May 26, 2013

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.

Thank you for visiting.

May 12, 2013

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:
 
 
The knitting pattern for Monster Al and his friends will be available.
 
Thank you for visiting.

May 8, 2013

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..........


Thank you for visiting.

May 1, 2013

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.

Thank you for visiting.