing was the beginning of Monster Al. I wanted to use drawings, based on the original picture, for the picture book, but I am not as good with paint brushes as I am with knitting needles, therefore I picked yarn and knitting needles and created knitted version of Monster Al. Monster Al needed a friend, and we picked this little blue bear and named him Little Blue Bear. The next step was to create a story. It was the best part. I received A+ for my book and the teacher suggested that I should try to  find a publisher. That part was not fun at all. I have spent months doing that, and in the end nothing came out of it. I do not think it's the story itself, but rather many factors combined together. After taking this semester class The Book I revisited the story of Monster Al, and I decided that I would like to see the story alive, and available for children to read. This blog attracts many people, and some of them have children or grandchildren of their own, or they might know some children. Perhaps they will find the story about Monster Al interesting enough to read and share. 

 

The story about  Monster Al can be found here:

Monster Al story book

 

 

The knitting pattern for Monster Al and his friends will be available.

 

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Unraveling.....

  Once in a while it happens to every knitter.
You work on something and it does not work.
Each and everyone deals with the situation differently.
Not too long ago, actually this past Sunday, I was facing the moment of unraveling. After working on a project for almost three weeks I have realized that the number of stitches and rows don't work together and the project doesn't look the way I have imagined it should look like. This is the downside of designing patterns, instead of following someone else's patterns.
In a way it felt horrible to unravel three weeks of work, yet it also felt liberating.
My child had a great time pulling the stitches and rows apart, while I was winding up the yarn. It took about twenty minutes to turn almost finished project into these two balls of yarn. I looked at them and felt for a moment sad for all the work gone awry, yet relieved and free. Free to start over and hopefully this time the numbers will add up to perfectly match my vision of what the project should look like.

Each ball of yarn weight 12oz/340g and contains approximately 556m/608yards of yarn. It was a a lot of stitches and  rows..........


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Harvey, from the closet

Harvey

Harvey on a trip

In the past few months I have been busy with The Book Project. However, I also managed to create Harvey, from the closet. He has nice and friendly personality. Harvey likes to explore his surroundings. Sometimes he gets in trouble by eating pencils or crayons. He also has great hugging capabilities and offers a lot of empathy if needed. That is why he left on a great adventure and flew across the ocean to visit someone who needed his company. 
Harvey is first of the monsters who are hiding in the closet.

The knitting pattern for Harvey will be available.

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