Gulliver visit

 

We have a very special visitor for about two weeks. A small rabbit named Gulliver travels around the world and spends about two weeks with a host family all around the world. The rabbit and the idea about his journey started with the toy designer Sarah Elizabeth Kellner who sent her knitted rabbit on his adventurous journey in July 2018. 

You can follow Gulliver's journey in the Ravelry group Rabbit Hole Knits and see though pictures, extracts from his travelling diary, and a map how many wonderful places and people Gulliver met along his journey. 

I always admired her toy designs, you can see her patterns here on her website: Rabbit Hole Knits

For two weeks Gulliver is staying with us, exploring the places and meeting new friends, like Monster Al and Little Blue Bear.

In the picture below you can see the two of them reading one of the books about Monster Al's adventures, if you want to know what is in that particular story, read the story here. 

Gulliver allows everyone to see their lives from a new perspective and appreciate the place we live in, the people we are surrounded by and what we do. For a brief moment we are sharing our lives with a stranger and become friends for life. 

Thank you for reading.

Cool wool....

Monster Al and his Friends

Somehow I have stumbled upon an article named "How wool got cool" by Rosie Ifould and the readers were encouraged to contribute to The Guardian by submitting their knitted or crocheted projects to Weird and wonderful knitting for a chance to have their work published. My two submitted pieces Diamondback Rattlesnake and Monster Al and his Friends were both accepted and are published on their website:
Link here



Diamondback Rattlesnake

About the same time I have stumbled upon The Crafty award where you can submit your do-it-yourself creations and once again I have submitted the Diamondback Rattlesnake and my submission was published as well.

Thank you for visiting.

Monster Al and his Friends

Monster Al and his friends

I have few ongoing projects that I work on at the moment.

One of them is my Book Project.
After I received the enormous box of yarn from Cascade Yarn company  I had to basically start over again, because all of the patterns will be knitted with their yarn. I am looking for the right publisher and I hope to find one. But in case that will not happen I will make the entire collection as an e-book and individual patterns as well. I am hoping to have it all done later this year.

Another project that I work on at the moment is looking for a publisher for my story Monster Al and his Friends. My thesis advisor made me promise to do that and submit my story. It is disheartening to look for a children's book publisher that would be willing to take on board an unknown author. Second option that is suggested by many - go and find a literary agent seems to be as difficult as the first scenario. I would like to remain optimistic and believe that there is a good end to this journey.

My first story about Monster Al (which I posted on my blog about a year ago) has find quite a few readers.

Maybe that is the way to do it.
What do you think?

Thank you for visiting.

Knitting Pattern for Monster Al and his Friends

Monster Al and his Friends

Monster Al is my favorite monster. It might be because it was my first knitted monster, but also because I used him as a character for my picture book Monster Al , and now he and his friends are characters in my Thesis project Monster Al and his Friends.

In the knitting pattern for Monster Al and his friends I have included the story. You can purchase the pattern on Ravelry or by clicking on this button.



Thank you for visiting.

Monster Al and his friends

Monster Al and his friends

Monster Al is the first monster I have ever knitted. He started his life as a drawing done by my child, what seem to be a very long time ago. In reality it was fall of 2009.
I must admit, Monster Al has a special place in our lives. I wrote a book about him, which you can read here: Monster Al  and now I am writing second book which will include the knitting patterns.

The book is almost finished and the pattern is test knitted at the moment.

Thank you for visiting.

The Big Picture

Monster Al and his friends

Few weeks ago I have returned to school again. I feel like a perpetual student since I have been attending schools for such a long time. It is a running joke in my family, that I will graduate about the same time as our child. I hope that this is not the case and I will reach my goal long before that. This semester I am working on my Thesis project. Since I am creative writing major I had the freedom to pick my Thesis in the creative field. The travels and adventures of Monster Al and his friends will be subject of my Thesis Project, and the knitting patterns for them will be included.
I am so excited to work on this project and make the knitting patterns available around the end of this semester.

I have not forgotten The Book Project, my book of more then twenty knitting patterns that I started to work on during my last semester. In my naïve enthusiasm, I thought that I can have it done before the new semester begins. As always, life happens and the work is not done, yet. However, I did not stop working on The Book Project and the book (or e-book) of knitting patterns will be available as soon as everything is done and ready.

Last, but not least, I wanted to mention my knitted monsters project. An e-book with several knitting patterns for cute and cuddly monsters is in the works and life permitting should be available shortly. The monsters created for this project will travel again to  Hope Garden.

Thank you for visiting.

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.

 

Thank you for visiting.

Monster Al.....

is my favorite critter. The story behind his creation is interesting, I hope. One day we had an assignment at class to write and illustrate children's book. My child's drawing was the inspiration for the design of Monster Al. I wrote the story, knitted Monster Al and used photographs of Monster Al as illustration and the book was created. Everybody loved the book, as well as Monster Al. I was asked to knit other Monster's. So now Monster Al has many friends, and perhaps one day you might read the book with his story.

Thank you for visiting.