striped bunny finish! finally

And here we are at Sunday....lazy Sunday :)

This would be George lounging on the chair arm with her arm hanging like a jungle cat in a tree.  Love her!  She's got such an attitude!  Pardon George. 

Today I finally, finally finished the striped bunny that I've been working on for ages!  Good lord this took forever!  Not because it was hard to knit or even very big, but mostly total lack of motivation!  But!  It is done.  I had written down my notes from the ballerina bunny that I improvised the body on and then took it one step further and made the head in the round also.  I'm pretty happy with the way this little guy turned out.  I had been shooting for gender neutral but now that it's done I feel it's distinctly male - yes?  eh.

The only gripe I have with the finished product is the color changes on the right arm.  In the photo above it would be the left side of the photo.  I don't think it's super, super obvious but I see it.  Also, a small thing is that the rotation of the body is just off a bit.  Without seeing it in person it's hard to tell what I mean.  Um, it's like the body wants to rotate a bit, like turn.  I think that must have been from the placement of my needles and the way the decreases went along the top/neckline?  idk.  It's minor.  I'm really glad I tried out the head on double points.   love the look of no seams.

Okay, so I know I said I was going to cut back on looking at things/watching things.  BUT!  I came across a new to me video podcast that I lurve!  It's called Bakery Bears.  Seriously. Love.  It's a husband and wife who both knit and they are British - say no more, right?  I mean, you all know about my serious crush on the UK.  Everything just seems cooler over there and it's not just the accent.  I mean that helps, obviously but really, they're just witty and funny and they knit so it's awesome.  Check it.

I may or may not do some sewing today.  I have over-extended myself a bit and so therefore don't want to do anything!  Uggg.  I may force myself to work on one thing.....plus bonus incentive is that I got Hunger Games on CD and it's out in the craft house!

stuff and things

Update on knitting - I am done with the striped bunny body and started the head.  I'm really pleased with the decreases along the neckline.  I think I got the directions of the decreases right and they are not super obvious.

Okay, so a bit about the head.  I decided to modify the pattern, which is knit on two needles, to 4 needles in the round.  In theory a good idea because knitting flat there are a TON of increases all at once and it get tricky and hurt my hand a bit.  But, I didn't quite think it through because I realized yesterday - how will I stuff it?  LOL I think it will just be like regular crochet amigurumi where you stuff the dickens out of it then finish knitting around it and pull it super tight.  The increases have not been as painful in the round so that's a plus.

This picture is for my Mom in case she reads the blog.  Jan and I did our nails last night and this is what I came up with!  I super duper love it!  The two glitter nails are really really glittery!  There are pieces of bigger chunkier glitter, it's fun!  I popped into Sally Beauty Supply on Friday after work and they had buy one get one free of the Gelish brand polish!  So, since it also happened to be payday I treated myself to 6 new colors!  Which is really just like paying for 3 ;) I had planned to buy 2 so I didn't overindulge too much.  I love this picture with my boys in the backround!  They are such stinkers :)

Let's see, not much new going on.  Later today I'm going to meet my friends Brooke and Jan at the park to catch up with Brooke who's in town this weekend.  Jan is having her annual yard sale next weekend so I need to weed out some junk to unload there.  Baha!  

Oh I almost forgot!  The armoire!  I have decided for now not to paint it.  I did, however, move it.  That thing is heavy!!!  It took forever to hork it over to the other side of the living room!  It's next to the book case because I ran out of steam.  The book case has to be taken apart to move on carpet.  But!  I think it looks cute and homey with the quilt draped on the side.  I think after I move the bookcase I'd like to get a quilt rack or an old wooden ladder? to display a couple of my quilts.  I also picked up those baskets for like 70% off at Michaels!  One was originally $24.99 and I got it for $9.99.  My Mom is gasping right now because she's like I could have gotten it at a yard sale for $1!!!!!  LOL   

 So, the little half circle thing at the top is a work in progress.  I just pinned some fabric around it so see what it would look like before committing to cutting the fabric.  That particular fabric I bought when Scott and I had our very first house together in Tennessee and I bought it there.  I loved it then and I still do!  I made placemats with white fabric as the backing and sewed pink ribbon around the rectangles.  So!  It's good memory fabric for me and I don't want to just cut up the little I have left if I don't like how it will turn out, you know?  

