black slippers

Some new slippers for the ballerina.
This time I made the soles one solid piece (I had enough leather), and she wears them out as shoes.

Birthday Gifts

We went to two birthday parties this weekend. My parents went to two funerals this weekend. Strange.
I decided last week that I should knit each of these children their birthday gifts - just feeling a bit inspired at the time, I suppose.
For 5 year old Quinn, whose birthday was "A Party Under the Sea":




And for Seamus, who loves Owls - for reasons that are completely unknown by his parents:




Why is it that I can never take/post just one picture of an item? I love all of the photos, and the character they seem to show.

The scoop on these:
I made both of these without any patterns - hurray for me - I feel I am finally branching out and taking some risks. I am usually such a pattern person, never confident in my own creative/design abilities.
The mermaid was made with the Knitted Babes design in mind, obviously. Though, I knit her in the round, and made her much smaller than the other Babes. Plus, I added the tail. I am excited to make a larger mermaid from the Dream Toys book at some point, but don't have the book for the time being.

I designed the owl after looking at a lot of different knit, crocheted, and sewn owls. I combined a few ideas and made up a few ideas. I might post the pattern I wrote for this someday, as a freebie. Remember those sock alteration patterns I promised? Yeah, we'll see!
I was really happy with the way the owl turned out, and I don't even crochet....but it really needed some crochet for the eyes and the base, so....I learned a new trick!
I am in the process of making an identical mermaid for Zora, as she screamed and begged and cried for me to give her Quinn's mermaid, and to make Quinn a different one. When Quinn's mermaid was a mere empty, headless torso, still on the needles, Zora begged "can my hold her and hug her?" How can I resist? Zora's is almost finished - she just needs a face - and I swear, she looks exactly like Quinn's!