Oh, don't mind the stuffins off to the side, it's just hanging out waiting for the yard sale.

knitted bunny improv

Okay, let's talk knitting for a bit.  We know I love to knit up bunnies!  There's that.  On my desk at work I have my first two knitted bunnies.  A lady I work with asked me last year (!) if I would knit a bunny for her niece's birthday in April.  I tried to dodge it.  Because of course then it's like, how do you put a price on one of these bunnies???  They do take hours to make, so even if I put like minimum wage price on the time it's out of the range anyone would pay for a toy!  You know?  But.  I eventually said I would.  Cue March 2014 (how did that sneak up?) and I realized that I better get busy knitting!  A few years ago I bought this pattern, Mother Bunny, from etsy.  I've used it a ton of times.

This time, though, I made major modifications to the body.  The pattern is written to make the body starting with the legs but on two needles knit flat and then joined to the body also knit flat.  I wanted the body to be all ONE piece, knit in the round.  So, I improvised.  Since this is basically knitted amigurumi, I just did like I would with crochet.  Start with 6 cast on stitches, join in the round and divide stitches between 3 double point needles.  Increase the next row each stitch to make 12 total stitches.  Then the next row increase evenly around to get up to the 17 stitches in the pattern.  Once one leg is as long as I wanted I put the stitches on "hold" on waste yarn.  Once both legs are done I divided the total stitches onto 4 double points and joined the main body color.  

Here's where I had to put my thinking cap on.  How to add arms?  As soon as I got the body as long as I wanted, I then just made a hole kinda.  Basically you just focus on one side of the body at a time.  I was working with 4 needles which means that 2 for the front and 2 for the back.  So, I knit across 2 needles, turned the work before going to the next 2 needles, and purled the next row across.  Knit row, purl row till I had 4 rows.  I left those stitches there and moved the working yarn across the little divide and did the same thing for the other 2 needles.  This created a "V" opening at each side.  I put the stitches from the needles on 2 separate pieces of waste yarn to save for later.

You can check my ravelry for more pictures, my rav name is colimachia.  Along the V I picked up stitches, I wanted 12 total, so I picked up 4 stitches along each side of the edge.  For the top of the arm I cast on 4 stitches and then joined that with the picked up stitches to make a circle with 3 needles.  Knit as long as I wanted, changed colors and then started decreasing down to 6 stitches, then thread the yarn through a needle and pull tight.

For the neck/shoulders I had put the stitches on "hold" on waste yarn.  Now, once the arms were done, I came back to them and picked them back up on needles, adding the stitches along the top of the arm.  I also picked up a few extra to ensure no holes :)  Now I'm back to 4 needles and I think like 43 stitches?  It doesn't really matter because I wanted to make sure I had no little holes.  For the next couple rows I just started decreasing evenly around till I got back to 34 stitches.  Usually I don't decreased the entire amount in one round.  So, like I decrease 2 stitches per needle on one round.  Next round same thing and so on.

Then, refer back to the actual pattern which started decreasing down to half I think?  I don't remember.  Anyway you get down to not many stitches (grin) and then you just thread a needle through the stitches and pull tight!  

I did the head exactly as the pattern, which is worked on two needles and is kind of a pain.  But the end result is so cute!  So it's worth it.

She wanted floppy ears, which the pattern does not have.  Again I improvised.  Most ears in patterns are knit in garter stitch which looks super bumpy and I don't think goes very well with the rest of the bunny.  So I stockinette and then sew felt along the inside for stability so the edges don't roll in.  If anyone really wants the ear pattern I made just message me and I can share it.  I just feel like I'm super rambling right now and who really wants to read all about that?  LOL  unless you're trying to actually make the bunny then who cares, right?  

Bottom line, I really, really love this little ballerina bun!  When I first put in her eyes she looked kinda mean.  I reworked the face a few times until I got her to look friendly.  Then, once the ears were on she looked like she was excited to dance!